Wed. Aug. 22, 2018 – feels like the home stretch

By on August 22nd, 2018 in Random Stuff

More rain overnight, although there were some breaks.

Mid week, and mom’s got a Dr appt this am, and her bridge club in the afternoon. That will give me time to get some things done. It’s starting to feel like I’ll be able to head home. In a few weeks we’ll be back for the “Celebration of Life” and that will open the scabs again. Maybe by then I’ll be better, but I’m still crashing into the loss a couple of times a day. “Wracked” describes it.

I’m putting this up on auto, in case I do get to sleep in a bit. I’m certainly tired enough.

n

OH, and our old ‘friend’ Ebola is back…

“Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DNC), South Africa, announced five new cases of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in the Mabalako hot zone of the North Kivu district, bringing the total number deaths to 55. Of the 69 currently infected with the disease, 13 are heath workers – just under 20%. ”

“”This epidemic (in north Kivu) is going to bring a lot of surprises. It is not like the epidemic in the Equator that we have known already. This epidemic will bring with it a lot of surprises: the number of cases is going up and the number of infected zones is increasing so it will take a long time to control this epidemic and for the anti-virals which the companies will provide us, they are ready to increase the doses,” said Muyembe.”

30 Comments and discussion on "Wed. Aug. 22, 2018 – feels like the home stretch"

  1. Harold Combs says:

    Heading to the last of August and the weather is much milder than in July. It was 66f when I started the commute and humidity is unusually low. Getting ready to spend a long weekend at the MIL place in Oklahoma. These “mini-vacations” are anything but. The wife gets to spend some quality time with her aging mother, going over genealogy and recording childhood stories. While I do maintenance chores, mowing, fixing fences, hanging doors, putting up new window coverings, inventorying the out buildings. We are supposed to see our son for his birthday but MIL says her truck needs new tires she only buys tires from a shop 80 miles from our sons house so that’s problematic. Now I hear that the truck won’t run so she wants me to spend Saturday on it … No end of fun.

  2. Nick Flandrey says:

    @harold, I hear ya brother.

    Goethe said “Who must do the difficult things? -He who can.” At least, that’s what the quote I had hanging on my wall said. Couldn’t find the original reference but it has provided me some measure of comfort as I beavered away over my life.

    And having recently (in historical terms) come to Kipling, The Sons of Martha lays it bare…

    http://www.online-literature.com/kipling/920/

    n

  3. Nick Flandrey says:

    Hurricane headed for HI.

    No one HERE would have to “rush to stock up” right???

    “Hawaii residents rush to stock up on supplies in anticipation for Category 5 Hurricane Lane that is barreling down on the islands bringing 160mph winds

    The National Weather Service issued a hurricane warning at 5pm on Tuesday
    Hurricane watch issued for Maui and other smaller islands with the possibility that Oahu and Kauai may later be included in an advisory
    Hurricane Lane ‘is forecast to move dangerously close to the main Hawaiian islands’ and bring with it a deluge of rain water and property damage
    The east side of the Big Island has taken the brunt from previous storms and is still reeling after lava from an erupting volcano wiped out entire neighborhoods”

    n

  4. Harold Combs says:

    Hurricane headed for HI.

    As I recall the last hurricane to hit HI was durring the filming of the first Jurassic Park movie.

  5. Greg Norton says:

    No one HERE would have to “rush to stock up” right???

    Please. The HEB near my house had gas lines and empty bread/water/egg shelves in response to the *Winter* storm warnings in January. Any snow that fell was gone by noon the next day, and the last time I checked, trucks can drive through a few inches of snow.

    I waited in a gas line for an hour in San Antonio last Labor Day weekend just so that we could get home. Sales volume was *16 times* normal demand for the holiday in the city — in other words, people topping off whenver they got a chance — and all 200 pumps at Buc-ee’s in New Braunfels had bags over the nozzles despite daily deliveries. Hopefully, this upcoming holiday weekend won’t be a repeat; that doesn’t appear to be the case.

    Based on what I saw last year, in a real SHTF scenario, the I35 corridor would collapse quickly. The next hurricane hitting the Texas coast will be a dress rehearsal.

  6. Greg Norton says:

    As I recall the last hurricane to hit HI was durring the filming of the first Jurassic Park movie.

    They’ve had a few since then.

    If you have family or other interests in HI, watch the Navy’s Tropical Prediciton site. I don’t trust NOAA this year, ever since they projected the first storm of the season in the Caribbean hitting Texas when the center was still a week from the US.

