Has it been a week? Yes it has. A short week at that. Monday being Memorial Day. Can’t say I celebrated it properly. I worked, but I guess that’s as an American tribute as any. There were some things I needed to do at Dad’s office anyway so I thought I would go around and make sure all the computers were updated. XP’s SP3 hosed one of them good. It would not even boot. Reinstalled XP and the .NET framework was hosed, so nothing worked, but at least it would boot now. By then it was too late to do anything else, so I reluctantly packed it in knowing that that machine wouldn’t be doing anything useful the next day, but you do what you gotta do. Now it just happened that My Aunt Peggy had come down to visit Mom, so Tuesday night Peggy, Mom, Amy and I were getting together for dinner, which we did, J Alexander’s, had the French Dip, it was great. So then I went back to Dad’s office and after more hours than I wanted to spend got everything working that needed to be working. I guess I shouldn’t complain, if it was easy I wouldn’t get paid to do it. Of course I wasn’t as philosophical about it Monday and Tuesday night. If you were around 18th Ave. either of those nights you may have heard me expressing my feelings.
I remember sitting there watching Windows boot for the umpteenth time thinking that a big portion of my income if not most of it is derived from troubleshooting, most of the time with very little information. A big part of the time I’m just taking shots in the dark. I do know enough to keep from unnecessarily digging a bigger hole, but sometimes that hole has to get bigger before it can get smaller. Is what most people see as expertise just a willingness to hang in there till you find a solution, well that and an ability to not just blow everything up? Even training has that component. True I’m just regurgitating facts, but if somebody doesn’t get it you have to come up with another way to explain the facts, and sometimes another way again. I’ve dug some pretty deep holes standing in front of a class and trying to explain Revenue Posting Codes or Work In Progress, at least one of those holes I’m still filing in because they call into tech support four or five times a week.
Sometimes it’s amusing, sometimes it’s frustrating, people call tech support and expect you to just know the answer to their problem. Often you do, if somebody calls in wanting to know how to reverse a journal or void a check you tell them. If they want to know how to run a report that will show them the total amount paid broken down by proposal, I don’t know. I break out the Report Handbook and poke around in the system till I can get a report that hopefully gives them the information they need. I’m not doing anything they couldn’t do. Of course since that’s what I’m paid to do so I do it and can usually keep a good attitude about it, paychecks make great attitude adjusters. It gets even more interesting if somebody calls in with an error that I’m unfamiliar with. It’s not like I can open up the hood and see what’s gong on in there. I can’t even talk to the developers unless it’s something huge. I just have to keep poking around at this black box, first trying to get the same output from the same input the customer is using and then if I can do that trying to figure out what’s happening. Of course I’ve got Jay and Jamie and Sam to go to, often they’ve seen the same thing or remember something similar, but what it all comes down to is piddling around in the dark.
Okay that went on a little longer than expected. Wednesday night I relaxed. I couldn’t stop thinking about a conversation I had with Jay earlier in the day so I had to put this together.
Of course I couldn’t stop there:
And one more for now:
I can’t believe it sombody actually rated commies still suck with one star. Not that I’m suprised they gave it a rating of one star it’s that they bothered to vote on it at all. Wow, that means somebody actually looked at it. Neat. I’m actually rather pleased with the drive carefully narcissist on board and ass gas or brass.
I’ve got them up on Zazzle. It’s supperior to CafePress in that You can put up multiples of one item without having to pay for a premium package. Uploading images has been a pain for me though. I’ve still not bought any of the stuff I set up though I am looking hard at the messenger bag on CafePress.
Thursday was my birthday. I don’t know how but I had managed to forget it until Jay walked into my office and started pointing at the date on the calendar. My mind was on something else and I blurted out something about a conference call I had after lunch. He just rolled his eyes and kept pointing at the date. It finally hit me Oh yeah, it’s my birthday. I am 37, or 36 and 366 days, well actually 365 because this was a leap year wasn’t it? We even had cake and ice cream.
Oh and thanks for dinner.
I actually got a birthday card from Charlie and Evelyn. It even had a little something inside. I have never not (it’s okay to use a double negative for emphasis ain’t it?) gotten a card from Charlie and Evelyn on my birthday. I don’t deserve it. I have never personally mailed a card in my life. I’ve given them out in person but I’ve never taken the time to stick a stamp on one and chuck it in the mail. So every time I get a birthday card or Christmas card a little part of me twinges in guilt, but all the rest of my parts smile cause it’s nice to know people out there love you and are thinking of you.
I going to get schmaltzy here for a minute and thank all my friends and family. For some reason I like to picture myself as a loner, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth, of course in my mind’s eye I’m thin and handsome too so maybe I’m just delusional. So if your reading this thanks. I don’t always show it but I do appreciate it.
