Well, Colleen’s Place is back. Got a call yesterday asking for the resurrection. Unfortunately, it’s been so long that all the old data is gone :down:, but we can look forward to nothing but great posts (hopefully). Enjoy!
The Multiple Sides of Me
It strange how I handle different parts of my life. It’s as though I am two totally different people when it comes to both work and…the rest of my life.
At work I’m very dedicated and outspoken. I want people to hear what I say, and I’m not going to sit back and just do nothing. Even when I don’t feel as if it’s going to really change anything, I still want my voice heard. I want to be a part of everything, so that I can try to evaluate everything. It’s like I’m always thinking about the big picture, even when I’m just a “peon.” However, unlike a lot of people in my position, I don’t want to just float through. To me, that’s normal and how it should be. Unfortunately lots of people don’t think that way.
Now, my personal life, is just about the opposite. I keep to myself, am shy, and don’t usually say anything about various topics, even though I may feel as if I have a good point. When I go out with people, I’m definitely not the one that starts randomly talking to others outside of my group, nor am I the one that adds to a political debate between people. With respect to politics and things of that nature, it’s not like I don’t have anything to say, or to add, it’s just that I don’t want to bother. Maybe it’s just because I see the futility of discussing/arguing about those types of things when no one is going to change.
How can this be? How can I be so different between work and social? It’s like I’m a totally different person when I leave the office. It definitely makes me question why, and wonder how things would be different if I was more like I am at work while I’m at home. I think it would be a startling difference.
Birthdays Everywhere!
First I want to wish a Happy Birthday to my dad. He’s old! 🙂
Secondly, I want to wish a Happy Birthday to Lori Rogers of the famed, Those Rogers.
Another Waste
This post/rant will be surrounding an interesting British Reuters article.
Can anybody else point out what’s wrong with what this article says, or is it just me? Since when is television a right and not a privilege? Why is the government spending money to give everyone, essentially, access to TV. Granted, the article does explain why they are doing it, but I still fail to see why it’s the government’s problem to provide access to the latest and greatest technologies to those that can’t afford it. Cut off the old airwaves, reap your bagillions in selling the spectrum to commercial wireless services and emergency uses, and be done with it. I mean, don’t we have other things, more extreme social problems, than people not being able to watch TV? Hell, if Senator McCain (R) can’t think of any, I’m sure I could come up with a few.
Note to McCain, the world will continue to function if people can’t watch TV. Doesn’t it just rot your brain anyways?
Driving Courtesies
Maybe driving is a rebelpeon.com thing. I mean, Bree just had an entry about it, and now I will too.
First off, I don’t care if you’re the only person on the interstate, you do not need your hi-beams on. I mean, seriously, is this so much to ask? I love the people that have them on, and then “forget” to turn them off after you pass. It’s almost tempting to turn off the cruise, slow down, get behind them, and let them know what it feels like.
Speaking of cruise, learn how to use it. For the love of god people, it’s there for a reason, and that reason is not to just be there. I suppose I’m super-addicted to cruise control. I use it whenever I’m on the interstate. As long as I can keep a steady speed, it’s on. Just when I went up to Fort Wayne this weekend, I used it the whole way, even while driving through Indy. Granted, it came off a lot more then, but still.
I can’t fathom what goes through people’s heads that don’t use cruise. I had a truck without it, my driving life was miserable. So much so in fact that I barely left Champaign-Urbana because it was such a pain. Nothing like having your leg fall asleep because you have to keep pushing the gas. Plus there’s the fact that whenever I would hit a hill I’d have to watch the speedometer that much more carefully, especially when there were people around. I always felt like a tool when I just passed someone, then hit a hill and slowed down a little, only to have the person I just passed, pass me. Plus, it’s just annoying to constantly go, slow down, go, slow down, go, etc. That’s supposedly the beauty of the interstate, it’s not city stop and go driving. You’re supposed to be able to maintain a specific speed the whole way. However, without cruise that makes it next to impossible.
I think I can summarize with:
If you’re not using cruise control, you’re not only doing a disservice to yourself, but everyone around you.
