Ohh that is so much better with the breaks turned on.

OOOOEEEE!! Patti. this I understand

novell also caps VAX and VMS. I'll bet Microsoft word doesn't do that. snicker

Reading elise's post of the 25th I was reminded of my own graduation. there was a rule that male students could not wear shorts to graduation. apparently a previous class of students wore nothing at all. any how, graduation rolls around and it hot. 95 hot. graduation was in an uninsulated steel building with a black roof. no way was i going to wear long pants.

Rules for the sake of rules have never been that important to me. I do stop at stoplights in the middle of the night, but not because of the rule. it's because when driving cab I saw a husband (and somebody elses wife) get creamed by a semi hauling gravel, way over his registered load. 80 tons at aproximately 60 miles per hour. kinetic energy= 1/2m(v*v). you can do the math, but there wasn't much left of them. The stoplight thing is a rule for a good reason.

the shorts thing just wasn't. I hate being hot. I could never live in the tropics. I can barely visit. I spent one awful summer in South Carolina. I have a beloved friend who lives on big pine key. I pray for his sanity. The heat does things to people. to arbitrarily impose a dress code on me in this kind of weather was just something that never occurred to me that I would follow. I didn't think I was doing anything bad or spiteful, I just wasn't going to be uncomfortable. (I'm still like that. It drives my wife nuts) Without even thinking about it or for that matter even trying I made it all to the edge of the podium before anyone noticed.

"Mr. Hare" the vice principal says to me. "are you aware that students are not allowed to wear shorts to graduation, and that the principal has sent over twenty students home alreadt for this?"

"No Dr. Frazer I wasn't aware of this" I say knowing that he has recently, and successfully, defended his doctoral thesis, and that his boss didn't do a damn thing to acknowledge it

"Well Crash," he said, reminding me of the time, while bussing tables, A 22 inch bakelite bowl full of coleslaw slid off a tray I was carrying and split open on his not quite drunk skull. "I really shouldn't do this but I'm just going to pretend that I didn't notice."

And that was the end of it. A little respect got a whole lot of reasonableness. The good doctor did get into trouble. Kind of alot considering how unimportant the issue. It does, however, have a happy ending. the principal is now unemployed and the good doctor is now the principal and soon to be my wonderful little sister's boss.

The main reason I accepted this project in California was that it could be the coolest project this company has ever done, and I was promised the budqet to do it right. The first couple weeks were pretty decent.

Then I spent a solid week confirming estimates, and putting a solid budget together that would get it built, correctly, and on-time.
Then tuesday morn, in a meeting paralyzed by consensus and populated with people afraid to commit themselves to a goal with any risk, I was magically transported to a cubicle right between Dilbert and Wally.

Suddenly that comic strip isn't as funny for me as it used to be. See, I believe that a good company can trip on its ... um shoelaces and get back up and go on. But to go back to being a together company you have to have a real huge, successful project to get your confidence back.

You can make all kinds of excuses not to get back on the horse, but most of the time you are just kidding yourself. You aren't doing it because you've let your self-image become a victim, and you just can't see yourself winning.

CLUE

You don't get back on the horse to teach the horse a lesson. You do it to keep yourself from learning the wrong one.
5/31/00 17:20 from the palm

another interesting novell tidbit is that the spell check knows to capitalize Dilbert. more on why I know this later

an interesting thing to note about novell groupwise is that the builtin spell check knows the correct spelling of linux and listserv and will prompt you to remember to capitalize them. must be some geeks at novell. giggle

Saturday night I went to a golden anniversary party. In-laws so distant I don't have words in English to describe them. I think that in Lubukusu there is a word for it. They place a higher value on such things. Even now I am picturing my inlaws on a farm in central Kenya. Oh my. Not an entry I can go into at this point.