Well it’s getting late and I want to capture the video I took at Granville last Saturday before I go to bed so I will wrap it up here.
It was a very good night! Plan 10 was the runner up, and My Dinner with K’zon won the Son of Rambow trailer competition. Just don’t tell anyone that their were only two entries Son of Rambow was amazing, funny as hell and full of heart.
Now I’m going through DV tapes and charging up batteries for Granville tommorow. I will only be able to take video. My still camera charger burned up on my and I’ve not replaced it yet. Oh well.
Egad, I’ve got a ton of video I need to go through. Leave it to me to shoot it and just let it sit.
I don’t know why the embeds weren’t working but hopefully they are now.
Whoa boy, Indy IV. All I can say is; go see this movie!!!
I was really afraid. We are talking about the guys who brought us midiclordian and magically turn guns into radios, but the buzz from late last week was positive so my expectations were rising. And they were met. This is easily the best since Raiders and in many ways it’s equal. If you’ve had fear of whether Harrison Ford can pull it off, don’t worry he’s still got it. This is the third time already this summer I’ve been blown away by a movie. Iron Man, ShotgunStories and now this. Oh yeah, I you are a Raiders fan you have to come out to theBelcourt to see The Raiders of the Lost Ark The Adaptation on June 5th. A bunch of kids in the eighties decieded that they were going to reshoot Raiders shoot for shoot. It took them a decade, you see them all grow up through the movie, but they did it. It is amazing. I know it’s a Thursday but because of licensing, at least until Raiders is in the public domain (and if you believe anything copyrighted in the last fiftey years will ever end up in the public domain you’ve got more faith in the process than me, you are never going to see this anywhere but a theatre and it very rarely screens. I lucked out and got to see it at a film festival a couple of years ago.
Speaking of the Belcourt you’ve got to come out Friday as well and see the trailers in front of Son of Rambow. Should be fun.
Oh boy, well it’s the beginning of another week. This one will flash by as fast as the last. Friday night is Son of Rambow then Saturday is the Granville Car Show. Who knows whats going on Sunday and Monday. Probably go see Grandma one of those days. Anyway, here’s something to look at till next time.
Just some quick notes before I go see Indy IV, thank you Stephen and Suzie.
The Nashville Rollergirls WonThey clobbered the Atlanta Rollergirls last night. If you’ve not seen a match you really need to come out on June 7th and see them.
I finished The Pillars of the Earth last week. Turns out me and my sister were reading it at the same time. I think that’s a first. Also finished The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry last night as well. It reminded me a lot of Dan Brown’s stuff, great story but a lot of little annoying things.
Anyway I gotta go get ready by before I go here’s some more proof, as if any is needed that I need to learn to just go to bed.
Woo hoo, this week is going by like a blur, just like all the rest. Got the Plan 10 trailer registered and I’m meeting Stephen and Suzie for dinner where I get to take a peek at the My Dinnet with Kazantrailer. I hope I’m spelling Kazan correctly. They have extended the deadline till the twenty first, that’s probably a good sign that there have not been many entries. Don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. More likely that one of our entries will win, but will the Belcourt keep doing cool stuff like this if they don’t get any participation?
On a different note I have uploaded some more pics to Google Photo so here’s a slide show.
Well another week dead and gone. No Speed Racer Friday night just Cracker Barrel with Art and Kate and Stephen and Suzie. I’m itching to see it though I’m prepared for it to be a monumental stinker.
I actually got home early Friday night and watched Mom and Dad’s trip video render for threee or four hours, it’s more exiting than watching paint dry, but not quite as much fun as watching paint grow. Actually it got paintfully exiting at one point. The background image popped up with solitary dialog box open informing that I should “switch batteries or plug the computer in or I will lose all my work.” I let out ”eek” that sounded like the mouse that I caught in the live trap a couple of weeks ago and looked down at the power brick for the laptop. Sure enough the light was not green. I hasitly plugged the cord back in and muttered a short prayer to God’s I don’t believe in, on a complete asie that reminds me of one undiscussed problems with aethism, your curses are doomed to be completely ineffectual, and hastily plugged it back up. This is where I was slowly and thankfully quite figuratively hoist on my own petard.
You see, wisely or not when I am doing a big render like that I bump of the prioity of that process. I don’t know if it speeds the render up but it sure as hell slows everything else down. So I sit watching the computer for fifteen minutes waiting for it to return to the render. Which it doesn’t. Eventually the screen just goes black. With no other choice I hit the power button and expect the machine to just reboot but wonder of wonders it had actually gone into sleep mode and comes back up and resumes the render. At this point I decide to call it a day and just go to bed.
I actually told a little white lie. I didn’t just watch the computer render the video for a couple of hours i was actually reading a book a co-worker got me for Christmas. The Pillars of the Earth it’s definetly interesting, but I haven’t decieded if I like it or not yet.
