This post is prompted in part by a Newsweek article on the spill and the likely political fallout from it. I don’t envy Obama or his advisors. Up until fairly recently, everybody was screaming to keep government’s nose out of business. Now everybody is screaming for them to stick their noses in it. Obviously the appropriate position is somewhere in between the two extremes. I think there’s a general assumption that the government has access to experts in every field. What many fail to realize, and is pointed out by the article referenced above, is that those experts typically work in the field. The government doesn’t drill oil wells, industry does. How can the government be expected to understand the details of the industry without relying on the industry itself? Same sort of situation with the banking world. Unfortunately, it appears we could use a little more honesty, which seems to be in short supply these days.
Archive for May, 2010
It’s been a month. So much for posting more often, but sometimes there are other priorities. Work is going pretty well lately. It was a bit on the stressful side for a while. This month I’ve had 6 days of training on ColdFusion and PaperThin CommonSpot. The CommonSpot training was particularly fun since it took place in Green Bay. The downside of that is that Liz was on her own with the kids for basically 4 days. She made it through okay. Thankfully I don’t have to travel for work that often. Last week was full of prep for this week. We trained customers on how to use CommonSpot to maintain their websites and I worked on final preparations for our “go live” that occurred this past Monday. In retrospect, there were some more steps I should have taken since the go live didn’t go particularly well. We made it through okay. You can check out the new UWRF website and see what we’ve done. We also “pulled the trigger” on synchronizing password changes that are done to our LDAP directory service to Active Directory as well. This went smoothly after an abort and reset to actually run the changes in order. We only had about 10 people who violated password constraints and will need to choose new passwords.
On the home front, Liz has managed to make it through the month okay. It was very stressful but she seems to be unscathed. Warren was sleeping through the night for a little while. This week he hasn’t been but that may be because of teething (with the possible exception this most recent Wednesday night when his sleep schedule got royally borked up by him going to bed early and then wanting to be awake at 3:30am). I’m cutting him some slack even though Liz doesn’t think he needs it I guess. I realize there’s a possibility that he may sleep through the night if we “hard ball” him a few nights, but I can handle getting up with him for 15-20 minutes for cuddles (we stopped giving him a bottles for this). I’m more for baby steps, particularly given teething and his tendency to get cold. He’s kinda like me … he likes warm. In other news, he’s now crawling. Liz has nicknamed him “Tornado” since he leaves a disaster area in his wake. DVDs on the entertainment center are not safe. Books in Laura’s book basket aren’t safe. Clothes in baskets aren’t safe. It’s fun to see him crawling around… get usually gets excited to explore and giggles a lot.
Laura is having some difficulty adjusting to having a brother that moves on his own and can therefore get into her stuff. We’re already basically having the “Mom! he’s touching me!” incidents that Bill Cosby jokes about. It gets old after a while but I think it’s bearable. There are certainly worse things that could be happening. Warren does love to pick on her though. He grabs her blanket or her hair given the opportunity. Laura is also becoming much more of a “girly girl”. She loves her dresses and insists on wearing them. She especially loves the princess dress she got a while back but unfortunately that’s a bit heavy/warm for the weather we’ve had lately.
On the geeky front, I think I’ve completed my move of data and services from my old “server” to my new “server”. Sunday I decided that it was probably time to put the new server on the UPS so I shut down the old one to do that and I haven’t powered it back up. The basement is now strangely silent for the most part. There should now be a little bit of electric savings now too since I only have 1 computer on 24/7 instead of 2 (MythTV + server). I think I’ve also had to replace my router since my last post. The wireless interfaces on it decided to stop working. Given that I think I’ve had it for at least 9 years, I think that’s pretty reasonable. The new router does ‘N’ and has gigabit wired ports, which makes life nicer. In related news, we finally replaced Liz’s laptop. The power connections inside started coming loose and not working reliably. Since it was about 7 years old and already had its original screen replaced and was using a 3rd party wireless card, its time had come. Liz really loves the new MacBook Pro. It’s certainly less frustrating. The magnetic power connector is a lifesaver given Warren’s mobility and desire to grab anything in reach. The built-in iSight is nice for video chats with the family when we’re apart (whether due to travel or just being at work). I think in general it has reduced Liz’s level of frustrations (which is a good thing).
Well, time to see if I’m going to get any more sleep this morning before I head to Eau Claire for a car appointment.
