In Brotherly Love

Today, Tyler Tarver has been kind enough to share his blog with me.  Okay, actually I threatened to punch him in the nose.  Either way, head on over to his site to read my guest post about those weird secret codes they use over the intercom at Dillard's.  Check out his site while you're there; he's hilarious and, unlike me, his site doesn't look like it was designed by a three-year-old on acid.

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I've noticed a pattern among the guys in my Bible study and fellowship group:

Apparently they're all in love with me.

Several times, when closing a perfectly civil, non-awkward post meeting conversation, one of the guys has told me, "I'll see you next week. I love you."

Now, I know they're just getting in touch with their inner selves and showing Christ-like behavior. They mean nothing else by this. I get that. I also know that my aversion to hearing this, or even *shudder* returning the sentiment, is entirely cultural on my part. But I still have a negative reaction to hearing it.

When I'm told this, I should feel good at the intimate relationship I can enjoy with my Christian brothers. Instead, I feel like I need a shower.  I pretend I didn't hear, mutter "See ya", and hot-foot it to my car while looking warily over my shoulder, just in case. I know I'm insecure and all, but I drive faster than usual out of the parking lot anyway.

Several of the older guys also give hugs. I got over this by pretending it was my dad or a favorite uncle. I can deal with this; just don't let it linger or put your head on my shoulder. And if you sway a bit, I will hit you.

But I draw the line here: one of the dudes has decided to take the whole "Greet each other with a brotherly kiss" bit seriously.

That's just wrong, even if it is in the Bible!

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The Dolphins Wouldn't Be Happy

Today's delicacy is a guest post from Christopher Adams, who blogs at Ramblings of a Christian Geek.  What I wouldn't give to secretly observe his inner dialogue for a day.

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The second most important thing every IT Administrator must accomplish is to make the dolphins happy.  (The most import thing being to place a second layer of chips and cheese on your nachos; you would be surprised the difference it makes.)

Now that you've replaced your badgers with virtual servers, it is time to prepare for a natural disaster.  When tsunamis hit the shores several organizations and businesses lose data and can eventually go bankrupt and require their government to provide funding to replace lost data.  This causes a very long lapse in business.  The businesses are normally underwater for several days following the hit, at which time dolphins (being the smartest water-dwelling animals) take over.

Many people seem to think that the dolphins would vote on who is in charge, or they would choose the biggest and strongest dolphin, but that is obviously pure fiction.  What really happens is they choose the most organized dolphin with analytical skills and appoint them as the data analyst, then they find the dolphin with the Type-A personality and a complete lack of any technical knowledge as a manager.  (Dolphins rarely have nice clothing, so whoever has a nice suit normally gets the position of CEO so the company has a good public face.)

Upon swimming into the datacenter, the first thing the IT dolphin looks for is a waterproofed booklet describing the company's disaster recovery plans.  Once these are found, they quickly begin draining the server racks, drying the servers, and restoring from backups (or simply updating the router to point to an off-site business continuity disaster site, which is their favorite).  If, however, there is no disaster recovery plan the dolphins will get very angry and tear the office apart, feeling cheated and insulted by the humans who built their offices far too close to the ocean.  In fact, most tsunamis don't damage buildings, angry dolphins experiencing data loss do.  Despite their lack of suits, they have an overabundance of hammers for some reason.

In order to please the dolphins, we use PHDVirtual to back up our VMs and a combination of on-site Crashplan Pro and off-site Jungledisk Server.  In the event we lose our Albuquerque location to a tsunami or flash flood, we simply load the VMs onto any off-the-shelf server, fire them up, and connect to our online file backups.

This would please the dolphins.

Happy dolphins will normally make you nachos if you ask nicely.


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Tips For My Future Kids, Part 1

Tithe.  Always.

Never drink from the far side of the cup.

Pay cash.

Respect your mom.  Or else.

Drive the speed limit when Uncle Chris is in the car.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and don't think you know it all.  Look to Him in everything you do, and He'll guide you.  See Proverbs 3:5-6.

If it's not yours, don't take it.

Stealing second may be easier than stealing third, but no one will be expecting you to steal home.

There's no shame in striking out, as long as you go down swinging.

Pray often.

Pizza is a food group.

Buying American is great, but buying local is even better.

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Helpless Users

Some users simply refuse to understand an issue or take any initiative in resolving it.

There are multiple networks at my work, and I don't have administrator access to all of them.  This means there are certain issues I can't do anything about, even if I understand what needs to be done.

Here's a conversation I have with certain users, not infrequently:

Helpless User:  Can you fix blah-de-blah?

Me:  I don't have access to that since it's not on our local network, but you can submit a ticket to the  corporate helpdesk and they'll remote in and get you fixed up.

Helpless User:  So there's nothing I can do?

Me:  You can submit a helpdesk ticket and the folks at the corporate helpdesk will remote into your system and get you squared away.

Helpless User:  Well, I guess since there's nothing I can do, I'll just live with it.

Me:  Yes, I guess that is the only sensible course of action we have left at this point.

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Things I'm Still Amazed By

Phones - Technology is nothing new to me.  I'm no stranger to server administration, hardware configuration, and the art of user wrangling.  However, I still experienced a quick moment of awe a while back when speaking to my brother on the phone.  He was in Alaska, in the middle of nowhere, and I was on my mobile, flying down the interstate (hands-free, of course).  I will always be amazed that we can have real-time conversations with others halfway around the world.