Saturday morning I woke up with a tremendous headache, It took nearly all day to shake it. I ended up being late to the TOP SECRET project I have been working on with theMysterious Lackeys. Despite me being late and forgetting some of the materail I was supposed to bring it went very well.
Originally we were supposed to all go see the midnight showing of The Wrath of Kahn Saturday night, but everybody evetually realized we were all had family stuff to do Sunday, it being Mother’s day and all. So we just grabbed a bite to eat and drove to Smyrna for no good reason, then drove back to Nashville to hang out at Fido’s with Fred and Steph and eventaully called it a night.
Okay i know your starting to lose interest, there’s just a little more. I got home and found that the render had finished so I started to try to setup chapters and burn it to DVD, but I kept falling asleep. I eventually got the DVD burned, without the chapters, tested it and got cleaned up to go and meet my parents and siblings. This was the first time we had all been together since we had our Easter dinner a week after Easter. We drove up to Livingston and spent a couple of hours with Grandma which was nice. Evelyn and Jim were there and shortly after we showed up Loretta, Susan, Alan, Brooke, Riley and Colton showed up. Mandy and Dusty came up a little while later. It was quite a crowd in room 88. Grandma seemed stronger and more alert but she still seems to be somewhere else much of the time and when she does seem to be in the room with you your not really sure she recognizes who you are. There was one moment when Riley ran up to her and proclaimed “Hi Grandma”. Grandma laughed like her old self and replied “Well hello there”. The staff call her Houdini cause she has figured out how to diable these alarms they hook up to here to detect if she tries to get out of her chair or bed. Everynow and then she decides she is leaving and forgets that her legs won’t hold her up anymore. She’s fell at least a couple of times since she’s been there.
No sense in railing against shit you can’t change. On thing I can do is get up there to see her more often, I just wish I knew if it made any difference or not. I guess it doesn’t really matter though, I’ll never regret time I spent with her and I already regret time not spent with her.
I got The Visit rendered for YouTube and I’m trying to up load it now. I’ll embed it here when I get it done.
Well I should be getting my Noodler’s ink and new converter to get my Vanshing Point back in action. I never knew I could miss a pen so much. I’ve also got to get the Plan 10 trailer submitted to The Belcourt. Next weekend Nashville RollerGirls and then on Sunday, Indy IV!
Sheesh, it’s Thursday already. If you took a look at the trailer posted yesterday. You may want to take another look. YouTube kind of clipped the beginning and the end, so I padded a couple of seconds on each end and reuploaded it. I am extremely pleased with the quality. I had uploaded a Halloween video of everyone dressed up at work previously so my co-workers could see it and it looked like crap. I Googled “optimization video render You Tube” and of course found some advice that obviously worked. Now I’m jonesing to render and upload a bunch of stuff. Unfortunately when I started to render The Visit which is around three minutes the software was estimating a four hour render time. No can do Charlie. I desperately want a more powerful computer. Just not desperately enough to spend money. I mean I could finish another AR-15 with the dough I would put into a computer, actually I couldn’t but that’s the sort of little lie you tell yourself.
The previously mentioned TOP SECRET project is all systems go for Saturday. I am excited. I guess it’s Speed Racer tomorrow night. The dread and anticipation are cancelling each other out.
New review sent to Cinegeek. I will post a direct link when it is up, if I can remember.
Well my Mom and Sister get back from their trip to the Pacific North West tommorow, I’m assuming we are having some kind of get together Sunday, though I should check. I’ve got a project that I’m working on for Mom for Mother’s day, which would be cheating a little because it’s actually for her and Dad and they will get it eventually anyway, but I need to come up with a backup plan as time is running out and there are some time factors out of my control.
I don’t know why I’m being so oblique. I have this aversion to details and straight forwardness. Ask me what I’m doing over the phone and I won’t lie but I’ll try to think of a clever way to answer you but not actually give you any information at the same time. I can hear you nodding. I guess it’s just PAAB, you know Passive Aggressive Asshole Behavior. I was diagnosed years ago, but I’m not getting any treatment because I refused to answer the Therapist’s calls to schedule more appointments and I never paid the bill for the first one, that’ll show him. See what I’m doing I making up cute filler crap to keep from actually saying what I was getting at.
I’ve been editing some video they took on a trip to Europe and it’s taking me way longer than it should to get it back to them, but I’ve gotten pretty serious about finishing it up this week and I’m almost there, but it’s three hours of video. That’s some serious rendering for my geriatric Sony. The last time I tried it it overheated and scared the willies out of me. Literally, I always expected them to fly out of my ass but these just sort of apperated through my skin in various places. Kind of cool when I realized I wasn’t exploding. Exploding hurts much worse, that should have been the tip off.
