Work
Sounding Off
While things I see have given me nightmares, it’s my sense of hearing that seems to dig deeper into my brain. Certain sounds instantly generate that primitive fear “fight/flight” response.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Problem / Solution
I was working with a client system the other day. They had a business process they wanted the computer to do automatically. I do that all the time. I worked with them to break the process up into a couple of dozen distinct steps. From there, I was ready to build the automation. I’ve been [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )FUBAR – When It All Goes According to Plan
The good news is we could copy this virtual machine pretty easily and set it up somewhere else as a test bed. The bad news is their machine was in pretty sorry shape. At the best of times, it’s difficult to isolate a single piece of software to check it for problems. Even when a computer is “idle” there may be three dozen processes running in the background.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The Restaurant Next Door II
It was one of those old school steakhouses done up in Early American Dungeon. Everything was brick and wrought iron with thick wooden beams stained dark like walnut. Each booth came equipped with a small lamp with a bulb about the size of the one in a refrigerator.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )If This Blog Were a Tweet, You’d Be Done By Now
The longest “tweet” you can write is only 140 characters long. I had a nasty case of writer’s block for ten years; I don’t need any help in not-writing. Besides, how much can you really say in 140 characters? If this blog were a tweet, I would have ended at “The longest tw”.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )Sanitized for your Protection
The men’s room door had a very official looking number pad on the door. I was issued a five digit code in order to gain entry. That’s one digit more than grants you access to the WOPR in War Games. I was prepared to be impressed.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Fighting Fires
The client’s server room was an actual room about the size of a garage. The servers were all late model machines of the same make. They were housed in matching system racks. Everything was neat and clean. I felt like I had stepped into an ad for IBM.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The Restaurant Next Door
Indianapolis is surrounded by a loop of expressways that all end in “65″. You have to be careful whether you go north or south because – while you can’t really get lost – you can end up seeing a lot of the city before you reach your final destination.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Tricks of the Trade
I was onsite at a client not too long ago. We were in the middle of an install to a new server and had to load up an application from a CD. No problem, I was told by the IT tech I was working with. He was going to stick the CD into the drive on his machine and share it with the server. We wouldn’t have to leave his cubicle. He set up the share and connected remotely to the server. To his surprise, he couldn’t see the CD or his drive. He tried it again. Nothing.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Radio Memories – Donut Run
I did have access to the station van. I also used it for donut runs in the middle of the night. “Station business” was a nebulous term; the way I saw it, WPGU ran on donuts, coffee and cigarettes just as much as electricity.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Pride Goeth Before a Spill
I kept my Diet Pepsi on a table reserved for meetings in the middle of the room. It was far away from the equipment and I only paused for a moment here and there to partake. I’d like to credit how smooth it went to my skills as a consultant, but I was also a little lucky. Their new server was pretty peppy and their IT staff was too busy putting out fires to ask me a lot of questions.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Thoughts on the Passing of Johnny “Red” Kerr
I don’t think the term “fanboy” was in vogue at the time, but we all knew what it meant and we took great pains to avoid it. None of us wanted to be caught gasping like a fish in the presence of someone famous. I can remember one time when fame overwhelmed us all.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )In Sick
It’s desert dry in the house in the winter. Meka gets nosebleeds and I sound like I’ve been smoking menthols since the Johnson Administration. Over the weekend, the normal dryness in my throat began to feel scratchy. By Monday it felt like I was swallowing shards of broken glass.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )It Came from the Want Ads!
I used to work for an alien. He didn’t come right out and say he was an alien. He never pulled his face off or tried to eat me or anything like that. But I had my suspicions from the beginning…
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Apocalypse Again
The Church of the Livingstone and Mission for the Coming Days sent out a press release the world was due to end on October 28, 1992, at midnight, Korean time. The world was still around at 12:01, Korean time, but we played R.E.M. anyway.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )You Can’t Get There from Here
A policeman tapped on my passenger window and motioned me to turn around. The road was closed until further notice. I gingerly did a three point turn. The Volvo behind me turned less gingerly and ended up doing a double 360 off the side of the road. Luckily, the police were nearby.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Welcome to Wisconsin
I was a bit groggy, even with the 44 ounce Diet Pepsi I picked up on my way out of town. I had this feeling I was forgetting something, but I couldn’t think of anything obvious. I had my laptop in my backpack. I had my meeting notes and training materials. I had packed my suitcase and was reasonably sure I had socks and underwear for the duration.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )A Guilty Pleasure
The first Star Trek movie is definitely falls under the definition of guilty pleasure; I feel a little guilty for liking it! My favorite part of the movie is when the Starship Enterprise finally confronts the gigantic alien probe that is heading towards Earth. The scene consists of approximately forty-seven minutes of special effects intercut with brief shots of the crew of the Enterprise staring at forty-seven minutes of special effects.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )A Brief Era of Good Feelings
It was right after church. I stopped at Office Depot to pick up some paper and generally look around. I was gazing longingly at the laser printers when a young woman interrupted my train of thought.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )‘Tis the Season for Management Training
We meet in a banquet room on the second floor. Two walls of windows give us a great view of the golf course. When I started going in January, it was no big deal. There’s nothing bleaker than a large empty expanse of field covered in snow under a steel gray sky and bracketed by the skeletons of trees.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )My Dad vs. The Man
Considering my dad is a pretty conservative guy, he’s always had it in for “The Man”. Those petty people with power just stick in his otherwise non-communist-leaning craw. I came out to visit the other week and he had to tell me all about his latest run in with The Man. This time – though – The Man was a woman.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The Spooky Hotel Deal
So, I went on the Internet and pulled up one of those “last minute deals”. I ended up finding a place for $35 a night. I got two rooms essentially for the price of one.
