Voices In My Head…

You know the ones.

The ones that simply won’t be drowned out. The ones that repeatedly talk louder than the next person so that their point will not be put asunder.

You’re sitting quietly at your desk trying to do a little research. Trying desperately to gain new skills, because the company that you work for has just jettisoned the technology that you love so much.

In the office that I work in (room is actually the best description), I sit with one other person who writes software for several different applications. There used to be one other person in our little band of merry people, but he was a consultant and his gig was up (did I mention that the company jettisoned the software that I love so much?), so he’s no longer here.

This morning I was away from my little room for a while, and when I returned I found several other people that didn’t normally have a reason to be there. Mind you it’s not a big room, so I had to navigate my way around the two new people that were new to my space. One was another co-worker, and one was my boss.

So I successfully make the navigation to my seat, whereby I sit down to continue my quest to learn Ruby on Rails. I fire up my browser. I start the mySQL service. I launch phpAdmin to have a look at the tables in my project, and then bounce over to a Rails tutorial on the web.

There I sit perfectly ensconced in my ergonomically correct seating apparatus trying to soak in the words that I am reading, when they hit me. The voices. Oh, it all started out rather benignly. I could hear the distinct cloud of voices. The ones you hear in the background while you focus on your work. You can’t really make out the syllables, but you know that there are more than one person in the conversation (it helps to have two people in any conversation, otherwise someone may call the guards…but I digress).

Then I noticed that the din started to get louder. The decibel level was rising. “What on Earth is going on?”, my mind screamed (it had to scream to get above the din). My research stopped in it tracks as I stared out the window pondering what to do next. Each person in the conversation behind me had something to say. They were trying to resolve an issue with a particular application, and they all wanted to ensure that their opinion was heard (not sure why the opinion needed to be heard down the hall, but they seemed it to be necessary…).

The volume kept going up and up as each person jockeyed for the best moment to slip in his/her point. Actually they were talking over each other so much that there simply wasn’t anyone waiting for any moment to insert anything. It became a contest of who could talk the loudest so that their opinion would be heard above the others.

I sat silently for a few minutes, and then just got out of my ergonomically correct seating apparatus and took a walk down the hall.

It’s amazing what a little walk can do for a person.

So, to wrap up this little excursion might I suggest a little “office etiquette”? If you are having a conversation with others (remember what I said about having a conversation with yourself…), then please use your “inside” voices. Actually, if you plan on having a meeting, even an impromptu meeting, please take it to a room designed specifically for meetings (for example a room where you and your party are the only ones in it). As I write this, it also occurs to me that you should also practice this at home as well. Come to think of it, you should probably do this no matter where you are.

Thanks for listening.

Rolling down the tracks…

Since my employer has decided to move away from Domino as a development platform, and since they have given me no guidance as to what platform will be used to replace Domino in the environment, I’ve decided to try my hand at Ruby on Rails.

All of the reading that I’ve done about Rails has suggested that it will much “fun” and “10 times quicker” to develop with than anything else.

I’ve always been interested in learning new technologies, (that’s how I originally got started with Domino), and Rails seems like a good one to learn. There are many examples of Rails applications out there (see 37 signals), and I’ve been inspired by what I’ve seen.

So far, I’ve downloaded and installed Ruby, Gems, and Rails.

Now to start some development. Back with more later…

Applying for an online course at CCSU (Central Ct. State Univ)

This is a quick post to help my daughter apply for a course at CCSU.

Go to this url

http://www.ccsu.edu/onlineccsu/CourseOfferings.htm

Click the following link.

Select the semester

Select the Subject, leave all the other selections as defaults, and then click “Class Search” at the bottom.

You will see a list of courses. Clicking on the blue “CRN” number will give you a description of the course.

Once the class listing is open, you can click on the title to see how many seats are still open.

Sadness

I sit here with great sadness in my heart. Sadness over over the VT incident. Sadness of all of the other threats that have been going on throughout the country this week on the anniversary of Columbine. Sadness for the families of the people that were senselessly killed. Sadness for those that were killed. Sadness for the family of the killer. Sadness for the fact that our country has become a nation that lives through this type of thing over and over, and yes sadness for the boy that did this and then took his own life.

