chaos_wrangler

After several postponements, I finally passed the CTS-D exam on Thursday. Yay!

I was supposed to do something for work by the end of 2016, and I was on track for that, but then a couple of things took work from SNAFU to FUBAR and... I'm now scheduled for the second week in 2017. So far no one else seems to mind, because they know that the delay is because I'm helping cover for the new mess (at least until a new hire starts at the beginning of January), but I'm annoyed that my records will now say 2017 instead of 2016 just because of one month's delay.

We took down the rest of the sukkah yesterday morning before it rained. This year my brother and oldest nephew did most of the work for both putting up and taking down, because G hurt his wrist before the holidays and wasn't ready for heavy lifting. Also, the oldest nephew is now taller than I am (and my brother always has been) so the two of them together count as two tall people while G and I are one tall and one not-tall (but not really short, since I can just reach the schach if I stretch). I'm looking forward to the other nephews becoming taller than I am.

Once again we did different parts on different days, but this time there was a lot more coordinating between the three households (me, my brother, and our parents who own the sukkah and the yard). Overall it went well, and I'll probably ask my brother/nephew to help more again next year even if we don't need it as much.

We saw them last week (on shabbat of course, so no pictures): baby (toddler?) pigeons. They looked a lot like the adult who was at the nest with them but they were a lot smaller.

Ironically, the nest was sheltered (and possibly held in place) by wire spikes which were probably intended to keep birds from landing on the building ledge.

I remember learning about a tefach (ancient "hand width" measurement) back in grade school. We asked the obvious question (c'mon, of course we looked at our (not-all-the-same-size 5th grade girls') hands and the (male adult) teacher's hands), and we were told that it's approximately 4". Fast forward a bunch of years...

Today I was reading about best practices in cable separation* and found this: "best practice is to maintain 4 in. (100 mm) separation... A practical method to gauge spacing...is to use your fist. If you can get your fist between [relevant items], spacing requirements will be met with the additional benefit of easier...serviceability."

So that's one standard I'm not worried about memorizing, even if their "practical method" isn't practical for me.


*Yes, I'm taking yet another on-line course, and I'm expecting more. "Yay!"

**My fist is approximately 3" wide, so not even close for this purpose. I understand that most people currently working technical jobs in my industry and/or taking this course are men, and easy to remember practical tips are great, but me using my fist as a spacing guide will not lead to easier serviceability for most people.

So last week I spent almost every evening working on a super-high-speed editing job, but it was finished Wednesday night and that was that, right? Um... actually, no. I've got another version (plus additional materials) and less than a week to do it. "Yay!"

It's gonna be another long week.

I'm doing an on-line course that is supposed* to help me prepare for the test for the next *big* certification for work, and the title of the next subsection is "NOM and FSM". My first thought was that the flying spaghetti monster is pleased with its food ("om nom nom") but now I'm wondering if it's being eaten instead... and if that's appropriate...?!

*The problems with this course range from "lollipops and ponies" material (label taken from the teacher of a similar in-person course - this is stuff that is needed for the exam but is so idealized that it's worse than irrelevant for real life) to material that clearly hasn't been updated in years** (comparison of 4:3 and 16:9 displays but no mentioned of 16:10) to errors in formulas (x and x^2 are not the same) to bugs in interactive exercises (type in the right answer and get marked wrong but then that same answer is shown in the "correct answer explained") and exercise instructions (round to the place that's in the instructions and get marked wrong because the "correct" answer is rounded to a different place) to grammatical/spelling errors (which I find very distracting) to repeated material (same text is in 2 consecutive paragraphs or in more than one subsection). *sigh*

**This course has been available for about a year (maybe less), so it looks like they copied a bunch of material from older sources and mashed it together (possibly with some newer bits) without sufficient editing.

January: Arisia
February: best laid plans and Adar
March: and the good surprise...
April: pesach again, again
May: job wisdom
June: [no posts]
July: [no posts]
August: trying again
September: [no posts]
October: [no posts]
November: thankful
December: you don't have to be, but it helps

Apparently I skipped doing this for 2014, so here's the list for that year:

January: cold/snow day (skipping the actual first entry in January since that was "Meme: 2013 in review")
February: another not-at-work day
March: failure is always an option
April: (pre-)pesach again
May: events and thoughts
June: [posted, but with no subject]
July: work silliness
August: Work is educational
September: slightly bloody minor mess
October: [no posts]
November: [no posts]
December: [no posts]

I don't usually do a "what I'm thankful for" post, but... I recently choose to skip a high school reunion, and choose to not send a response to a related questionnaire (they were asking for things like favorite teacher, class, memory, etc). After the reunion, they e-mailed some stuff: a slideshow of pictures from when we were in high school and another of pictures from the reunion, video taken at the prom*, and a compilation of questionnaire responses.

Today I watched the slideshows, read the questionnaire stuff and very briefly looked at the video, and all of it reinforced my decision to skip the reunion and not participate otherwise. Some of those people were interesting to me then, and some would probably be interesting to me now (and there would probably be a lot of overlap), but I didn't keep in touch with anyone from high school and my life is fine without them. (I do have a bunch of close friends from back then, but none of them went to the same high school as I did.)

So today I'm thankful for choosing not to go be social at the reunion, and for all the people I do choose to be social with.


* The school did not have an prom, did not approve of such things, etc, but a bunch of my classmates decided they wanted one, so they arranged for it not at the school and without any school permission/involvement. I wasn't interested and didn't go, and from what little I watched of the video I'm rather glad.

Apparently the local movie theater is now posting sports scores, possibly as a service to all the local sabbath observers who otherwise would have to wait until Saturday night to get the news... although they've had the same tennis* scores up for at least half a week now:

Furious 7
Brotherly love
Mall Cop 2
Avengers 2

*I'm assuming tennis based on the use of "love" instead of zero for the loser in the first pair. I've never heard of any of the teams before. :)