goblinbox

In which it totally feels like hump day, but it isn’t.

Weather in the Walla Walla Valley

First there was sun.

Then there was wind. Then there was hail.

Then the power went out. Management decided to send everyone (but me) home, and they all left and had had just enough time to get into their cars… and the power came back on. So they all had to come back.

I didn’t have to help clear the queue, though, because it was my lunch break.

Vintage Photography

I’ve been playing with The Bricks every day because they’re just so cool looking. Finally got the Tele-Sandmar on Brick The Younger today:

Still need to clean and adjust the rangefinder before I can actually shoot anything with it. I ordered cheap film from Adorama and it won’t be here for a few days anyway; hopefully the camera will be ready by then. Last night I learned how to remove (very easy) and replace (total pain in the ass) the exposure counter. This means I’m one step closer to taking the top panel off of the camera so I can clean and adjust the rangefinder!

I don’t think I know anyone with a scanner. I realize it seems weird to take film images simply to put them into electronic format, but I’ll tell you what: all the pictures in my Flickr account? are still there. All the photos and photo albums I once had? are gone. No idea where they are. Maybe I have some in boxes, but I think most of them were rotten and not worth saving from the farm. So I’ll have to pay extra when getting my film developed to have them all scanned.

I wonder how many rolls of film it will take me to really grok this:

Even though you focus your camera lens on a certain distance, the picture will be sharp in front of and behind the point focused on. This “range of sharpness” (depth of field) depends on the lens opening used and the lens focusing distance.

The smaller the lens opening, and the greater the focusing distance, the greater is the the lens’ range of sharpness. The range of sharpness will be least when the lens is used at its largest opening and shortest focusing distance.

Working at an ISP

In other, wholly unrelated news, we had a six-state DSL outage that lasted about two hours. An hour into it, all the rest of the staff’s shifts ended and I ended up in here alone. My brother gave me the saddest little “Sorry to leave you with all this, but my day’s done” shrug on his way out the door. I have about 40 calls to complete.

In other words, I am alone and TOTALLY FUCKING SLAMMED AT WORK TONIGHT.

And now, to close, a little about this bullshit worm scare story in the news:

A pox upon CBS and CNN and every other news agency that picked up this stupid Confiker/Downadup worm story! You are making my job stupider!

I’m not against educating people about Internet security, not at all. I am against hysterical reporting. I am against having customers freaking out on my phone and over LiveChat and through email for two days because some reporter learned about a particular kind of threat that’s been around since last autumn!

Here’s an email reply I sent to a customer:

>From : XXXX xxxxxx@bmi.net
> Phone : (xxx) xxx-xxxx
> O/S : Windows XP
> Comments : Do I need to worry about a virus tonight?

Have a great night!

Actually, the one good thing about all this is hearing people practically say “fuck” in German all day long and knowing they have no idea they’re doing it.

In which twitter got me yesterday afternoon off!

I follow the U-B on twitter, and noticed while at work yesterday afternoon that they’d posted an article about the city wanting people off the streets due to the extreme weather.

So I texted the article link to everyone at work – including management – and within fifteen minutes they’d closed the office and sent everyone home! Those of us with broadband connections were invited to take our VoIP phones with us and finish the work day from our home offices. (Most of our tools are accessible with a web browser, so to work from home all we really need to do is plug in a VoIP phone and open some browser tabs. I’m also running LogMeIn for access to the few things I really need on my work box, like the SSH tunnel to the POP server.)

We all piled out of the office into the snow. Bindu and I jumped into Teh BF’s car and he surfed us to Loney’s, where I bought some veggies and a loaf of bread and picked up stamps for G’ma. The snow at that point was well over a foot deep and still coming down. Kaje dropped us off in front of our house and then left to see if he could get into his own driveway.

I set up my VoIP phone in the front room and logged in. I made a few callbacks and then sat around for awhile before realizing there were no incoming calls. Snooping revealed that there was no one else logged into the queue. I IMed a couple of the supervisors and got no response. Finally, I called the office with my cell… and discovered that we were closed until Friday morning!

