When we last left our hero...

[feren]

... okay, so thus far today my morning has been moderately eventful.

I woke up to the sound of Ra pawing at paper. I couldn't figure out why he was doing it so I just rolled over and tried to ignore it but the sound persisted. When I at last sat up and pulled on my glasses I found him with his rump right next to the wall, tail up, hind paws kneading at the carpet. The little black putz was spraying my wall! Or, at least, he was trying to. A series of "corrective actions" took place and he was put in time out. I'm not sure what brought this little scenario about (maybe he's protesting the new bedroom layout?), but this better be the only occurrence of it.

It was raining. Nobody in Illinois knows how to drive in rain, so the traffic was horrendous. I could see every driver's slack-jawed face as they stared out their windshield and up at the sky. Water from the heavens! The angels must be crying! Yes, yes, that's a fascinating hypothesis, do you care to mind the pickup truck in front of you that just slammed on its breaks? That'd be great, thanks.

For a while on Route 83 I was in the lane beside a Peterbilt with custom mud flaps. In the trucking industry this isn't particularly remarkable, but I don't think I've ever seen the mud flap equivalent of Chick tracts before. These were white flaps with raised blue lettering that read:

Jesus
Is
Lord
Transport
For
Christ


That's definitely a new one on me.

The Illinois Department of Transportation appears to be tearing down the scale that was located at the intersection of St. Charles Road and Route 83. This scale has been a major thorn in my side for some time -- they only operate it on random days during the summer and it usually causes traffic to fall completely apart, not to mention they only give the drivers about 1/4 mile notice that the scales are open so as to prevent rerouting. This usually has the unfortunately side effect of making the driver take stupid risks so that he can get from the left or middle lane to the right lane in order to make the turn into the scale yard. Right now the scale house appears to be gone, but the scale itself is still there. Maybe they're going to build a new scale house, or maybe they're going to tear the scale out and close off that parcel of land for the foreseeable future. I'm curious what they'll do with the scale if they tear it out... can they deploy it somewhere else? Is it complete scrap when they're done? Who would buy it if is still usable?

I left my laptop on the coffee table in the apartment, but brought my laptop bag with me to the office. Ooops. Well, at the very least I can stage the mouse next to the laptop's docking station and monitor so it looks like I was doing something...

I appear to be locked out of the Cisco CallManager's interface, both the administrative and user-level ones. I'm not sure when this change took place, but it's a darn good thing I know how to remove the Call Forwarding just using the phone's keypad... otherwise I wouldn't be able to take a single call at my desk until this situation is resolved. I love it when the consultants make changes to our equipment (like changing the administrator's password) without prior warning. This is not a good way to start off my week.

Atkins chocolate syrup in decaff coffee is a wonderful thing. It keeps me sane.

Comments

[stryck.livejournal.com]

I've caught one of my cats, Percivale, trying to spray twice, now. Both times in the bathroom, which puzzles me. Fortunately, I have seen no repeats in several months.

What's odd is he'd never tried before then, had been properly neutered, etc, etc. Where do these cats learn this stuff? I blame their peer groups.

Re: Weight scales

[hightensile.livejournal.com]

Yes, they can be removed, torn down and transported. My old company had one in the back lot that no doubt was recycled from somewhere or another and bought second hand. They liked doing that sort of thing. They bought a $5 million dollar robot (sight unseen), used, when it was already some 2-3 years obsolete. Don't get me wrong, it still did a great job but it was brutal to administer, almost impossible to find parts for and tended to break down a LOT.

About a year after I left they pulled the same bone-headed stunt with a CNC cutting table. And then there was the laser pipe cutter... *grumble*.

The moral of this story? Never underestimate peoples' stupidity, especially when dealing with a large sample base, like the free market.

--kit

More Stupid Cat Tricks

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

While washing my dishes today (a rare enough occurrence in my home as it is) I noticed the sound of something scratching glass. I glanced up in time to see one of my kittens playing with the venetian blinds' drawstring. Only there wasn't quite enough room for him on the window ledge, and so he had his front paws on the ledge, and his rear set halfway up the window, tail in the air, as if he was attempting to press ham on the neighbors. I found this amusing and frustrating. Amusing as I've had a long dispute with said neighbors. Frustrating because I could never have trained him to do that if I'd thought of it myself...

Re: More Stupid Cat Tricks

[roho.livejournal.com]

Man, this just adds more credibility to Fer's mantra of, "We get the pets that we deserve." He gets Ra, Kes gets Cailet, I get Snark, and you get the neighbor-mooning ninja-kittens.

Re: More Stupid Cat Tricks

[feren.livejournal.com]

What the hell did I do to deserve Ra?