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June 27, 2008
You, With the Laptop
Step away from the Conditional User Interface.
That's what I'm doing at the moment. The software I teach just released a new version. Next week, I have to teach a bunch of people everything that has changed, and any brand new stuff.
A piece of one of the brand new stuffs is kicking my butt at the moment. I got part of it figured out last night. At about midnight something I had been attempting finally worked.
The (unnamed) fireflies on the other side of the screen, had they been listening to me, would have heard me say, "hey, I did it all by self."
And then another moment later as I shut down the computer, "yay me."
It's like a big game of Mastermind - you try something, anything. You get some feedback, try something else, get some feedback, try a third time, this time you get feedback that may start showing a pattern, and hopefully by the last line in the game (my favorite as a kid, by the way) you get all the bits right, and are rewarded with the big reveal of the puzzle.
My big reveal though, was more like getting five of the colors in the right spot, but the string has about 300 more slots to guess and each new round introduces a brand new color.
Or so it seems right now.
So I had to step away for a few minutes.
And, no surprise, I wound up checking on the progress of the comments.
One.
From my sister. (I'll pay you next time I see you.) But glad I made you laugh.
Shea just made me laugh.
I asked her to do me a favor. "Take the bucket of sticks from outside the back garage and put them inside the garage. Along with the rake. You can open the big door, or take them through the side door. Either way, close up both doors when you're done. Please."
"Okay." She put on a pair of my flip-flops over her white-socked feet, and, carrying her pack of sunflower seeds, went out the back door and down to the garage.
Approach big bucket full of sticks (for fall fire-pit fires).
Touch side handle with right hand.
Left hand holding sunflower seeds.
Remove right hand from bucket, look at dirt on hand, wipe dirt on jeans, look back at bucket.
Grab bucket handle again with right hand. This time she makes an attempt to actually move the bucket.
But it's too heavy for her to move with one hand.
She looks at the sunflower seeds in her left hand, looks at her right hand, wipes the new dirt on her jeans, puts the sunflower seeds in her pocket, and now puts both hands on the bucket.
Then removes them, and wipes more dirt off her hands onto her jeans.
So she sees the rake and decides to move it first.
She carries it into the garage. Then comes back out for the bucket.
She carries it about 10 feet before she stops to wipe her hands off again.
Finally she goes around the corner with the bucket.
Then starts up the hill toward the house.
I was giggling so hard at her from inside the house as I watched this, that I was afraid she'd hear me laughing at her when I opened the back door to say, "close both of the doors, please."
(See, she got distracted.)
So she turns around, goes to the big overhead door, and tries to close it. She has to stand on the handle, but the door does close to within a foot of the ground.
I tell her to try it from inside. So she goes inside, and I see her feet in the socks and sandals stand near the door. At no time does either foot leave the ground to try to close the door the rest of the way.
She stands there for a moment. Her feet never move. Then she turns around and comes out and tells me she can't get it closed.
Still laughing, I tell her that's okay, as she closes the side door, and comes back up to the house.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2008
The Math of It All
Three hours passed since I asked for comments.
Four spam comments deleted.
Zero real comments.
Nonplussed, I clicked my own link to see if Miller's Diversity web page still shows Norman as the CEO.
It does.
But I'm sure it will be updated come the 30th when the joint venture starts operating. Because I'm sure now that's all they are waiting for. The joint venture. Yep.
I'd like to say I'd check back on July 1, but I'll be out of town at a conference then, and therefore will be busy.
(And given that my friend and playmate will be joining me there, well, I'll be doubly busy. But in the best possible way.)
Perhaps I should just go ahead and call Mom and have her stop and pick me up a box of Trojans on the way over in the morning. Get it out of the way.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 10:41 PM | Comments (1)
And Speaking of Comments
So, pondring is approaching its 10th anniversary.
Did you guys know that?
Tis true.
And youdathunk that in all that time, it would be IMPOSSIBLE for a person to not only name, but do so without taking off her shoes, every person that has EVER left a comment.
(I said person, not bot. Since deleting the three thousand trackback pings (still don't know what they are) last year, I don't get the bot love anymore.)
So Tom, Derrick, Gina, Gene, Harley, Shelly and I'll include Suzie cause she sends me the email instead, thanks.
Yet ponder the rest of you, I do.
