Not getting better

My good friend Jerry has a list of statements that he bases much of his career and life on. I have picked up some of this over the years, and have learned to live by them. Example: People know what they like, and like what they know. In the software industry this is an extremely important axiom. How many of you have played with Microsoft Office 2007? Notice anything different? Like, maybe, NOTHING IS IN THE SAME PLACE IT USED TO BE?!?!?! I hate it. I didn't want it to change. (People know what they like, and like what they know.)

Jerry is also fond of saying, "When it rains, it snows."

So, as I wrote in my last post, we've had a sewage backup at our place. (Although, I'm highly intrigued who decided to call it a backup...it is certainly far closer to a "restore". Sorry.....geeky side of me.) We had the septic tank pumped. I've run an auger through the drain.

Three loads of wash later..........gerblooop.......flood again.

I'm very confused.

So, I pulled up the toilet. (I was going to have to anyway, in order to put down new flooring in the bathroom/laundry room anyway.) I then ran the auger through the 4 inch pipe directly, and pulled a hose in from outside through the window, and ran water as hard as I could into the drain.....no problems.

That was Saturday.

Last night, after some more laundry (hey, folks, it's been nearly a week...we have kids.....yeah, there's always laundry) it flooded again shortly before we went to bed.

Then, it started to snow.

My father in law is supposed to be coming up from Oregon to help out...but they have between 4 and 8 inches of snow. We now have about 4 inches at our place, and it's still coming down.

I'm feeling a little dejected.

It's cold in our house....lack of flooring will do that. There's a 4 inch wide hole leading directly to our septic tank in the bathroom. The valve from the wall to the toilet won't close properly, so I have a makeshift trough set up to drain the slight trickle into the 4 inch hole I mentioned prieviously.

When it rains, it snows.

Eeek......The Flood!!!!!

"I have walked the edge of the abyss. I have seen your future. And I have learned."

- Cortana

It was a quiet night. The kids were in bed. A load of laundry was in the washer, and we sat on the couch to enjoy a cup of herbal tea and watch a bit of a movie.

The sounds from the laundry room shifted, and suddenly the sound of splashing came echoing from the bathroom/laundry room. "That doesn't sound right, does it?", my wife asked. I jumped up from the couch, and ran to the bathroom.

"It's the toilet! Flood!", I dove across the rising water onto a stepstool in the middle of the room, close enough to the toilet so I could reach the valve without actually stepping on the floor. Anne scrambled for towels, as many as she could get from under the sink without stepping into the murky, dark, water.

I managed to turn the valve and get the water stopped. How odd. Neither of us had used the toilet in the last hour, and it had just been sitting there. However, I turned the valve the wrong way, and when I used the plunger on the toilet and flushed, I heard the running water. Not the sound I wanted to hear. The flood was about to get worse.

EEEEK!!!!!! Gallons and gallons and gallons of water started flowing from the toilet, even after getting the valve turned the right way. We had fully been invaded by "The Flood".

The carpet in the hallway was soaked through. Anne started mopping with the towels. I started pulling up carpet to get to the padding to stop the damage from getting too far. Spot heaters, fans, towels. I had to cut the carpet at the entrance to the family room to pull it up enough to get in there.

I have a plumber/septic tank guy coming on Friday. **SIGH** Not what I needed. However, we got "The Flood" stopped.

Master Chief would have been proud.

I Will Miss Bill

As an Ex-Microsoftee.....I will miss Bill.

Phronesis

Phronesis

Yeah, yeah, yeah, gesundheit. Stop that.

Phronesis is a concept coined by Aristotle (the philosopher) which is best translated as "practical wisdom". Effectively, everything one does is a combination of learning and experience.

I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago. I'm much more diplomatic now. (Just ask my loving wife.) In my previous post about what's happening at work, I was relatively diplomatic. 10 years ago, I would have told me boss he was an idiot. I'm far more diplomatic now.

Anyway, learning and experience is also called "growth". The more you experience, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more it changes your experience. I took 12 years of piano. If I had only ever read music, but never sat down in front of a keyboard and diddled, I probably wouldn't have been a real "player".