  7. MrAtoz says:

    Ugh. We have a gig around Portland on Monday. Molalla River School District opening. Looks like a nice area, except for Portland. I wonder if any “Grimm” creatures will pounce on us.

    Next month, for Hispanic Heritage Month, MrsAtoz has a gig at the NSA (third interview coming up next week). Yes, that one. I’ll be going and they are already checking up on me. Where were you born, out of the country lately, how long is your … You know, the usual. I’ll yell ” I voted for tRump” when I walk through the doors.

  8. Greg Norton says:

    Ugh. We have a gig around Portland on Monday. Molalla River School District opening. Looks like a nice area, except for Portland. I wonder if any “Grimm” creatures will pounce on us.

    The “Twilight” movies movie were also filmed in Portland *except* for the high school, which is in Kalama, WA. Oregon schools have such poor maintenance that the producers couldn’t find a suitable building within reasonable driving distance south of the Columbia.

    Molalla is far enough out that you should avoud the usual cr*p east of 205.When you watch “Cops” pay attention during the opening credits to the call to “132nd and Bush” — that’s the Eastside.

    I still get email for the Silverton Palace theater, the next town south, and if you can squeeze in an extra day this weekend, Newport is nice this time of year (we stay at Hallmark and recommend Nana’s Irish Pub).

    PDX is a great airport to get into and out of quickly. It is worth a look even if you are headed to Seattle since Sea-Tac is a prennial construction zone.

  9. Chad says:

    Don’t forget to donate to Wikipedia. It’s not without its faults, but it helps way more than it hurts. I can hardly think of anyone who doesn’t use it. It’s probably one of the purest examples of the original purpose of the web.

  10. lynn says:

    “Netflix Wants to Avoid Paying the Apple Tax”
    https://www.thurrott.com/apple/166182/netflix-wants-avoid-paying-apple-tax

    “Looks like Netflix, one of the highest grossing apps on the App Store, no longer wants to give its money to Apple. The company is testing a new sign-up process for Netflix on iOS that no longer uses iTunes for its subscription service, reports TechCrunch.”

    “The company has started testing the new payment method in 33 countries around Europe, Latin America, and Asia where users can no longer use iTunes to pay for Netflix. Instead, Netflix takes users to its mobile website to let users pay for its service directly with the company. This way, Netflix no longer needs to give a 30% cut in the first year of subscription to Apple, and the 15% cut after the first year.”

    Hmm, I see lawsuits in the future in which Apple will be accused of being a monopoly.

    And don’t think that Microsoft is not watching this.

  11. lynn says:

    Based on what I saw last year, in a real SHTF scenario, the I35 corridor would collapse quickly.

    There is a most excellent book about this. “Lights Out”. And yes, it is a two pounder.
    https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-David-Crawford/dp/0615427359/?tag=ttgnet-20

  12. Greg Norton says:

    “Looks like Netflix, one of the highest grossing apps on the App Store, no longer wants to give its money to Apple. The company is testing a new sign-up process for Netflix on iOS that no longer uses iTunes for its subscription service, reports TechCrunch.”

    Hmm, I see lawsuits in the future in which Apple will be accused of being a monopoly.

    Android phones dominate sales around the world.

    As for Microsoft, iTunes is a huge Azure customer, and the dirty secret of many third-party iOS apps is a dependence on .Net for backend reliability.

    Grown ups run Redmond now. They won’t mess with Apple like Gates or Monkey Boy Ballmer would have done in the past. The mature approach has done good things for the stock price, certainly much better than Monkey Boy’s antics.

  13. lynn says:

    Android phones dominate sales around the world.

    Don’t be a monopoly in your market place. Apple only allows certain apps to run on their iOS systems and they take a percentage of the action. Sounds like a monopoly to me. And Netflix has the bones to go after them.

    Grown ups run Redmond now. They won’t mess with Apple like Gates or Monkey Boy Ballmer would have done in the past. The mature approach has done good things for the stock price, certainly much better than Monkey Boy’s antics.

    Microsoft looks at the Apple Store and has revenue envy. If they could only make all Windows apps come through their store, their revenue would go up significantly. That is what Azure is all about, collecting a piece of the action.

  14. lynn says:

    “A.F. Branco Cartoon – Base Player”
    https://comicallyincorrect.com/5490-2/

    “The party of Open borders, sanctuary cities, and for abolishing I.C.E. show no signs of receding their policies that get people like Mollie Tibbitts killed. Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.”