Wouldathunk someone, somewhere, would have left a message and signed it Dave Matthews. Just because it's so easy to do.
Wouldathunk someone, somewhere, would have had an opinion on something pondered.
Wouldathunk someone, somewhere, would have composed a properly spelled, grammatically correct message telling me to kiss their Strunkenwhite backside.
Wouldathunk Orlando Jones would have stopped in to say hi.
Or someone claiming to be him. (To which I'd respond Up Yours.)
Wouldathunk, did thunk. Thunking is what pondring is, at it's most basic level.
So help me celebrate 10 years of pondring. Leave me a comment.
I will not smell chunk them.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)
So Then...
I was on my way home last Friday. I didn't get two on-time flights, I got one on-time flight and one delayed flight. Many times, just the threat of cancellation makes me happy to take any flight delay happily.
Besides, I was in Atlanta. Close enough to drive should it come to that.
But it did not.
There was a flight boarding to Providence right before my flight from Atlanta boarded.
They began its boarding then halted it, and backed everyone off the plane.
Then they boarded my flight.
There was an elderly lady in the line ahead of me. She handed the gate agent her boarding pass, and he told her that Providence wasn't boarding just yet and for her to step aside and wait.
The agent was very kind about it.
Except the woman didn't speak English. She looked at the other agents, tried to hand them her boarding pass, they looked, but wouldn't take it. One agent simply said to her, "we're not boarding Providence right now."
The elderly lady looked around some more, and said, "Providence?"
The female agent then said to the woman (in a none-too-pleasant tone), "I don't speak Spanish." She almost spit the words out.
All this happened in the time it took the other agent to scan on board three people ahead of me. As he reached for my ticket was when I heard the woman speak not-so-nicely to the old lady.
So I stepped out of line, and tapped her on the shoulder, and told her, in Spanish, that the plane being boarded was going to Greenville, not Providence.
She smiled, finally, and walked away. I walked back to the agent.
He took my boarding pass, scanned it, and when he handed it back, he also handed me a free drink coupon. And said thanks to me for helping her.
Providence, don't you know.
So to my dear sister, that is how I do it every week. There are billions of those little episodes. Opportunities for me to be a decent human being.
(The mean folks I encounter when I travel, well I usually just trip them.)
Posted by Angela Tanner at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2008
Austin, I Hear You're Lovely
Apart from the cab ride from the airport, my view of Austin has been the "valley view." (That is what the front desk calls my room view, although more properly put it would be the "look past the rooftop air handlers to see the valley view.)
I was here for a big conference, but me and another instructor spent a good bit of the week holed up in my hotel room working on a big thing we've got coming up the week after next.
She's one of the few people outside of my family that I can spend lots of time with and not tire of. And if it was going to happen, this would have been a good week for it. We started with coffee in the morning, and worked just about all day, every day - bouncing ideas and such off each other, then retreating to our own thoughts and laptops until another idea to bounce came along.
So we were very much in each other's faces for hours and hours.
And we're still sharing a cab to the airport. Which should be here in about 15 minutes.
Bags are packed and by the hotel room door. Just need to close down the computer, and I'm homeward bound.
Hoping for two on-time flights.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2008
Extra Golf Innings
Considering I have to get up for that previously-mentioned ass-crack of dawn flight, it's curious that I'm now sitting here wondering whether Tiger wears red on Mondays.
I better ponder that whilst I pack.
Yes, that would be the prudent thing to do.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 08:57 PM | Comments (0)
Red and Rocco
Red. When in doubt, go with the red.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)
More Golf Wisdom
I like Tiger because I like the dashing figure he cuts in those red shirts.
And I'm not very original in my hoping Tiger wins it.
But man, how fun and humble is Rocco.
I can go either way.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 08:42 PM | Comments (0)
Sunday Morning Coffee
I set the alarm for 6:00 so I could have my pondring time before heading over to Mom’s to then head down to my sister’s house at the lake for Father’s Day festivities.
I got yesterday’s mail, put a load of clothes in the dryer, have another load washing, and have my boarding passes for tomorrow’s ass-crack of dawn flight to Texas printed. I’ve got the suitcase open on the floor in the bedroom, and will have it packed well before bedtime tonight. Tomorrow morning will involve coffee and a shower, and little else.