Grace - Grace is illogical.  By its very definition, you don't deserve it.  Yet, there are many examples every day of encounters with the grace of others.  The biggest example is from God, but the real question is how many examples are from you, given to others?

Planes - I've had them explained to me many times, but the concept of turning a hunk of metal into a pretend bird still boggles my mind.  I'm always afraid the law of gravity will wake up during one of my flights, and remember that we should be going down, not up.  This is why I don't sit by the window on flights.  It feels safer.

Confidence - I'm timid in almost everything I do.  People on the opposite end of the spectrum, however, amaze me.  You, oh person with abounding confidence, never seem wrong.  You're comfortable in any situation.  This characteristic alone will move you up the ladder at work, get you out of speeding tickets and make that girl of your dreams say "Yes!".  The rest of us have to earn it.  You assume it.

Accountants - I've worked with them for 7 years now, and I still don't understand 'em.  How anyone can sit in a box and count someone else's money for giggles is beyond me.  Weirdos.


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Tech Support Hold Music

I found myself on hold the other day.

I needed to pay Sony for some repair work they were doing for my boss' laptop.  All I had to do was give them my business credit card number, and we were set.

However, I got the new guy.  It was this poor soul's first day on the job, and he was overwhelmed.  He kept putting me on hold to check what he should do next with his boss and coworkers.

At first, I was annoyed that it was taking so long to simply give the man my card number and move on with life.

And then I noticed something odd.  Every time I was placed back in the hold queue, the hold music changed.

First up was Yanni (prounounced 'Yawny', which is French for "Help, I can't fall asleep!").  This probably added to me being perturbed.

The tribal bongos helped pick up the mood, though.  Nice touch.

Some well-timed Christmas ballads put me in the holiday spirit for a bit.

My fourth trip to the hold queue brought some gospel music, reminding me of the reason for the season.

Thankfully, the reggae hold time wasn't too long.  I never did like reggae, Bob Marley or otherwise ("Why all the foosin' and fittin'?").

The icing on the cake was the Hindi music.  I've never heard Hindi music while on hold with someone from India, which would make sense, but if you're waiting for the Sony repair center in San Diego, get ready!

All together, I was on hold for 28 minutes while the gentlemen learned how to type 16 numbers into his system.

Turns out it was half an hour well spent.


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Against All Odds

I wrote this almost ten years ago.  I was managing a toy store, and found myself working with a high ratio of women to men (high school girls = lots, guys = me).  I ran across it and laughed enough to post it here.  Even though the tone in the post is complaining about the amount of estrogen, it couldn't have been that bad.  One of the females mentioned was so beautiful and awesome, she's now my wife!

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I'm outnumbered. It's hopeless, and I give up.  The game is thrown, and I am left as alone as Tom Hanks and as beaten as the Arizona Cardinals.

That's right, I work with a store full of girls.  I am the single male in the workplace.  I am constantly seeing girls running around dressed like Eskimos while whining incessantly about the temperature.  The employee journal and dry erase board are full of doodles of flowers and hearts.  Easter candy is popping up in my box, and I know the Easter Bunny hasn't come yet.  He wouldn't be able to make it through the stack of purses and lovely handbags.

The bathroom is clean and smells rosy fresh.  I've even been trained to put the toilet seat down.  Husbands may not learn their entire lives to do this, but that's because for them the female to male ratio is one.  For me, it's around fourteen.  When you've been cornered by fourteen angry girls, putting down the toilet seat is easy to do.

I am critiquing prom dresses by the dozens.  I am now considered an expert.  You see, I am not naive or dumb enough to say what I really think.  Each and every dress is stunningly gorgeous on each of its models and brings out the best qualities of each girl.  I have made the innocent mistake of flattery, and now they're hooked.  They parade before me in colorful costumes clammering for accolades.

I am learning to gift wrap.  Even though I cringe and develop a twitch when a customer requests this service, I can now fudge my way through it.  I still have plenty to learn.  My idea of wrapping a gift involves the funnies page and a twisty tie.  A girl's idea of wrapping a gift includes sharp corners and immaculately flat sides.  I think they use an iron to get the wrinkles out.  Cards, stickers, and fourteen feet of ribbon are essential.  This is no light undertaking.  Plan on using an entire afternoon or longer.  We actually have customers coming back to pick up their gifts days later.  My wrapping does not qualify as a work of art, but it will get you on your way in thirty seconds flat.  I accept no responsibility if you are later coerced into bringing the present back because it looks like it had a run-in with with Senor Papershredder and Monsieur Weedeater in a dark alley.

Speaking of gifts, the girls feel compelled to aid me in my routine searches for (belated) gifts.  If I know it's my dad's birthday, I will buy something, and quick.  The girls despise this, because it "shows no thought".  A girl, even if flawless in every other way, needs her gifts to "show a little thought", which is defined as "shopping every store in the known universe until the recipient is dead, in which case you should do the thoughtful thing and pick up a sympathy card as well."

Hmmm...a sympathy card.  That would be a nice touch.  I sure could use one.  I could decorate the envelope with pretty stamps and stickers.  But first, I need to go get a sweater because it's really cold in here.  Really, really cold.  I'm freezing.


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