via Lucius Kwok
Posts Tagged ‘random’
First day of work and German engineering
September 18, 2007 – 8:18 am
Yesterday was my first day at the new job. I’m a systems analyst, in the Information Technology Department at a small liberal arts university. I have been looking forward to my new job, it really fits into my new career goals. I have my cubicle, which is still getting setup, and while it is nice, I have a fluorescent light right above me, which I think will lead to a lot of eye fatigue. I have yet to get all of my stuff loaded into my cube, but i did bring in my TeaDrop.
This little tea brew station is quite a nice little addition to my cube. The pendulum has again swung to me wanting to not drink as much coffee/caffeine, so tea is now my drink of choice. At only $11, it was a steal.
On to the German engineering portion of this post. Esther was having car troubles yesterday, a dead battery, so I was resolute to repair it last night. I got to Walmart, looking through the car batteries, I found out there are three different versions of the 1999 Beetle and two of the versions take one model of battery, the other takes a different one. So I went home and found out which of the versions Esther has been driving. The second trip to Walmart was quick, back to the car batteries, grabbing the 50 dollar battery and then back home.
When trying to take apart the battery enclosure, I found that I was either missing a tool, or my fingers and tools were some how all wrong. That makes the third trip to Walmart, to buy extender for the ratchet set. With the additional tools in hand, I finally was able to remove the battery and replace it. Mind you, this was at 9 in the evening, my activities lit by a work lap, bugs swirling around.
So VW, in their engineering wisdom has used plastic to cover, hide and contain all of the engine components. And while it makes look good under the hood, but to change anything, you have to rip out a lot of black plastic. The problem comes when you have to put it back together, nearly an hour of cramming and banging on things. Ugh.
Needless to say, It was late when I finally finished, I hadn’t eaten, and I was sweat. Cooling down with a soda at 9:30 wasn’t the brightest either, the caffeine kept me awake. Oh well.
Would you like a side of disdain with that?
September 14, 2007 – 5:21 am
Esther and I went to McDonald’s today, not something we normally do. Today is a special day, my last day of work at the College of William & Mary, so a special breakfast celebration was in order. This is also the first time we have been to McDonald’s since becoming vegetarian, figuring breakfast would be much more veg friendly than any burger.
We step up to the counter, Cee Cee behind it, waiting to take our order. Esther offers her order first:
I’d like an Sausage Biscuit with Egg meal, please.
Why don’t you just order an egg biscuit?
Let me tell you, there is no egg biscuit on the menu. Everything on the breakfast board labeled one through ten has some form of meat on it.
Ok, I’ll have an Egg Biscuit
Now I get ready to order.
I’d like an Egg McMuffin with no meat
*Laughs* Why don’t you just get an egg biscuit?
I don’t want a biscuit, I want an English muffin.
Now I know that being a vegetarian is “weird”. I understand that I’m not the normal customer she runs into everyday, and I also know that I’m not at Burger King, where I can “have it my way”. But seriously?! You are going to mock and question my choice of breakfast sandwich. I said I want an Egg McMuffin with out the meat. Is it really that hard to punch into your register? I didn’t ask for the sense of disdain that came along with me giving my order.
To top it off, Esther’s meal got downgraded to just the sandwich, with a side of ridicule.
Rebirth
September 5, 2007 – 6:52 pm
A new look on my blog, a new decision to write again. I have found a new desire to get back into the whole “blogging” thing. I have started a podcast with my brother-in-law, check it out at ClaytonScott.net. More tomorrow.
A lighter shade of orange
August 12, 2007 – 3:41 pm
This was one of the most relaxing weekends I have had in a long time. Yesterday, Esther and I had a lazy day, which has been much deserved. I bought a sweater, a new shirt and a pair of linen pants from the Gap, Esther bought a rather fetching shirt. We spent the rest of the day being lazy. We had dinner outside, the weather was beautiful, and learned to play cribbage. Esther beat me very badly, although not quite a skunking.
Today, Esther gave this post it’s title. We decided to paint the guest room with a nice bright orange. Not then entire room, just a two walls. The color is called Mandarin, a gorgeously bright shade. We thought it would make for a nice baby room if (when) the time comes.
Now I think that I am going to watch TV. Esther and I are going to go on a walk to enjoy the weather, but other than that… a lazy day.
