The Professor's Lair

Uhmmm

2009-06-21T22:37:00.003-04:00

Alot has happened since my last post...graduation...Cub Scouts...and...uh...oh yeah...AND ENDLESS STRING OF PROFESSIONAL REJECTIONS!!! I'm not bitter though. I realize that it come with the territory...and by that I mean the area in which I live. If this part of the state were any more backwater...it would be a third world country. Only one time in my life have I been told that I was "over qualified" for a job and now it has become a constant in my daily existence. The fact that there are so many experienced technicians looking for work has put me into the low end of the hiring spectrum. So here I sit. Too qualified for McDonald's and not experienced enough for Bristol Meyer.

I may cry.

Isn't it time yet?!?

2009-05-24T11:06:00.001-04:00

I'm going through withdrawl here....

Better than a hard day's work...

2008-08-20T17:11:00.003-04:00

For those of you not familiar with the midwest....this is what is known as a "decent" catch. 50 pounds, 44 inches.

Find your way into the world young man...

2008-08-12T10:49:00.001-04:00

And so another school season begins. I send Seth off to make his way...watching as he bounces down the stairs and to the bus. You pin all your hopes and dreams to their first day back, only to wish that the summer would have never ended.

*sigh*

Fear Mongers Strike Again...

2008-08-11T09:33:00.001-04:00

After two days of fighting, the world finally takes notice of the state of war between Russia and the Georgian Republic...or rather one part of the world takes notice.

The price of oil jumped $2 today on "news" of the "conflict" in that area. Forget the fact that that area produces a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the region. Speculators cite that there are "major oil transport routes" in that region. Buy a globe people.

This just goes to show that a dumb excuse is not always better than none.

Newsworthy(?)

2008-08-08T23:03:00.001-04:00

Pakistan teeters on the brink of impeechment and possible revolution; Russia and it's satellite countries pound each other with military might in the early morning hours; nations meet in a communist country for pure competition, and the top story on CNN....Senator John Edwards admits to having an affair. So What?

Im sure there are more pressing issues out there right now than where he's been putting his hoo-hoo.

Welcome to the glorious world of Journalism America Style. Oh yeah, the second most popular story on CNN today? Obama takes his family on vacation.

I may have to stay away from the news for a couple of days....

Blogger Buddy

2008-08-07T13:01:00.002-04:00

This is just a quick post for my relatives to let them know that we are still alive and doing well...I suppose. It is also to post a link for those of you out there who use Blogger on Vista machines. There is a new sidebar gadget out for vista that lets you post from your sidebar without opening a web browser.

http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=c02ee13e-11e1-4a3b-b33c-7a1b8f3b4671

In fact, I'm using it to make this post as we speak :D

From the mouths of babes....

2008-06-26T11:35:00.002-04:00

We spend the first few years of our children's lives trying to get them to talk...and then we spend the rest of our lives trying to keep them from saying something stupid. It's always an interesting time when your child learns new words and phrases, especially when those new words and phrases are of the "colorful" variety....like the other day.

Seth and I were at mom and dad's cabin when Seth noticed that the place was full of wasps. He ran outside to where we were and asked GMA to come and kill the wasp and that she should hurry because the wasp "looks pissed". Yup, pissed. As if that isn't enough, he has also begun to speak in "chat". When he asked me for an apple I said "what's the magic word?" and I was answered with the letters P-L-Z. Good grief, my son is an official Sign-o-the times. I guess I'm going to have to put my foot down....PDQ.

I'm officially a weirdo...

2008-06-18T22:53:00.003-04:00

...at least according to my son I'm sure. It all started with a trip to the doctor today in which the good doc discovered (by some poking and prodding) that my son was constipated. I was given a prescription for a laxative and orders to give it to him until "nature took it's course". The only way to be sure, since I don't normally escort my son to the bathroom anymore, is to ask. I called him aside and told him that I "need to know when you poo"...and the look I received back was priceless. This dazed and confused look was followed with a timid "why?", to which I could only explain what the laxative was for...and of course my words were wasted on a seven year old.

So now here I sit, a strange old man in my son's eyes...with a strange fascination about his bowel movements and a two year supply of mystery powder that gets served in apple juice.

The joys of parenthood...asking questions of your own children that would get you thrown in jail if it were someones kid other than your own.

JAILBREAK!!

2008-06-17T19:23:00.002-04:00

Well, for me anyways. It's a rare moment when Seth and Grandma are both gone at the same time and I have the house to myself. It's a time to reflect, consider my options and SWEEP UP ALL THE SKIN MY KID HAS SHED ALL OVER MY DESK!! This last week, he has managed to shed his sunburn on my desk, in my keyboard, in my mouse and in my chair. It' has been like living with a lizard that needs hand cream.

