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Work was visited today by a group of students from Denmark.  I immediately noticed that they weren’t from around here as all of them were blonde and wore Converse All-Stars, they also spoke Danish.  Later that day, I walked by the following:

Coworker #1: The Copenhagen group couldn’t have looked any less interested.
Coworker #2: Maybe it’s cultural.
Coworker #1: Sure seemed like there were a lot of them.  How many three dozen?
Coworker #2: Not quite, I remembered with a simple rule.
Coworker #1: What’s that?
Coworker #2: 30 Danes hath September.

 

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I was asked to deploy a new software patch at work that involves me inserting a thumb drive and running a single large EXE file.  The hard part was arranging time for people to be at their desk and double click on said file.  Normally, I arrange to visit during lunch breaks but the last install I had to do occurred at about 4 PM.

Me: Do you mind if I do a quick update of your CAD stuff?
Coworker: How long will it take?
Me: A minute or two.
Coworker: Sure.  Sit down.

At this point, he literally pulled out a box of cereal from his desk and started eating it while watching me at the computer.

Me: You can go get coffee now or something.  I can do the rest myself.
Coworker: I’d rather watch.
Me: Ok.  *double clicks on file.  Runs update in about 30 seconds*
Coworker: That’s it?
Me: Yeah.
Coworker: Damn. *puts away box of cereal.*

Apparently tech support is a spectator sport.

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My boss’s boss approached me today with a computer issue.  His laptop had been reimaged with Windows XP SP3 and his sound card stopped working.  The in-house tech folks had worked on it for about six hours without success.  He asked me to fix it.  After a few hours I did.

Boss: What can I do to thank you for your help?
Me: Well, this isn’t the first time.
Boss: No, it isn’t.  You’re pretty reliable compared to our in-house people and seem to do it for the whole department.
Me: Yeah, more and more of my week is dedicated to helping other people with computer issues.  But it seems to work out in the department’s favor.
Boss: Very much so.
Me: So hire me to do it full-time.
Boss: No can do.
Me: How about we invent a new temp class where I get paid slightly more?
Boss: Can’t do that either.  How about we meet midway between “you get a new job” and “I give you nothing” with “I buy you lunch tomorrow”.
Me: Deal.

Tomorrow’s meal?  We eat the director of budgeting.

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I purchased a watch yesterday that proved too large.  I looked into a watch band kit on Amazon and the price of $6.00 for what seemed like a bunch of reasonably precise tools seemed to low so I went back to the watch place to have the links removed.

Me: Could you remove two links from this watch chain?
Attendant: Sure *removes links* there you go.
Me: Hey, where do you get your tools?
Attendant: We used to have these expensive ones that came from corporate but they sucked.  We got a set online that worked great.
Me: Where?
Attendant: Amazon.  Cost like six bucks.

Thank you, China.

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Max has only once peed indoors and it was in the house of a friend whose came over today with their dog.  While otherwise engaged, that dog peed on the carpet downstairs which was later reported to me by my father.

Me: Did you see him pee?
Dad: Yep.  He lifted his leg next to the chair leg by the carpet and just stared at me as he let lose.

I assume the dog was thinking something like the following:

The game is afoot.

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Deer!

The above is an unremarkable shot of a deer.  I took it while at camp with my 70-200mm lens and was glad the deer came out clearly.  So, just a picture?

Prior to it being taken, the deer had stood in the puddle for about 20 minutes alternatively jumping up and down then squatting and peeing.  Periodically it’d glance at me and the others on our walk but it mostly just jumped and tinkled.

Deer Butt!

So, this is probably a better representation of our interactions with the deer.

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I take building a new desktop computer as something to be done with care.  My builds are usually targeted at a performance sweet spot a standard deviation between “budget” and “performance” with one or two considerations for something I really want which then becomes incorporated into future builds as my new standard e.g. once I started using SSDs all my future computers used them.  I looked over my options this time and found no cases where spending an extra $50 would get me a performance bump so I finally dealt with an air-flow hobgoblin, annoyingly long SATA cables.  The cable goes from the motherboard to the hard drive located a few inches away, and unless you’re building a computer inside a grandfather clock or antique armoire on has no need for the standard 18″ or even 24″ cables.  So I purchased 2 6″ and 2 10″ cables in the vague hope that I could have the following conversation:

Person: Wow, those cables are appropriately lengthed.  Did you make them yourself?
Me: No, I got them a little custom SATA cable boutique I like.
Person: You’re clearly a better person than me.

I could also refer to them artisan cables or small batch cables. That alone is worth the 400% price premium for less cable.

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Boss’s Boss: Terry.
Me: Yes.
Boss’s Boss: I need a picture that clearly shows how gas flows through one of our products.  Can you do it?
Me: Yes.  I’ll have it to you when I’m done.
Boss’s Boss: Good.

—Two days later—

Boss’s Boss: Thanks for the image.  Did you get busy with other stuff?
Me: No.  I’ve worked almost exclusively on this.
Boss’s Boss:  And it took you two days?
Me: Computers hard.
Boss’s Boss: Come to think of it, they are.  Good work, Terry.

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Blood donations tickle a strange combination of laziness, arrogance, sanctimony and altruism at least in me.  I like getting out of work for an hour while theoretically helping someone and I think a part of me thinks that who ever receives my blood donation will gain my superhuman powers of analogy.  Should sanguinous skill transfer ever pan out, I demand a pint of Carl Zimmer.  The donation itself was unremarkable and my donation person joked that donations were really a cover to implant Americans with some sort of tracking device used for sinister purposes.  I guess they make cell phones.

After the donation (I’m tempted to write “withdraw”) I sat at the snack table, received a bottle of water and bag of mini pretzels and waited for the whatever else would be joining that snack line-up.  There was none.  After, literally taking a pound of me, I received no juice, cookies, or much of anything that could prevent hypoglycemia.  At this rate, two or three blood drives from now donors will simply receive a plastic spoon with which to dig into a bowl of table sugar next to a water fountain.

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The day after a road trip I usually call out of work to take a day of rest.  This isn’t an absolute necessity but I like to get two nights sleep in my own bed, have some time to review photos, and then bake something for my coworkers.  This time was different.  I was going to go into work on Monday morning because dammit adults go into work on Monday mornings and I am an adult in the eyes of the law.

I showered and shaved after a few hours of sleep and rolled into work before 10 which is early for me.  My hope for a slow ramp-up died in the arms of two emergency testing requests which had me stay until after eight that evening.  Today was supposed to be my first day of at least faking adulthood for the first time in a while and it sucked.  But on the drive home I noted that I had made enough money to buy two FiberOne bars a day for a year.  Maybe adulthood has its perks.