Oh Mr. Agri-biz
July 31, 2007 – 12:49 pm
Joanna, my sisiter, relayed to me a story involving a discussion she had with her (at that point) future father-in-law. In casual dinner conversation she had mentioned that Esther and I try to eat as much organic that we can. The father-in-law works in the agribusiness, actually works for the largest producer of genetically engineered seeds. My sister’s small mention of my diet turned into a showdown at the OK Corral. Him wondering why anyone would want to eat organic, her finally firing back with the fact that my wife’s father died of cancer and that it’s okay to eat organic.
I found it interesting that Mr. Agribiz was so anti organic. On one hand I can understand, it can eventually take food out of his kids mouth, but after today I have decided that he could ultimately find a new line of work.
CNN is reporting that a California study links autism to pesticides. Now I know that Mr. Agribiz doesn’t work in the pesticides division, but ultimately it’s all the same ball of wax. Needless to say, this blog is certified organic.
On being a male vegetarian
July 22, 2007 – 6:46 pm
I went to my sister-in-law’s going away party tonight. She’s leaving for the Army in the next couple of days and while I’m happy for her, I am concerned about some of the choices she is making. Those choices are neither here nor there, but the party setting is pertinent to this post.
Being a male vegetarian is weird. Not from my end, I enjoy eating vegetables, not eating meat. That’s the point right?
I’m at this party and there is no one manning the grill, hot dogs, brats and burgers. I know that the number of people coming is going to be many and without someone grilling now, a disaster is brewing.
The hostess walks up, hugs me and then asks me to man the grill, finishing up what she had started.
Dilemma: Does the vegetarian prepare the meat for the group or does the only guy there with grilling knowledge shirk his social duty?
I ended up grilling all 40 burgers, 36 hot dogs and 24 brats in record time, but ended up having next to nothing to eat during the party. Such is the odd life of being a male vegetarian.
I’m a 7.8 or a 9.0 depending on career choice
July 9, 2007 – 9:59 am
I took the Online Identity Calculator and depending on my career aspirations, I am either a 7.8 or a 9.0 out of 10. That’s pretty good. I guess it also means that if I want to become a thought leader, I should write more here, and start writing else where. I wonder what the requirements are to get a Wikipedia entry?
The imminent failure of basic computer education
July 6, 2007 – 1:49 pm
I have had this post sitting in limbo for a long time. I have been trying to gather all of my thoughts on the subject and I think I have finally reached my conclusion.
What is the point of learning how to click, where to click, without understanding why to click.
In my freshman year of college (circa 2000), I took “Introduction to Technological Systems”, which was a renamed “Introduction to Computers”. I enjoyed the class and quite liked the professor, eventually getting an A in the class, along with pretty much everyone else in the class. The introduction to technological systems went through a computer part by part, from CPU to databases to the internet, giving a broad overview of a little bit of everything.
While the number of students entering college are becoming more technologically savvy, the problem that professors are, or should, be running into is teaching students why to click instead of where or how.
Speaking in broad terms, students entering college have a firm grasp on technology. Can they point to the ISA card slot on a late 80′s motherboard? Probably not. Can they install iTunes 7.3 and sync their iPhone? Probably. The level of computer literacy is rising rapidly. Students are rapidly coming to high school and college never knowing what a computer-less household is like. And fewer remember a time when the internet required the computer to make very strange noises via its modem.
The imminent failure of basic computer education is this: By focusing on the mechanics of how a computer works, the human element of computer is lost. By this, the computer education received tells us that a computer works, but does not educate us in how to interact with it. What is the most efficient way to store files? How should one reply to email. What are the basics of security when it comes to the internet? Why, when sending a mass email, should one use the BCC: instead of the To: in addressing? Why does my computer run slowly when I have 7 applications open, each with 16 windows?
These skills, while not as concrete as the how the laser reads the data on a CD-ROM, are the ones that are not being taught, but can ultimately be the most useful. Efficient, courteous and savvy computer users don’t need to know the physical happening to get work done. While it may be helpful in diagnosing problems or troubleshooting, there are plenty of people willing to take the time and put in the effort in that arena, I happen to be one of them. For the average user, teach them that repetitive task can be shortened to key-commands, that click around the computer’s interface can be shorted by using a launcher, or that email “stationary” is not really all that cute and can sometime gunk up an email client would go miles.
Education encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and also something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, positive judgement and well-developed wisdom.
from Wikipedia
The rote memorization of how a computer physically functions is no longer relevant in today’s world. Computer education instead needs to focus on the imparting of knowledge and well-developed wisdom.
A new love for open source
June 19, 2007 – 1:07 pm
Alright, so I didn’t post the photos, I didn’t even take the camera. Crud! I’m trying to get back on the blogging band wagon, really I am.
