Jesus christ. Started the p90x program today. Hopped in the shower afterwards and had trouble raising my arms high enough to wash my hair.
Really, though, I'm doing po' 90x. No pullup bars, no weights, no mat, not even a chair. I've got a set of bands with a torn handle, a towel, and not quite enough room on the floor to stretch out all the way.
Really, though, I'm doing po' 90x. No pullup bars, no weights, no mat, not even a chair. I've got a set of bands with a torn handle, a towel, and not quite enough room on the floor to stretch out all the way.
I've spent the past week trying to fix the phone wiring in this office building that serves a hydrofracking company. Note that phone wiring is not really a thing I have any training in. The place has two separate phone demarcs, for some reason, and the wiring infrastructure is split between them. Half the phone jacks are hidden behind heavy, cheap furniture, so I can't fit my tone generator in there to track jacks back to the punchdown blocks--the desks and bookshelves will collapse if an attempt is made to move them, I've discovered. Some kind of defensive mechanism, I don't know. I've had to resort to popping wires out of the punchdown block and seeing which phones go dead. I, partly because I am totally cool and partly because this is the kind of thing a tech is supposed to fucking do, have been marking each jack as I locate its spot on the punchdown block. The order is completely random--there's a set of jacks on one wall, in particular, that are actually split between two different lines. I mean, why? There are four pairs per line, and rather than using all four from one line, they use two pairs from two! Why?
I thought I was finished, yesterday, but I have to go back out tomorrow because one of the phones doesn't conform to the setup it's supposed to have--the setup that I was never actually given, and which I have never actually seen written down anywhere. It is an oral tradition, passed with great ceremony from the elder secretary to the younger, just before the tribe ritually kills and eats the retiring matron. I feel I have come very close to true acceptance by these primitive but noble Drillers in the Sticks.
I thought I was finished, yesterday, but I have to go back out tomorrow because one of the phones doesn't conform to the setup it's supposed to have--the setup that I was never actually given, and which I have never actually seen written down anywhere. It is an oral tradition, passed with great ceremony from the elder secretary to the younger, just before the tribe ritually kills and eats the retiring matron. I feel I have come very close to true acceptance by these primitive but noble Drillers in the Sticks.
Well, that was a bummer of a post to check out on. I'll note that anger is one of the commonly-accepted stages of grief and leave it at that.
I'm back, apparently. SG made me a reup offer I couldn't refuse--put it this way, if I have a complaint about the site at any point over the next year, I won't be able to assert that "I paid my four dollars".
Okay, a few more words on the topic of Sandy, because I've started to realize that if I don't get this stuff out in some form or another, it comes out on its own, generally as something less manageable. I can't help it; bottling is a genetic predisposition, like heart disease or male pattern baldness (both of which, hilariously enough, I seem to have thus far avoided--knock on wood).
So, Sandy. This is just... incredibly painful. I've been through this before, but it's a lot worse this time around. It comes, as these things do for me, in sudden, infrequent waves. And I don't have any desire to stop having this pain. She was a pain to know, so it's good that it still hurts.
Her funeral was--and I didn't think this was possible--handled with even less grace and more bullshit than her death. It was, for one, a very religious service--Anglican, or something, I guess, one of those call-and-response churches. The preacher (pastor, minister, whatever) did a sermon, of course. I guess it's just that I haven't gone to church in years, but I was actually a little shocked that she used this funeral as an opportunity to make the usual pitch about sins and forgiveness. The worst part was that the sermon was bad. I mean, really bad. It centered around a movie called Flight of the Phoenix, which I vaguely remember seeing previews for a few years back. I mean, what the fuck. This is how you commemorate someone--with parable about some ridiculous movie? What is wrong with you?
At one point, during the eulogy, the phrase "when live gives you lemons" was used. I had to physically put a hand over my mouth to restrain myself from standing up and shouting "MAKE LIFE TAKE THE LEMONS BACK!"
