Wednesday, August 26, 2020

No, don't pack the truck like THAT!

 I have a UPS order coming today.  Because I've got a UPS My Choice account, I get to follow my delivery "live" all day.

This just makes me irritable.  I saw the truck 3 blocks away from my place (and ahead of schedule!) so I was pretty excited to get my package.  ...but then the truck drifted away.


....and farther away.




....and farther.



...and then I get an email rescheduling my package for 3 hours later.


...so now I'm just irritated at UPS' truck-loading system that didn't get all the packages for my neighborhood in nice, close proximity.

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Domestication

 I would like to thank The Art of Manliness for giving me some solid instructions that let me repair the waistband button on two pairs of shorts during an online conference call today.  At least something of value happened during the call.

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Economic Stimulus

My office went to a work-from-home model yesterday.  That's... fine, but it has some economic impact that I really want to chat with HR about.

My home office is okay for occasional use - paying bills, printing mailing labels for the Christmas card list and so on, but 8 hours a day, 5 days a week "until further notice" is a different story.

I can't do that on an IKEA folding chair - my back and my wrists (and my butt) will die. So off to Office Depot last night to buy an office chair with enough adjustments and height to make that work.

Based on yesterday I'll have to put money into updating the internet service or at least running a cable to the spare bedroom - I'm barely pulling 10Mb over in that corner of the house, and VOIP phones, Remote Desktop and video conferencing were not doing so well (especially when the kids get some TV time streaming Disney+ at the same time).

At work I have a pair of 4K monitors. My workflow liked this arrangement. At home I definitely do not have that. We're not allowed to take our gear home from work, even in these circumstances, so that's a problem.

Accommodating my employer's needs is not financially beneficial for me today.

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Shut UP, CBS

CBS' coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade would be greatly improved if they would shut up, quit focusing on whatever random TV show actor they have plugging whatever stupid tv show, and just put the cameras on the parade.
I've given up on counting the acts, bands and floats that have gone past behind the talking heads without mention.

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

The Google Reaper

Slashdot asks: How long until Google stops building phone hardware?

Answer: Given my track record with Google products, about 2 weeks after I buy one and fall in love with it.

Monday, July 8, 2019

Life list of vehicles


  1. 1985 Chevrolet Cavalier (mom's)
  2. 1982 Plymouth Horizon TC3 
  3. 198? Mercury Grand Marquis wagon (mom's)
  4. 1979 Ford F-250 Ranger (dad's)
  5. 2001 Saturn SW2 (my very first new-from-new car bought with my own hard-eared dollars)
  6. 2004 Saturn ION 3
  7. 1999 BMW F650 "Funduro"
  8. 2012 Subaru Outback
  9. 2006 Yamaha FJR1300AE
  10. 2014 Honda Odyssey

I saw a write-up on my old car that got me feeling nostalgic.  I'm glad that whatever "first beater car" I get for my children will be roughly a thousand times safer and more reliable than that Plymouth.

Friday, January 20, 2017

Thought roundup.


  1. I hate the fact that I sometimes have a magical, electronics-fixing aura that makes it really tough to get a bug to repeat when I've flown two time-zones away to come work on it.
  2. Our office kitchen needs an Autoclave OR I need to switch coffee mugs.  I love my Contigo, but the wealth of mechanical stuff going on in the lid leads to some... scary stuff building up in there.
  3. My corporate travel & expense card takes way too long to have transactions filter into our expense system.  I have all my receipts in hand NOW - by the time the CC statement comes in I'm afraid they will have been lost to the bowels of my desk.
  4. Solid-state hard drives are AMAZING.  Us software engineers at work were running low on space, so I talked our IT guy into 1TB SSDs as replacements for our 512GB spinning disks.  The speed increase is unbelievable for our use cases.
  5. For the first time in my life I got an exit-row seat on an airline flight.  130-seat aircraft, only 90 passengers, I was fairly far back in the boarding sequence and I still got an exit-row seat with an empty seat between me and the other passenger in the row.  Wow.  Remind me to fly on Wednesday lunchtime flights more often.