iceman cometh soon
October 31st, 2006
Archive
Archive for October, 2006
this is just silly
October 28th, 2006
a few months ago .. well, maybe its been several months now .. anyway, its been long enough that I’m starting to go a little nutty since my home desktop computer croaked… i’m pretty sure that my big hard drive fried and took the rest of the machine with it …
long story short .. its been a rough patch of bad technology for me ..
so, i’ve got some projects that i seriously need to work on, and i’m the kind of person who likes a workspace .. i like having a big monitor, keyboard and trackball mouse .. my big brain said, “hey, why don’t you just hook your work laptop up to your monitor, keyboard and mouse at home?” .. it seemed like such a good idea .. at the time ..
this would have been a very easy thing to accomplish were it not for the fact that my laptop does not have a PS/2 port .. the thing has both a cd/dvd drive AND a floppy drive integrated, but no fucking PS/2 port .. and I’m surrounded by PS/2 keyboards .. not a USB keyboard in the house..
all was not lost since there was a computer show at the dirt mall today.. for $4.99 i picked up a PS/2 to USB converter .. easy cheezy, right? wrong.
i tried 2 different PS/2 keyboards and not-a-one of them would work with this silly piece of plastic .. and i’m getting fuckin grumpy now .. oh, and in the mean time, i remembered that i had a microsoft wireless keyboard/mouse combo that used USB .. well, after about an hour (maybe more, who the fuck knows at this point), i could only get the mouse to work .. the keyboard was just fucking useless plastic…
ok .. so, i’m frustrated.. i’ve got my laptop screen pushed back as far as it’ll go, using it as a keyboard with the big monitor and mouse… it sucks.
but, since Nick had bought 2 SATA hard drives at the dirt mall today, and forgot to buy the SATA cables to go with ‘em, we made a trip to micro-center .. he got his cables, i pony’d up $20 for a USB keyboard and home we went ..
for alot of different reasons, this was mostly a shitty day .. but when we were sitting in Chili’s, waiting for our yummy fajitas to come, i said “if that keyboard works, then it’ll turn this into a good day after all” ..
and to top it all off, we were greeted by the box from my mom with our annual halloween goodies in it!
so, in the end, yeah .. today was a good day 
learning is not an option
October 26th, 2006
As part of my “Information Services Learning Plan” for work, I’ve committed to the following:
Cisco Certified Security Professional (CCSP) – 6/30/07
Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) – 7/30/07
Wish me luck.
maybe i overreacted
October 16th, 2006
I sent an email to my mom not long after I posted my rambling rant below. My mom and I have always had a really good relationship. When I was in college, she called me almost every Monday night for 4 years. After college I lived and worked with her for some time, and even when I moved out of her apartment for my own, we spent lots of time together (dinner, movies, shopping, etc).
When I moved in with Nick, we had dinner with my folks almost weekly. When my mom moved to Marquette, Nick and I had dinner or lunch with my dad as often as we could until he started working more than sleeping/eating and spending every other waking moment driving to Marquette or being in Marquette.
I remember my mom saying once that she called me regularly when I was in college because she knew I needed it. And that’s the reason why she still calls my sister regularly. But for me, she figures, no news is good news; and great news gets a phone call.
Well, I am going to make an attempt to call more, and not because of my sister’s guilt (my mom says she’s our family’s conscience), but because of my uncle Frank’s intense sadness over his mother’s death. As we were leaving the funeral home on Friday, I gave my uncle a big hug and asked how he was doing. He said “Go buy your mom some flowers. I used to always think, ‘I’m gonna buy my mom a huge boquet of flowers and bring it to her today’ but I never did.” He was telling me not to take my mom for granted. I need to realize that my mom and dad won’t be around forever. This is the only time I have them, I really should make the most of it.
What do you want from me?
October 16th, 2006
It seems to be inevitable. I have a meal and conversation with my sister and I walk away feeling like a bad daughter/sister/cousin/niece. The accusations are not generally outward as she tends to lean toward subtle passive agression through comments and eye rolls. I am a bad correspondant; and its not getting any better.
