This story from the New York Times reminds me of a lot of things that one of my roommates from my freshman year at UAH, Hurshidjon Shamstidnitov, told me about his home country, Uzbekistan. He had been sent here to study American business practices by the Uzbek government and by his father, who, if I’m not mistake, owns the local Daewoo automobile plant mentioned in the story.

Hurshi and I talked long into the night once about economic conditions under the Soviet system and the present regime. “Things are better,” he said, “but not as they should be. With the Soviets, you got paid the same whether you worked hard or just showed up, so everyone just showed up and was paid. That’s why I’m here, to learn American business practices and take them home to support the work ethic my people want to have.”

I just wish they’d get rid of their dictator. But it’s impossible: he may be holding them down, but Hurshi swears that he’s a beloved man in his country. I remember one of our Russian students saying some nasty things about Karimov to Hurshi, and my normally very quiet roommate looked made enough to rip him apart limb from limb. -sigh-

Yes, I will post pictures.

The silly things I’ll do.

You know, I’ve not read the local paper in a while, nor have I paid much attention to the local news. I remember a couple of years ago when Brittany Benefield made headlines for being 15 and attending UAB. I pay attention to UAB when I can; they’re a sister school, and I watch them.

So I read her story about slipping into alcohol, drugs, and sex with athletes at UAB, and I understand one reason why Ann Reynolds isn’t President at UAB anymore. This year, I was much further out of the loop with the UA system schools … but this is just … hell, I don’t have a better word than “disgusting”.

What the hell was UAB thinking?

I’m going to have to go find our manufacturing guys some of those really neat magician’s hats that come with a rabbit pre-installed. They’re going to need them.

We got some information today on some Flight Support Equipment [FSE] that needs to be built to support ULF-1. ULF-1 is a Space Transportation System [STS ... what you know as Shuttle] flight to the International Space Station; it’s a Utilization and Logistics Flight, if I remember correctly. ULF-1 launches 01/16/2003.

Look at your watch. We don’t even have released drawings for this hardware yet, and we have to support a launch date that’s 32 weeks out. I stared at the Boeing guys while everyone else from TBE talked. I was thinking, “Now, what cranial-rectal invert at NASA thought waiting until now to procure this hardware was a good idea?”

Yeesh. We’re already late on some of our Launch-On-Need [LON, which means what it says--you have it around and launch it when you need it] FSE because of other efforts we have going for ULF-1. Every new project that’s come in since I’ve been full-timing myself on schedules [read, the month of May] has been a ULF-1 project. Hell, we bid part of this work in December. I know, because I just checked when I did this schedule.

What a crazy, messed-up project ISS is. I just hope that the rumblings I’m hearing about a big group trip to see ULF-1 go into orbit are true; fully a good half of the deliverable equipment being sent to Station that time is coming from our manufacturing facilities.

I love this job. I really, really do. If I didn’t, I think I’d just go home now.

Gah. Sleep? I think I slept. I’m not really sure. I don’t much feel like it.

I realize one thing this morning, though … I really need to pack myself lunch. I used to attempt to leave the office at lunch–even if all I was doing was running to Chik-Fil-A and getting one of their good salads, or if nothing else, running down to the TBE Cafeteria and finding something non-fried to eat.

Since I’ve been working full-time, though, I’ve been able to leave the office … twice? Maybe. When I haven’t packed a lunch [more often than not, since I like to leave], I’ve been snagging a bag of pretzels from the snack machine. Not good. Leaves me sluggish as hell.

Gotta remember to pack a lunch today before I leave, in case I don’t get to eat a normal lunch. I’d love to find PJ and go eat with him, since I haven’t seen him in a couple weeks, or maybe find time to eat with Sean or Todd, but I know what my work week’s been like so far … just don’t think it’ll happen.

But for now, I think I’m going to crawl back into bed. I just checked my bank account … the deposit just hit. My estimate of my pay was right on: compared to what I’ve made the last two semesters while working part time, my income just increased two-fold; Todd and I started running numbers yesterday, and renting the house isn’t going to be any more expensive than the apartment, and might even be a skosh less. Save, save, save …

Some days are just so much fun, they should be bottled up and stored for future reference.

This ain’t one of ‘em.

