I hate computers

Pow...500G raid array...toast.
This is going to suck.

The dog and the grape

The other day, while eating grapes, one hit the floor. Thomas the dog of course was all over that. He didn't eat it though, he just carried it around in his mouth.

Everywhere Thomas went, the grape was sure to go.

"Thomas" I said.
"Someday that grape will grow up to be a raisin, and then what will you do?"
He just looked at me like I was nuts, as usual.

The ubiquitous mr. lovegrove

I thought that you knew it all
Well you’ve seen it ten times before.
I thought that you had it down
With both your feet on the ground.
I love slow...slow but deep.
Feigned affections wash over me.
Dream on my dear
And renounce temporal obligations.
Dream on my dear
It’s a sleep from which you may not awaken.

You build me up then you knock me down.
You play the fool while I play the clown.
We keep time to the beat of an old slave drum.
You raise my hopes then you raise the odds
You tell me that I dream too much
Now I’m serving time in disillusionment.

I don’t believe you anymore...i don’t believe you.

I thought that I knew it all
I’d seen all the signs before.
I thought that you were the one
In darkness my heart was won.

You build me up then you knock me down.
You play the fool while I play the clown.
We keep time to the beat of an old slave drum.
You raise my hopes then you raise the odds
You tell me that I dream too much
Now I’m serving time in a domestic graveyard.

I don’t believe you anymore...i don’t believe you.

Never let it be said I was untrue
I never found a home inside of you.
Never let it be said I was untrue
I gave you all my time.

--Dead Can Dance

Job or no Job?

Things have really started to get crazy in the last few months, work wise. Right now I could work 24 hours a day and still not have enough time for the clients that want more.

I've seen a lot more postings on craigslist.org for engineering jobs. Maybe something is going on.

Anyway, it seems the slump might be over.

So, things are good, work is interesting, and I have a number of different projects to keep me busy.

Of course, it's never easy. One of my clients is desperately trying to hire me. They're a smaller company right here in town that designs fuel cell systems. It involves a lot of things I'm interested in -- controllers, firmware, power electronics, fuel cell technology, etc.

They are saying a lot of interesting things. My engineering department, budget, put together the team, the tools, the equipment, the methods.

I just don't know.

Tom

A long long time ago, in a life far away, Tom and I were in business together. He's a Mechanical engineer, and I'm an Electrical engineer, so it seemed a good idea at the time. I was reading his blog today and thinking what he said about consulting....he's pretty much right on all of it.

There are two situations in consulting.... Not sleeping because you have tons of work with every client thinks they should be your top priority, and starving.

I spent most of the last year starving, like every other consultant I know. We took goofy jobs, cut our rates, listened to clients complain about money, market, and customers while we complained that they paid net-90. Now, things are crazy again. You go from nothing to 5 clients in a few weeks, and everyone wants a piece of you. You're stuck in that situation where you try to make everyone happy. The last thing you want to do is turn down a new project, walk into a current client meeting, and find out they spent that $750K they had for this project already and by the way just wrap up what your doing and we'll figure it out later. Cya.

So you work. You work and you wonder if they'll pay on time, or if the check will bounce, or if that last project you took on will push the whole house of cards down.

Having employees doesn't make it any easier -- it makes it harder. I've done that. There are two modes in consulting companies....hiring and firing. You're either hiring as fast as you can or firing as fast as you can. Each cycle means more computers, desks, software, unemployment insurance, health insurance costs, crazy payroll numbers, et al.

Add to that the fact that your projects are probably bigger, the checks are probably bigger, and your expenses are definitely bigger...and then those net-90 paying clients start to wear you down. Soon $2k behind becomes $50K, and work slows...and all your cards are on the floor.

And that's that.

Profit

So I hear on NPR last night that Exxon Oil pulled in 10 billion dollars in profits in the last 3 months.

Doesn't seem like a fair market competition situation to me.

Friday

The play was awesome... all my sons, Arthur Miller.
It's 5am...and believe me I'd rather be sleeping.
Off to the gym.

Busy

Busy. Work is busy, life is busy.
Play tonight, dinner party tomorrow, halloween party Sat, port tasting Sunday, David gray concert monday, dinner party Thursday...