    Wow, that perfectly illustrates the way that I feel about the murder of a USA citizen by an illegal alien.

  15. lynn says:

    Dilbert – “Jerry The Contract Employee”
    http://dilbert.com/strip/2018-08-22

    Because Jerry causes the software shop to crash with his crazy ideas and then leaves with the whole place burning to the ground.

  16. lynn says:

    A Message of Hope

    Uh, I don’t trust Rat to do anything nice for you. Maybe conk you out first before he eats you.

  17. Greg Norton says:

    Don’t be a monopoly in your market place. Apple only allows certain apps to run on their iOS systems and they take a percentage of the action. Sounds like a monopoly to me. And Netflix has the bones to go after them.

    Netflix users can pay the monthly fee in other ways, and the app is a free download. iTunes subscriptions are simply convenient for the user.

  18. Greg Norton says:

    Because Jerry causes the software shop to crash with his crazy ideas and then leaves with the whole place burning to the ground.

    To me, “Agile” is clever age discrimination. Adams nails it again.

    Adding insult to the injury, my wife’s friend, the English major with a 2.3 GPA, makes more money than I do as an “Agile Scrum Master” at Lockheed.

  19. Harold Combs says:

    “Agile” is the new buzzword where I work. This is a company where you can’t get a VM instance of windows stood up in 60 days and an actual physical system takes 9 months to provision. In addition, their outsourcer charges $100 a month for maintenance on Windows boxes and $400 for Linux (RHEL). Agile we are not.

  20. lynn says:

    Adding insult to the injury, my wife’s friend, the English major with a 2.3 GPA, makes more money than I do as an “Agile Scrum Master” at Lockheed.

    To me, an Agile Scrum Master is a person who tries to have a baby in one month with nine pregnant women.

  21. Greg Norton says:

    “Agile” is the new buzzword where I work. This is a company where you can’t get a VM instance of windows stood up in 60 days and an actual physical system takes 9 months to provision. In addition, their outsourcer charges $100 a month for maintenance on Windows boxes and $400 for Linux (RHEL). Agile we are not.

    I’m just glad I was either unemployed or in grad school during the “Extreme” fad.

    It was bad enough that my boss at the university was a fan of “Pair Programming”.

  22. MarkD says:

    So I do not work at the only company where being responsive to the customer is forbidden? Delays are 100% policy, not people, lack of resources, training, poor process, or technology. You should have known you’d need it today two weeks ago so we could jump your hurdles. Make it a month or more for a physical server.

  23. dkreck says:

    In in the new words department….
    http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2018/08/word-de-jour.html

    Yes! very nice. +1000

  24. DadCooks says:

    Too bad they got the location wrong. Try and put it in the front hole and see what kind of reaction you get, that is unless you are a pencil rick.

  25. Greg Norton says:

    To me, an Agile Scrum Master is a person who tries to have a baby in one month with nine pregnant women.

    Back at GTE in the 90s, the most useless person on the payroll was the “Six Sigma Black Belt”. I still have no clue what that title means.

  26. lynn says:

    It was bad enough that my boss at the university was a fan of “Pair Programming”.

    We are big fans of pair debugging around here. But not pair programming, that is just weird.

  27. Nick Flandrey says:

    I’m continuing to clean and do maintenance.

    Got a bit distracted. Dad kept logs of all the car trips, and most trips he took by any means. The first one with my mom, to meet her family was written by both of them. Most of that later trips were primarily him. Some are just a list of landmarks and when they hit them, but some are daily diary entries taking briefly about the food, sightseeing, travel, or very occasionally a person. Just enough editorial comments to be funny and interesting.

    Spent some time doing a long neglected chore for a neighbor and long time friend of our family. She wasn’t supposed to be home, and it was supposed to be a secret and surprise, but she didn’t take her trip and half way thru the work she stuck her head out the door to see what the dog had been barking at. Me working. Spent an hour chatting after that. It’s good to know my mom has friends close by, who’ve gone thru this already and who love her.

    n

  28. Nick Flandrey says:

    Hunt just delivered two foil wrapped packets, $450 and $600. Looking some more….

    n

  29. Harold Combs says:

    Speaking of useless “standards”. In 2000 MCI was “comitted” to being ISO9001 certified. We took the ISO9001 training and worked with the 9001 “execution team” and quickly discovered that in our case it simply consisted of ensuring that a process was documented and followed. It made no diference if the process was broken, as long as it was documented and followed it was “certified”. So we duitifully documented and enforced a LOT of crap processes. Process improvment wasn’t part of the process.

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