Month: May 2005

Found a neat link to pass some of that extra time away. Here is a Drum Kit That is amusing to play…

Emjoy

So in my inbox this morning, I received a message explaining the benefits of WD-40. Rather than re-post the whole list to my blog, I’ll just link to some sites that have the list.

The one that stuck out in my mind was that WD-40 “Gives floors that ‘just-waxed’ sheen without making it slippery”.

I attempted this feat once with Armor-All.

Well, it made the floor shiny, at least.

I’ll leave it to Christy to describe the implications of that exciting month…

(Read like a WVA hick!) “I bought it special for you babe!” “Oh, thank you I love it!”

This is how our conversation went as Matt finished cutting some plyboard to mount my mother’s day present. (refer to previous blog concerning plywood furniture and know our conversation was sarcastic!)

I recently read somewhere that men don’t read minds, and they typically don’t have any clue what their wife/girlfriend want for gifts. The suggestion was to tell your man exactly what you want so that he’s not left guessing.

So…I told Matt I wanted a Dance Dance Revolution set for Mother’s Day. I think he was a bit surprised, but we had talked about getting one for Christmas and decided against it. He immediately got online and read up on the quality of different types of DDR pads. For the sake of family finances we decided to go with the inexpensive stuff, with the suggestion from other DDR players online to mount the pad to plywood and then cover it with clear floor covering. GREAT STUFF.

It’s been great fun to have the whole family exercising more and having fun together! We’re burning calories and dancing the night away! I don’t know that we’ll ever catch up with the amazing abilities of the teenagers at the arcade, but we’re sure going to try!

That’s a headline bound to get a few Google hits, right? It’s not what you might think.

I am in San Fran to exhibit at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists meeting here this week – the people I work for, the American College of Nurse-Midwives, participate in the tradeshow here, along with all manner of pharma and device companies. Why we do this is another story.

So, despite a flawless series of flights from BWI through Denver and an arrival here marred only by rain, I still managed to botch it by leaving the cell phone in the cab.

It was one of those moments – when your stomach drops into your feet and you realize that only a miracle saves your day. The cell is my lifeline to the kids back home and, being in media relations as I am, it sorta makes it tough for reporters to get in touch with you, if, you know, they can’t because you left your phone in a cab.

Not that the cab driver can’t talk persuasively about homebirth and cesarean sections, but it’s bad for business.

So, after somehow getting the operator on the pay phone in the hotel lobby to connect me to the cell phone, my luck turned up for a change and the cabbie answered and brought the phone back to the hotel, where I sit tonight typing this note, content that the phone is here and not being used for long calls to Jakarta or the space station or wherever.

So, I’m in town for a few days if someone has any good suggestions for restaurants, while I try to avoid the more graphic exhibit booths at the tradeshow. (Those avid readers with kids will think about all the devices and gadgets and implements you might recall from the delivery room and you’ll get a sense of what I face over the next 72 hours.)

Watch this.. trust me…

ultimate ping pong

EDIT by matthew: Linked.

Here’s your daily dose of useless ‘Net toys. Try changing to “mouse mode” to be able to control the destruction…

You know, every so often, you stretch your limits.

I recently started a new position with a security company in Utah. It’s big, it’s faceless, but I have great co-workers who I enjoy and relate to. I’m sure many of you are familiar with just this kind of environment: very good people, very positive work environment, but with the looming shadow of “corporate” possibly making decisions that seem to happen in a vacuum.

Anyway, the funny thing to me is, I learned today that you can go your whole life thinking you’re good at something, just to find out that, really, you’re not all that good at it.

See, my job involves a lot of technical writing. A whole lot. Well, basically, that’s what it is. I’m a System Administrator by trade. I interviewed for this contracting gig, and was surprised that they wanted a SysAdmin. It’s a “Security Analyst” position, and it’s all about writing down how I fix stuff.

It’s really kind of cool, in its way. I love to write, anyway (as evidenced by this blog), I’m fairly fast at it, and I do it a lot.

Anyway, I sat down for a quick editing session with my co-worker today, who has experience as an editor.

Oh. My. So much red ink.