I got up there late Sunday night. I couldn’t see the place very well in the dark, but it was the last entrance on a dead end street. There were no cars in the lot that I could see. I walked in and felt like a kid again.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Business Writing
I’ve had to write a lot for work in the last couple of weeks. I find my home office is good for a lot of things, but long writing assignments isn’t one of them. Part of the problem is the setup. My home office is schizophrenic in design. I have my home computer with my [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Black Box Magic
I worked at a new client this week. They used to be the client of one of our local competitors. The first step was doing an assessment of their system and the integration they have in place already. I spoke to the “back end” person. He was in charge of the financial system that stores [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )In Consultant We Trust
I had to travel to a client site last week. I was not looking forward to it. While I was there, I think everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. However, I have to say the people there were easy to work with and really went out of their way to make sure I [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Custom Implementations of CRM
I am a CRM consultant. CRM is software businesses use to manage their customer relationships. This includes keeping track of calls and appointments, e-mails, faxes, names and addresses. It can also include tracking things like sales and support calls and other – shall we say – custom transactions. I worked with a client last week [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )I’d Tell You the Title of this Blog, but then I’d have to kill you
I had to drive down to Indiana this week to do work for a new client. I’d tell you who they are and what they do, but it might violate the security agreement we have with them. Sitting through seven hours of security tests and HIPAA regulations has made me a bit more paranoid about [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Surviving Admin Training
I was scheduled to teach a training class up in Milwaukee a couple of weeks ago. It was raining pretty hard where I live (about twenty miles south of the Wisconsin border), so after I packed up the truck with all the training gear: projector, white board, laptop, official training polo shirts with the Ticomix [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Lessons in Management Training
My title at work is Practice Manager. I suppose if I work real hard, someday I will be Perfect Manager. Towards that end, our management team gets together once a month and attends management training classes in Rockford. We’ve covered topics ranging from customer service to stress reduction. Last month’s meeting we talked about the [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Working from Home
I traveled a lot, so I wasn’t at my desk more than once a week or so. Since I was hardly there, I was the low man on the totem pole (at least as far as cubicles were concerned). I went through three cubicles in less than three months. It wasn’t that I was wearing them out, I would get moved around as new people were hired that were working in the office all the time. I would find this out when I would show up and almost sit in someone’s lap.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Wake Up Call
I had fallen asleep in my motel room with ESPN on and unfortunately it was one of those paid programming shows kicking off at 5:00 in the morning. As I came to, I realized two things.
1) Who wants to know about the amount of fecal matter left in their colon at 5:00 in the morning?
2) Who wants to know about the amount of fecal matter left in their colon… ever?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )New Cell Phone
I find myself walking around with the phone and a charger, so I can plug it in a wall socket anywhere I go; kind of defeats the purpose of a cell phone in my opinion.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Two Burgers for a Buck
“What the f— is going on?” I yelled at McFly. “What are you guys doing back here?” McFly didn’t answer me right away. He had big eyes that bugged out normally, but they bugged out even farther now. And he wasn’t looking at me, but rather at a point just slightly above my left shoulder. He slowly lifted his arm to point at something behind me and I will never forget the mixture of fear and awe in his voice as he tried to answer my question.
“Dude…”
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The Collected Works of Bob
Now, the problem was that my job which used to take 40 – 50 hours a week to manage was taking me something like 20 minutes a day. Not good. I was busy paying off my college loans and saving up for my first new car. I learned a very valuable lesson when dealing with large corporations: if you aren’t busy, you need to appear busy.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )The Weeks that Were – WPGU Revisited
When I worked at WPGU, we were crammed into the basement of Weston Hall, one of the dorms down by the football stadium. I knew – of course – that there would be little trace of WPGU there. They had moved out of The Basement in the 1995. But still, I didn’t expect that it was all gone. They had even bricked over the door!
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