Today, I have found a new love the open source software. Our MS Exchange server bombed out sometime around noon today and we have been without email for the past 4 hours. Word has come that they are on the horn with Microsoft, but they don’t really know what is wrong. The interesting thing about Open Source versus proprietary is the possibility of getting a temporary solution up and going rather quickly on limited resources.
Seeing how most open source is free, an IT department could take an old beige box that has just enough horsepower, some software (Samba, Sendmail, Courier’s imap server, Apache, Squirrelmail, Spamassassin, ClamAV, openLDAP with PostgreSQL database as a backend, Thunderbird) and any flavor of Linux OS and you can have a temporary solution up and running in as much time as it takes to install everything or plug the box in and power it up if you are disaster ready.
I’m not trying to speak poorly of our IT department, but the entire School of Business has ground to a halt waiting for their email to come back up. We shall see how long it takes
Does this mean…?
June 3, 2007 – 7:13 am
Yesterday, I went to the driving range with Casey and I had a total blast. We were chatting about picking up golf as a new hobby. I remembered that Esther’s mom had some golf clubs in her garage and we ran over there and snagged them. You have to understand that the most golf that I have played was a back to back 18 of putt putt. Lining up on the driving range was imposing, no windmill, no castles, no grinning clown, in other words very imposing.
After hacking away at half a bucket of balls, I was feeling pretty good. I really think that this could become a hobby.
Also, I have been working my rear off at work. You can see my fine work at: http://masonweb.wm.edu/marketing/gradetrade.html. I had to capture, re-encode, convert to flash video and create the HTML for the page. Whew!
I also found out that some of the people that I work with are high-rollers in the VC and tech communities (specifically Python).
So, golfing and knowing high-rollers and the like, all combined, does this mean that I’m becoming… upper crust?
Wii sports league
April 27, 2007 – 8:23 pm
Tonight, a good friend came over for dinner and some evening entertainment. Casey was flying solo today, almost in more that one way. He was supposed to catch a flight to Idaho this morning, but was turned away at the gate for arriving too close to the time of departure. It really wasn’t was his fault, security at ORF is horrible and the parking situation needs a major revamp. His travel plans were not for fun, he’s actually going to be late to his grandmother-in-law’s funeral. I know he wanted to be there to support his wife, who flew out there yesterday.
After some great Lavish bread chips made by Esther, we all started playing Wii. It was incredibly fun! We paused half way through a bowling game to have some excellent home-enhanced pizza, and shortly after decided we are starting the Wii Sports League. When our friends get back from Idaho, we should have our controllers and I have already looked up double elimination brackets, so we are set to wii our hearts out. Honestly the more people playing, the more fun it is.
Do you have any Wii game suggestions? Preferably multi-player…?
Magnetic Personality
April 26, 2007 – 7:07 pm
Esther recently bought some political magnetic poetry and today when I got home from work, I put my best coffee house poet forward. Here are some of the things that I came up with.
The ballot is stronger than the world of the Internet.
Get out of the great state between a mother and child.
I discourage the influence of this modern world in your country by the military, the industrial complex and a giant sucking sound that depends on an axis of evil.
Delay ought to be fear
By passing an idea, you can not stop poverty.
Facts can do for NAFTA what the Soviet Union did for that country.
The importance of your definintion of “other priorities,” four years ago, is the only thing I’ve looked at with lust.
I know that I haven’t been doing Haiku Tuesday, so I thought this might make up a little bit.
Totally Wii-tarded!
April 22, 2007 – 5:42 pm
OMG! This weekend was most excellent.
Esther and I started and completed the 65 mile Tour de Cure, which turned out to be more like the 70 mile Tour de Cure. After we rocked the road, we called our friends and ended spending the evening at Busch Gardens. I really wanted to get a Turkey Legs, but Esther kept guilting me out of it.
This week starts Meatfest 2007. You are probably wondering “What is this great new commemorative week?”
Well, in preparation for the Benoit clan going vegetarian, we are on a tear to finish consuming the meat that we have in the freezer. For the next 8 days, it’s all meat all the time, although we had a vegetarian chili for dinner tonight. Hmm.
Wii-tarded. Finally getting back to the title of the post. This morning, I was checking out the normal feeds and Gizmodo was reporting a massive influx of Wii’s today. I said to Esther “Goodness gracious. We should see if we could get one.” We got ready for the day and drove over to Circuit City. After standing in line for 30 minutes, we swiped the the credit card and walked out proud owners of a fresh Wii. So now, Esther and I are Wii-tarded. We spent a good portion of the afternoon playing Wii Sports and let me tell you: if you haven’t played with one, it is awesome! I am very happy with our investment. Now a certain boxing match is call me, so please excuse me.
