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Winter Walk

Wnter Walk

It started out this morning at 27° and never hit 40 all day and we almost didn’t go back out after breakfast at the usual place, but late this afternoon we got off our duffs and went for a walk in the woods.

After a couple miles of trekking the temperature didn’t seem that cold, so we dropped top for the drive to dinner. Hmmm, not too bad. After dinner though it was good it was only a little over a mile home, because after sitting inside 5 Guys for 30 minutes or so it seemed pretty cold.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1286

Dedication

I have spent the last couple of nights patching up posts and pages from the database hiccup. I’ve had to redo every one of the “Best Of” pages and about half of the other pages. As for posts, I’ve worked my way backwards through all of them back to July of this year. Most of times it is obvious that a post is messed up, the Miata Top Transitions will be missing from the top count at the bottom of a post or a blatant shorten story, but for thoroughness I’ve been checking every post.

The repair process goes like this, I find the post number and search for it inside a backup copy of the database. Once the line is located I copy it and paste into a word document. The header and footer code is stripped and every instance of /r/n is replaced with a paragraph mark. Then every ‘/ is replaced with just a ‘. For good measure I copy the results into notepad to convert any smart quotes into plain ones. The whole thing is then pasted into WordPress’s empty post editor box. That is how I really know the post/page is corrupt, it may display correctly on the web, but the post editor box is blank.

It is tedious, but for me right now, easier than writing a real post.

Started down, went up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1285

The Turner Housesitting Service

When one of our engineers heads back up north to visit family this time of year he gets programmer Mark to look after his house. Mark checks the mail, waters the plants and feeds the household menagerie. Last year when Tom and family returned they found all the light bulbs in the dining room hanging fixture were pink. As a bonus he placed a pink princess nightlight in the master bedroom.

This year Mark decided to elevate the madness just a bit. The night before they returned he placed a 18″ x 24″ yard sign on the front lawn. On the inside he placed a life size poster of himself in the master bath. And if that wasn’t enough, he placed a couple of the ThinkGeek Annoy-a-trons set to cricket strategically in the kitchen and in the upstairs bonus room.

The yard sign got an mildly amusing chuckle, the poster elicited a scream from the wife and the crickets almost prompted a call to the local pest control guy.

I’m thinking between this year and next, Tom will make friends with a neighbor that he can convince to house sit for them in 2014.

Where Are My Shoes?

Got up this morning to go to work and my shoes were not where they were supposed to be. I checked in the bedroom closet, I looked in the living room, I looked everywhere. Twice. No shoes anywhere.

When we get home from work we enter through the garage and come into what we’ve named the Computer Room (for obvious reasons), but it is also the shoe taking off room and the coat hanging up room and the dropping the mail on the desk room and the Goodwill donation staging area.

Monday night we had to do some running around and our Goodwill pile was big enough that we decided to drop it off while we were out. That’s right, on Tuesday morning my shoes were in a box of similar items in the back room of the local Goodwill Store. The heck of it is, looking back, I think I carried my own shoes out of the house and put them in the trunk.

Brian Bowls 300

300 Game

It only took until the 3rd frame of the 3rd game to get there too!

I got to go Cosmic Bowling. The Valve Store(tm) purchased a lane and the rights to have up to 8 employees bowl for free from 7 to 11. They were having trouble getting volunteers to go and Donna happened to be talking with the ringleader of the event this afternoon and agreed to have the two of us do it.

We got to bowl as much as we wanted, we each were given 2 drink tickets and they had hors d’oeuvre before hand plus nibbles at every lane. Even the shoe rental was free. We ended up with a total of five people bowling, Donna and I, another couple, Heather and Al and one of Donna’s department members, Mary.

There were prizes for the top three scoring teams and a prize for the most spirited. Our team of non-bowlers won nothing, but we did help raise nearly $10,000 for a local children’s charity. All five of us had a great time and I bet all of us will wake up in the morning with a sore shoulder.

The Smithsonian Called

Bid AuctionOn occasion at the Valve Store(tm) we do some modernization to or buy new equipment. The replaced stuff that is beyond our usefulness get discarded, recycled or offered up to employees to bid on once a quarter.

Right now we are in the middle of revamping and rearranging the entire assembly floor, so there is even more stuff that is unneeded. Now once a month they place the items in a spot somewhere in the plant, put an Avery label with a number on them and publish a list. The November bid list was chock full of about 50 items that I had zero interest in, but there were plenty of people who did, as only 2 items went unsold, a typewriter #6 and an overhead projector #45.

I can’t even remember when it was the last time anyone used an overhead projector for a meeting or presentation. And where did they dig up the typewriter? The young women in HR who creates the lists was so unfamiliar with the thing that she didn’t even know that typewriter is one word.