Just when I thought it was safe to get back in the water… uhm blogoshpere, things go south in both hardware and um I guess hardware.  I keep planning on doing some serious blogging and about the time I sit down something happens, whether it be really bad storm, connection problems, work overload, or just some project at home that needs to be done gets in the way.  I know, it only takes a few minutes to jot something down, why don’t you keep us informed on Twitter, your shoes are on fire… (?) I only have so many hours and minutes in a day and I already do not sleep enough.  I will do my best to get myself on-line more often and actually write something of substance.

Why the post’s title?  I was driving back to work (I had to get a replacement keyboard for my wife) and I looked up in the sky and it looked just like the sky on The Simpsons.  I took pictures but I don’t have any way at present to get them off my phone.

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Have you ever wondered why a retreat (especially business ones) is called a “retreat”?  I guess it retreats from the normal business hassles and worries to allow more insight into what is really going on.  Our retreat today (yeah, a whole two miles from our offices) covered what I am told is the usual initial retreat items such as SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunities, threats) analysis, mission statement formation, vision statement formation, and some brainstorming sessions.  It was… different.  I personally have never been on a retreat, been plenty of camps for IT people and technical seminars.  This retreat was more of a team building and catch our breath experience with some information about changes in the way things are being done.  We are in the mist of a departmental shake-up (don’t worry, no one lost jobs or will be losing jobs) that started about a year ago which moved some of the sections to different departments and added new directors.  So far it has done a lot of good not just for the departments but for the university in general.

Of course the f-word, furloughs, came up and none of the news is good.  I’m worried now how I am going to make my mortgage and car payments for the month that the three-day furlough is planned to occur (though it still has not be approved and it is a slim possibility that it will not happen at all before January).

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What a crap-static this day has been.  Let us go to the list feature of the site..

• First I get up late.  This is not normally a problem, but my daughter start a new school term today.
• I forgot to go to the grocery store this weekend, so my daughter will not have a likable lunch.
• My daughter left all of her books and papers at my mother-in-law’s house so we have to rush to get there.
• My daughter left her copy of he schedule at home thinking that the other copy is in our car.  I took it out on Friday so I could make a copy of it. 
• Called the school to apologize for my daughter not having her schedule and not getting anyone.
• I haven’t even gotten to work yet.
• Yep, late for work to find that NO ONE IS THERE!
• Log on to the network to find the network is down.
• Network is back up, but my computer froze and refused to even hard boot. Had to unplug the sucker.
• Need I continue?  Okay, all the networks being down mean nothing was updated.  Luckily, we have an update that was run since important data changed.
• The database environment I need to work in is down because the backup was corrupted.
• Finally, after lunch I can get to work.  Finally got in touch with a person and not an answering machine to verify everything is okay at my daughter’s school.
• Went to get gas and there is no money on the gas card.

I finally just gave up the day as a loss when I got home.

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It makes the week so much easier to take when it is only four days long.  Wouldn’t be wonderful if all work weeks (we are talking in the U.S. here, other countries work week may vary) were four days long.  Yes, we would still complain that it was too long and yet complain more that about not having enough time in the week to do everything you need at work.  This is why I am a proponent for a 10 hour, four day work week.  I don’t know about you, but I get to work early and leave late anyway so the two extra hours a day would really be more like one.  Of course that might translate to me working 11 hours a day, but I’d get more done with one less start and stop each week.  I know the arguments about child care and school and such, but there will be one extra day you don’t have to worry about child care that you normally would – that is unless you wanted that day without a child.

Just a thought.

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Had a meeting today at and about work.  Yes, I have many meetings at work, but not usually about work, or specifically about my department.  With everyone laying-off people and starting furloughs, we had the sinking feeling that some really bad news was about the laid down upon us, especially since the meeting “slash” luncheon was catered.  You know how they feed you well and then when you are sleepy with food the hosts slaps you with the bad news.  It seems the bad news wasn’t as bad as we expected – no lay-offs and no furloughs, just cut backs like not replacing people who have retired or otherwise left and upgrades to equipment are put on hold indefinitely. 

And what do we hear the minute we walk back in our offices – the governor has decided that revenue is still too low so we have to cut another 25% from our budget!  So I guess we will start doing IT with stone tools and slates?

Note:  The luncheon was not on the tax payers’ dime, but came from discretionary funds from donations, most of which come from within the department itself… and the fact that it was catered by a culinary class.

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It seems my Mondays are just getting worse each week.  I came to work today and booted up my computer, or rather attempted to boot up my computer and it slowed to a stall.  It should not take a Pentium 4 running Windows XP on a Novell network 30 minutes to get from logon screen to the start of the desktop loading.  I know I have a relatively slow in current terms machine, but not that slow.  Plus some of the software I need for work is not running correctly.  I think it all has to do with the recent Java update, they always seem to screw up the system.

Plus every once in awhile my hard drive makes the “Oh crap, it is about to die” grinding noise.

I guess next Monday the building will fall down.

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