After the painfully stupid sermon, we--Sandy's friends--stole all of the call-and-response guidebook pamphlets, drove out to a park Sandy used to visit, and burned them all in a barbecue pit. Then we went out to Haufbrahaus and stuffed ourselves on bier cheese.
When it gets to be too much, I stop and wonder what Sandy's repressed, uptight, deeply religious mother made of the truly mountainous collection of dildos in Sandy's shower.
I'm back, apparently. SG made me a reup offer I couldn't refuse--put it this way, if I have a complaint about the site at any point over the next year, I won't be able to assert that "I paid my four dollars".
Okay, a few more words on the topic of Sandy, because I've started to realize that if I don't get this stuff out in some form or another, it comes out on its own, generally as something less manageable. I can't help it; bottling is a genetic predisposition, like heart disease or male pattern baldness (both of which, hilariously enough, I seem to have thus far avoided--knock on wood).
So, Sandy. This is just... incredibly painful. I've been through this before, but it's a lot worse this time around. It comes, as these things do for me, in sudden, infrequent waves. And I don't have any desire to stop having this pain. She was a pain to know, so it's good that it still hurts.
Her funeral was--and I didn't think this was possible--handled with even less grace and more bullshit than her death. It was, for one, a very religious service--Anglican, or something, I guess, one of those call-and-response churches. The preacher (pastor, minister, whatever) did a sermon, of course. I guess it's just that I haven't gone to church in years, but I was actually a little shocked that she used this funeral as an opportunity to make the usual pitch about sins and forgiveness. The worst part was that the sermon was bad. I mean, really bad. It centered around a movie called Flight of the Phoenix, which I vaguely remember seeing previews for a few years back. I mean, what the fuck. This is how you commemorate someone--with parable about some ridiculous movie? What is wrong with you?
At one point, during the eulogy, the phrase "when live gives you lemons" was used. I had to physically put a hand over my mouth to restrain myself from standing up and shouting "MAKE LIFE TAKE THE LEMONS BACK!"
After the painfully stupid sermon, we--Sandy's friends--stole all of the call-and-response guidebook pamphlets, drove out to a park Sandy used to visit, and burned them all in a barbecue pit. Then we went out to Haufbrahaus and stuffed ourselves on bier cheese.
When it gets to be too much, I stop and wonder what Sandy's repressed, uptight, deeply religious mother made of the truly mountainous collection of dildos in Sandy's shower.
What I'm tired of today is movies about terminal patients who are so brave and clever, rather than being petty and bitchy and stupid because the combination of pain, meds, and not a little bit of fear is more than they can handle.
One thing I learned, though, is that people who are dying of CF suck at thumb wrestling. I won like five times in a row.
One thing I learned, though, is that people who are dying of CF suck at thumb wrestling. I won like five times in a row.
Interesting concept that popped up at Small Wars Journal recently: "combatant with combat immunity" versus "combatant without combat immunity". It's a dissection of lawful vs unlawful combatant, in the context of the division between military action and law enforcement. A combatant with combat immunity--a lawful combatant--has legal immunity to charges of murder, assault, kidnapping, and a host of other crimes while acting in the capacity of combatant. That is, he's allowed to kill, wound, and capture enemy combatants, break their shit, and take (capture, not loot) their stuff. A combatant without combat immunity is, obviously, someone who acts in combat but doesn't have legal immunity.
So, I had a job doing some telephony work at a bank, today. I'm moving around from the phone room to the server room, and I'm humming a tune as I go because it's stuck in my head. After a few minutes, I realize I'm singing this song in the middle of a bank:
Nobody commented. I guess Social D must not be popular among bank employees.
Nobody commented. I guess Social D must not be popular among bank employees.
So, you know how awkward it can be when you say goodbye to someone, and go to leave, and it turns out you both need to go in the same direction? That's me and SG right now. STOP FOLLOWING ME SG
Letting my account expire in a few days. It's becoming too easy to browse SG rather than work on actual projects. For instance, I'm making this post instead of writing up some invoices I need to send out...