I learned three interesting lessons:

1. When writing technical documentation, I rely on “gerunds” way too much. Gerunds are words that end with “ing”: fishing, boating, hiking. I create sentences, completely clear to me, that are opaque to readers, such as “developing auditing policies is critical for avoiding operating integrity issues”. That’s actually kind of a nonsense sentence, but it gives a sense of how I’ve been writing. Bad Matt!
2. I also learned the difference between which and that. The difference is small to most people, but in technical writing, it’s important that relative pronouns are used correctly. The paradoxical mnemonic, as mentioned in the description, is “use that to tell which, and which to tell that”.
3. Complex statements are best broken up into several shorter statements. The result will be wordier, but easier to read. I tend, often with many interrupting clauses and difficult-to-grok phrases in which I delay the verb until close to the end, to create very lengthy, complicated sentences 🙂

Yeah, OK, we already know that I am the supreme nerd god. I enjoy this kind of minutiae. Rephrasing statements is a kind of syntactic drug, searching for unique and interesting ways to say the same thing you’ve just said 20 times in a row.

As a matter of fact, we just had a discussion about that. My co-worker suggested that writing was crack cocaine, and really good writing was… well, we faltered there. We struggled with maybe using meth instead. I think we eventually ended up with “writing is like dumpster diving; good writing is like dumpster diving your next-door-neighor and finding some good meth in the bottom.”

Probably the world’s crappiest metaphor!

Anyway…

What oddities of English did you learn this week?

EDIT by matthew: Glaring grammatical errors fixed. By Grapthar’s Hammer, I will be avenged!

You know what I hate? When I go Googling to research a topic that I’m trying to learn more about, and the only web page that comes up which is remotely relevant is on my own site where I’ve discussed the topic before. I hate that!

What are your favorite Internet Hates?

Well folks, after a hiatus of only nine years or so, I’ve gotten back into the writing and recording of music. Or pop music rather – I composed some classical music in the intervening time, but that’s not nearly as much fun. So, here are my two new tunes: Sidewalk Chalk and Quicksand. Be kind.

DISCLAIMERS: These are rough recordings. I’m still getting the hang of my new recording software, and I’m only aware of about 10% of its capabilities. There are some obvious mixing glitches – backup harmonies too far forward, guitar too tinny, overdone vocal effects, etc. Also, I decided that I really don’t like the fake drums on my 12-year-old keyboard, so the arrangements are not exactly the rock epics I hear in my head. Plus, I was lazy and didn’t feel like recording multiple takes, so I biff a number of notes, including the high note at the climax of Sidewalk Chalk. Ah well. This should at least give you an idea of what I’m up to. That’s a large enough disclaimer I think.

Sidewalk Chalk

Quicksand

I feel like such a poser.

As most of you know, there are a few facts about me when it comes to my line of work:

1. I’m a college dropout
2. I’m self-educated
3. I’m hard-working under deadline
4. I’m opinionated
5. I’m knowledgeable
6. I’m cheerful

The problem is, that’s just not enough to redeem my sense of inadequacy. No fewer than three times yesterday, I had co-workers come up and introduce themselves. Their questions were invariably:

• Are you Jay’s brother? (my brother Jay worked here before I signed on)
• So you’re our security analyst…
  • Where’d you get your security training?
  • Where’d you graduate from college, and what was your major?

You know, I’ve gotten along fine without the college degree. I’ve learned a ton about the trade over the last decade, and from the results I’m getting, apparently someone with my level of operating systems knowledge is unusual in the business.

But man, do I ever feel inadequate. I mean, first off, my older brother Jay is apparently venerated as a demigod around here. No, I’m not kidding. Not a single person has said a single bad thing about him, and most have sung his praises and said they really wished he was still here. Not like the place has gone to hell in a handbasket or anything since he left, but just that there’s apparently a shortage of really solid programmers willing to work in Quality Assurance.

So that’s the first thing. I know I’m being compared to my big brother, who I readily admit has better social skills and considerably better technical skills than I do. Strike one.

And then there’s “What’s your degree?” (No degree, but I majored in Music Theory and Composition), “Where’d you go to school” (a hick college in Rexburg, Idaho, and I dropped out), and “What kind of security training do you have” (on-the-job work with a ton of different hardware, but no certifications), and it’s enough that I feel like a redneck in muddy boots, plaid jacket, and a baseball cap, attending a black-tie opera.

I figure I’ll get my legs, but like most new places, I can’t rely on a long list of impressive credentials to get me through. I can’t even rely on the good name of my big brother 🙂 I feel as if I have to push harder, get more done, and show that I’m better than the rather low expectations set for me in order to be respected.

It’s always a hard road. And I’ve been known to fall flat on my face more than once trying. I find myself wondering if having that slip of paper saying “Bachelor’s Degree” makes this any easier.

So what does it take for you to feel out-of-place, anyway? I don’t think I’m alone in enormous feelings of inadequacy…