So I clocked off and spent the evening playing with my iThing, eating too many cookies, and watching Stardust with the family. (It was a lovely little heartwarming fairy tale, and DeNiro as a pouf was hilarious.) Then I laid in bed with my dog, watching episodes of Firefly (thanks, bro!) on my iThing until about two in the morning.

Then I slept. Apparently I slept weird, because I woke up with my back and neck all fucked up. (Stupid ancient bed with a ditch in the middle! I really need to get myself a futon or something; sleeping in sprung beds is hurting me because I’m so old now.) I did a couple rounds of sun salutations this morning and they helped, but sitting in this old chair in front of the computer isn’t helping. I downed an Advil before lunch – I made veggie fried rice – and it’s helped some, but I think I might take another.

Working from home is hella charming. I’ve really never done it before; when I was in engineering at an ISP in Iowa I couldn’t get bandwidth out at my house so I never really did much from home other than reboot web servers.

There is snow everywhere and the city apparently isn’t very well equipped to deal with the roads under these conditions. I’m enjoying working from home today – in my pajamas! – and might do so again on Monday if we really do get the additional six inches they’re threatening.

It’s snowing right now, for the record.

I chatted with Teh BF earlier and he’s all kinds of behind in his Xmas shopping. So is my G’ma, and so am I. I think most of us thought we’d just run a few quick errands here and there… and then we got this crazy weather and none of us have been anywhere since. If we get hit with another storm tomorrow, I think a lot of people will be getting rain checks on some of their Christmas gifts!

For more Walla Walla Blizzard ’08 pics, check out the Your Walla Walla Flickr pool.

In which there’s a list. A list of stuff. Kinda random stuff, really, now that I think about it.

Friday. 1. In the morning, I got a ride to work from teh BF. He gave me a homemade breakfast sandwich. You gotta admit that that’s some seriously cute shit, when your BF makes you breakfast and hands it to you when he comes and PICKS YOU UP TO DRIVE YOU TO WORK. 2. Played around with the Gmail upgrade and determined that It Was Good. 3. Received an unexpectedly wonderful iThing from the employer and geeked out on it all day long. 4. Watched three episodes of Doctor Who season three in teh BF’s basement while gorging on awesome tostadas.

Saturday. 1. Scrubbed the holy hell out of the bathroom. Even washed the shower curtain! 2. Made soup and salad and bread for lunch and fed teh BF and G’ma and my bro. 3. Went out for sushi with teh BF and our friends; spent way way WAY too much money. 4. Mixed vodka, sake, and beer in the same night and got unexpectedly shitfaced and so went to bed early.

Sunday. 1. Woke up hung over and ravished my BF. 2. Bought Xmas cards – literally the only thing of note I accomplished. 3. Watched three more episodes of Doctor Who. 4. Ate tater tot nachos for dinner. Srsly. Nachos, but with tater tots.

Monday. 1. Grabbed the iThing even before getting out of bed and read some of the New York Times mobile edition. 2. At work, I updated my address book in between calls because I can NOT seem to keep my electronic shit in order; I did this exact same data entry last year and then managed to delete it. 3. I installed some code that he gave me over a year ago. 4. Got picked up for lunch by teh BF, who fed me salad with bleu cheese dressing and garlic bread at his place. 5. Found that being outside in this icky 36-degree weather without a coat is a significantly cooler experience than I like to have.

In other news, I have to work this Sunday. I don’t think I’ve ever worked a Sunday since I’ve been employed here… of course, they gave me the iThing so I guess it’s okay if I have to work a Sunday once in awhile.

In which I’m totally thinking about you guys!

I’ve been watching the news and it looks like Iowa’s even damper than necessary.

One of my co-workers just sent me this link and said, “Looks like you got outta there just in time.”

I checked Fairfield weather and y’all don’t seem to be swimming yet, but my thoughts are with you anyway. Can I get all my babies in Iowa to check in and tell me you’re not drowning?!

In which the weather is totally gorgeous.

I took this picture with my cell yesterday. It’s March and this is what’s happening outside. Spring!

