As I muscle things at work back onto shape by sheer force of will (I'm serious--that's what it's like), a weblink that Brad showed me gives me the first real belly laugh in weeks. You've got to see it--here's the link. I think it works best if you played video games throughout the '80s and early '90s (I didn't, but I think it was hilarious anyway).

By the way, work is beginning to come together, and we're all beginning to feel human again. Either that or I've gone off the deep end and didn't notice it.

Maybe both! (Heh heh. Heh heh. Um, yeah.)

Alyssa my darling girl, my first born bright little star:

I tell you lovingly for the umpteenth time that when you give me and your mother an envelope to open up with a present inside, you don't need to put so much glue on your project that the entire thing is glued hopelessly shut.

At least you never seem to mind much ("Oh well, Daddy--you can still see what's inside, kind of."). That's my girl.

After showing the kids pics of my old Vanagon Camper last night and putting them to bed, I spent an hour looking at VW campers on eBay, forlornly trying to figure out how to buy one again cheaply.

I am so pathetic.

I upgraded my Mac OS X laptop to 10.2.8 and lost my network settings. I rebuilt them quickly, but had to run "Repair Permissions" to get them to stay. It's pronounced Mac OS "Ten" by the way, not "ex."

Of course, I've just spent a week upgrading Windows XP machines with Blaster worm protection and numerous other updates, including a modem upgrade that rendered the modem useless.

Yep, this is job security.

Looks like VW's new Microbus is still slated for production in the 2006 model year, according to AutoWeek magazine.

I don't know, though. It seems that Ford might discontinue the Econoline in 2006 and replace it with a lighter version from their UK division: the Ford Transit. VW may not make a camping version with a poptop bed, but I'm pretty sure that GTRV will make one for the Transit.

Someone asked me today in the Ollie's parking lot if "they still make those things," regarding my van. Someone asks me this at least once every few weeks. Is my van that unusual?

They still make full-sized conversion vans. Really. they do.

I just wanted (also) to note that when I ranted about PowerSchool last week, I was ranting not about PowerSchool (which I believe in), but about my support setup. I'm not happy at all with the way we support PowerSchool, but the meeting we had last week was a great step in the right direction.

I say this because my rant post has apparently been making the rounds, unfortunately. Just wanted to be clear.

I just wanted to note that my old Sesame Street Vitamin post continues to garner comments. People are sharing the phone number to persuade the old manufacturer (McNeil, it seems) to produce the vitamins again (the number is 800-962-5357, by the way). It seems that the manufacturer is getting a significant amount of feedback, too.

Hey, they are good vitamins. They were the only ones on the shelves that were well balanced, too (the others have odd amounts of various vitamins).

Alyssa yanked her front tooth partway out in a bizarre jumping rope incident. The doctor on call said to take her to Hershey Medical Center to remove the tooth completely. Denise drove to Hershey Med. They refused to look at her (they didn't have a dentist on staff).

So they told Denise to take her to York (50 minutes away) or to call our own dentist. Our own dentist (who is awesome, by the way) told us that the previous advice was ridiculous--Alyssa could sleep on it and see if the tooth came out or tightened up (my own thoughts all along--it was crooked, but not dangling).

It's been two days--the tooth stayed in, just a bit crooked. But now Alyssa wants it to fall out so that the Tooth Fairy gives her a little something for it. Unfortunately, Aunt Lisa told her that the Tooth Fairy leaves her one hundred dollars.

I told Alyssa that one hundred pennies is more like it...

Cool. Koyaanisqatsi is being performed at the Whitaker Center in Harrisburg on September 29. This isn't just a movie showing--Phillip Glass is performing the soundtrack live to accompany the screening.

Kevin just lent me the DVD of this film, too--I just watched it last week (with the kids, no less--they were fascinated).

Despite disagreements over the truth of this rumor, here it is straight from the horse's mouth: New Line Cinema will run back-to-back Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King viewings on December 16.