My work morning started with our customer yelling at us in our morning telecon because his stupid email server wouldn’t accept our email to him with the status crap he wants. He got very pissy, and everyone was looking around the room, wondering what to do. Enter intrepid young engineer, who says, “I can make it happen.” I wander out of the conference room to the nearest computer, snag said files, send them off, and pray that they don’t bounce. After leaving the room three times to check for a bounce, I finally signaled my boss to ask our customer if he’d gotten the files. He tersely replied that he had. Geez, dude, chill.

The rest of the day has been catch up and catch-as-catch-can. Typical engineering fun: not enough information to do the job, not enough time, not enough resources. You just do the best you can do, stick it in the can, and go home and come back to slay the beast again tomorrow. It’s a routine, and you get it done.

The other part of my day that wasn’t so fun was the outage we had earlier on PositiveFusion.com, my Web host. I know that some of you probably know about it, because some of you IM’d me and said, “Geof, your sites are down.” You think I wouldn’t notice?

Anyhow, here’s the details on that:

“We were hit with another large portion of downtime today, unfortunately. The good news is that we’ve managed to determine the problem this time. There is apparently a problem that is not specific to our server, but one that is affecting very many servers running “Cpanel” for their client domain control panel software.

“Please understand that such levels of downtime are not acceptable to us and we will make every effort to keep your websites accessible.

“As a result of today’s incident we have determined the cause of the apache server process failing. It happens to be a bug introduced in a recent (sometime last week) build of the Cpanel domain control panel. Apparently we were one of the first servers to be affected by the issue several days ago and thus originally were unable to find the connection between the Cpanel update and the apache issue.

“We are currently in process of adding additional backup measures to prevent this from happening again, now that we know the root cause, it is something we can work on. We’ve written a ‘backup’ shell script to check for the services and correct the problem preventing Apache from restarting automatically as it should. This should effectively eliminate this issue for the future.”

Imagine that … clear, responsible, and technical explanations for what went wrong and how they’ll fix it. Of course, I count Indigo as a friend [as much as he can be a friend, since we've never met], and I expect good service from him, but still, I wanted you to know that I wasn’t getting lousy service or something. Shoot, we’ve joked that he’s going to give me access to restart Apache, so that when the shit hits the fan, I can help him and fix it.

I knew this was going to happen. I knew that I’d hit my room and then not be able to fall asleep. Grrrr!

Oh well. At least I’m not thinking about some of the things I spent all weekend thinking about. I’m just … drifting on through thoughts as they pop up. I was talking with someone today who, when I asked what they were thinking about, said, “Nothing.” Now, how nice would it be for me to shut my brain off?

The only time I’m not consciously thinking about 45 things at once is when I drive. When I drive, the “driving” part of my brain engages and everything else disengages. I guess it’s a defense mechanism I learned when I used the 179 mile drive from Columbus to Forest in my MSMS years to decompress a bit before I got home and hit the Real World again, where the people aren’t whacked out on a weird concoction of sleeplessness, stress, and group dementia.

I remember [if that's the right term] a drive home where I don’t remember half the drive. I remember calling Mom from the gas station where I always gave a “this is where I am” update [a Texaco in Brooksville, Miss. on US 45 ... if you've been through there, you know it], since it always took right at two hours from that point for me to get home. The next thing I consciously remember, I was in Meridian, 75 miles south. My truck stereo had shut off the tape I was listening to long before, and I’d been driving in absolute silence for at least 15 minutes … and never noticed.

I guess that’s why I took a long drive the other night … I needed to shut down my mind, close off the voices, and let myself just live in the moment for a while. I didn’t completely shut down, though, because I listened to Michael Moore [Roger and Me, Downsize This] ramble on about his latest book, Stupid White Men. I listened to him and earnestly thought about what he was saying … more than half of which I disagreed with, but still worthwhile. But other than listening, thinking, and driving, I did nothing.

This is odd, because the rest of the time, I’m thinking about four things at once. For example, while I’m rambling on through this entry, I’m thinking about:

1) How much I love listening to Marty and Joe call Reds games, and how spending $14.95 for a summer’s worth of Internet rebroadcast of Reds games is a good idea

2) Kettering, Ohio, and my memories of it, since one of the guys in the promotional inning that the Reds do during their broadcast was from there … the guy batting for him was Todd Walker

3) That I remember saying that the Todd Walker trade for Alex Ochoa was a really good idea last year, and it was, although he’s not hitting so well

4) I’m rambling so much that I really should make this a journal entry, but I’m too lazy to open a new browser window and copy things over

5) How happy I’ll be when Amy’s CMS is done, and I can use it like I’d like to use GM

and

6) How this might just convey how divergent my thinking can be at times.

