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I attempted to register holiday pay for Thanksgiving and received a note that I had not accumulated enough hours to qualify.  Having worked here for 7 years, I found that unlikely so I called my contact person with the staffing firm.

Me: Hello, I’d like to discuss the status of my holiday pay.
Staffing Person: Yes, you’ve only completed 312 hours this season.
Me: I’ve done 1996 hours in the past 18 months, I sent you a spreadsheet.
Staffing Person: But that was part of a different placement, the clock resets.
Me:  It didn’t before.
Staffing Person: Yes, that was an error on our part.
Me: But you paid me before.
Staffing Person: One moment…. Yes, I’ve retrieved the copy of your work agreement which clearly states the terms and you do not qualify.
Me: But you paid me before.
Staffing Person: Let me talk to my manager.
*call back*
Staffing Person: I requested an exception and you do not qualify.
Me: But you paid me before.
Staffing Person: That was an error, sir.
Me: But you paid me before.
Staffing Person: Let me talk to my shift supervisor.
*call back*
Staffing Person: Good news, we are making a one time exception while we sort this out.  You will receive holiday pay until 2011 starts.
Me:  Thank you.

Please note, I placed emphasis on a different syllable each time I said “but you paid me before” and also, gha, I hate that this tactic works.

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Today was the company Christmas party which followed some sort of high level meeting meaning many of the higher ups were in suits with stupid Christmas ties resulting in a look appropriate for what I’ll call “execu-caroling”.  My fellow technicians and I walked to the cafeteria and were buffeted with mediocre singing from a volunteer choir and one of their voices cut through the air like a knife.   He was a fellow with whom I worked many years ago who had fast-tracked through the company and many of us felt he lost his humanity along the way, it appears he also lost his singing ability.

The food itself was presentable and last year’s “Foods of the World” served by executives in a heated outdoor tent was replaced with chicken fingers and questionable seafood that was self-served inside our cafeteria.  A somber and half-cheerful speech was delivered by our executive and we tooled around after.  The party really got started when I started losing vision in my let eye and became very sweaty and lost some fine muscle control.  I’m pretty sure it was the shrimp but I hope this doesn’t portent a future tactic of using food-borne illness to winnow the weak from the company.  If so, I’m willing to go to Taco Bell for however long it takes to build up immunity.  Carpe chalupum.

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After finding that there seem to be no FLOSS or free-as-in-beer Windows Movie editing suites besides Windows Movie Maker after a quick Google search, I decided to contact the help desk to ask what would be required to add it.

Helpdesk: I’m sorry, Windows Movie Maker is a non-standard application.
Me: How?
Helpdesk: The approved editing application is Windows Media Player.
Me:  That’s a player.  Windows Movie Maker is the editor.
Helpdesk:  It’s non-standard.
Me: I repeat, how?  The name is Windows Movie Maker, it comes with Windows, it is considered actual reasonable functional software, and again, has the word Windows in its name.  It’s provided by Microsoft.
Helpdesk:  The application is not designed as approved video editing software.

I eventually found a free solution but the generation time led to a curious calculus: Time to make video including set-up, data transfer, and cleaning my camera – 30 minutes.  Time to edit together two pieces – 7 hours and 30 minutes.

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I made a short video today of a test method and wanted to cut together two takes as each had a step the other didn’t.  The OS on the office computers isn’t recent enough to allow me to use Windows Live! Movie Maker so I opted for just Windows Movie Maker through Add/Remove Windows Features.  Partway through the install, I was informed that the application was blocked by group policy which I thought was strange as IIS, Windows web hosting platform, is in no way restricted.  I could create a website hosted from my desktop that was just a directory browser of our internal documents that could be visible to the public in under an hour but I can’t use Windows Movie Maker.  Super.

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The week ahead of me consists largely of finding leaks in the world’s most accurate fart generator/detector and I had already tightened almost every fitting I could find.  After two hours of hunting and twisting I was still getting a pressure drop due to a leak somewhere so I asked around for advice.

