Month: August 2005

The Cutest Thing

Justin is fascinated with the kittens, (For those that don’t know – that would be Briarwood and Agapantha – our 2 six-year-old Tabbys) and now that he is finally getting the concept of “gentle”, Pantha will actually let him pet her. (I still need to keep an eye on him when he does because he still has a tendency to grab her tail and try to pull her closer…)

Briar, on the other hand, is still very wary of the baby. (Excuse me, the toddler. He’s walking now.) Justin tries to get close to Briar and ends up following him around the living room and kitchen until Briar jumps the baby-gate to safety.

Justin was just doing that a few minutes ago actually, but I realized he wasn’t trying to pet Briar, Justin was trying to share one of his puffed grain baby finger-food snacks with him.

I guess he’s trying to make friends. It was too adorable. I just had to share.

(Too bad Briar isn’t interested in making new friends…)

Edited on Sep 24th 2005, 01:38 by Hooloovoo

Broken Promise

I broke a promise. On August 12, I wrote an entry in which I stated that I would begin posting a series of entries that I was writing off-line. It’s been more than a week since I said that, and I have yet to post the first installment. The simple truth is that they are not ready to post yet because I’ve stalled out on writing them. What I want to do for the third entry has been especially hard to get going. There’s still something in the way, I don’t know what it is yet – but when I figure it out, I hope, the words will flow more easily than they have so far.

I am still writing. I do not yet know when I will be ready to post. I am not going to let myself drop this. I intend to make good on my promise to finish those entries.

That’s all I have to say write now.
(okay, that was a strange slip of the fingers, I think I’ll leave it “write” as it is… (am I the only one amused by that?))

I think I’m going to go work on somethign fun for a while.

Just one more reason to use Mozilla Firefox

My company launched a brand new corporate intranet site this week.
In an effort to let everyone know about it, they did the following:

1. Gave a preview of the site at our last quarterly company meeting
2. Held a “name the new intranet site” contest. (Won by chutta incidentally)
3. Sent a multiple email messages out talking about some of the stuff you’ll be able to do on the new site
4. Added a countdown clock for the launch of the new intranet site on the old intranet site.
5. Brought in a photographer to take pictures of everyone for the new site.

We all knew it was coming. On launch day they also did the following:
1. Handed out mouse pads with the new intranet site name printed on them.
2. CHANGED THE CORPORATE LOG-ON SCRIPTS SO THAT INTERNET EXPLORER LAUNCHES THE NEW INTRANET SITE EVERY TIME AN EMPLOYEE LOGS INTO A MACHINE – REGARDLESS OF WHAT IS SET AS THE HOME PAGE, WHETHER IT US SET AS THE DEFAULT BROWSER OR NOT.

If you think I sound annoyed, you’d be right. I use Firefox at work for one very specific reason. (okay more than one, but stay with me on this…) I can configure multiple tabs to open when it launches. I have 4 tabs set up – one for the web monitor app for each lab that I work in, and one for the new “error monitor” app that is currently being developed to help us track down problems and prioritize which lab needs the most attention at any given time. It’s a very efficient way for me to work. IE can’t do this, but I do have each of monitor tools bookmarked.

The only time I ever even launched IE was when I needed to access something on the old intranet site. And that was only because parts of the old site ONLY worked with IE! (don’t EVEN get me started…) This no longer appears to be the case with the new site. (I haven’t found anything on it that breaks in FF yet.)

Wait, I also use it when I’m in the lab, because I don’t have authorization to install FF on the 300 or so servers that we are running. (tangent: I don’t have authorization to install BOINC either, but it would be awesome if I could. 300 machines crunching numbers for SETI@home??!! drool.)

Anyway, there is a “suggestion box” link on the front of the new intranet site. I’ve expressed my displeasure with this new “feature”. And in the mean time, I’m just going to lock my screen when I leave for the day instead of logging out. That way I won’t have to deal with IE launching when I log in any more.

Edited on Aug 20th 2005, 15:05 by Hooloovoo

Update: They’ve turned off the logon script that resets my IE homepage for me. Never did receive a reply to my feedback. I wonder if it was planed that way all along…

Edited on Sep 24th 2005, 01:40 by Hooloovoo

The habit of writing

I have really gotten out of the habit of writing here. To tell you the truth, I’ve barely even visited the site in the last few months. If you look hard enough, you might spot a couple of comments here and there, but my participation has been scant, at best.

I’m working on a short series of entries that I plan to begin posting within the next week. I’m doing something a little different in writing them off-line because I want to take the time to make sure that I am communicating what it is I want to express clearly. A large part of what I have to say is going to be very difficult for me to write, let alone share.

My writing style has never been very structured, which is fine for a majority of what post here, but the entries I’m working on right now are too important for me to not take the time to craft them more carefully than I normally do.

There will be at least three installments. A majority of what I currently have planned as the second installment is already written. That piece was the catalyst for the project I’m outlining here. It needs to be cleaned up a bit, and I need to provide some context for it to really make sense. I started working on what will be the first installment tonight, which is really little more than an introduction. (I just laughed when I typed “introduction” – you’ll understand why after I’ve posted the first installment.) The third installment exists only as a nebulous cloud of ideas floating around in my head, and It’s going to be the hardest part to write. I know that because I’ve tried writing it before, and have yet to be able to do so with any semblance of coherence or clarity.

I suppose you can consider this “installment 0”, or a foreword, or something. It is little more than a rough outline of what I plan to do. It is also a way for me to commit to finishing what I’ve started. By telling the world, (or rather – the small part of it that will read any of this – ) a little bit about what I have planned, I am much more likely to complete it. I made a promise to myself that I would finish this project, and I made a promise to someone else that I would share it. This post is the first step to keeping both of those promises.