Words of Wisdom To My Kids

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.    --Will Rogers

Have a sense of humor? Become an IT worker.

Federal Computer Week Daily

April 13, 2012

What’s the most bizarre question you’ve been asked in your role as an IT professional?

Whatever your answer is, I hope it equals – or even tops – the hilarious examples given by IT workers who were polled in a survey about strange requests.

Developed by Robert Half Technology, the survey is based on phone interviews with more than 1,400 CIOs from U.S. companies with 100 or more employees. Responses also came from help-desk managers.

The question: “What is the strangest or most unusual request you or a member of your help desk or technical support team has ever received?"

Some response from CIOs:

"Can I turn on the coffee pot with my computer?"

"How do I clean cat hair out of my computer fan?"

"How do I remove a sesame seed from the keyboard?"
"I dropped my phone in the toilet. What should I do?"
"How do I pirate software?"

And among help desk professionals:
"Can you help me fix my toilet?"
"We need you to fix the microwave in the lunchroom."
"Can you help me repair a washing machine?"

"How do I start the Internet?"

"Will you show me how to use the mouse?"

The "Great Attractor": What is the Milky Way Speeding Towards at 14 Million MPH?

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/03/mystery-of-the.html

Astronomers have known for years that something seems to be pulling our Milky Way and tens of thousands of other galaxies toward itself at a breakneck 22 million kilometers (14 million miles) per hour. But they couldn’t pinpoint exactly what or where it is.

A huge volume of space that includes the Milky Way and super-clusters of galaxies is flowing towards a mysterious, gigantic unseen mass named mass astronomers have dubbed "The Great Attractor," some 250 million light years from our Solar System.

The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are the dominant structures in a galaxy cluster called the Local Group which is, in turn, an outlying member of the Virgo supercluster. Andromeda--about 2.2 million light-years from the Milky Way--is speeding toward our galaxy at 200,000 miles per hour.

This motion can only be accounted for by gravitational attraction, even though the mass that we can observe is not nearly great enough to exert that kind of pull. The only thing that could explain the movement of Andromeda is the gravitational pull of a lot of unseen mass--perhaps the equivalent of 10 Milky Way-size galaxies--lying between the two galaxies.

Meanwhile, our entire Local Group is hurtling toward the center of the Virgo cluster at one million miles per hour.

Why?

There aren't any satisfying answers. Life is fragile and it can be short; too short. Randy was a character. I've known him for 15 years. He and I and our buddy, Chuck, were business partners for that time. Randy could drive you absolutely crazy but the next minute he was the sweetest guy on earth. I think Chuck broke a few cell phones in frustration dealing with Randy, but they were as close as brothers. Chuck always took care of Randy. I remember Randy ticking me off so bad that I didn't talk to him for a month. But then he would come around and it was like nothing had ever happened. He would sweet talk Gailyn. He could be a charmer like that. When he and I would have a dust-up and he wanted to make things good between us again, he would call to discuss a computer question. No mention made of the original disagreement. That was his way. It always worked - even when we would disagree on the computer solution.

Don't get the impression that Randy was a bad guy or anything. He loved to help out, but you had to let him help you out in his way. And his way was usually in a way you didn't want it done. Not that his way was wrong. Sometimes he did such a good job that from then on customers wanted it done the way Randy did it. So that is more of tribute to him. But he was so focused on his way that "screw you, I'm stinkin' Frank Sinatra." Or at least that's what I used to call him when he got like that. We weren't union, but the dock workers and the print guys were. Randy once got a warning letter from the union, because he was so happy to pitch in that they accused him of doing their work. They tried to make him stay behind a yellow line on the dock from then on. Two weeks later, Randy was back with the union workers loading carts. He just did things his way.    

One time, Randy asked Gailyn and me if we wanted his old waterbed. He didn't want it anymore because it hurt his back. If we wanted it, it was ours, it was too much bother to try and sell it. So instead of just bringing it up to Erie with a load, he packed it all in the back of his pickup and drove the 200 mile round trip on a Saturday afternoon - even though I was going to see him on Sunday night at the plant anyway. He did it just because that's how he wanted to do it. That was Randy. He did things the way he wanted to do them.  

Not to go on and on here. This is more therapy for me than any type of a tribute. I'm just asking "why?" He's now gone. There is no comprehending the meaning of it. Randy always wanted to do the whole job. He didn't like doing half a job. He couldn't do it all his way if somebody else was doing part of it. But as the song says, "Who am I to try to judge or explain? But I do have one burning question. Who told you life wasn't worth the fight? They were wrong. They lied. Now you're gone and we cried. It's not like you to walk away in the middle of a song." Take a nap in your truck, maybe, but not to walk away.

See ya' later, Randy. 

Happy Pi Day!

Pi, as I hope you know, is the mathematical concept that helps mathematicians and grade schoolers find the area of a circle. Just off the top of my head, Pi is approximately  3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651…and it goes on and on.  

In actual numbers, Pi is usually shorthanded to 3.14. So it should come as no surprise that nerds everywhere have designated March 14th, or 3/14, as Pi Day.

Even if you don't like math, it's a great excuse to eat delicious pie. I’m going to try and talk that special, wonderful significant somebody into making a banana cream.  

This site gives Pi to the one millionth digit. http://www.piday.org/million.php

Mmmm…pie….I'm quite irrational about this.

Santorium Wins, Santorum Wins (Second Place)

So tonight - Rick Santorum won Alabama and Mississippi. Hurray! Nice, Rick. But wait! Since the GOP has given proportional representation, you gotta do more than squeak out a win, you have to dominate to make a dent in the delegate counts.

Lets see how it went Tuesday night. Delegates won per candidate:

                                   Romney    Santorum     Gingrich      Paul 
Alabama                         11              19              12     
Mississippi                      14              13              12
Hawaii                              9                4                               1
America Samoa                9                                                       
                                      43              36               24             1

So Romney actually gained the most delegates, not Santorum.

Newt, shut up. You've achieved broken record status. Most people I know think you are now just in there for spite.

Yum-Yum

Take the scraps, sinew, and fat that are left after a cow has been butchered. Chop it up, spray it with ammonia-hydroxide and then mush it all together. That mixture becomes something known as "pink slime." The USDA has just announced the purchase of seven million pounds of "pink slime" to be used in the national school lunch program.

Kids will eat anything that's pink and looks like taffy.

If they could pulverize it into granules, mix it with sugar and blow it into cotton candy, I might even eat it.