The first two films will be show in the week leading up to the The Return of the King's release, it's true. But the entire trilogy will also be shown together on one night as stated here on the films' official website:

"...on Tuesday, December 16, participating theaters will show a one-time-only marathon of both Extended Edition prints followed by an 11pm screening of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. "

More details are on the films' official site here.

Could I sit through ten hours of film? I think so. My wife definitely thinks I can, but that's extrapolated from a "discussion" we had the other day about my, um, "ability" to concentrate on information in video form...

To any radio or TV announcers in the area, Carlisle is pronounced "CarLISLE."

Carlisle.

Again, Carlisle. Accent on the second syllable, not the first.

But who am I to talk? I'm "obviously not from Lancaster County," as evidenced by my (now corrected) improper pronunciation of Turkey Hill (I emphasized "Turkey," but "Hill" is stressed).

And I used to pronounce "Spooky Nook Road" like it's spelled, not the correct Lancaster County pronunciation "Spukky Nuk Road" (I can't even properly render this sound in text).

And I have no idea what the town name of Salunga means in German. Can any wise Lancastrians help me out here?

Q: What do you call two days with rain in Pennsylvania?

A: A weekend.

Hey, today's meeting that I bored you with in yesterday's blog entry went really well. I think we'll be able to wrap up some issues and then pull back from things.

I like the term I wrote yesterday too, "caught in the crossfire of incompetence." Sometimes we all feel like that, right?

(OK Brad, I've left myself wide open--say it. You know you want to.)

:-)

Without getting into too much detail, there's a new program at work we've been supporting that has essentially cost me one of my staff for six months now. To complicate the issue, people are calling our vendor for support, but sometimes us for support, generating different answers for questions depending on who they talk to, or who we talk to, or who anyone talks to. Did you follow all that? We all don't seem to follow it well at all.

Supporting this product has become impossible with everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They call me when they feel like it, call someone else when they feel like it, demand instant response for crises at the last possible minute, and then wonder why they can't get cohesive answers.

Yes, I'm simplifying things a bit. Good people who just want to get their jobs done right are caught in this mess, too. It's a shame they're caught in the crossfire of incompetence.

Now I've actually heard that this product is a "power thing for Dave and the tech guys." Wow. That's amazing.

I called for a meeting tomorrow. The most "powerful" card you have to play in any situation is to walk away, right? I plan to pull my department fully out of this project. I will put the lie to the "power rumor." We never supported the old product to this degree, and we certainly have more than enough to do with our current workload. My people are killing themselves for nothing. Let the vendor earn the thirty-five thousand bucks we pay for support each year like they used to--the only point I've been striving to make for six months.

Um, if you even got this far, wow. Thanks for reading. I feel better, anyway.

When we worked at Denny's in City Line, people used to ask us how we coped. We joked back "We just learn to drink. Heavily." Um, I think that's good advice again, right? (Yes, I'm just joking. At 40, I can't hold liquor like I could at 20 anyway)

Alyssa was very hesitant about going to kindergarten this year ("None of my friends are in my kindergarten class! I'll never see any of them again!").

She made the transition smoothly, however ("You know, my teacher is great--she's kind and nice and wonderful--she's just so sweet.")

You have to hear her to get the distinct image of a seemingly 25 year-old discussing her new kindergarten...

Wow--time to come up from the depths and begin with the weblog again.

Hello--it's long past time to be back.

Now, what to say?

I've not dropped the weblog--I've just been slammed with tech work at my job. Projects that couldn't be done earlier in the summer have combined with record-breaking tech requests to make my life a living--um, a living bad place.

For instance, we got 100 tech requests yesterday (yes, in one day), breaking the previous record of 65 in one day set a couple of years ago. In fact, we actually got more--our secretary stopped at 100 because she didnt' have the heart to enter more requests into the database.

We're all at the point of insanity at the office, but they say in my case it wasn't a long trip at all...