But enough about that, let's move on to school.

Some of you know that I'm currently taking some summer classes online and I may as well say that I'm loving one class and hating the other. The strange thing is....I'm hating the class that doesn't have a homework schedule and gives me six months to finish. This is no good for a professional procrastinator...I can just see it now...five months go by and I have to cram thirty assignments into a four week period. I'm doomed.

There are just too many things to do here besides homework now that the high waters have subsided..err...as long as dad doesn't find me and use me for free labor to repair the cabin that was flooded a couple of days ago.

Shhhh....I won't tell if you don't

I know, I know...

2008-06-15T19:10:00.001-04:00

....he had time to redo his site but not to put a new post up.....yeah, well....deal with it.

Hell and High Water...

2008-06-10T11:39:00.003-04:00

It's been an interesting couple of days here in the valley....and the name of the post says it all. The first indicator of how the week was going to go was picking my son up from his moms and discovering that he had been swimming all week without any sunblock. I now have a whimpering, quivering mass of tears wandering half naked around the house until the sunburn subsides. No amount of lotions, sprays, cool baths or daddy kisses is helping. The same day that I picked up Seth, the news reports began about flooding north of us in the Indianapolis area. This was a concern for us in the fact that Indianapolis is the watershed for the river down here. The next day, reports began rushing in that crews were reinforcing levees and bridges were beginning to collapse. The devastation can be followed on a direct line from the Indy area to here, the water is coming and there was no escape. To top off everything, Grandma (yes I said Grandma) decides to drive home from Nancy's house this morning and has a wreck in Spencer. No injuries except the car, but here is the point...she drove against the wishes of everyone involved because there is absolutely no route open from Nancy's house to here...everything is either under water or has the bridge collapsed. Yet the ornery old gal did it anyway.

Welcome to my world..a world of the strange, contrive and the just plain wrong.

Sigh

2008-05-31T23:27:00.002-04:00

It's finally happened, I knew it would. While I've never considered myself to be a prolific writer, I have nonetheless managed to slug my way through several writing intensive classes and have the occaisional paper published. Tonight is apparently going to be completely different. Instead of sitting down to a keyboard and magically pounding out a ten page paper in an evening from start to finish, I am sitting here struggeling with a 25 line technical writing assignment. 25 stinking lines, nothing serious either. I mean it's not like I was asked to combine the New Testement and the Qur'an into a new text using neoclassical twists on Shakespearian styles as a technical manual for a left handed smoke changer (don't ask, that one just flowed from the fingertips, you'll have that this late at night. Stick around Im sure it will get stranger).

But I digress....

Reality Check In Progress...Please Stand By

2008-05-15T22:32:00.003-04:00

Another semester ends and it is once again time to take stock of my life. Good grief, what have I done? I let my blogging lapse in order to concentrate on my classes (not that anyone is out there waiting for my next post with angst) and after careful review I have come to the following conclusion: BLAH!

While my immediate family will tell you with much glee that I'm a much better person now that I'm not working in prisons, I respond with this....at least I knew who/what I was then. I was a leader, a respected veteran and above all I was feared by those who had reason to do so. Quick actions and a piercing glare were my trademarks. Now I spend most of my time looking away from people, not from shame but from fear of being labeled a dirty old man. You see, it's hard for someone my age (thirty *cough, sputter* something) to go to college classes without being labeled as some kind of weirdo by at least one member of the opposite sex. I spend all day sitting in classes and walking the campus doing my best to avoid an "Oh My God, he just smiled at me" moment. It was a lot easier at the prison, at least I had a captive audience.

So there it is, bad punctuation and all. I've put off any hope of a relationship until graduation seeing how I'm old enough to be everyone's dad (well, crazy old uncle anyway).

America's Pastime......the blame game.

2008-01-13T21:08:00.000-05:00

This post is a few days late...and I apologize, but I do have other things to deal with in my life other than pointing out the idiocy that has become modern culture. I will try my best though :D

A few days ago I came across an article on CNN's website informing the world that a golf announcer had said something about Tiger Woods that could (note I used the word could) have been construed as containing racial overtones. She apologize and Tiger accepted...'nuff said, unless you happen to be a fat loudmouthed "preacher" named Al Sharpton.

Sharpton, in my opinion, thrives on the tension he creates by drawing attention to what I consider "light" incidents and turning them into public grandstand fiascoes. Pounding his chest and claiming to represent "the downtrodden" he is living proof that if you beat a dead horse long enough, it may eventually be nudged an inch. While he claims to be a peaceful and honorable man, he has been caught on record as speaking inflammatory comments about Jews, Mormons and anyone that is not black.....but this does not make him a racist bigot. Now I'm confused.