Sleepy.

Work

Work work work....and not much else lately.

I'm ok with that.

Indoctrination

In times of great vexation
When one must choose between what’s right and wrong
Freedom, so they say,
Amounts to the choices you have made
Through all the arbitrary rationale concerning liberty
Freedom, I must say,
Exists within unconditioned minds

Reason has come of age

How can you be satisfied with things the way they are
When all that surrounds us now and so much more
Remains inside the keeper’s dark embrace?
The insatiable thirst for power has made
Idols out of mortals, gods into clay
Soldiers into heros, children into slaves
All damned
Desires
Their hopes betrayed

Who will suffer the laws
That state can decide your child’s education
Unless you pay the price?

Refrain (x2)
Who will suffer their laws?
Who will suffer their minds?
Who will suffer their words?
Who will suffer their designs?

--Dead Can Dance

I can see now

Ever loved a woman who made you feel tall?
Ever loved a man who made you feel small?
If you were a sailor
I'd raise the anchor
To sail the sea
In search of you and me
And god
Conjures currents to break our fragile boats
And both the innocent and the damned
Are swallowed up in his wake
If you were a huntress
I'd be your bow
For your silver arrows
To seek out his heart
Ever loved a woman who made you feel tall?
Ever loved a man who made you feel small?
Who are you to complain
For lack of understanding?
We are all created equal
In just one thing alone
Alone in your thoughts that can chew you through your life
They'll take you outwards to the dark edge of time
And there's nothing more dangerous
Than a man with nothing to lose
Nothing to live for
And nothing to prove

--Dead Can Dance

Kiss

Teeth

I need to start picking up hitchhikers

MEETinDENVER Wine social -- Sancerre

Event Link

Sancerre wasn't quite the sugar bomb I'd feared it might be. Anita actually brought a bottle that I liked quite a bit...but that's not particularly surprising since she does that on occasion.

There were a number of new people this time, and I'm ok with that. We like the new people.

View sean's pictures online

Football

Javon and me went to the bronco's football game on Sunday as part of a big brother/big sister event. The tickets absolutely did not suck at all.
5th row, goal.

Let them eat cake

Get your own fucking cake. This one is mine.

Nope

2 hour wait. Not doing that.

Sunday

I have a headache and I'm not thrilled about it.

I'm off for a massage soon. Who can deny a $12.50 hour long massage? Who cares if they're students. They typically don't fuck it up too much.

Later I need to meet Javon for some kind of bronco's thing for kids. Hopefully that won't take too long.... I still haven't finished cleaning up the house from the wine party on Friday.

How paranoid is paranoid enough?

How paranoid should you be when you're on the internet at work? Is the IT department logging all your emails, web pages, and data?

Maybe.

Your privacy is by design most vulnerable while working on someone else's computer system. Most companies allow incidental personal internet work while at the office. I mean, who actually doesn't get some personal emails at work? Maybe you just thought you'd check your pop3 email account at home. It's pretty likely that all that info is being stored somewhere.

Passwords, emails, page views, downloads, etc...all there somewhere...in a backup.

So how paranoid should you be? I tend to be paranoid. So what do you do? First, keep in mind that most pop3 email servers transmit information in the clear -- both your login password and the email itself.

If your paranoid like me, you use pop3 servers in Nassau, Bahamas, and only allow a ssl encrypted channel between the remote server and the client. Anyone in the middle just sees encrypted data.

Also, if your office uses microsoft exchange, all those emails are going to a server in IT anyway. Backed up...so does it matter if some personal emails are in there? Maybe.

So set up a private email folder on your local machine, with encryption and a login. Create rules that move all inbound personal emails there, bypassing the IT server.

Paranoid? Maybe.

Surfing the web? You're probably screwed. Content monitoring, page logging, etc. So now what? Set up a encrypted VPN channel from your local machine to some server somewhere (outside of the country would be ideal..but slower). Now all your internet access is encrypted. Someone in the middle gets nothing.

Paranoid?

Probably.

Free dog, no questions asked

The dog has decided lately that waking me up at 3AM every night is fun. All he wants to do is go look out in the back yard.

Yep, still dark.
Yep, still cold.

Dolt.