Seriously, I thought about all that while I was writing the previous paragraph. The words were spilling out from my fingertips, I was listening to the clackety-clack of my keyboard, and I was thinking about all of that and listening to Marty do play-by-play [I prefer him doing p-b-p and Joe doing color, and it wasn't that the last inning]…

And this whole entry has either:

1) Confused you.

B) Enthralled you.

III) Left you nodding, since you understand what I’m talking about here. [Hi, Lynda!]

Does anyone but me have a “popcorn thought” mind process? It leaves me wondrous that I can even begin to think as an engineer should, given how absolutely non-linear my thinking process is at times. It requires a lot of energy to focus those thoughts and marshal the divergence into semi-order, which probably explains why I was so tired when I got home today, and why I really should think about getting back to bed, since that’s what this entry was supposed to be about in the first place–me being pissed off that I’m not dead to the world!

Good night.

Well, I’m going to go to bed. I came in from work, sat down on the couch, flipped the TV on, and promptly zzzz’d out. It’s pretty sad, so I’m just going to go on and give in and go to bed. It was a long day and a short night, since I couldn’t go to sleep last night for a while. You think I’d have banked up some sleep from this past weekend, but no … it doesn’t work that way at all. Sleep is not a bankable commodity, despite what I might foolishly think from time to time. Oh well. If I yammer much longer, I’m going to have a hard time going to sleep.

I guess the novelty of my job has worn off. I thought about bitching in a veiled manner about a couple of work-related things at a couple different points today, but I decided against it. You’d be bored reading them, and I’d be bored writing about them. What’s the point, especially as I’m writing for me anyway?

So yeah, my job is here. I only had one meeting today. Compared to last week, this is an improvement. I’ve also had enough work that it’s damned near impossible to believe that it’s 5:00. Hell, I’m still waiting on one last thing that I need to boot out the door tonight before I leave, and, well, I got here at 7:30 and never took lunch, so I’m wanting to think about leaving soonish. Oh well, more work now means less work later.

But have you ever thought about the fact that recurring problems in your life are all facets of the same thing? I’m finding that some of my greatest frustrations at present–which I won’t write about, since it involves people who might or might not read this site–are all facets of the same fundamental problem. I’ve got to deal with it, much as I don’t want to. How, I haven’t quite deciphered yet … but getting past there will be good.

Well, in the process of writing the last paragraph, inputs came in. I might as well get started on what I have to shove out the door today.

Man, it’s been a long time since I did some kitty-sitting for Amy and Jeff while they went on their vacation [so long ago ... these pics were taken the same day that my laptop arrived]. Part of this is work-related; the rest is the fact that I wanted Amy to give me a thumbs-up on the photos before I posted them.

She did, and yet it still took me … about a week … to get to posting these.

But enough humdrum … let’s get to the point of the matter, eh?

Edmund greeted me at the door with a big old yawn, and after I’d stood inside the door a minute…

Tenzing up and walked away from me. He’s used to me; big brother Ed isn’t.

After I checked on the food and litterbox…

Tenzing deigned to let me scratch his back. We stared at each other for a while: me, a dog person; them, two catsluts. Then I saw my out: the dreaded feather-on-a-stick.

At first, Tenzing would play along, but Edmund seemed quite uninterested.

After a while, though he started to show a bit of interest and even pawed at it a bit.

After a bit, they started to play together, acting like the brothers they are.

Of course, I think they had so much fun that they barely noticed that I left…

They’re all right … for cats.

Okay, I was watching Fox News Channel when news of the latest “strap a bomb to myself and run into Israel” occurrence happened. FNC’s anchor was calling it a “homicide bombing” while reporting that no one had died … which, unfortunately, is no longer the case.

Anyhow, I was staring at the TV and saying, “Can you call it a ‘homicide bombing’ when no one’s died but the bomber?”

Mind you, the term “homicide bomber” is a bit more apt, but still … the inaccuracies that TV foofs have inserted into our vernacular quite irk me at times.