The moment someone speaks out against Sharpton, they are automatically labeled as a racist and portrayed in media political cartoons as a Klan loving skinhead. So....I guess racial pride is OK as long as it's disguised with the cover story of being support for a minority....but only as long as it's the correct minority.

I've thoroughly confused myself beyond the hope of rescue....and they NyQuil is kicking in.

AND IN THIS CORNER......

2008-01-04T17:36:00.000-05:00

Monday creeps closer. The day that I return back to classes at the University. While not particularly dreading going back to class, I am however not overly ecstatic about one of the classes.

Let's just say that Ethics is something that I'm not exactly well established in. I'm not a complete horses' ass, but neither am I Gandhi when it comes to certain issues. The more that a group of people politicize themselves....the more I come to loathe them. A good case in point would be gay rights. I was fine with gays before they were a political statement. Now that they are a complete platform for officials looking for election, I have become intolerant in my views to the point of not caring if they have rights or not anymore.

This could be a long semester.....

Tech Support (?)

2008-01-01T23:24:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the new year....and all that happy garbage. As you can tell, my year hasn't exactly started off with an explosion of happiness. My year has started off with a verbal wrestling match with my old dreaded nemesis tech support. Two days ago, upon the recommendation of that nagging HP one care pop up, I updated my computer BIOS...and completely lost everything. The computer went into BootBlock and refused my every request. Alright, no more playing....I got the toolkit out. For those of you who don't know, I'm a Network Student and have worked with this sort of problem before. The only thing lacking would be the ROM files and I should be able to get those from the Internet.....should.

After two days of fruitless searching, I came to the realization that the motherboard in my computer was an OEM from HP and that I would need to get the files from them directly. After waiting in online chat for what seemed to be an eternity...I was connected to "Randall" K. I can only assume that the K stood for an unpronounceable Chinese letter...but I muddled through the initial contact anyway. After pulling my hair completely out..."Randall" finally understood my request....and promptly denied it. Apparently emailing me a 75k file needed to fix my computer would cause the end of the universe in the eyes of the HP godz. Instead I will be sent and empty box in about four days to ship my computer back to...I don't know....Abu Dhabi maybe....for them to load a 75k file that I could've done here...and been a much happier person for it.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Hmmm

2007-12-30T10:41:00.000-05:00

I watched the Patriots game last night with great angst. Being a Colts fan, I naturally was hoping for them to get sent back to the coast stinging and crying about what would have been a perfect season. In retrospect I know see that if they would have lost, it probably would have been an excuse to raise gas prices above the current headache of over $3 per gallon. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the American economy at this point other than to say that it is driven completely by greed and ignorance. Bare with me on this one....I do have a point. I listen to random people gripe daily that oil companies and OPEC are to blame for the current state of the economy and more directly, oil. I, however, see things in a different light. Follow this scenario. A well dressed, fairly affluent man sits in an airport terminal waiting for a connecting flight back to New York. The TVs in the common area blare out the latest news from CNN involving the assassination of someone somewhere...pick your favorite third world country at this point, oil producing or not...followed up by a report that the DOW Industrial is begging to quiver due to investor angst. Joe Millionaire calmly retrieves his Blackberry from his pocket, and with a few quick strokes manages to dump half his industrial portfolio and looks for something to buy to recoup any losses. Hmmmm.....oil seems to be doing OK...let's buy future shares....voila....the cascade begins. For those of you who don't know, futures involving long(the bet that a stock will exceed it's targeted future price) and short(betting that a stock will not meet a target price) are the single largest problem with oil and fuel prices today. Let's go back to our friend at the airport. Let's say that he has purchased a modest amount...say...10.000 shares of oil futures on the long at $98 per barrel for the next quarter. This means that he is betting that oil will exceed $98 by the end of the next quarter, and if it does he is a rich man. He will be able to sell stocks @ the target prices without having to actually buy them up front. It's like buying on credit and is almost a win win situation for someone with the initial cash flow and knowledge of he cycle. No multiply this man by the millions of investors that hit the market daily. By their sheer numbers alone, they can drive the price of oil into the stratosphere without having to increase the actual demand for oil. Oil can't help but hit it's target price each quarter due to the fact the there are so many outstanding orders, the oil companies couldn't possibly hope to fill them all. It's a windfall for everyone involved but the end consumer. I see no end in the current trend barring intervention by the FED/SEC to curb the ability of the so called "day traders" to drive the market without having to first pony up.

Film at eleven...

2007-12-28T10:45:00.000-05:00

This is just a placeholder...until my mind gets wrapped around the idea of writing my thoughts on a daily basis for other people to pic apart and critique.