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We have a printer at work that’s slowly dying.  The manual feed tray is held in place by a rubber mallet wedged in place between the printer and a desk.  It prints like a stuttering autistic person, should one page fail, the whole project starts anew, usually to stop again at roughly the same point.

At first I thought this was the cacophonous swan song of a dying workhorse but there may be a typographic labor movement afoot. I was printing a document today and it jammed, not too odd except for I was printing to a PDF file. I suspect the work printers have combined forces with the print drivers and are unionizing. This wildcat strike that has been masquerading as a device problem is only the first wave. I must break the back of this printer-tariat (good one, eh?) uprising before the fax machine and the plotter jump on board.

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I shipped some stuff today, consisting mainly of computer crap and books.  I heaved the boxes on the post office counter and said the first and only first package was media mail and the rest were parcel post.  She marked the remaining boxes as media mail despite me clearly saying otherwise and after hearing the loud metal clunks on moving the box containing the projector and the box containing the computer case said “these are heavy, what are these books on?” My reply: “metallurgy”.

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I stopped at Subway on the way to work, which I never do.  I wasn’t sure why, but I did.  I then felt some anxiety whenever my boss walked in, which I never do (both my bosses are awesome).  I had a cup off coffee at about 7, which I never do.  Then, looking down at my white shirt around 8 PM, it clicked: For the last few months I’ve worn unscented deodorant, and today I ran out and applied my backup stick of Springtime Baby Rain or whatever overly flowerly scent I had on reserve.  The last time I wore this deodorant was when I worked at RadioShack in 2002-2003 and I believe the scent somehow triggered latent workplace instinct.  I need to purchase a replacement stick before I start acting surly to people who’re unfamiliar with setting up home theatre systems and attempt to sell my coworkers Monster Cables.

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Eagle Courts of Honor are slowly turning into 4th grade graduation ceremony in not marking anything special except for an excuse for a ceremony. One day in the dim past they were glorious and planned now they’re ad libbed and poorly choreographed, even the decorum of the guests have dropped.  Yesterday, I attended one for an unusually competent staff member and noted the following:

  • A presenter forgot her glasses to read an accolade and someone in the room shouted “FAIL!”
  • During the closing the kids doing the points of the Scout Law began giggling uncontrollably and tried to recite them sounding like John Wayne
  • Someone laughed when I said “Appius Claudius Caecus” during my presentation.
  • Some woman tried to correct me when I said “Brindisi” as the end of the Appian Way, her thinking it was Bren- or Brundisi.
  • The same woman shouted “oh, yes!” when I mentioned the Romans.

I hate Eagle Courts of Honor.  Now I can at least say “well, this one wasn’t as bad as the time I got heckled talking about the origin of the term milestone”

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After taking another 300 photos over the last two days and reviewing them in Lightroom, I’ve noticed I’ve been too enamored with the dramatically short depth of field of my 30mm lens and about 90% of my pictures are portraits. I now need to expand out into doing small groups or possibly objects before I become trapped in a particular paradigm. I wonder if this is how adult magazine photographers get their start.

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I let friends borrow Magic cards for tournaments and received a text asking if I could drop off a few cards to someone who’d forgotten them and to just leave them at his doorstep as he was going to sleep.  I gathered the cards, boxed them, and being a swell fellow purchased  a dozen donuts for him and his car mates with which I’m friends for there pre-dawn departure the next day.  I attached the box of borrowed cards to the box of donuts with packaging tape, affixed a sticky note saying “for Gregg, good luck” to the box of donuts and put the ensemble on the door step.

I texted him the next day asking if the donuts’d gone stale and he replied he’d never received the donuts.  His parents had apparently removed the sticky note from the donut box, placed it on the card box, removed the packaging tape binding the two and put the donuts into dry storage in their pantry.  When asked by Gregg what happened they simply responded “we didn’t know they were for you”.

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Office equipment is periodically reapportioned by our facilities people and Friday was one such day of reckoning.  I came in late that day and was greeted at as a hero by office mates.

When facilities came to claim our superior chairs reclaimed from departed coworkers and pulled from  executive dumpsters these minions of austerity were cowed by fears of angering the “Large One”.  They left once told that the only chairs in the building that could accommodate my carriage were the really really nice ones that just happened to have a larger seat pan, an independent-spring back, adjustable arms and six casters instead of four.  Furthermore, since I was a temp, I could theoretically work in anyone’s cube at any time so all the chairs had to stay instead of just mine.  Further proof I work with geniuses.

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Our consultant has found that a lot of his problems were being caused by oddities in our site security.  One was that the time-out for remote desktop was set to something obscenely low like 5 seconds.  Since FTPing requires using remote desktop to access another computer from which one can FTP to the new server in Tulsa.

The consultant’s trying to download a 80 gig file which keeps timing out as the FTP connection is cut when the remote desktop connection is cut.  We were originally going to draw straws to find the lucky skunk that’d sit there for a few hours and jiggle the mouse.  Then, inspiration struck a coworker.  He dashed out, and returned with an optical mouse, a sheet of Teflon and this:

Orbital Shaker

Orbital Shaker

An orbital shaker.  It is these leaps in ingenuity that make me confident that we can out-innovate the BRIC nations in the 21st century.

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Some people have told me they have trouble remembering the name of my blog.  For them, I’ve created an alternate address:
http://www.hugeurl.com/?ZmRhMGViZGRhMDAyOTMyNDE1YTRlOGFmMzMy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Hope that helps.

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We have a consult in who seemed technically competent.  He spent all yesterday and today doing something in the command line and I distinctly remember seeing PuTTY, the command line, and WS_FTP.  Turns out he was trying to remote in from his laptop into the computer on his desktop.   Said computer had a keyboard, mouse and monitor already attached.  I was very much relieved that he was paid via one-time fee rather than per hour.