The Plot Thickens

I continue to move closer to buying a house - visited Quadrant's interior/option showroom Tuesday, dropped off financial verification paperwork yesterday... It looks like Pasadera Plot 2080 will soon be mine.

In other news, I'm off to a wedding this weekend.

Powerlessness

Are we tiny cogs in a gigantic machine, or the pebles that start avalanches? Are we powerless, or powerful? Can we change the world? If we can, are we failing if we don't?

House M.E.

Yesterday I spent several hours looking at houses - Quadrant Homes has a number of demonstration houses not far from here, and they're building several new developments. I really like their closets - very large and well-lit. I'm seriously considering reserving one of their lots.

The individual plots aren't very big (maybe a thousand square feet bigger than the house), but there is a large amount of conserved natural area nearby, including a trail Quadrant built for the neighborhood.

Anyone want to share advice on home buying?

No good deed goes unpunished

One of my co-workers cleaned out the fridge at work last saturday. The office assistant posted a notice in advance warning everyone. The fridge was packed full of food and drinks, most of which haven't been touched in a month by the looks of it. The guy cleans out the fridge (even donates the food that might still be edible to a food bank) early saturday morning, replaces the light bulbs, and puts in some of those boxes of baking soda that are designed to help reduce odors in fridges.

Today some guy yells at him for throwing away his stuff, and demands he replace it.

I think its the lack of windows - we've lost touch with the outside world, reality, common sense...

Dreams

Do you ever remember your dreams? Do you think they're important?

Often I remember the last dream I have before waking fairly well just as I wake up, but it fades with time. The vast majority of these are bad dreams. Usually they center around my inability to do something - unable to run away, or to talk, etc. Like most dreams, I guess, they usually don't make much sense.

Back about ten years ago I had a trio of very disturbing dreams. Not so much at the time, but later when what was in them more or less happened. They were also unusual in that I remembered them for days afterward.

I've also had recurring dreams every so often - two or three, I guess. They come and go for a few years, then they're gone. None of them have been good ones.

I suppose the wierdest dream I ever had was when I was quite young - I don't remember anything about the dream itself, but I do remember that when it was over there were credits, just like the credits at the end of a movie.

Are they important?

What's your wierdest dream?

Renovations

The restroom at work nearest my desk is being remodeled. Now, I know that involves a lot of work, but they've got it scheduled to take six full weeks. Does it really take that long to remodel a bathroom? In the factory next door we build a 747 that fast. A whole 747, which has to fly for 20 years and meet government regulations that weigh more than it does (OK, maybe a little less), and... a bathroom.

Moving and not moving

Last week my group were moved to new desks at work - six whole rows over from our old ones. This is the second time I've moved in less than two years. Apparently this is not abnormal. And people wonder why I don't get business cards...

If anyone ever wishes to fall off their chair laughing, I recommend the episode "Turkeys Away" from season one of "WKRP".

I hate being away from my friends. I feel completely out of touch, but I'm terrible at phone calls. I pretty much always have been. Maybe its my less-than-ideal hearing, maybe its the inability to see faces but the ability to hear tones of voice. I enjoy chat, because you can examine someone's words carefully if you feel the need. I enjoy face to face, because you can tell a lot from body language and expression. I don't do well at voice-only because you need to respond immediately but you can't SEE them.

Is my life still in a holding pattern? Am I just moving more slowly than the norm? Or is the norm an illusion? I took six and a half years to get a four-year degree. It was another year and a half before I got a real engineering job (US Tool and Die didn't count - time in purgatory may be useful if the catholics are right and also if I'm not headed straight for hell anyway, but does little for professional advancement). Now I'm under a chaotic group lead, a novice manager, and on a program that has ten conflicting processes for everything we do. Some people would see this as an opportunity to show bold leadership, and in fact one person I know here who has even less experiance than I do is doing just that. Is there something wrong with me that it just feels like I'm marking time until either my lead gets transferred or I do?

If life is a river, am I so lost that I'm swimming against the current?

Hosting

What are the responsibilities of a host when two guests start fighting in front of other guests? Does it matter if one of them is a closer friend than the other?

Thrice unlucky?

Do you think it is a bad sign if you happen to glance at your car's odometer just as it rolls to 131313?

Computer Woes

I've informally named my work computer "phoenix" because of its tendancy to crash and burn and then rise from the ashes. Phoenix crashed 12 times in April (I kept a log), and has already crashed twice this month.

Add in daily software headaches and you can see that I don't get along with the computers at work very well. Yesterday, however, in the words of the 2nd level help desk tech I wound up talking to, I hit the jackpot.

I logged into a conference room machine, which failed to pull my roaming profile from the server. When I logged off later, however, it nevertheless saved my (effectively blank) profile to the server. An hour or so later phoenix crashed, and I did a forced boot. Since the roaming profile on phoenix wasn't sent to the server (it only does that when you log off), when I rebooted it pulled the BLANK profile the conference room machine had stored. All my settings, setup files, encryption, etc. were wiped out. After an hour and a half watching a 1st level tech try everything I'd already tried, I got a 2nd level tech who asked me a few questions, and then told me that the server the roaming profiles are stored on isn't backed up. I spent about four hours yesterday and several today restoring my settings, preferences, loading software, etc., and I'm probably back to about 90% of my prior configuration.

The thing that gets me is that my data is backed up every day by an automatic process which we're required to use, but the profiles aren't backed up at all!