laser???? fish? lake? dumb

laser???? is not a very good idea for a password – especially since I can no longer remember what the ???? characters were.

A software developer should not forget their own system password twice in the same day.

Swing low, sweet… tech support call??

Today I learned that when taking a tech support call on my speaker phone - I should also make sure that the sound is turned off on my country gospel music pandora station.

Some versions of the intro to “swing low, sweet chariot” can be quite a distraction.

Where there’s smoke…

A couple of weeks ago I was working in my home office when suddenly I smelled something burning.  I turned around to see a panicked 8 year old surrounded by smoke pouring from a space heater which in turn was in the final stages of incinerating a pencil.

“I didn’t do it!”, he pleaded, coughing.  Not the best choice of words either.

Jama Jam

I had the unusual responsibility to drop my kindergartener off to school.  As he climbed out of the car I noticed that he was still wearing pajamas.

Panic.  Was I going to be in trouble because I brought my child to school in his PJ’s, or was I going to get in trouble for stopping him even though I should have known it was spirit week or something?

Memory scan - nothing.  I opted to not notice.

So far, so good.

Knock, Knock… Joe who?

Everyone was in.  I turned out the lights and locked the doors – my nightly routine.  I started up the stairs and was interrupted by a knocking at the back door.

It was Joe.

“What’s the deal?”, he asked, “I take out the garbage and you lock me out!?”

Unpacking S-U-M-M-E-R-S

The opening line of the notes for the “family meeting” were:

Summer’s here!  So, it’s time for a summer tune up – a family meeting!  This year, we’ve got a great plan for how to stay productive –  SUMMERS!

Ok, if you’re not with me on how awful this is, then you should probably stop reading.  If you are suffering with me, then you might consider stopping, because it gets worse.

S – is for Special Job – some days Mom or Dad might ask you to do one – like get ice cream – or go pull weeds – or vacuum the car.
U – is for ‘ultimate clean machine’, or UCM for short.

Gag.  The last page of the document included a chart that would be posted for each kid to check off the various tasks as they were completed.

I only ever printed one copy, btw.

S-U-M-M-E-R-S

As I mentioned last time, I once led a ‘family meeting’ to start our summer vacation which used the acronym S-U-M-M-E-R-S as a mnemonic device.

At my daughter’s recent request, I looked up the document on my PC and became nauseous.

There in black and white was proof positive that I was – or at least used to be – one of those parents.  The sweet sappy idealistic ones who still believe their kids think they’re cool and that everything they say is charming, insightful, and treasured.

Raspberries.

I hate my former self already.  Tomorrow I’ll perhaps work up the courage to share some of the nuggets from this great example of “parenting mistakes”.

Drinking and Coding is Dangerous

As one who already struggles more than I should with eating and drinking without choking, the last thing I should be doing is drinking tea when I’m deep in thought trying to solve a programming problem.

Last time I tried it, I spewed tea all over my work station and drooled all over my shirt.

I’m grateful I have a private office.

Notre Dame Cat

I’m working in the basement, as usual, and out of the corner of my eye I see the cat tear past at maximum speed.  A while later, back the other way.  I’m also starting to notice a flapping sound – like the sound of a flag in a stiff breeze – over the music in my ear phones.  Ok, time to quit programming and pay attention to what’s going on.  Interrupted and irritated, I push back from the keyboard.

“What are you DOING?”, I more or less shouted as I turned around just in time to see my 6 year old take another swipe at the cat with a Notre Dame football flag.

“Just playing with the cat.”, he answered, sweating and now quite out of breath.  “He likes when I chase him with the flag.”

Based on the look in the cat’s eyes, if he ever was a Notre Dame fan, I don’t think he is anymore.

Pumpkin Spice Engineering

“Do you know how to change these?”, my eldest son asked, working with a plug in air freshener.

“I’ve never done one before, but I’ll take a look”, I answered.  I’m a Mechanical Engineer, how hard could it be?

We tried and tried to screw the glass perfume vial into the plug in unit, the old one worked, but the new one wouldn’t.  To test the cause of the problem, we tried screwing the cap back on both the new and old vials – neither of which worked either. “This cap was on when you got it, right?”, I asked. “Yep.”, he answered.  Hmmm.

Sticky fingered and defeated, I finally gave up.

“Oh!”, he calls from the other room, several minutes later, “It’s ‘lefty-tighty’!”

Why would they do that? Is there some kind of safety reason for the reverse threading?

Must be, because everything I’ve touched since still smells like pumpkin spice.