digitalBush

I'm officially declaring war on the squirrels which dance around my property. I have an '83 Chevrolet K5 Blazer which I use to haul junk around in and pull the trailer for mulch.  Last year they managed to chew a bit of the wiring out from underneath the hood.  No big harm there, since they chewed up the wiring for the AC compressor which doesn't work anymore.  Now, they have officially crossed the line. 

They managed to chew a bit of the rubber fuel line that connect the hard line to the fuel pump in the engine compartment.  Hooray for me since I find this out about 35 miles from home at a friends house.  I had gone over to Brandon's house to help out with a deck project and managed to spill a huge wad of gasoline in the street in front of his house.  His deck project got delayed for a few hours while we went to get parts and fix the leak.  I'm sure the homeowner's association is thrilled with my gift to his neighborhood.

So, I owe a big apology to Brandon for the trouble I caused.  Also, the squirrels jumping around the yard had better watch out; I'm coming for you.  

Kindness can get you a long way.  Lately I've noticed that people are becoming very impolite.  It's been rather bothersome and a source of frustration as of late.  You see, I'm from the south.  We have this thing called Southern Hospitality of which I'm very accustomed to.  Seriously, you should read about us.  I promise you we're not all inbred hicks walking around barefoot.

I try to make it a point to say "Thank You" whenever someone does something for me.  Even if it's something they were supposed to do, it never hurts to display gratitude.  It's my little way of showing that I recognize that someone did something  for me.  Waitress fills my drink: I say "Thank You."  Guy at the drive-thru window hands me my order: I say "Thank You."  My wife fixes dinner;  Once again I say "Thank You."  It's just a respect thing.  You should try it sometime.  I bet you'll notice a little better out of the person you said it to as a side-effect.

It's not a pretty thing when non-technical people try to use technical terms.  I understand that they think that using these mysterious words they hear will make communication easier.  In reality it doesn't do anything but confuse us. 

The title of this post is the phrase for discussion.  A coworker walks into the IT office area and points towards a workstation which we use for running long batch jobs.  It's a workhorse that we happen to have decorated with a side window and neon lights.  I can only hope that he was so awestruck by the beauty of the light that he said the wrong thing.  In reality he's just confused and was trying to sound cool so that he could try to engage us socially.  "CPU" sounds way cooler than "computer", right?  Someone should really tell him that technical people tend to be introverted.

Money can't buy intelligence, that's for damn sure.  I'm driving along tonight and I notice this BMW driving along with a VERY low tire.  Being the good natured person that I am, I roll up beside of the car and motion for him to roll his window down.  Little did I know, the universal cranking motion that one uses to notify another person to roll his or her window down also translates to "let's race".  At least it must if you are a dumb kid driving an expensive car that mommy and daddy bought you.  Oh well, I tried to help.  The jokes on him, that car had low profile tires and was basically on it's rim.  I guess it won't kill his parents to buy a replacement wheel for the car once that one gets a taste of the asphalt. 

I would love to meet the geniuses that produce this stuff.  The other night I assembled a desk my wife had picked out.  I should point out early on in this post that I consider myself extremely handy.  Anyway, let me describe how this furniture is put together in the most convoluted fashion.  Seriously, what are the engineers thinking? 

The desk had me assemble the bottom 2 "legs" which is really a filing cabinet and a set of shelves.  Next I assembled the hutch.  Here's where it gets stupid:  Next I attached the the damn desktop to the hutch upside down.  Now I have this massively heavy hutch/desktop assembly which is 6 ft wide by 3 ft tall by 3 ft deep (desktop) that I must now flip over and place onto the "legs".  Oh yes, did I mention that in order to place this awkwardness onto the "legs" I must line up about 10 holes with their respective metal dowels?  Excellent design!  I would have attached the desktop to the legs first, but that would have covered up the holes needed to attach the hutch.  Lesson 1: Have a person handy to help you pick up maneuver things.

For those of you who have never been blessed to construct one of these monstrosities, let me elaborate.  Department stores sell this furniture which looks like it might be real wood, but it's really just laminated particle board.  The fine people who design this stuff came up with an ingenious method of attaching 2 pieces of wood perpendicular to each other.  On one piece a metal dowel is screwed into a pre-drilled hole.  One the other is a cam which is inserted into another predrilled hole with a perpendicular hole drilled to it.  The dowel slides through the perpendicular hole and into the cam which is turned to lock the 2 piece of wood together.  It sounds great in theory, but unfortunately the threaded dowel only has 1/4" of thread and is extremely easy to rip out of the particle board.  Lesson 2:  Be careful when picking up the furniture.

The piece I assembled was very well labeled, but I've done some that were not.  Regardless make sure you are aware of where the finished edges are in relation to each other.  You'd feel pretty silly if you spent a couple of hours assembling something only to realize that you put something on upside down at step 2 or 57.  I didn't make this mistake, but it could easily be done.

Sometimes you just get what you pay for.