Eat healthy

98% fat free. Naturally juicy.

Cough one up for mother nature

The 1918 flu strain (H1N1) that probably killed 50 million people was sequenced recently after it's recovery from 80+ year old tissue samples. It had been theorized that H1N1 was likely a bird flu mutation that took key genes from human based influenza through a common vector (person or animal infected with both).

It seems now that this idea is wrong. H1N1 looks basically like a bird flu with few changes at all. Actually it looks a lot like H5N1, which is the bird influenza virus infecting millions of birds in Asia and now Europe.

If this one pops and we start seeing human to human infection (right now it's only bird -> human) then you can probably scratch off a couple of hundred million of your friends from the planet. Your immune system has never seen a H5 influenza virus before. Young, old, healthy, sick... we'll all be dead as dirt.

Raining

Raining.

The weekend winds down

Friday caramel social, Saturday at sue's place for cartoons, Saturday night port, Sunday morning massage, Sunday afternoon wine event, nap, cleaning, and here we are.

Busy weekend.

Tomorrow 5am workout, work in boulder, some wine thing afterwards. Thursday I have a play, and then Friday is the wine event here.

Saturday cooking with friends, Sunday some bronco thing with Javon.

MEETinDENVER Caramel social

Event Link

A couple of fondue pots full of caramel, appetizers, apples, nuts, cheese, chocolate, sprinkles, and a portable breathalyzer.

view Sean's pictures online
view Holly's pictures online

Ah, the love of the dark

5:30 this morning...and the clock is doing it's 'get your sorry ass out of bed' thing. Next week I'll probably have to be up at 5am to get my workouts in before driving to Boulder.

Those little joy's in life.

Miss you in Florida

Flashback

Circa 2000

Maybe I need a cat

Dark and cold

Well it's not only dark out...it's COLD. How do you go from 80's to 40's in one day? I guess I'll have to put the top on the jeep.

The boulder gig is fine. What they want isn't that complicated.

Went to Theresa's party last night. It was fun. The not-so-fun part was driving there in the freezing rain.

Dark

Christ it's dark as dirt out there.

Hiking

Went hiking in Rocky mountain national park on Sunday on the Colorado river trail. Apparently this little stream is the Colorado river.

Boulder gig

Looks like I start that Boulder gig tomorrow at 11am.

I have some things to do around the house today anyway...

I've been looking into cabins for Dec 30/31's in estes park. mmmm...hot tub.... just like old times.

Hiking, dinner

Hiking with H up in the rocky mountain national park, then dinner with Jeff and Mel.

Tired.

Going to bed.

Dog awaits rescue from the mothership

It's pretty clear to me that the dog is pissing out a signal by killing the grass in the back yard. I'll assume he's ready for extraction from the mother ship.

It would seem that his work here is done.

Beauty of a dream

The beauty of a dream is you don't let it go,
You don't ever let it go.

Once in a while a girl comes along
And opens your heart like a spam tin
Just how long can it take?
A bow bends, a bow breaks
And then when its time to return the key
She'll flash you a smile as she slams the door
But you didn't have to do that to me
To show me just how cruel love could be
And cruel's a show I kinda stared in before.

Listen: these things take time to reach ground zero
Change hits so heard and the world turns so slow
These things take time and next time you'll know
But the beauty of a dream is you don't let it go,
You don't ever let it go.

Now how come a hand as gentle as yours
Could soften a hard nut like this one?
It's a marvel to me
The way you wrapped my heart up completely
Whenever I roam I can't seem to find
As decent a love as the one I left behind
Keep it slow, though, for me girl
I never thought I'd sink in this deep
Oh darling, I'm sinking like a bug in a peach.

Listen: these things take time to reach ground zero
Change hurts so good and the world screams hello
These things take time but this time I know
But the beauty of a dream is you don't let it go,
You don't ever let it go.
You don't ever let it go.
We won't ever let it go.

And I believe in the promises I made you
And I mean to keep them over and over and over again
Boom! there's a canon for the first twenty years
Boom! there's a canon for the next.

It's a marvel to me
I never thought I'd sink in this deep

--Thomas Dolby

The couch of NAP

Any reading on the couch for me is more aptly regarded as a 'pre-nap'.