I asked Gramma if there’d be another cold snap yet, and she declined to speculate. She never gives weather predictions; she just shrugs and says, “We’ll see. I’ve seen years when Les had his potatoes in by St. Patrick’s Day, and I’ve seen in snow in May.”

Perhaps my life isn’t much besides working and sleeping with occasional bright spots of music, but at least I’m not shivering my arse off in an ice storm. And the benefit of working is that not only am I paying off bills but I get to go to DC next month, just for the hell of it. Small favors, no?

In other news, I had two books in the mail this morning. Booyah!

In which there might be snow.

…COLDEST AIR OF THE SEASON ON THE WAY WITH SOME SNOW EXPECTED…

AN ARCTIC COLD FRONT WILL CROSS THE AREA SUNDAY BRINGING THE COLDEST AIR OF THE SEASON TO INTERIOR WASHINGTON AND OREGON. TEMPERATURES WILL REMAIN BELOW FREEZING FROM SUNDAY AFTERNOON UNTIL FRIDAY AFTERNOON…WITH VERY COLD OVERNIGHT TEMPERATURES IN THE SINGLE DIGITS AND TEENS. WINDS WILL BE GUSTY BEHIND THE FRONT INTO MONDAY PRODUCING VERY COLD WIND CHILLS. SNOW IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP SATURDAY EVENING AND CONTINUE INTO SUNDAY EVENING. MOST AREAS WILL SEE A LIGHT ACCUMULATION OF SNOW…BUT HEAVIER SNOW IS POSSIBLE OVER THE BLUE MOUNTAINS…BLUE MOUNTAIN FOOTHILLS…AND OCHOCO MOUNTAINS.

PEOPLE EXPECTING TO TRAVEL THIS WEEKEND SHOULD PREPARE FOR WINTER DRIVING CONDITIONS AND CARRY EXTRA SUPPLIES IN THEIR VEHICLES DUE TO THE VERY COLD CONDITIONS THAT ARE EXPECTED.

I’m not really excited about snow, but at least some real winter weather will be different than the lovely mild greenness they usually call winter here!

In which the weather went just plumb crazy.

A massive storm rolled in this morning. We had 60-mile-an-hour-PLUS wind gusts, and the atmosphere was filled with tons of suspended dust.

All the stuff on the porch ended up in a pile. Gramma went out and released our retired Christmas tree from its stand, and the whole damned tree blew away – we haven’t seen it since.

Tree limbs hit the roof and fell to the ground, littering the yard with broken branches.

Two of the three guy-wires holding my uncle’s old ham radio antenna have snapped. Half the shingles came off our neighbor’s rear roof elevation and are piled up in our yard (but I didn’t notice any missing shakes from our roof when I went out to look) and very few people still know where their garbage cans are. The entire city lost power for over five hours.

My employer’s data center (‘the vault’) was down for 45 minutes, because the generator battery failed. I didn’t have to come to work until 3 o’clock, because with no power the call center couldn’t operate. And now that I am here, I’m calling hundreds of customers who’d left voice mails to explain why our auth and email servers didn’t work earlier today.

Here are more pictures of the carnage, taken by a co-worker’s friend.

There are houses with trees through them, cars with trees on them, downed power lines, and general chaos everywhere. (In other words, if you’re an insurance adjuster, you should load your fuckin’ ladder and get the the hell out here. There’s mega mad damage, yo.)

In other news, there’s capuccino cream pie in the break room!

Update: It’s 9:17 and I just spoke to Gramma. She tells me the power’s still off at home, which means no reading in bed for me. Ugh.

In which there’s a weather warning for my area!

CONTINUING SNOW IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS THIS AFTERNOON…ANOTHER CHANCE FOR SIGNIFICANT SNOW ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND THURSDAY.

A PACIFIC STORM SYSTEM PUSHED INLAND OVERNIGHT SPREADING PRECIPITATION ACROSS THE AREA. NOW A STRONG WEST TO NORTHWEST UPSLOPE FLOW INTO THE BLUE MOUNTAINS IS AIDING TO PRODUCE SNOW SHOWERS WHICH WILL EVENTUALLY TAPER OFF BY THIS EVENING.