[Pardon me for being slightly morbid and also appearing to poke fun. Trust me, this stuff bothers me more than you'd probably care to think.]

You know, this is weird … while I was a co-op, I didn’t get paid holidays. So this marks the first time I’m getting paid while not being at work.

I don’t know what’s scarier … that, or that May is almost over. I mean, in three more months, I’ll be back in school. In two more months, we’ll have moved into Club Todder III and added the Ant-Dawg to the daily insanity.

Man, that’s a nice thought … being out of this impossibly small bedroom, being out of this paper-thin-walled apartment … and back to cutting the grass. I miss cutting grass. I’d love to go cut the grass right about now. [I don't need to say that too loudly ... I'm sure that Amy and Jeff will be happy to have me come cut their lawn ... :p ]

Okay, enough rambling … back to the cleaning I’ve put off all weekend.

I’ve really got to clean up my room
You know it’s been so long since I’ve seen my floor
It’s getting kind of scary in fact I suspect
That when I finally clear away I won’t know her anymore
…
So I quietly lay back down
And watch TV

“Go Outside and Drive”, Blues Traveler, Save His Soul, ©1993

Hmmmmm … this song is about a guy who needs to clean up lots of things [his room, his life, etc.] … I sympathize, in a lot of ways.

Think I’ll go outside and drive …

It’s time for the best thing about Memorial Day … the Indianapolis 500. I may be a bigger stock car fan than I am an open wheel fan, but I grew up near Dayton, Ohio, and that’s just a stone’s throw from Indy. I’ve been to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but never on raceday. One of these years, I will make it. I remember Unser Jr. and Goodyear … Mears … Rahal … Foyt … Fittipaldi.

I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it, even with the CART/IRL split.

Gasoline Alley, baby.

Oh, and I don’t know ’bout y’all, but the first thing I thought about when I heard about this bridge collapse and having a second bridge being hit was, “Hmmmm, that’s an interesting terrorist tactic.” I’m hoping like hell that it’s just a hellishly bad accident.

I’m glad that my typing style doesn’t make use of my left thumb … ’cause that hurts right now.

Yep, I broke and bought a PS2. I’ve been playing NHL2002 since, oh, 4:30 or so. Much, much fun. If you have to ask what team I’m playing with, you’re not paying attention. [The Bruins, of course.]

Observations: playing at easy means football scores … naming a player after yourself may be arrogant, but when he kicks serious booty in a fight, you get all jazzed … creating a player named “Bubba Boudreaux”, making him a huge black man [like, 6'10", 300 lbs.] and putting him on the right wing of the first line of a team from Yankeeland will cause you to crack up in the middle of the game … Byron Dafoe is da bomb.

On Amy’s advice [yes, dear, I know I can take it], I’m doing as little as is humanly possible today. I just finished playing NHL 99 on Todd’s PlayStation … it’s urging me to give in and buy a PS2. I won’t break until we’ve all moved, for a few reasons:

1) We’re going to be paying rent on two places for June and July. Seems silly to spend more money.

2) Once we move, we’ll have more people to use it, and it’ll be worth our while then.

I can hold out, though it’s hard. But other than that, I’m not going to do much else. Hell, I don’t plan on even leaving the house. We have food here, and what’s the point in getting cleaned up to just drive around? None, in my book.

Lazy bum? Bet your ass.

While I’m bouncing a bit to Full Plates Mixtape.002, it reminds me of listening to this disc the other day in my truck. I was dressed for work because I’d just gotten off, and I smiled at a couple people on my way back to my truck as they entered the convenience store I’d just left. I got in my truck, and the radio returned to its previous volume [and bump] level.

It was amazing to watch the facial expressions on the white folks’ faces change.

What was this disc? Well, dj.maj.dot.com might give you an idea–it’s Christ-focused hip-hop. [While you may find that a bit silly, it's important; some people only listen to hip-hop, and as far as I'm concerned, the Message of Christ needs to hit people where they are. This does that.] It’s not like I was cranking up 2Pac or Dr. Dre … but I might as well have been. I got stared at as I left the parking lot.

I’m sure that if I went down there again today and listened to some of my other music, like maybe my Pierce Pettis [singer/songwriter folk] discs, I’d get a different look. Isn’t that just … strange?

Well, now I’m killing time until this one email gets here, so I can print it out and then take it home with me this weekend.

