Yearly Archives: 2011

Late Thursday night – bandaid

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I just fell asleep working on the couch.. I’m way too busy.. still working at 1 AM.. ugh..

I went to the doctor today for a routine check up and as I was waiting for Dr. Joe to come  I started lookign at all the notes that kids have left him over the years..

Look at what I found right in front of my eyes.. Must have been sam at age 7 or 8… Is it a rocket ? A shot ?

Can’t really tell.. but I loved seeing it there.  I stared at it for about 10 minutes. I touched t.. it was Sam’s.. he had touched it..

I’ve been havign a whole bunch of sam moments over the past couple of days. he was in my dream last night.. and I woke up thinking about his band.. for a second I couldn’t come up with the band’s name (Black Night Vengance).. Things like that are so easy to misplace.. I never want to.

You’re always in my ind and heart sam.. I’m missing you..

nite all, nte sam.. especially nite sam

-me

Tueasday night – ftf

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One of the pleasures of my new job is that for the first time in nearly 15 years or so, my team is primarily in the same location as I am.. or travels there frequently enough that we all get together..For many years my entire day was spent on conference calls and web meetings they could be ‘fun’.. when they were with folks you knew well. but with folks you never met.. they were a poor echo of  the passion,  intensity and creative output one got form a face to face meeting…Somehow that’s become bad-speak to say.. but everyone knows it t be true.. Today I spent several ours in face to face meeting.. even though the material was difficult, the simple pleasure of sharing a white board, drinking coffee/tea together and walking together to lunch made the day actually enjoyable !… and far, far more effective than the 6 or so endless phone calls we had in prep…

Even better.. we all met for beer afterward.. we got more done tonight both technically and personally than we could have ever gotten done at work.. much less remotely…

Viva la face to face !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Tuesday night – Town meeting day

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Today is the first Tuesday in March.. and as such, it is Town Meeting Day here in Vermont !. Town Meting day is such an amazing tradition.In towns across the state people take off work and gather in churches, school auditoriums and grange halls and vote on their towns business for the year. Business can include everything from town budgets and school budgets to declaring our town a nuclear free zone. as ours did back in the 80’s..   Even in today’s busy culture I was pleased to see about 250 of my fellow towns folks gathered at the middle school this morning to talk about Richmond’s issues.not bad for a town of 3000 .I was able to hang out for an hour and a half to vote and watch the fun. I got to stay because my email was still down and I could not get meeting notices !!! (bliss) Going there always reminds me how much I love this town.. most folks know most folks. if not by name.. at least by site.. We have our share of characters… some you can predict exactly what they’re going to say and when. others.. you can never tell what they’re going to say..

The meeting is run by the select board..   a group of civic midned folks who dedicate their time in what has got to be a thankless and tiring job.. My good buddy Clint (hand raised here) presided over the proceedings as his dad has in the past.   He had his hands full during a debate about hiring/training a paramedic or two for our rural rescue squad. Amid debate one resident moved that we delay the debate on the issue to a later date.. What happened then was a 45 minute debate on debating that would have made Abott and Costello proud.. We had been debating the issue, then we debated if we could delay debate on the issue.. then we debated if we could debate on moving the debate on the issue .. (i kid you not !) Clint did a fine job of keeping us all kosher to Roberts Rules.. even when it got tough.. !

It was getting really confusing… Clint joked  that he could use a lifeline just as his  dad Toby walked in .. perfect timing.. Toby has run the meeting since I can remember.. I’ve been coming to these for 30 years.. I don’t think he’s been here that long, though.  Here they are conferring

Eventually the board had to cal the secretary of states office.. they said the debate could be moved.. but just to a specific date and time within the next 3 months.. I had to leave before it was resolved.. Not sure where it landed.

I’m still waiting to here how the elections all came out.. does anyone know ?

nite folks, nite sam

-me

Monday night – offline

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I woke this morning and , as always. one of the first things I did was roll over and check my email on my phone.. I hadn’t received a single email since midnight the night before. That’s odd, I thought.. even on a Sunday night I’d expect to get some email.. By about 8AM.. I was perplexed.. surly, someone wanted something from me today.. Monday’s are notoriously  bad for email.. especially Mondays after having been traveling.. but.. nothing, nada, bupkis… .. not even a line of junk mail.. By 9 I realized something must be wrong.. I average about 130 real emails a day.. that doesn’t include junk mail.. or email I send..

I called our help desk..a smiley voice from across the world answered me.. She walked me through the steps I already knew. about mail file full problems.. . I waited patiently for her to finish .. She was doing her job.. I then explained that somehow , my mailfile was full.. but at the same time it was telling me that it was only 15% used..

We both poked and prodded at my mail file .. then she agreed ‘something was wrong’.. She put in a repair ticket and told  me that my problem should be resolved within 8 hours.. 8 Hours ?!!> Nothing more she could do, she assured me. she was very nice, so I took her workd for it. I wnet to work … still emailless..

I had a hard day in the sense that i was on several tough calls… nothing seemed to be going well at work. .   Still.. my email was clogged.. I imagined a giant hairball somewhere in the either..   Pretty soon people started sending me instant messages….. I learned that email was getting returned with a ‘john’s email is full, try again later’ message.. not only was I not getting email… I was looking like an idiot ads I wasn’t getting it…

One more call to the help guys.. I told them my email database told me it was only 15% full.. they told me they were working on it.. and had sent the problem to ‘the server guys’ ..

midday.. still no email.. I was getting philosophical by that point.. based on the phone calls and instant messages I was gettign.. I suspected little of the email I was missing would be good news… ‘So what,” I wanondered.. if all that bad news went to the bit bucket..

By around 4 I realized I was enjoying the lack of interruption.. I no longer felt compelled to multitask..   My day wasn’t goig well.. but I knew that the email break only was helping…

by 6 I called the help folks again.. it had been 9 hours.. Once again I was told how to do what I’d already done.. again I waited.. Finally I was told that my request was still waiting with ‘the server guys’ .. and wouldn’t you know they’d gone home for the day..   I was told my problem would have to wait until tomorrow..

I’m sitting on the couch at the time I normally start my second work day.. and I have no frustrating emails to read, write .. or respond to..

bliss…..

I think I’ll go hang out with my wife 🙂

don’t try to email me…

nite all, nite sam

-me