December 20, 2012
Dear Everyone:
Yikes! It’s
cold outside.
Well, yes. Tomorrow is,
officially, the first day of Winter.
The shortest day of the year.
And, according to some people, the
End of the World.
Or not. Depends a lot
on some interpretations of
ancient Mesoamerican calendars that we may,
or may not, understand.
According to said interpretations, the ancient Mesoamericans predicted
that The World (as they knew it) would end thousands of years in the
future (as they knew it.) A
pretty safe prediction, since no one would be around to say, “You got it
wrong!!!”
Or it may be our interpretation of what we assume is a calendar that is
wrong. When I was studying
Anthropology in college, there was a saying.
When archaeologists weren’t sure what something was used for by
prehistoric people, they (the archaeologists) would say, “We think it
had religious significance.”
Which was code for, “We have no
idea…”
So the whole End of the World (as we know it) Thing may be completely
off. Personally, I’m not
losing any sleep over it.
In the meantime, it’s still chilly, as in below freezing, in the predawn
hours.
I have a trick that I stumbled upon some years ago.
Whenever the temperature plummets below 40 degrees (Fahrenheit),
I pop my coat (and sometimes gloves) into the clothes dryer while I’m
pulling together lunch, unplugging the cell phone, packing all the
taking-to-work-with-me stuff.
When I’m actually ready to head out the door, the coat comes out
of the dryer toasty and warm.
As soon as I’m outside, the cold molecules in the air start attacking
the warm molecules in the coat, but the warm generally lasts until I get
into the car and can start the heater.
Feel free to give it a try.
In the meantime…
“Babette” ran out of data for me to “scrub”, although she keeps
mentioning something about “naming conventions” and may want me to
wander through the system “fixing” things sometime in the future.
However, for now, she also wants me to write up “How To…”
documents for the people who perform the actual
System Administrator
stuff. As in, “How to Add a
Person to a Workgroup”, or “How to Set Up a New Workgroup”.
“Babette” and I met about eleven or twelve years ago, when I was
training people on how to use a
document management system.
So she knows that I can write up “How To…” documentation that
anyone can understand. Which
I can.
But first, I have to know how to do it myself.
So now I’m on the phone with “Ted”, who used to be two cubicles
away from me. But then he
“moved on” to another job in another city.
He is still the person who knows more about the “How To…” stuff
in the system than anyone else.
And it’s all in his head.
“Ted” is speculating that “Babette” is contemplating “moving on” to
another job herself.
Personally, I suspect that this is really a method of getting “Ted” to
do a “brain dump” for me to “translate” into documentation.
Particularly since “Ted” uses a sort of stream-of-consciousness
method for showing me how to set something up.
A kind of
“oh-now-I-remember-before-you-can-do-X-you-have-to-do-Y-and-how-did-I-do-that-again?”
approach with a heavy emphasis on using “bookmarks” to get to a
particular location in the system, rather than a step-by-step means of
getting from Point A to Point B.
All of this will keep me busy for the rest of year, which “ends”
tomorrow. My last day in the
office until after
New Year’s Day.
“Jeannie” decided that we, including “Marshall”, will spend
Christmas with “Richard” and “Marge” in their new place in
Oregon.
So we’re both, “Jeannie” and me, scrambling to get things done
before we take off Sunday morning.
We’ll plan to get through the mountains and spend the night in
Medford, then continue on up to
West Linn on Monday.
This is it, for now. I still
have to buy snow chains for my car, just in case, before Sunday.
Every time I get a new car, I wind up buying snow chains.
Never actually had to use them but, better to have them and not
need them than the other way around.
“Jeannie” thinks there will be a “service” that lets you “rent”
chains to get through the snow, then “drop them off” on the other side.
Sounds nice, but have you ever tried to buy something at the
store, only to find that they’re out of it in your size?
I’d rather not have that happen in
Yreka.
Everyone have a Very Merry Christmas and a Safe and Happy New Year.
Love, as always,
Pete
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