What I’m Blogging

No new hat, no new clothes, and that darn rabbit hasn’t shown up with my chocolate fix yet. It’s the midpoint of the Easter Holiday and it just doesn’t feel right. We were supposed to go visit the in-laws yesterday, but I’m on call and apparently even on Good Friday the rock must flow. So trip, free booze and diner cancelled. Cell phone and computers engaged, full speed ahead.

…It’s a freaking holiday for god’s sake…

Can we all get with the program? It’s a freaking holiday for god’s sake [pun intended]! Not that I’m particularly religious, but if, in the opinion of some, the divine being chooses to make itself manifest on earth, and then get tacked up on a cross for our eternal benefit, the least we can do in return is take the day off from work.

Apparently capitalism forgot to read the memo. So the beeping at mass tomorrow, if I go, will be me… Apologies in advance.

It was at 4:30 a.m. on this day in 1861 that the first engagement of the American Civil War broke out at Fort Sumter. A sixty-seven-year-old secessionist and farm-paper editor named Edmund Ruffin volunteered to fire the first shot. He later said, “Of course, I was highly gratified by the compliment and delighted to perform the service.”

… fort was ultimately hit by 3,341 shells…

People in Charleston watched from rooftops as Fort Sumter was hit with a barrage of cannon fire for the rest of the day and into the next. The fort was ultimately hit by 3,341 shells, but amazingly none of the Union soldiers were killed or injured in the shelling. The only casualty of the engagement came during the ceremonial fifty-gun salute of surrender, when some gunpowder exploded, killing a Union soldier named Daniel Hough.

Thank god it’s a short week. If your a fundamentalist Christian, you can actually really thank him, after all it is Easter soon. I returned to the mad house that is Gigantic Concrete and found the lunatics in full control of the asylum.

…at the end of the track…

The network decided to stop working, the major web server decided to take a dive in the middle of the business day, and the powers that be decided not to renew the project manager’s contract. You know, the one running all the projects that are still going to be running. Hmmmmm…. engines running on tracks without engineers. I’d hate to be at the end of the track when the train gets there.

Every so often, an album comes along that simply grabs hold of my attention and I can’t stop listening to it. It’s on my computer for the office, in the stereo at home, and on the Sony MiniDisk player for mobility.

I first ran across Sarah Harmer while listening to the CBC in my car on the incredibly tedious commute. The track playing was “I am Aglow” and quite frankly I was. Her voice is melodious and soothing. The music is lively and fun with a folksy bluegrass feel, and the instrumentation is simply fantastic.

There was just no other choice for me, like an ancient mariner drawn in by a siren’s song, I was hooked. I had to have this album and I’ve been wearing out speakers and headphones listening to it ever since. A great listen and highly recommended.

On this day in 1935, Congress approved the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the national works program created by President Franklin Roosevelt to relieve the economic hardship of the Great Depression. The program employed more than 8.5 million people on 1.4 million public projects before it was disbanded in 1943. It included the Federal Writers’ Project, which gave jobs to writers such as Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, May Swenson, Margaret Walker, and Richard Wright.

On the weekends we are supposed to recharge out batteries so we can charge back into the maelstrom of the corporate working world. But what happens when you battery charger is broken?

…my grumpiness and curmudgeon levels are an order of magnitude higher…

I’ve been home sick since Wednesday, the day of the “hazmat” excursion into the bio infected building. I don’t think the two are related, unless you count the fact that the activity was done in an unheated building in the middle of a blizzard. I am down with a cold or flu and am feeling miserable.

Part of the misery, however, cannot be attributed to the illness. Mind you my grumpiness and curmudgeon levels are an order of magnitude higher when I feel like crap, but I think it runs a little deeper. Spending time at home reminds me of how unhappy I am when I’m at work. Being sick in body gives time to reflect on the sickness of spirit that has taken root in my career. To paraphrase Huey Lewis, “I want a new drug….” Maybe this time away from the blackhole of time will let me come up with a better way to while away my time.

Lately, I’ve found myself wading through nonfiction. I have liked nonfiction since I was a boy. I spent a great deal of time reading Greek and Roman history, and as I aged, by enjoyment of nonfiction has come with me. I’m currently enjoying and Orwellian take on my nonfiction reading and so I’ve just completed this gem.

Orwell, George. 2004. Why I Write Penguin Books. ISBN 0143036351.

The book is a collection of essays by Orwell published between 1931 and 1946. It is composed of Why I Write(1946), The Lion and the Unicorn(1940), A Hanging(1931), and Politics and the English Language(1946). They recount his view that progressive socialism was the only way to defeat Nazism. That capitalism was a sham of the professional managerial class, and that English, as a language, was in peril from the perverse forms it was being molded by - advertizing, political language, and slang. “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Words to think about even now.

It was on this day in 1927 that an audience in New York City saw an image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television. At the time, there were several competing versions of television, and this version was a mechanical process that used a metal disc, punched with holes in a spiral pattern, which transformed light into electrical impulses. It had been invented in Europe, and it was called “Radio Vision.”

…the broadcast began with a close-up of Hoover’s forehead…

Herbert Hoover was speaking in Washington, D.C., to the audience in New York City. The broadcast began with a close-up of Hoover’s forehead, because he was sitting too close to the camera. Hoover backed up and delivered his speech, saying, “It is a matter of just pride to have a part in this historic occasion … the transmission of sight, for the first time in the world’s history.” Hoover’s speech was followed by a comedian performing jokes in blackface.

“Radio Vision” never really caught on. Instead, the TV as we know today was an entirely different technology, invented by a high school student in rural Utah named Philo Farnsworth.

Yesterday was new, even for a jaded old warhorse like me. I was on another seemingly routine mission for Gigantic Concrete. It was a simple office move. Take all the network gear from one building, and move it to another. Too easy

…exposed blood in a bio hazard zone…

Well when I got on site at the office, I discovered that the building we were moving from was condemned, not for any structural defect, but rather because a tiny biological menace known as mold had over run the place. Before I could enter the place to do my job, I had to don a hazardous material suit and face mask. “Don’t worry” I was told, I wasn’t going to develop a big growth on my neck or anything.

So in I went to do my job. Unplug this, pack up that, take racks down from the wall. Every piece of equipment had to be wiped down with a strong sterilizing liquid, couldn’t let any of our little friends out of the building. Anything we didn’t really need we were to leave. The local fire department would be by later to torch the place to get rid of the mold, do a little hazmat training of their own, and just have some rollicking good fun. I was having a little fun with the whole situation too, that is of course until I smashed my hand on one of the racks and began bleeding from my knuckles…. Hmmmmmm, exposed blood in a bio hazard zone, how precious.Now I’m just waiting for the mutations to start.