I don’t know what to say….

Seriously. This post has been in my head for the past several days, and I know it wants out, but I can’t quite wrap the words around it. I’ll give it my best shot.

This started a couple of days ago when I was walking to work, and it occurred to me that there are some things that should address…

Billy Graham has always had this rule: that the only woman he would ever be alone with was his wife. Period. Which is a good standard to live by, especially considering all the other televangelists who were caught up in scandal (Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart come to mind). Part of it was being faithful to his wife, but the greater part of it was to never even show the appearance of wrongdoing. I don’t follow this rule as strictly as Billy Graham does, but there has been more than one occasion (usually involving me being offered a ride and I politely declined the offer), but in reality I was invoking the Billie Graham rule to preempt the scandal and avoid even the appearance of wrongdoing…

During my walk, I was pondering many things, and it occurred to me that there are others who follow a similar path. Modesty does not simply stop at the way someone dresses. And I should start respecting that position. Like I said previously sometimes you have to open your mouth, but discretion is the better part of valor. Wisdom is knowing the difference…

I hope I know what to say now…

A blast from the past….

My former employer (not really former, since I still work for him) is taking the week off to take his family to Disneyland. And so I’ve been asked to cover for him at the shop. Which meant taking a weeks’ vacation from my current employer (thank goodness that they offer paid vacation, and that I have enough vacation time to cover it being full-time). This morning was only the second time I opened in almost three years. I’m amazed that I still remember how to do things. And customers still remember me…

Lesson learned from this: never burn your bridges. Always make peace with your enemies. You may never know when you’ll need them….

As I was walking to work this morning….

Actually it was yesterday morning. And I was thinking. About a certain matter that I was writing about last year. And it occurred to me that writing about it here, even if I heavily sanitized it of all identifying information is just counter-productive. And I’ve decided to take down those posts. They were seen, and they’ve served their purpose. And I still wish the person I wrote them about well.

Sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor. Sometimes, you have to speak. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

To those of you who are fasting for the next month or so…

I’m not Muslim. Nor will I even to attempt to profess that I’m an expert on the Muslim faith. I was brought up to respect the practices of all faiths, and those who practice them. I don’t necessarily agree with some peoples’ practices or beliefs, but that doesn’t mean I oppose their practice either. I may not profess your faith, but I will defend your right to practice it.

Having said that, with Ramadan starting tomorrow:

Ramadan Kareem….

Another 12 straight…

Recently I did 12 straight days in a row at work. I get to do it again. I’m taking next week off from my main job (employer offers paid vacation, and I’m still full-time). And my second employer (a small business owner) is taking his family to Disneyland. And yours truly gets to cover the shop. I’m taking 7 days off, and he has me scheduled all 7 days.

Yes, I’m working another 12 days. But it’s still enough of a change of pace that it can pass for a vacation…

And to add to the indignity again...

The memory card in my tablet just kicked the bucket as well. Oh well. It was only a 32 gB one. And I have a 64 gB in my phone. I'll eventually replace it, but it's not a high priority matter.

But it does suck....

Edit: Went ahead and ordered another one from Spamazon. The price had gone down since I got my last one.

Well, Fudge It!!!

Tonight, I just realized, I lost about 2/3s of my installed games. I really never played them. They weren’t compatible with Windows 7. But I did have them installed in a Windows XP virtual machine (thanks to Vmware Player). And tonight, I just realized that it wouldn’t boot anymore. No problem, I thought. I’ll just restore it from back-up. Nope. Still wouldn’t boot. So, I now have to reinstall everything into a new VM.

On the bright side, I didn’t have to call Microsoft to activate it again….

So Lazy And Decadent Right Now….

I have a commute from Hell. There has been many a time when I had to get up at 1 in the morning, and be out of the door by two, only to walk 4.5-6 miles just to get to work. On more than one occasion, I’ve been the first one at the building in the morning.  Needless to say, I tolerate none of my co-workers’ complaints when the bellyache to me about how early they have to get up, or how hard they have it to get to work. My employer is aware of this, and they have offered to accommodate this by adjusting my availability. But the only accommodation I’ve asked for is to not open immediately after closing.

So, normally each week when I set my alarms (I have an alarm set for each day of the week to accommodate my variable schedule), at least 2-3 are set über-early in the morning. But not this week. As I reviewed my work schedule, and I realized that I’m not going to be that early this week. I can get to enjoy this mysterious substance called sleep…

Man, I feel so lazy and decadent this week….

Making Peace

I have come to the conclusion that The Voices In My Head on certain matters will never come to consensus. Sometimes this can be a good thing. I can use this interior dialogue to try and see all sides of the issue at hand.