I think I’m just not a fan of ‘life-update-chit-chat’. I don’t want to talk about my job. In fact, when I’m not at work, I don’t want to think about my job. This is not to say that I don’t like my job. I do, in fact, like my job very much – for a job. It pays well. I get good vacation. The people I work with are respectable and easy to work with. And the job description isn’t too bad either.
But, my job is not what makes me happy. It is not what I let define me. It is not what I live for, and I’m glad about that. I don’t want to talk about it, because it is something that I have to do in order to pay my bills and eat food. If I were independently wealthy, you can damn well bet that I wouldn’t spend my time troubleshooting content engines and authentication servers.
So, I like to talk about things that make me happy. I like to talk about my dogs, my bikes, my friends, my trips. But nobody wants to hear about that stuff, because (other people’s) dogs are boring, and everything else is about biking. To many, biking (mountain biking in partifcular, I think), is seen as frivolous, childish and kind of silly. It is my hobby that I spend way too much time and money on, and it is of no interest to them. When I start to talk about accomplishments, good rides, good friends, good times I’ve had on the bike, I get eye rolls, funny smirks, and subject changes.
Maybe they don’t believe, or can’t understand that mountain biking may have saved my life. Or, at least my livlihood. If it weren’t for mountain biking and the friends I’ve made since I started this passtime, I’d probably never leave my house once I got home from work every day. Before I started biking, my depression was so bad that I could hardly get off the couch to feed the dogs. I might very well have ended up divorced, depressed and alone. My therapist told me that when she looked at me, she saw someone very unhappy and sad. My psychiatrist told me that I was hiding in my house with my dogs. He was very blunt and told me that I needed to get out of the house. So, we went for a bike ride on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. We ended with a geocache in MetroBeach and icecream cones. A few days later, we were riding the doubletrack at Stony Creek, and a month or so later, we rode our first singletrack. I met some great people when I went to a women’s mountain biking clinic and my life has not been the same since.
For me, mountain bike is anything but frivolous. It is my lifeline. It keeps me sane in an world that has made me insane. I don’t like living in SE Michigan and I don’t like commuting to work every day. But for now, these are the things that I have to do because of the choices I’ve made in my life. I have plans for an escape and I’m just trying to keep myself sane in the meantime.
I send pictures of myself on a bike to my mom. Pictures that I was proud of and thought she would be too. And most times, I get no response. When I talk about trips we’re planning, most of which involve bikes, the bike part is usually ignored; skipped over. I also feel like I have to make up stories if I can’t make a function or trip because of some biking related obligation – like I have to come up with a better excuse, because biking is not a good enough one.
So, I’m a bad correspondant because of the quesion, “What’s new?”. Apparently, no one cares that I’m in love with the bike I bought last year and am considering a new purchase with bigger wheels for riding back roads and longer training rides. No one (outside of my ‘biking’ friends) wants to hear about how great my ride was yesterday or how cool the trail is that I’m going to ride next week.
Maybe I am obsessed with biking. Maybe I do take it too seriously. Maybe I’m the one who’s being silly and everyone else knows what’s best for me. But ya know, I’m not seeing a therapist anymore and I’m getting some good exercise. I’ve got friends who get me out of my house now and then and I have things to look forward to. Shouldn’t that be what counts?
i'm not alone
October 12th, 2006
most of my friends are suprised when i actually answer my cell phone. i cannot possibly explain the depth of my hatred of my cell phone for anything other than purely functional/utilitarian uses. it makes me feel clausterphobic and inhibitted.
this comment from an ask metafilter conversation today gives me hope that i’m not alone:
also, according to this Ask MiFi article, I’m much more like a dude than a chick (but, we kind of already knew that, didn’t we?). so, for those of you out there who’ve tried to call me, only to get my voicemail – don’t take it personally. its me, not you 
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:38 AM PST on October 12