The shindig was at a banquet hall owned by a friend of mine. It's on the canal. He runs the tour boats that run up through the locks. He used to run them from the municipal marina, but they charged him a fortune for dockage and access. One day he found an old machine shop that had gone bankrupt for auction. It was on the south bank of the canal and had a slipway 300ft long and 8ft deep. The slipway probably hadn't been used in a century. He beat the broker mercilessly on the price, never hinting at what he really wanted the property for. He got a fair price for a used industrial building with poor truck access. Have you ever tried to move a 14 ft metal lathe? It probably would have been easier to crane it onto a barge.
I hadn't seen the place since then. He has done it up nice. It has a little pub (his name is Murphy), a nice little gift shop, a very nice ice cream and hot dog stand, and a remarkably classy banquet hall. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who needs a 120 seat banquet hall in Lockport.
The point to this whole story is that I have been away too long. Even though I have been living back in my home town for most of a year, I have not been a part of it for some time. The little bit of time I am home, I spend with my wife, kids, family, or in-laws. I haven't had time to be involved in my community at all. This will change. Starting now.
5/29/00 4:17 from the palm

The dirty little secret of the haughtily named Buffalo-Niagara Falls International Airport is that it's actually in Cheektowaga, the armpit of the Universe. During my THREE HOUR layover in Detroit Metro, I had ample time to reflect on this little factoid. I had the opportunity to wait with about 20 FOPs returning from pissing away their social security in the glorious city of Las Vegas. If you have never spent any time in Cheektowaga it is hard to describe my excitement at this prospect. Never the less, I shall attempt to elucidate for you.

Cheektowaga is a Seneca word that we might know the meaning of if we hadn't shortsightedly slaughtered all of the people who speak it. Cheektowaga has more Polish-speaking people than does Warsaw. Cheektowaga has the largest community of Yemenis outside North, South, East, West, Inner, Outer, Greater,and Lesser Yemen. Cheektowaga has Western New York's largest mall built on a swamp. Less than a year after it was built there wasn't a right angle in the place. Apparently no one in Cheektowaga speaks enough English to protest something this foolish. In Cheektowaga, it is not a priority to clean up the streets or the uncountable parking lots. The only time that Cheektowaga does not look filthy is right after a foot of snow falls on it, which happens every night from Thanksgiving till Memorial Day.

Anyway, I was in possesion of the rare chance to overhear the conversations of nearly two dozen people who were the product of at least six decades of this environment. There was a time in our history, barely more than a generation ago, when the mere fact of being old meant that you were a magic combination of wise, brave, lucky, healthy, and all around worth listening to. You would not have commanded respect, you would have earned it. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Through the miracle of modern medical science any friggin idiot can be old and now the elderly have to be subjected to the same scrutiny and filtering as everyone else. Unintended consequences.
In the midst of all these Cheektowagites there was a couple who has lived in Alaska for the last 40 years and was flying to Buffalo to visit their grandchildren. I wanted so badly to tell all the other FOPs to shut the hell up so I could listen to the people who were actually interesting. A younger, crueler me perhaps. Time to get on the plane. Another hour to see my rabid wife and kids. Too long.
5/25/00 5:15 from the palm.

I couldn't leave this alone. I'm with patti on this one.

In a few hours I leave to go home. I take the Redeye home. I leave an 2130 and won't actually see my Wife and Chilluns till 0930 tomorrow. I really need to get home. It has been a terrible week to be away. My middle son and wife were attacked by a rabid cat. No joke, honest to god a friggin rabid cat. My beloved wife's best friend lives a little further out than we do, and when they go out there to play, I'm always the overprotective father. "hon, make sure you check them for ticks later they've been having trouble with Lyme disease out there" I never think to say keep them away from rabid feral cats.
Oh well it sucks but, I'll be home soon.
I think the lowest point was when my son, who is two, asked to talk to me on the phone, which he never does, and said "PAPA I GOT BIT BY MEAN CAT AND NOW I HAVE TO GET SHOTS AND I WANT YOU TO COME HOME NOW!!!! FROM CALIFORNIA!!!!! IN TWO MINUTES!!!!!"
I actually may add this to the list of lowest points in my life. right next to watching my wifes blood pressure spend five minutes at zero, and that one horrible day on South Carolina.

Aha look now all the old post show up. making me look like the fool I am.

I think i found it.
acouple missing < in the blogger tags.

try four

try three

second try to see if this beastie will work

first try
see if the darned settings are correct
bet not