Yes, taking work home over the holiday weekend. This is my job. I do it gladly. I can charge time; I complaineth not.

But I do wish this guy would hurry up and send it … he’s eating into my personal time …

As I deal with my heartburn, let me do a ff:

1. What’s the last vivid dream that you remember having?

I drew closer and closer and finally got to kiss someone I’ve wanted to kiss for a long time. And then I woke up.

2. Do you have any recurring dreams?

No, not really. I did when I was a little kid, but that’s been forever.

3. What’s the scariest nightmare you’ve ever had?

None of them truly terrify me. I wake up scared, but then it goes away pretty quickly.

4. Have you ever written your dreams down or considered it? Why or why not?

I’ve considered it, but my sleep patterns are so weird that I don’t really remember dreams.

5. Have you ever had a lucid dream? What did you do in it?

I can’t say that I have, really.

I just don’t remember my dreams, because I recognize that they reflect things often can’t or won’t happen in real life. I have enough goals and hopes for any number of people, so I don’t worry about the dreams. I worry about my calling.

Is that sad? I don’t think so.

Well, Todd just signed the lease for Club Todder III. A house, thank God. No more of this apartment shit for us.

And we shall welcome Anthony [Ant-Dawg, the voice of reason, Opie, One Beer Wonderboy] to the fold.

Let the insanity commence.

… but the Indians and Pakistanis still aren’t playing nice, and they’re threatening to go to war again.

That whole situation is just going to spiral out of control. What side would the U.S. take–if any? If we back the Pakistanis, that’ll be the first time I can remember where we’ve backed a militarily-controlled government over a nominal democracy.

Well, I’ve got 4.5 hours of work today. I’m going to head in soon [waiting on the dryer to get some clothes ready for me] and try to get that out of the way as early as I can. I’m probably going in tomorrow … got some stuff that’s due by Tuesday that I can work on Saturday and get paid for it, rather than donating the time to the company. Damned if I’m working for free today, considering that work is keeping me here this weekend [I have to stay close and on-call with a payload we're building].

Todd and Blake are both leaving for Georgia today, but they’re going different places. I’ll be the only one here, which means it’ll be quiet or loud, should I decide to crank up my stereo. The only plan that I have for the weekend is shoveling out my bedroom and doing a little on my truck. Past that, I have no plans, and that’s fine with me. I’m a bit confused on some things, and maybe dropping back and punting will make things clearer.

Yes, I had downtime today. I’m sure I’ll get a funny email from my Web host later telling me what happened. It’s probably that someone’s Moveable Type install horked the server. Again.

[No, I'm not biased.]

Not much to write about. I woke up much later than I wanted to today, didn’t get stuff done this morning that I wanted to get done, and am still feeling really sluggish. It’s another insane day at work, another in a series of a series of a series. I’m still not really complaining, but if you try to contact me and I don’t reply, well, there’s a reason.

Well, a fit of insomnia has me up posting.

Why? A funny, scary story.

Buddy of mine at work–Brian–ran into me as I was leaving today. He gave me that zombie look that’s attendant to everyone working one project [our commercial ISS payload]. My manager had remarked earlier today that, in the last week, a “out-and-out miracle” had been performed to get the project to where it is now.

I found out why when Brian asked, “What’s 16, 16, and 11?” I knew what 11 was–the number of hours he’d been at work today. Rather incredulously, I said, “43? Don’t tell me that you worked 16’s the last two days.” He nodded in such an achingly tired way that it was clear that yes, he had. I asked, “You are getting overtime, right?” He replied with a grin that only a person who’s worked that much overtime can have:

“Hey, every 20 hours over is a grand in my pocket. My next paycheck will be over six-kay.” He smiled tiredly and walked away.

I think I’ll stick to scheduling, thanks.

It’s just been meeting after meeting, follow-up after follow-up today. Lunch?

I think I’m at a point now where I can think about leaving and going home. Oh, wait, I’m not going home. I’m going to church, then I’m going home. I’m going to get a good walk around the apartment complex in before I drop back in for the night, though … it may not be the trail we walked the other day, but that’s one I can only walk in the daytime, and there’s not going to be a lot of that left by the time I get home–if any.

Nope, not much downtime for me. As if I expected any. I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I had it, other than maybe try to sleep.