Discussions abound over why he did it, or what it all means. Islam, Christianity, madman. Whatever.

The plain fact is that a disturbed young man took the lives of so many people that had promise in the world. A disturbed young man took his own life.

People want to place blame. It’s being said that the school should have seen it coming because of his writings, or that the psychological exam should have prevented him from buying the guns. The gun control people say that if there were tighter gun control laws, then this wouldn’t have happened. People are blaming it on Islam, and some are suggesting Christianity.

The bottom line is that a lot of suffering people are left on this planet wondering why.

One thing is clear. This was the act of a very disturbed person.

There seems to be a groundswell of hatred brewing in the world and in this country. It’s become o.k. to hate people. People treat other human beings with hatred, and those human beings then lash out in anger and hatred. It’s a never ending cycle. I don’t mean to blame the people that may or may not have “picked on” this boy in his earlier days. I don’t mean to suggest that this is the reason that he did this. However, it does seem that this type of behavior is simply tolerated in this country.

I’ve heard it said time after time, “Boys will be boys”, thereby excusing the poor behavior of the bullies in this world.

I’ve also heard it said that this was just pure evil.

Whatever you believe, there are still 33 people dead, along with many grieving people, and the violence in this country doesn’t seem to be diminishing. It seems to be proliferating.

When did we come to the point where it was o.k. to hate? Some would say that it’s been around for a long time. It seems as though it’s now a part of our culture.

Sadness.

Irony

I heard an interesting news story today. It seems that there were four marines home for Christmas leave, but they had some difficulties in actually getting home.

The airport that they were intending to fly home from has been closed down due to inclement weather. They tried to think of another way home, and came up with the idea that they would simply rent a car and drive home.

 

Well, they went to the car rental agency and were denied. You see these particular marines were 18 years old, and you have to be 21 to be able to rent a car.

Think about this. These young soldiers have just come home from defending our country. They have had the ability to use millions of dollars worth of equipment in the defense of our country. They have been given this ability by the United States government. And yet, they are not able to rent a car because they are “too young”. Interesting. You can fly on a plane, but you can’t rent a car. You can’t drive a car, but you can go off to a foreign land and risk your life to defend the rest of us that can drive/rent a car.

 

How ironic.

 

Fortunately for these four young marines someone overheard their conversations and offered them a ride in a van that the onlooker had just rented.

 

I just wanted to give a small thank you to all of you out there that put your lives on the line everyday in defending our freedom and our life style.

 

Merry Christmas

Civil War

For those of you that think the war in Iraq is a civil war, please have a look at this.

For a long time we have known that the terrorists in Iraq were not just Iraqi’s. Now we have evidence that the terrorists in Iraq are not only be trained by terrorists from other countries, they are also being supplied arms from other countries.

Do we really think that if we pull out of Iraq, that the bloodshed will end? If that’s what you think, then I would invite you to come back to 9/11 with me. Maybe you don’t remember, but there were some planes that were flown into buildings on that day. There was also a plane that was taken down over Pa by some very brave AMERICANS that day.

These were terrorist attacks on our soil. Once we tuck tail and run from Iraq, do you really think that we’ll have “Peace”. The world as we knew it prior to 9/11 has ended. We are in a new era now. Terrorists are everywhere, and they have the funding of very wealthy people. Apparently, they are even supplied arms by governments around the globe.

It’s time we take a look at the landscape and decide. The question really isn’t “Should we fight the war on terror?”. The real question is “Where do we fight the war on terror?”. Just because we leave Iraq does not mean that the war on terror is over. Do we want to fight the war on terror in the middle east, or on our soil. I suggest the middle east.

Peace with Honor

For so long now we’ve been hearing the term “peace with honor”. It seems to come so easily from the lips of so many politicians. Along with this phrase we also hear about what the world thinks of our decisions, and what we do. We’ve been crippled by the fact that some politicians are afraid to act on the global stage because they don’t want to upset people in other countries.

Now we have this.