Why I hate April 1st
April 1, 2007 – 3:56 pm
I hate April 1st every year. Not that there is something horrible that happens every year, at least not to me. I hate April 1st every year because of the rash of fake news that crops up on the web. Call me a fuddie-duddie, but I rely on the blogs and sites that I read to keep me informed about the latest news.
In the past couple of years, following Google’s lead, many blogs and websites have started posting April Fools news. I understand Google, their claims are so outlandish that they could never be true. Other sites, like Think Geek have done fantastic products, obviously not real:
What would happen if “reliable” sources, like CNN or the Wall Street Journal, decided that they had license to run an April Fools edition. “Market tanks, massive sell off”, great joke, although it would probably ruin our economy. I’m glad they have the sense to not try and be cute.
Maybe, I’m alone in this sentiment, but I hate April 1st.
Updates, updates…
March 12, 2007 – 6:30 am
So based on yesterday’s weigh-in, I’m now up to 36% of my weight loss goal! I’m really pumped now
Also, if you’ve been watching the site closely, you will have noticed a yellow fade-out in the top bar. I have been continually updating my tumblelog (RSS), and the above is the link. A tumblelog is
… is a variation of a blog, that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Common post formats found on tumblelogs include links, photos, quotes, dialogues, and video. Unlike blogs, this format is frequently used to share the author’s creations, discoveries, or experiences without providing a commentary.
via – Wikipedia
Here is a better definition of a tumblelog as proffered by Leo Laporte on Net@Nite:
Twitter is what you are doing right now, a Tumblelog is a low threshold blog, you post what you find and a blog is something you work on writing and crafting. There are three levels of web engagement
I can’t agree more. In case you don’t know, I do have a twitter account. You can check me out at http://twitter.com/jeredb (RSS), add me as a friend to keep up to date on what I’m doing.
Pi Day – 3 days and counting
March 11, 2007 – 3:53 pm
I almost forgot, this week is Pi Day. Let me tell you, if you are in or around CNU, you can stop by for some Weight Watchers friendly pie. If you are interested, please either shoot me a message or leave a comment!
New favorites
March 9, 2007 – 10:06 am
Let me tell you. I have a new favorite TV show, a comedy specifically. Normally I am a huge fan of The Office, but I have not been able to catch it regularly this season and I’m not really missing it. The new favorite is NBC’s 30 Rock. 30 Rock, a comedy about producing a Saturday Night Live show, is so much better than Studio 60, which has the same premise but is a drama. Some how I think that people who are producing a comedy would have fun and be generally funny at work, but maybe that’s just me.
Now, why I like 30 Rock.
Tracy Morgan is quite possibly the funniest person on TV right now. Steve Carrell is funny, but sometimes it’s painful to watch him, the situations are not funny, but stingingly painful. Tracy Morgan, who plays a similarly named Tracy Jordan, is crazy funny. In last night’s episode, Tracy Morgan/Jordan wants to find religion so if he gets in trouble, he will be less stigmatized by the public. In his search, he tries out for the Church of Proctology, a total jab at the Church of Scientology, where he is hooked up to a device, much like a Scientology e-meter, and Jordan is pouring out his hidden secrets:
I belive the moon doesn’t exist. I believe that vampires are the world’s greatest golfers, but their curse is that they’ll never get to prove it. I believe there are 31 letters in the white alphabet.
You can find the previous passage, with Tracy all wired up at NBC.com (check out section 2 of the video). Plenty of clips are on YouTube as well.
If you haven’t watched it yet, Thursday at 9:30 (Eastern), you won’t be disappointed, plus if you don’t
I’m gonna eat yo family!
R.I.P. Captain America
March 7, 2007 – 7:53 pm
Holy Crud!
I haven’t been reading comic in years, but a favorite of mine has been Captain America. Steve Roger’s life was taken by an assassins bullet earlier this week. If we could all have a moment of silence for a great American hero. I mean he defeated Hitler, Tojo, communism, neo-nazis, skinheads, drug dealers, Red Skull, even Thanos and Dr. Doom. Steve, you’ll be missed.
Joy of joys!
February 9, 2007 – 9:03 am
About three weeks ago, I started Steve Jobs on twitter and I have finally found the fruits of my labor. I was just listening to Net at Night with Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur and Steve Jobs was mentioned. In Episode 12, around 27:50. Check it out!