So we loaded up the truck, packed up what seemed to be half of our house and set off for Texas Thursday of last week. We went through Memphis, stopped in to see Elvis, continued on through Arkansas (shudder) and found ourselves in the beautiful state of Texas, rolling up to the folks? place by Saturday afternoon.
A few things I noticed on the way down south?
You know you?re in the south when grits is a given with your meal. No need to ask, no need to worry, grits are in your future. Man, I do love grits.
Looking down at the menu one breakfast in Memphis, your choices for drink sizes are ?Big? and ?Really Big?. Ya gotta love that.
I have pictures of Graceland, the neighborhood I grew up in and several other adventures, so I will upload them after the holidays.
Some memorable quotes from poker night at The Princess?s:
?Where do you keep the ice??
?Fuck! I had a straight!?
?What do you think ?pay to see them? means??
I was quite ahead and doing very well until the $11 bet. I had 4 Queens in the hole, so I was fairly confident I would come out on top of the hand. That was until Mike pulled out 4 Kings. Man, that was an unfortunate moment for me and thus the spiral down began. I was playing conservatively when I folded on The Straight. There are very few conservative things within my personality, so playing poker that way was just not profitable. When you have a winner backing you up or you?re just bluffing, sometimes ya just gotta go for it.
Alas the Red Capers took home most of the cash. I have difficulty accepting that as they are the Capers and all, but I?ll get over it, just as I am very slowly, sloooowly getting over my hangover.
An interesting request came through to Ye Old IT Fort recently that was quite perplexing. A user requested the following specs for his new PC:
*3.2 GHz Processor
*2 GB RAM
*ATI FireGL 9600 dual monitor support video card
I?m sure you can see where it continues from there. Upon receipt of said request, the Fort was filled with laughter and a variety of smartass comments. Now this would not have been a typical response, as high end machines are often requested. The thing that got us IT folk so worked up was the fact that the requester was a corporate employee, a number cruncher, a man who makes his living off spreadsheets. What the fuck does this user need with such a powerful machine? That question was regularly muttered over the course of the last two days.
The user?s manager was contacted with alternatives to save The Company money. I laid out a very powerful argument, or so I thought. We could save at least $400 by slashing the memory to just 1 GB and bringing the proc down to a 2.8 GHz, still a powerful PC, but now with considerable savings. I went on to explain how programmers and artists alike do not share the technological studliness that is this speced out PC. 2 GB of RAM is wonderful and recommended to our PD staff lately, but for a Corporate suit? It is my job to give you technological advice, so please reconsider.
No such luck. A stern and quite professionally insulting response followed from the manager that stated this was absolutely necessary for the user to function in his daily duties and the alternative specs were plain unacceptable. OooooKkkkk then. Apparently these folks need access to Excel spreadsheets that live in the 150+ MB neighborhood and 2 GB of RAM is the only way to make things ?go?. Two questions immediately popped into my head?what did they do before 2GB of memory and why are they using such large documents? Well it turns out the answers to those questions are equal to a very long story, but let?s just say we now have the most perfect example inefficiency and waste. To solve problems, you do not cover them up with expensive bandages.
And yes, he is getting his originally requested PC.
Aw man, I couldn?t be more excited to have Andy Pettitte joining the Astros next season. To steal a Yankee, not just any Yankee mind you, but a Yankee that puts up spectacular numbers and still has plenty of career highlights remaining in his All Star arm? Well dear reader, that?s just fucking brilliant! Word on the street is Andy is trying to convince Roger Clemens to come back home and join him in the Astros lineup. I won?t count on that until I see The Rocket in that beautiful red and white uni.
When I moved to Chicago a while back, it was tough to adjust in so many ways. Chicagoans have a different way about them than Texans, but still very friendly and helpful when necessary. It took a full winter for me to completely understand the insanity that is wind chill and I?m not quite sure if the humidity I suffered back home was much of a trade off. The taxes alone should have sent me packing and the complete lack of quality seafood still shocks me to the core.
But the toughest part was finding friends. How does one make friends as an adult? It isn?t comparable to when you were a kid. You can?t just go over to a classmate?s house after school and the next thing you know, you?re friends for life. It?s just not that easy. If I were to approach someone now, as an adult, with a pudding cup in hand and offer a trade, well, I?m fairly certain I would be the recipient of several unusual looks and quite possibly combined with a big, ?Get the fuck outta here!? So what do you do? You?re new in town, new job, new neighbors?it?s quite overwhelming. Sure, I had Kevin, his friends and of course his fabulous family, but it just wasn?t the same as having my own set of buddies.
Well, it has been a while since I crossed the Chicago city limits and things are coming along fairly well. The most important aspect of progress being that I finally have a poker game to attend; well I?m actually hosting it. It?s been in the works for a long while, getting canceled several times due to one thing or another, but I?m prepared to wake up Saturday morning and be at least $1.00 ahead. If you?re interested in padding my pockets and adding to The Princess Fund, let me know because I?ll be honored to take your cash.
So a user passes on a response he received from my department today and I?m baffled, to say the least. Usually, its goofy user stories and not the other way around, but this was indeed, too precious to not pass along.
The user filed a request for some fairly standard software to be installed on a PC already within his possession. The email couldn?t have been laid out more perfectly for us. Precise, to the point with pretty bullet points and all, so there should be little room for error in interpretation, right? The response he receives?
?Will you need us to order a new PC for you??
That can?t be good.