Apparently, we don’t care about what the terrorists think. It’s amazing to me how many times I read stuff like this, and how many times you won’t see these things in the main stream media. This is really what the terrorists think. If you push the Americans, they’ll grow weary of the battle, and just go away. This was their attitude after Mogadeeshu. It’s their attitude now, and it will be their attitude after Iraq.

Where is the “honor” in just running away from a conflict? I agree that the war is not going well. There are definately problems with the way that it has been conducted. But, just because you have problems in life doesn’t mean that you just turn tail and run away. If you  have a problem, then you need to figure out how to work around that problem and forge ahead. I can just hear some of you saying “Well, then answer is to just get out!”. How is this going to change things? It will change the tactics of the terrorists, that’s how. They will wait for the time table of when we are pulling out, and then just come in with overwhelming force when we are out. Then we will see many more incidents here on our soil. We should be the ones with the overwhelming force in this situation.

Once we begin going down this path, the terrorists will take the stance that they drove us out of Iraq, just like they drove us out of Somalia.  They are already talking this way. Is that what we call “honor”? Engage your enemies, and then when it gets tough pull out so that they gain the advantage by thinking that they are stronger than us? You know what? If we engage, and then don’t have the will to finish, maybe they are stronger than us.  I’m not talking about our military here, I’m talking about our politicians. I believe that we have the strongest military in history, and we have unbelievably brave soldiers.

I personally know people that are in Iraq. One of them worked in my office. She took an extended leave of abscence so that she could join the National Guard, get trained, and then go to Iraq. She’s there now. She writes emails back to the office telling us about the situations, and the overall theme in her emails (in fact she has said this) is that she wants to stay so that the job can be finished and we can win.  How honorable do you think she and the thousands of other soldiers will feel if we just pull out, only to have to come back to this country and face the shame of having their enemies (and some in our country) think that they are weak?

I guess we don’t care about what that says about us to the rest of the world, do we?

It’s time for a change

Well, I guess so.

We’ve been hearing for weeks that “It’s time for a change”. Well, when are we going to see that change? And oh by the way, what is that change?

Take a look here. So much for a change. The only change that I see is that the Democrats that are in power can now push anyone they like to the front of the pack.

Seems like it’s the same old story. No wait, seems like it’s full steam ahead actually. The interesting part is that it’s not the Republicans that are crying foul. It’s the Democrats crying fould, about their own leadership.

Funny that you don’t see this in the main stream media anywhere. I guess that must be the “change” that we wanted.

Ned Lamont

I’m Ned Lamont, and I’m running for U.S. Senate.

I have no message.

I have no plan.

I just hate W and Joe. Isn’t that enough?

My name is Corey Kimball and I approved this message.

When is a joke not a joke?

Interesting reading over on Drudge.

Amidst all of the debate floating around about the Mark Foley incident, up comes a report that this was a bad prank gone bad. Apparently a former page goaded Foley into playing a prank on a current page, by sending the IM messages. Then the transcripts of the IM sessions got into the hand of some political operatives, and voila a scandal is born!

Well, this issue has been in my mind since it came out in the news. No matter what side of the issue you come down on, the bottom line is that this page, (and other pages), and his family now have to live through this nightmare.

I don’t want to get into the Democrat/Republican thing because BOTH sides have done this, and they are BOTH WRONG!!!

It’s just a sad statement on the political landscape in this country. Everyone is focused like a laser on what this means to the Republicans and Democrats 5 weeks in front of the election.

I don’t hear anything about the devastation to this young man and his family. I guess it’s also a sad statement on our society as a whole.

If this was in fact a prank gone bad, it’s even worse than we can imagine. Imagine a country where people’s lives can be ruined because of a “prank gone bad”. The article on Drudge mentions that the guy that says it was a prank has hired an attorney, and that he’s afraid that his career will be in jeopardy. Well, duh!!!!! That’s all we can think of in a time like this!!!! Oh my precious career might be damaged!!! What about the lives that have been destroyed because of this “prank”?????

I always thought that a joke’s a joke until someone’s not laughing. Well, I guess these guys aren’t laughing anymore, are they?