• One day away

    So far, the first morning of meetings has gone by without incident. I’ve managed to stay quiet, anonymous in my corner, avoiding the ill-informed comment that brings the rains scorn upon my head.

    It could change this afternoon though. After a four hour false start, we get to the area of my (relative) expertise.

    This post really starts twelve years ago. That was when the first computer was placed on my desk. No, 1996 was not my introduction to the personal computing revolution – just the first time my department thought it was necessary for the regular folk to tinker with 20th century technology.

    Since I was one of the few folks in the office with any computer skills, I was the default trainer. It was also an amazing time where small investments of time had huge payoffs in increased productivity. Having grown up with computers and a pinch of programing, I was in the right place at the right time. In one notable example, I took a little bit of initiative and converted a common calculation to a simple spreadsheet. It started off very simple, with a few formulas and a table look-up, and grew over the ensuing years to include almost every contingency we run across when determining the amount of support someone should pay.

    This is how I came to be a “guidelines expert.” It’s not from any unique perspective on the law, or from any special programming gifts. I happened to be the one guy in the office who knew his way around a spreadsheet, in one of the first offices statewide to get desktop PCs.

    Now it’s twelve years later and I’m sitting in a large room in the state capital, discussing a component of the new database/case management system being designed for my department.

    It feels a bit overwhelming. I think I tend to shy away from self promoting for this very reason. I’m afraid I’ll have to live up to an undeserved reputation.

    There are worse things in life, I suppose.

  • Homesick

    I haven’t been away from home twelve hours yet, and already I wish I was home. If I was at home I’d know exactly what to do about my little case of nausea. I’ve got a cabinet full of stuff left over from my cancer-boy days that would do the trick nicely. Instead I’m in a hotel room, 240 miles from the comfort of home… and my leftover supply of compazine.

    The knowledge that I’ve done this to myself (a recurring theme in my life) isn’t helping. In my rush to “make good time,” I did lunch and dinner via drive thru. Now I feel as good as that sounds.

    My stomach used to laugh in the face of fried foods. When it was in it’s prime I could handle anything the king or the clown could dish out. Now it’s a shadow of it’s former self. I find myself pampering it with reasonable portions, or low-fat foods. Not today though. This afternoon I did lunch with the Burger King. This evening I had dinner under America’s favorite arches. Tonight I’m keeping the trash can handy.

    I’d been doing so well lately: eating better, getting more exercise… and now this. Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to drive up to the home office for a week of meetings. Sometimes I think I’m no better than a child. Break up my routine and there’s no telling what will happen.

    Ah… but tomorrow is another day. Maybe good sense will prevail. Heck, I’ve got a meal allowance, and it’ll cover more than a burger and fries. There’s no excuse not to eat better. I’ve just got to slow down, take a deep breath, and make the time.

  • Newsvine – The necktie, knot what it used to be, still hangs on

    I know I’m piling on, but I can’t help it. These things can’t go away soon enough.

    Newsvine / AP:

    They were the best of ties. They were the worst of ties…

    Now, with another Father’s Day upon us, comes word that the necktie — that elongated swatch of silk or polyester or rayon whose donning has long marked a male rite of passage while serving no discernible utility — may be fading into the fashion sunset…

    For those waiting to see if men will once again embrace the constriction that comes with ties, she (Candace Corlett, president of WSL Strategic Retail) suggests looking to examples in women’s fashion.

    “You know,” she says, “corsets never came back.”

    There’s one glaring thing that bugs me about the new Battlestar Galactica, and it’s not what you might think (or exactly what you might think, depending on your level of BSG savvy). I can’t wrap my head around the idea that a relatively advanced group of humanity’s space-faring cousins, still insist on restricting the flow of blood to the brain with frakking neckties.

    What about near-asphyxiation uniquely says: “I’m a professional worthy of your respect?” Maybe you have to kill off a sufficient volume of gray matter before you can really appreciate ties. It’s one more reason we should all resist this fashion atrocity.