Dysmey Post Archive > Pages for 2006 > Start of Summer 2006 Edition
Most of the past two weeks was spent either (a) making new hard drive images for each of the library's three types of iMacs, then installing them on the iMacs; or (b) getting my new Visual Studio 2005 to work so that I can do mobile Web projects again. The last is important because I want to expand beyond the two Web applications already available for mobile devices.
I upgraded the print job release stations, and turned off duplexing (double-sided printing) on the public printers in reference. That will help make the printers last longer.
I have taken no vacations, apart from a day or two, since I was hired full-time. As a result I got a big stash of vacation days that will vanish at the end of August unless I take them soon. So I decided to take mine on the last week of June through the Fourth of July, and the first week of August.
The second vacation is meant to coincide with a visit to Elwood for my spelunking expedition, which is not anyone's idea of fun. I am doing this on my vacation in order to save on sick days (which accumulate) while burning off vacation days (which don't).
The week after Memorial Day was very busy. First comes the workstation meeting. Then, instead of a Mac OS Server meeting, came sitting for fifteen minutes in an empty conference room because I was misled about a change of meeting time. That was followed by fifteen minutes of waiting for a goosedrowner to dissipate before I could return to the library. The next day was a class on how to wean oneself from Vignette, the university content-management system that the university is dropping as too expensive.
On the first of June I took the day off yesterday to get work done on myself and my car.
I went to the doctor yesterday morning. The clinic was busier than usual, and I had to wait a half-hour before I could see the doctor. I let the doctor know that I had aches in both sides of my lower abdomen every time something passes through the colon there. It sounds like it is time for another spelunking expedition, for which I am half a year overdue. My doctor will let the enterologist that I had the last time know that I am requesting one.
I went to Sparks in Muncie for a tune-up, only to discover that the proprietor there thought that I was coming in yesterday. He fitted me in after lunch. After that I went to Miller Tire; there I was told that there is nothing wrong with my parking brake, but that I had to make an appointment to have my heater unit replaced because the place was short on mechanics. I will come in on Saturday morning. (On Saturday they found nothing wrong with the heater, but flushed the cooling system just in case.)
At one I handed over my car. It was a boring two hours during which I visited Rural King. They cleared my car computer to turn off the Check Engine light and they replaced my spark plugs. They could not replace my starter, even though part of it is burned out, because there was no replacement part available in town. Regrettable, that, because the next day the Check Engine came back on.
Madre went to the hospital to get the other knee replaced with a prosthetic like the one in the other knee. After about a week she returned. She's moving about slowly at first, but after a week of physical therapy she'll be walking just fine.
Some time ago O'Reilly announced a new Ruby language magazine called Red Letter. I sent a subscription for it several months ago. The first issue was supposed to come out in April, but so far I have received nothing either in print or by e-mail. Something is amiss. I have sent an e-mail to the magazine's subscription address asking when the first issue will be put out; so far I have gotten nothing. I am beginning to doubt that I will get anything.
It is an easy thing to make a pledge like Don't be evil
. It is a lot more difficult to carry out that pledge when the world around you is evil. This is to be expected, for when each and every human being is born with a hole in their souls and a desperate need to be the center of all things, evil both individual and social is unavoidable. A pledge like don't be evil
would have been broken or compromised before too long.
Google has found itself admitting as much this week. Google submitted to censorship demands of the Chinese State in order to do business in China as google.cn. Google found the experience "uncomfortable", but it thought it could make a difference to the Chinese people. It never occurred to Google that the only entity that makes a difference in China is the Chinese State, whose giant collective butt all must kiss to do business in China. (Wal-Mart's nose is a nice brown color, yes?)
Sooner or later Google will have to make the painful decision:
We are paying a heavy price for being peaceful; there are no bodies of dead marines being dragged through the streets of Somaliland like there were in Mogadishu. There are no international troops to keep peace in Somaliland. We maintain our demobilization and our peace ourselves. There are no foreigners kidnapped or no hijacks. Nothing sensational happens. It is just a very dull country that is getting on with its daily life, rebuilding.
—Edna Ismail, foreign minister of Somaliland.
The United States has been jerking around concerning the big lawless tribal region that was once Somalia. It won't recognize the only stable area of the region (Somaliland), probably for fear of offending the Saudis. It secretly backs the wrong side in a civil war in Mogadishu (the Muslim courts won). The only sensible thing it has done is to send the Navy to crack down on piracy along the Somali coast. It seems as if fear and ignorance are the only guiding principles of American foreign policy on the Somali tribes nowadays.