I'm PSYCHED! 

I've watched NASCAR races since I was a little girl.  Dad and I used to settle in on Sunday afternoon for racing and "light leak checks".  Ya know, when your eyelids close and you don't want to admit that you fell asleep - you were just doing a light-leak check.

Dad's always been a Bill Elliott fan and I've been partial to the Earnhardts, which has led to some interesting discussions.  I just LOVED Dale Sr.'s evil "I'm up to something" grin and the twinkle in his eye, bless him.  I sorely miss that #3 going around the track.

Sunday afternoon, 2 p.m., guess where I'll be?  Popping open a can of my favorite beverage* and watching my boys and listening to that crazy Darrell Waltrip yelling Boogity Boogity Boogity, whatever the hell that means.  YEE HA!!   Let's go #8!!!

You can take the girl outta the hills, but you'll never take the hills outta the girl ;)

*Diet Cherry Coke

I'm so excited! I'm hugging it like it's an old friend and I do mean OLD.

*wraps shawl around shoulders, sips her tea and starts the story...

Ya see, ya young whippersnappers, when I started as a programmer all our reports were printed on Green Bar paper - ya know the huge 11x14ish stuff with alternating bars of green and beige? 

Well, since there was no such thing as Fonts back then (chuckles at the thought - FONTS!  Choices!  What a hoot!) *clears throat* I'm sorry, where was I? Oh yes.. and there were no "tab stops" - you had to plan your output or reports manually by column number.

Yep.  So you'd have a blank piece of greenbar and a special ruler.  Now MY ruler is fancy.  It's marked in 10, 12 AND 15 pitch (sits back waiting for the oohs and ahhhs) as well as 6 lines per inch or 8.  NOW you're impressed, I can tell!  So using my ruler and my blank page, I could plan out exactly which columns I needed to code in the program. 

Of course, now you have Excel with it's fancy alignment, automatic this and that.. why, back in MY day we had to code everything by hand!  *bangs the desk. And that's the way we LIKED IT!  *shakes fist

Anyway - I'm quite happy to find my little long forgotten ruler
*hugs it again and sings  
Mammaries Light the Corners of my Mind... Misty Water-colored Mammaries.. .of the way we were.... 
Oh wait. Wrong song ;) 

Besides reminding me of the Archduke... I like the band Franz Ferdinand! 
We're in the process of having carpets replaced at the office.  Which means "pack up 10 years of crap into tiny boxes and find another place to work Monday".  My solution, I thought, was simple and elegant.  I simply took Monday off ;)  I still have to pack the mess up, but at least I won't be breathing carpet glue fumes Monday.
Hmm.  Ouch, Green, quit hitting me! 
Now I've completely forgotten what I was going to say.
I really like Diet Cherry Coke.
Which means I've broken all my resolutions already.  Yay?
Life is less complicated when you quit telling yourself "No! Bad Dog!" all the time.
From where I sit, I can see 17 pictures of Katie. Do you think that's too many?
How on earth do I choose which ones to put away? They're all so cute!
There's also a picture of Tal and a picture of Andy, my two favorite Euros!
Once I get all this stuff into boxes, how will I ever find anything again?
Next week (unpacking) is gonna be WONderful.
That fucking backup/server thing is giving me shit again. Die, SumBitch, die.
Ooo, pizza sounds good.

Oh yeah, now I remember!  Franz Ferdinand!  This CD is great for running around like a maniac to. 
Wow, that was horrible English, even for an American.
Wonder what the hell these keys are for?
Awww look, our IT plans from 1991! Isn't that cute!?
WHY do I keep this stuff.
Ooo a menu from my favorite restaurant.
Is it time to put away my Christmas mug?
How about the Christmas tree at home?
Nah, just have to find some place to put it, then.
Wonder what I was supposed to be doing.
Oh yeah, THROWING THIS AWAY, not just repacking it.
MORE keys???
Sigh.
Please, someone, break this monotony! I've been focusing for... 4 whole MINUTES! 
Hmm. The longer the stream of consciousness, the more abhorrent the task I'm trying to avoid.
Tell me I did NOT just put that big magnet on top of the floppy disks.
(accidently throws them in the garbage)
Ooops!

Put on a happy face!  Brush off the clouds and cheer up!  Put on a happy face!  And spread sunshine ALL over the place so PUT on a :D !!!

I cannot begin to describe the relief I feel! There's just been a WEE bit of pressure at work. The application that I support is used by TWELVE plants in my company (in short, we make plastic) - and without this software up and running, it's difficult to determine if the product being shipped out is within specs or not.  So you can imagine.. a lot rides on keeping this puppy running, well fed, and happy.  And it hasn't been happy, nor have the labs at the plants, for several weeks.

So, now that the rain is gone - what did I miss? Everyone doing ok? 

And lest you think I've recovered from my Phantom of the Opera lustings, guess what's coming next?  Beowulf!  (Britt, if you're reading, go there for videos!  His Deliciousness Exudes!)

Ummm Yumm... do they come any tastier than Gerry?!?!

I think not.

Well, maybe a couple of exceptions ;)

And here's a shorter-hair version of Mr. Gerard Butler.  Swoon.

This whole fucking week has been a fucking clusterfuck.  I'm sick of the whole thing.  A server put in, no plan for how to end it's lifecycle, no plan for managing it's data, a repeatedly failing backup mechanism and it's tossed in my lap.  Here, you're responsible for it now!  bye!!

FUCK. 

Translation: The "new" RAID array was added today but the system isn't recognizing it.  The scripts had been rewritten to being using them immediately, so now it has to be rebooted AGAIN and told to switch back to the old location.

I'm not even supposed to be here today.

Love,
Dante

Ding Dong the Backup Worked!  The backup worked! The backup worked!  Ding dong the wicked backup monster is dead!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND my boss gave me permission to leave early today so that's exactly what I'm a gonna do.  Sleep!  Blissful sleep!!! 

Did I say Yay Yet?  YAY!!

zzzzzzzzz goodnight!