I think that the best solution is one that I’ve used in my various and sundry (mis)adventures on the Internet. In many internet for for fora, not having the same opinion as everybody else can be shall we say an unpleasant experience. And in some places where everyone has a very different opinion, it can seem like everyone is against everyone. First, I realized that the best way to deal with this the Nomex Boxer Shorts state of mind. Just state your peace, and let the trolls and kooks rage against you. In the end, you just have to agree to disagree. To realize that not everybody shares your point of view. They’re usually not going to change your opinion, nor are you going to change theirs. You can disagree with someone. You can do it without arguing with them as well…

So, I’m going to take it one day at a time. If The Voices In My Head can’t come to an agreement, then I’ll let them agree to disagree. The insight and the clarity that I seek will come in time. I just have to be patient until then….

Crisis Averted…

I almost nuked my hard drive tonight. On my last day off, I went to fire up FS 2004. And it hung. I restored it from my back-up drive, and it still hung. I let it go at the time. Later that week, I installed a couple of updates. And tonight, I went to load up Flight Simulator X, and it hung up the system. Preparing for the worst, I fired up my back-up drive, and made sure my back-up was up-to-date. After that was all done, I thought I’d give it one last crack, and I did a system restore to last Thursday. And it fixed it. I don’t know what got restored and/or changed, but they’re working again. I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If I can avoid it, I’m not going to nuke my hard drive. Once upon a time, I did it on a weekly basis. Not anymore. I actually like to use my computer….

On Virtual Reality

I mainly use Windows 7 on my tower. It’s my favorite daily driver. Yet there are legacy programs that I can’t get to work with it, That’s were VMware player comes in handy. It’s just like have another computer. And it’ll even let me use 3d graphics in Windows XP and Windows ME (actually most of my legacy software is installed in the WinXP virtual machine. The WinME machine is mainly just for screwing around). Long story short, VMware player is great for Windows Guests. But my concern with other OSes (think Linux) was that I could never get VMware tools to install in the guest. I’m going to give  Oracle VM Virtualbox a try right now. I’m currently installing OpenSUSE. If it works, I may try other Linux distros.

If it doesn’t work, at least I didn’t nuke my hard drive over it….

Edit: I was finally able to get Vmware Tools installed in my OpenSUSE guest that I installed in Vmware player. Another OS to pay a around with without having to nuke my drive. Though come to think of it, I may have to do it soon. I can't get FS 2004 to load anymore...

12 days straight...

If you didn't know this before, yes I'm full time at work. Which on occasion it means that the supervisors shall we say strongly 'encourage' to get out of there on time to keep the overtime to a minimum. I normally don't make any special requests for my schedule (with the exception of not opening after closing the night before). So, of late when I've been getting my two days off each back to back, I didn't look the gift horse in the mouth....

This all started a couple of weeks ago. Another coworker had left, and my supervisor had received authorization for overtime to cover the schedule. So I volunteered to come in on my day off to help. It would've been a 6 day week for me, but it was doable. My one day off last week there were enough callouts that they called me in on my one day off (since they know about my Commute From Hell, and yet they still called me, I could tell that they had serious issues). I agreed to come in since my day off errands were near to work. So no days off last week.

But I survived. And I got overtime (and with the Holiday pay) for Memorial Day as well means my next paycheck won't be skinny (I hope). And they are recognizing my efforts. But still it was 12 days in a row.

Don't try that at home. Or at work, for that matter....

OK, this is quite strange…

I can’t post to Blogger from Windows Live Writer in Windows 7. But if I fire up VMWare Player, load up my Windows XP Virtual Machine, I can use Windows Live Writer from within WinXP, and be able to publish to my blog.

Maybe there’s still more work for me to do…

Until then, hello world from my Windows XP Virtual Machine…

EDIT: Apparently this was an API change with Google (the people behind Blogger, which is what this blog is run on). And Google and The Anti-Christ are working together for a solution. I hope so. Windows Live Writer was/is the best blogging program Ive ever used. And with the recent API change, I can’t even use the Scribefire extension on firefox (or chrome for that matter), at least until it’s updated.

But it works for now. If not, then I can also use the Blogger Chrome App…

Edit, Part Deux: And now the Scribefire extension in Firefox is working again....

New Feet Again.

If you remember the post I wrote a couple of months ago, I got some new shoes. Two months to the day, and they were already showing their wear to the point that I was planning their replacement. Today I looked on them as I was putting them on, and I realized that the replacement was going to happen sooner than later. I was hoping for at least three months' wear out of them. And I barely got two. Applying lessons previously learned, I tried them (lacing them up completely) more thoroughly than I usually do. I've learned not to give any heed or regard to what size the box says they are. Always try them first....