Coworker: Troublebubble [a soap solution that helps find leaks] would be my only guess.
Me: I’m trying to avoid that as the valves are immediately above an exposed circuit board.
Coworker: Dammit, in the olden days, you’d have used your cigarette which can find a 2 cc/min leak no problem.  Damn you, health and safety!
Me: But the carrier gas I have is 20% methane.   A cigarette would turn the machine into a tiny flame thrower.
Coworker: But at least you’d know where the god damn leak was.

Yes, everywhere once the device explodes.

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Method development is usually a dull exercise is formulating rigorous text excised of cliche, figure of speech, or even simple terms as “paper towel” is replaced with “highly bibulous sopping paper”.  Recently, methods have been adding pictures to instruct the operator who may or may not speak English and I’ve jumped on the opportunity to do shoots, having been victim to ambiguous photos myself, and as a way to practice.

Two days ago, someone notified me that he would like pictures taken the next day so I packed my camera and shooting equipment into work and set up a tiny studio consisting of a backdrop, camera, tripod,  c-stand, flash, umbrella, flash adapter, and a jig to avoid keystoning.  Yesterday I took pictures and today a coworker approached me:

Coworker: Where did you stow the camera equipment, I need to use it?
Me: At home.
Coworker: What did you take it home for?
Me: So I could use it.
Coworker: Why did you do that?
Me: Because it’s mine.
Coworker: Oh.  Well, do you think we could get a setup like that for under a few hundred dollars?

He didn’t like my laughter, but I think it answered his question.

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Chris: What’s that on the ceiling?
Me: A brown marmorated stinkbug.
Chris: We should deal with it *goes to cabinet, grabs hand full of rubber bands*

In short succession, six people with baccalaureate degrees in some sort of science were shooting rubber bands at the ceiling.  After about 5 minutes of firing, I cheated and knocked it off the ceiling with a metal rod and discovered it was not a live stinkbug, but a dried dead husk of one.  I guess that it explains why it didn’t try to dodge.

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The (Bavarian) Illuminati and the New World Order are probably the two most popular organizations to underwrite “power behind the throne” conspiracies but I was lucky to find a credulous coworker familiar with neither.  Joe made a sideways reference to the Illuminati which triggered hours of curious Googling from the coworker, resulting in a day punctuated with “did you know that the Illuminati are attempting to hasten the discovery of the anti-Christ?”  I popped into the lab during lunch and he was still digging up esoterica and when I looked over his shoulder I saw a diagram explaining the ties between Scottish Rite Freemasonry, the Illuminati Inner circle, and some hierarchy of demons.

I like that Joe can now focus distraction with the coherence of a laser beam but I wish he’d pick a projectile less likely to result in me hearing crank theories.  Next time he wants to harness someone’s credulity I request he turn someone on to the marginalia of Joss Whedon’s Buffyverse or link-bait someone to Wookieepedia.

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The last campfire I had was about seven years ago and while I was still working at RadioShack in the deep dark long long ago when the restricting resource was money over time.  Now things were reversed and I felt like I got a deal getting food for 20 people for under 100 dollars which I later compared to the bank-breaking $87 I spent way back then but loathed the hour I lost grabbing what I needed.

I set things up using a LED headlamp that didn’t exist in 2003 except as a bulky almost miner helmet.  I called my dad to see if I could throw rocks in his truck bed; a convenience I lacked in 2003.  As a final act, I took a picture of the arrangement as a reference using a camera whose technology would have been beyond bleeding edge then.

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The friend for which I was doing system stress testing asked me how the testing was going and being at work I couldn’t tell him.  But, his rig was set up so that his monitor was pointed towards my monitor, hm…

  1. Open GoToMyPC
  2. Log into home system
  3. Turn on monitor top webcam
  4. Pan right twice
  5. Zoom a little
  6. See spinning furry donut

After 16 hours his system was still running, suggesting that the drivers I had updated were at fault.  I’m glad I purchased a nice web cam.