Hobos Landing

Things sure aren’t like the good old days.? By good old days, I mean before the internet.? Well, let me narrow it down a little more.? Before we began using the internet for so much social networking.? OK…OK…before twitter.com.? Let me explain:

I posted a couple of days ago that I had gotten stung by a scorpion.? Yes, it hurt.? Thanks for asking.? No, I am not dead.? Thanks for asking.? Of course I blogged on it and tried to put a comedic twist on it, as is typical, but I also remarked about it on twitter.com.? If you don’t know about twitter, let me explain.? In 140 characters or less, you answer the question “What are you doing right now?”? Sounds simple enough, and sounds ludicrious.? Just try it, that’s all I ever ask and you will quickly join one of two camps.? Either it’s the stupidest thing you have ever seen or you will be addicted.? I have never met anyone in between.

So back to the story.? I ‘twittered’ about what happened and it’s amazing the kind of little things you share:

Got stung by a scorpion. Those damn things feel like getting shot with a nail gun. Foot swelling.

My foot is starting to twitch. Better take some benedryl.

Foot still swollen, but not twitching any more.

That was it for the evening.? Now the interesting thing here is how much my twitter friends know about me.? They knew I got stung by the scorpion.? They knew I was having a mild reaction.? They knew that my wife is out of town and I was playing batchelor for a little while.? Then the following day they knew they hadn’t heard from me and they knew my posting habits.? Within about 12 hours, the questions were flying. ? “Has anybody heard from Lans?”? “I know he got stung by a scorpion last night.”? “His wife is out of town.”? “Does anyone know how to get in touch with him?”? “I called an left a message on his cell.? No response yet.”

Normally I peek in on twitter during the day at work, but this particular day, I didn’t have time.? Of course, when I got home and saw all the traffic, I jumped in and told them I was fine, but it was wonderful to see the concern.

What I find totally interesting is to see how fast things on twitter move.? Before most of my ‘brick and mortar’ friends were even aware of the scorpion, my online folks were already way ahead.? I would never call up all my friends each time I have a headache, but on twitter, absolutely.? People that I rarely see face to face, can probably tell you how many I had in the last week.? They can tell you what I watched on TV.? They can tell you when I went to bed and how I slept.? It makes me wonder if maybe our online contacts, sometimes people we have never actually met or who’s voice we’ve never heard who we have never touched are starting to know more about us than alot of our ‘regular’ friends.? Thoughts?

I rarely talk about work, but this is just too hilarious not to tell. I work in software development. Notice I said software, not hardware, but I’ll try to pitch in where I can. I was working on some code and one of the guys I work with asked me if I knew anything about hardware. I asked what the problem was. He told me there was a RAID array that another of the guys I work with hadn’t been able to get working for a couple of weeks. Admittedly, the guy was not a tech guy, but maybe I could take a look at it.

My inner monologue instantly laughed and thought ‘Boy you are in over your head on this one.”

‘I’m not hardware guy, but I’ll take a look.”

So I head off to the room, sit down at the computer and began fiddling. After 45 minutes of several reboots, working with the BIOS, trying to talk to Windows (always a one way conversation) and playing with IRQs I sat back and though I just kept getting this feeling that something was wrong. Something sinister. Something just wasn’t right. I glanced down at the RAID array and something was missing…..lights…alll these techie things have lights on them. But there are no lights a lighting on the RAID. So I thnk to my self, maybe it’s not turned on. So I dive down in the floor crawl behind the big RAID and find two switches, both of which seemed to be on but nothing was happening. So trace the powercord which I discover connects to a battery backup. hmmm…battery backup is not on. Maybe we should (play along kiddies) turn it on. So I pushed the button on the backup and it beeped and whirred and came on.

But stangely enough, still no lights. So I treked down behind the array again and flipped a switch, Nothing. Then I flipped the other switch. Lights flashed, trubines spun up and almost blew the hair from the top of my head off. This of course scared me and I jumped and smacked my head on the table and said a couple of curse words. Then I set up, rebooted the machine and all the raid drives were there in proper configuration, ready to go to work.

I could instantly see this was the time for gloating. I went downstairs with a certain strut in my step. “Got your RAID fixed.” I announced casually as I entered the room.

“Well what was the problem? Larry’s been trying to fix it for 2 weeks.”

“Umm…it works a lot better if you turn it on. Then all the little lights flash and the fans whir. It really does it’s thing if you apply the electricity. ” You can all see now why I am a joy to be around. And By The Way, this dead horse will be beaten repeatedly for about the next month at least

My better half has left for a week, leaving me to be a bachelor with all the animals. She hasn’t even been gone 24 hours yet and I already have tales to tell. Our little dachshund, Cooper, is very attached to Chrissie. So needless to say, he is not pleased having to stay here by himself with me. Oh…I’m better than nothing, but not much. He made his dissatisfaction with the situation known last night.

Now dachshund’s are notoriously hard to house train, and Cooper is no exception, so while not pleasant, it’s not uncommon to find a little present hiding in some out of the way (or not so out of the way) place in the house. But this morning, it was like poop-a-palooza around here! There was a present in the master bath, one in the living room, two in the bedroom and three under the dining room table. None of these were here last night before bed. He must have gorged himself and then snuck around strategically placing his little ‘bombs’ while I slept. I’m surprised he got any sleep.

I know, I know…’How can you be mad at this face?’? Well, this better be a one time stress deal or he is gonna go from poop-a-palooza to Woodstock and see how it is to camp outside in the mud!