How Sweet I Smell
What’s up wth all the scented stuff these days? The reason this comes up is because I was in my friend’s fiance’s car and we had a little war with various scents that were in it.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy not smelling rank, but when is enough enough? I mean, you have a different smell for your clothes (actually, multiple different smells because of detergent, fabric softener, and dryer sheets), the scent of your shampoo/conditioner, body wash, purfume, etc. After awhile, is it just me, but doesn’t it give you a headache?
Granted, I am male, so I most definitely have a different perspective on this than some of you. However, I don’t think it’s just delimited to gender. In my house (both apt and parent’s place) there aren’t 80 different spray bottles sitting around for aroma’s. Hell, I don’t have, and I don’t think my parents have, a bottle of even Febreeze to cover up any odors.
It does make me curious why some people have such a devotion to smells.
Bummer of a Summer
Well, summer is officially over and as proclaims the Traverse City Record Eagle, it was a Bummer of a Summer. However, everytime I got up there, including this past weekend, it was beautiful. Granted, I only made it up there twice this year, but let me tell you, I can pick the weekends to go!
It’s always a good time up there. Chillin with the fam, blasting old ladies with tennis balls on the tennis courts, running through the old cherry orchards, putzing around on the float boat, eating like kings. What’s not to like?
When I go up, I meet my parents in Grand Rapids, MI and then we carpool up to Leland, MI. Now, we went up on Friday and came back on Monday. Needless to say, on the way home, I wanted to avoid the I-80/I-94 Interchange mess, especially with all the returning Labor Day traffic. Instead, I took every back country road I possibly could through IN. I left Grand Rapids at 5pm CST, and didn’t make it home until 11:30pm CST. When I was going up to Grand Rapids, it only took me 4 hours. Needless to say, the trip home took a little bit more time. However, who knows how long I would have been backed up in Chicago.
Taking the back roads really makes you appreciate interstates. I was on the best state roads IN had to offer too: IN-25 and IN-231. Just the fact that you have to drive through every small town, and consequently have to slow down is enough to drive you mad. Add to the fact that it’s raining and that the road had just been repaved and the lines hadn’t been repainted, added to the fun. Let me tell you how nerve-racking it is trying to pass someone when you have no clue where the passing lane starts and stops in the dark and rain.
It was definitely an adventure though, and the fact that it only took 1 tank of gas both ways (~650 miles) makes it that much sweeter. I’d definitely want to have a companion in the car next time I do it though, that’s for sure.
Work
As a coworker said today:
“I thought u were gonna be liek the BRC bought this toaster and although there is an AD account for the toaster, the GPO has the security filtering set wrong, and there’s this SHITTY ldap code that doesnt handle recursion of groups… so NO ONE can toast their fucking english muffing and we’re about to be paged about it.”
It’s funny because it’s true.
Boring Weekends
Well, ever since Colleen and I broke up, I haven’t been doing a lot of social things on my own time, other than working out to pass the time. This leads me to the last part of an entry that Bree wrote awhile ago; How am I supposed to meet new people to hang out with? It seems as if everyone in this town around my age is either married or in college. And all the people I knew from college are gone (or I just broke up with them).
Heck, even a group to go out with to the bars or something would be nice. Currently when I do go out, it’s with people from work. Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the people I work with, but I’m with them all day already. I kinda need some time away from work and work people. Plus, whenever you go out to the bars with people you work with, conversation naturally turns to work for some time.
I’ve been thinking about going to the bars by myself, but that sounds too depressing. I need a group or at least someone else.
What do other people do? Even for people to just hang out with, is there a plan of attack, or should I just go with the flow?
MySQL Administrator
Well, for those of you in the blogging community, many of you use MySQL as your DB back end. Unfortunately, MySQL sucks in many ways (although the price is nice). One way is general administration. In order to do any administration on the db, you would have to use the Command Line Interface (CLI). Now, I’m a fan of the CLI for a lot of things, but without intimate knowledge of a program, you end up with your nose in the documentation more than actually doing anything. Thankfully, I friend of mine came across a great little program that makes administration of MySQL a lot better. You can checkout what I’m talking about here. If you think you may be interested in it, go for the straight download page (MySQL’s webpage sucks for navigation now, so you may just want to use both of those links).
Adding users isn’t a pain anymore, backups aren’t a pain anymore, viewing logs aren’t a pain anymore, seeing permissions aren’t a pain anymore. It’s just another piece that MySQL needed.