My dad used to take me duck hunting in Eastern Oregon (well, Central...but who's checking...) and I learned to fire a shotgun, leading the bird, and actually aim to hit a moving target. Reading about hunting doesn't make you a hunter. FIRING THE GUN does. Okay, okay, I confess, my dad was a little peeved when Oregon moved to steel shot from lead shot and I had his semi-automatic 12 guage. All of the hunters around us would fire one shot...pause...another shot...pause. Not me. No way. You would hear - BOOM ..... BOOM ...... BOOM. Then you'd hear BABABOOM, three shots all at once, overlapping. I would drop a duck by blanketing the sky with shot, and the poor bird would fly into the metal wall I'd built. Each shell cost about $1, up from about $.25 a piece. So, when Brad got a duck that was easily $3 worth of shot up in the air. I was an "expensive" hunter.

Wisdom and experience.

Well, my faith is changing, evolving, and growing. Why? I'm learning more, and I'm experiencing things differently, which leads me to a new way of learning, and a new way of experiencing. For Christmas, I bought myself a new "Archaeological Bible" which has great notes about the culture and context of areas of the New and Old Testaments. This type of learning is changing my views on areas of scripture that I'm very familiar with. It's awesome to constantly get new things out of the Bible.

Same is true in my prayer life. Oh, nothing mystical is happening....but I'm growing.

What are some ways that you have changed in the last 10 years?
How are you changing now?
Where do you see yourself going?
Does it excite you like it does me?
Does it scare you like it does me?

Good stuff.

BABABOOM!!!!

Brad

Combat Rock - Revisited

Ah, The Clash.....come on, you know you roll down your window and start singing along to Rock the Casbah and the completely unintelligible lyrics...about Jet Fighters, and stuff. But the song absolutely ROCKS!!! 25 years ago, Joe Strummer, Mick Jones and crew ruled the airwaves with their politically amped music. Combat Rock is a classic album. **SIGH** Pining for my youth.

Anyway, a Clash song has been running through my head repeatedly over the last few months.

Should I Stay or Should I Go

I've been struggling with a number of things at work, and my wife announced today that I have an "aura of depression". That may be true. But it's not a new thing. It also shouldn't sound like a cry for help. I'm fine. Here's the deal. Short story. Budget cuts, org cuts, my team left out in the cold, Brad left to fend for himself since October, no real sign of caring or loyalty from the company - except for the odd raise that came right before things hit the fan.

Darling, you gotta let me know

Should I stay or should I go?

If you say that you are mine

I'll be here 'til the end of time

So you got to let me know

Should I stay or should I go?

It's been 3 full months since my boss announced that I would not have a job as of the end of the year, and that he was taking early retirement. I promptly got on the horn with everyone I knew within the company about similar jobs to what I "had". Everyone wants me, but no one is willing to cough up the dough to keep me. (Right now, no one can confirm nor deny that there's a position for me after the middle of January.) And no one seems to want to rock the boat with upper management to MAKE a position for me. I see no loyalty, and my loyalty to them has degraded significantly. Since October 4th, I have had no deliverables other than those things I've developed for myself.

It's always tease, tease, tease

You're happy when I'm on my knees

Hey Brad, we have a great position. It'll be two weeks before we know if we have funding. Two more weeks. Meeting postponed, could be another two weeks. "Come on, guys, make a decision.! Do I have a job or not?" We'll let you know in about two weeks.

One day is fine, the next it's black

Things are going great. Well, we don't really know if we got our funding.

So, if you want me off your back

Well, come on and let me know

Should I stay or should I go?

Are you sensing a pattern yet? If they want me to continue working for them, GIVE ME SOMETHING TO DO!!! I hate ultimatums, but I also hate "wishy-washy".

Should I stay or should I go now?

Should I stay or should I go now?

If I go there will be trouble

Uh.....mortgage.....

And if I stay it will be double

I'm costing the company money, but they seem to be willing to pay me, so who am I to complain.

So come on and let me know

This indecision's bugging me

If you don't want me set me free

Exactly who I'm supposed to be

Don't know which clothes will even fit me.

Great, I'm good enough that they want to keep me. Shame that they DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY WANT ME TO DO!!! And, it's a shame that they may put me in a position I don't WANT!!!!!

Come on and let me know

Should I cool it or should I blow?

Been three months. I'm obviously leaning toward BLOWING!!!!

Should I stay or should I go now?

Should I stay or should I go now?

I'll leave it at that. I think you've all got the point.

Hope you all had a great Christmas, and a happy new year!!! Looks like 2008 will start with a bit of turmoil for me. But, hey, I thrive on chaos.

You know, I think I'm going to go, put on a pair of ripped up old blue jeans, wrap a red bandana around my leg, and crank some Joe, Mick, Paul, and Topper.

Imagine at this point a lone armadillo crawling in front of a Texas oil rig. Yeah, brings back memories doesn't it?