While out getting the mail (at about 6:15) I noticed one of the guys that lives across the street was outside in bright orange shorts. And nothing else. He was stretching in that early morning guy way.
I didn’t stare. (He could have been letting the puppy out, getting ready to go for a run, or sundry other things.) In fact I’m not even sure how many guys live there. Or if I could tell them apart anyway. I know one of them is named Ben.
The only reason I know that is because one day last week I got home, pulled in the driveway, and went to move the sprinkler, to see a small bull terrier sitting at the end of the guys’ driveway. When I looked at the puppy, he crossed the street.
Shea and I went to three houses. The guy next door to the south was the only one home, and he didn’t own the puppy, or know who did.
About half an hour later (long enough for Shea to name the puppy) a car pulled up at the guys’ house. A guy got out. I had the puppy in my arms and walked across the street and asked if he owned the little dog. He did. Little puppy dug out from the fence it seems, or otherwise found a way out. The guy introduced himself as Ben, I handed over the puppy, introduced myself, and we talked dogs for a moment before I walked back to my side of the street.
So that’s how I know one of their names. Ben.
I had visions later in the day, or maybe it was a few days later, that his real name was Bruce E. and a last name that starts with N, and Ben was just a nickname.
Wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened.
In other news I'm trying hard to find a break in my travel schedule for two road trips - one to see Dave, and one to NYC to see the Mets one more time at Shea Stadium before it's not Shea Stadium anymore.
In neither case is my schedule cooperating; although being me I figure it's exactly as it should be for the moment.
All for the good.
Which is generally how things are in the church of the den of the queen.
In which, this morning, I am supremely thankful that my day today will be spent with my family, on the lake celebrating my Dad; and celebrating my parents because today is also their (I think 45th) wedding anniversary; and celebrating my Mom (and her birthday this past Thursday); and my sister's father-in-law's birthday (not sure the exact date).
Posted by Angela Tanner at 07:21 AM | Comments (0)
June 12, 2008
It's Just a Thursday
I'm in Atlanta this week, and thanks to Google maps, am staying at a hotel not far from where I'm training. Distance here in Atlanta is immaterial - the map told me I do not have to get on a highway to get from point A to point B.
At about 4:45 PM yesterday afternoon when class was done, I got in my car, drove about half a mile to the on ramps to 285, and traffic was completely stopped on 285 in both directions. The on-ramps were backed up, and there were cops directing traffic at the (functioning) traffic lights.
Fortunately I went through all that stuff, and took a right turn just past it and was at my hotel in about 10 minutes.
Ten minutes to go one mile in Atlanta at that hour of the day is just fine with me.
On the trip horizon, I've got Austin coming up, and Orlando, and a much-anticipated vacation to Bonaire in July. Shea is working on her open water certification currently, so she will, like I did get her scuba baptism in Bonaire, and thus likely be spoiled for life for that kind of diving. (Shore, not drift.)
I wonder if she'll like the six-foot tarpons that swim along side you at night using your flashlight beam to find their food.
A little scary at first, but the fish gotta eat too.
We'll see.
For now it's time to get to work.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 07:51 AM | Comments (0)
June 09, 2008
I'll Still Drink Craft Beers
So I missed the conference call where the new leadership team for the Miller Coors joint venture was named. (Was probably changing light switches.)
I was really surprised to see that neither Socrates nor Mr. Tudball were appointed to new positions. I'm sure they both spent their day bitching about it, too. And they will spend tomorrow putting together pie in the sky plans to (hopefully) impress the Coors side of the new house where they are not known.
Just a guess.
Interesting to note the IT side is going to be led by Coors.
I don't recall any of the new titles having the word diversity in them. I wonder if that means no one will be responsible for updating Miller's current diversity webpage, which still shows Norman Adami as the President and CEO of the company.
(Maybe whoever's job it is to do such updating was simply waiting for today's announcements to make the changes. I mean Norman has only been retired since last November.)
I'll check back tomorrow.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)
June 04, 2008
On the chance that Jennsylvania readers stop by for a visit, welcome to pondring.
(I've even turned comments back on to mark the occasion.)
In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that unlike Ms. Lancaster, and my other favorite female blogger Ms. Armstrong, I like Dave Matthews.
Hope you don't mind.
Posted by Angela Tanner at 06:11 PM | Comments (0)