ANOTHER STORM SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO MOVE INLAND ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT. PRECIPITATION WILL BE LIKELY ACROSS THE AREA ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND THURSDAY WITH SIGNIFICANT SNOW POSSIBLE IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS AND THE BLUE MOUNTAIN FOOTHILLS.

In which it’s raining like hell, and me with only one windshield wiper.

The weather’s here, wish you were beautiful.

Oh, wait, you are beautiful! Well, it’s just started raining cats and dogs here and Truck and I are leaving in a few minutes to drive to Ottumwa for a gig. On the porch a few minutes ago he looked at the lowering sky, dubiously, and then at me, equally dubiously, and said, “Is my shit gonna get wet in your jeep?”

“Oh, no,” I replied. “Not wet at all. Just dusty! It’s got five years of gravel dust all up in it, but it doesn’t leak water anywhere.”

He narrowed his eyes, grumbled and went into the house, coming back out a few moments later with a baggie he put some guitar component or another into. He stuffed the item into his backpack, which was sitting on the porch next to the rest of his gear waiting to be loaded out, and went back inside for a shower.

Then the sky darkened, opened up, and started to pour. (It smells so good! Ozone!) Bghead took my keys and moved my jeep into the driveway for me, rolling the windows up in the process, and any minute now the virgin Connie Swayle Truck will be done with his post-shower primping and we’ll be ready to roll out.

The only water-related problem the jeep has is with the windshield wipers. Only one of them works. Fortunately it’s the driver’s wiper, but when it’s raining buckets visibility does become a problem. Worst case scenario: I pull over for a bit. Luckily we don’t absolutely have to be there on time, since we’re special guests.

Ciao, babies – I’m off to do the rock! Yay! I love gigging!

In which GUESS WHO UNTHINKINGLY WASHED ONLY HER SUMMER CLOTHES like a dumb ass?!

I’m no stranger to the mountains. I’ve been meaning to check the Vail forecast for a week now, because I knew it would be cooler up there.

I finally did. Check the forecast, I mean. And a good thing, too, because I wouldn’t have packed warm enough socks otherwise. Behold the weather forecast for Vail this weekend:

FRIDAY – Partly sunny. Isolated thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs 50 to 58. Southwest winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of thunderstorms 20 percent.

FRIDAY NIGHT – Mostly cloudy. Isolated thunderstorms in the evening – then a slight chance of rain showers and snow showers after midnight. Lows 24 to 32. Chance of precipitation 20 percent.

SATURDAY AND SATURDAY NIGHT – Cloudy with a 40 percent chance of thunderstorms and snow showers. Highs 48 to 56. Lows in the lower 30s.

Not even 60 degrees during the day!

Yeah, I know. MOUNTAINS. Rarefied air. Whatever! I guess I need to wash a heavy sweater or a light coat tonight while I’m packing.

In which it’s so sweet, the weather is!

This morning (and by ‘morning,’ you should understand that I mean ‘early afternoon’), I went to the gas station and bought the Sunday Des Moines Register. Then I came home and, in my Indian cotton wrap-around skirt and purple built-in bra tank top that AmmZon gave me as a hand-me-down yesterday, I sat on the porch and read it. The breeze was blowing, it was nearing 80 degrees, and all the neighborhood folks were out.

Bindu met the next-door neighbor dogs, a Lapso Apso and a Shih-tzu, and we – Bindu and I and our roommates Truck & AmmZon – met the next-door neighbor people, who had a flat tire. Folks rode bikes and walked down the street. Others drove, peering at the garbage pickup piles for treasure.

I took a nice fat nap in the middle of the day.

Later, I sat on the porch and chatted with The Ex and my roommates while Bindu stretched out in the yard trying to get cool.

Such a lovely day!

In which I’m amazed, dismayed, and groovin’.

1. It fucking snowed. Snowed! On April 11th!

2. I drove past Los Portales and it appears to be closed. Like, permanently. WTF?

3. My b(r)other and I send each other MP3s via gmail. I finally got the last few he’d sent me downloaded and imported into iTunes and synched to my iPod, and damn if this isn’t just wonderful. (It rocks when your bro is a kick-ass drummer.)

That is all.