Assorted Raves and Rants

mongo @ 2011-03-17T17:19:00

2011-03-17T21:19:58Z

You were born during a Waning Gibbous moon

This phase occurs right after a full moon.

- what it says about you -

You love to let people in on the story of how things come together. You know the background of ideas and have a deep understanding of things others just touch the surface of. You can surprise people with your wide variety of knowledge, and they'll remember and appreciate you for it.

What phase was the moon at on your birthday? Find out at Spacefem.com

nonsequitur

2010-02-16T21:48:43Z

nonsequitur
Originally uploaded by Picture's for Mongo

A really great cartoon not too long ago...

Unsure of what to do....

2009-07-24T20:01:41Z

Work has sucked lately (I know, it does for everybody).

I'm temping as a copy-jockey again to help make ends get withing sight of each other, the meeting is still in the future.

But I stumbled onto ComputerTraining.com and took their "test" based on the radio spot. Needless to say I did pretty good on it but it wasn't all that hard.

I went in for the sales pitch today. It carries a pretty heavy price tag but they offer financing with defrrred payments for 1 year.

What the fee covers:
Tuition, Microsoft Testbooks and Software, Self Test Software, Testing Vouchers to take the MCTS, MCP and MCSA exams, Labs and Manuals and Career services (including lifetime placement assistance)

The class is set up over six months (2 nights a week). The first 8 weeks cover Vista at which point I should be ready to take the MCTS exam (and in theory get an entry-level help desk job)

The next 5 weeks are in prep for the MCP exam.

The rest of the class is devoted towards the MCSA exam.

Looking online the reviews are mostly bad with a few good ones dismissing the bad as whiners who did not work for it.

If this works as they present it, I would take my first exam in about 2 months and get a Entry Level job while I work on the next 2 steps. After about 6 months-1 year I should be ready for a more advanced job.

To those of you who know about these things, is this reasonable? The timing is good considering work and J's work and childcare issues and if it works (and I can get a job) the money and hours would be more compatible to having a semblance of a social life. And considering where the printing industry is going (in the toilet as everyone is downsizing) the time to get out is very soon if not now. With some Microsoft certifications I could shift in the industry slightly to where the jobs still are (they all need IT people whether or not they want to admit it or pay for one is another matter).

But looking at it after the sales pitch has worn off, I don't know.

I'm either on the brink of a new career path that will be satisfying and challenging. Or making a financial blunder.

Need to change but don't know where to go.

Any and all advice is welcome.

Really bad physics joke...

2009-07-22T15:21:56Z

Or a really good one depending on your point of view...

From XKCD one of my favorite comics...

To the wonderful drivers of Massachusetts...

2009-06-26T14:54:24Z

When the large orange sign declaring that the lane is closing ahead, believe it. Because the sign declares that this is happening in a mile does not mean you can drive in the soon to be closing lane for 0.999 miles and then swerve into the next lane in front of me without using your blinkers. I do not appreciate the need to slam on my breaks especially in front of a tractor trailer (they need a lot of room to stop).

You already drive as fast as you can get away with. But that also means you are supposed to look further ahead along the road and adjust according to the conditions.

Just because

2009-06-24T22:20:39Z

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

More joys of home ownership...

2009-04-20T19:35:18Z

And another case of what in the good green earth were they thinking??!!

There is a fluorescent light fixture in the living room. She used it as an office for her seamstress business. The case is kind of cool and the glass needs to be changed and softened some more (maybe some painted glass at some point) but I digress.

The ballast on the light gave up the ghost. We were tapping it for a bit and it was slow to start on those cold mornings when the heat was turned down but no more. It had to go. And it was so old the part numbers were completely useless (I'm guessing mid to late 60's) but the guy at Home Depot was very helpful and figured out what I needed so armed with a new ballast, some wire caps and 2 new bulbs I was ready to do battle this morning while it was still light out. Call me crazy but I will not work on lights with the power on and the idea of doing this by flashlight was not appealing.

Step 1 figure out which breaker the light was on and of course turned off the computers and microwave before I found the right one- probably should have labeled those but power was off

Step 2 cut the wires to the old ballast leaving as much wire as possible just in case. Oddity/warning flag number one- there were no caps. The ballast has hard wired into the system.

Step 3 try to take off the nuts holding the ballast up. Key word there being try. I'm guessing this was assembled before being installed and they did NOT use lock washers or anything that would facilitate the removal of these nuts. I got one loose enough to be able to slide it around. The other one... well i more or less ripped it off the nut/bolt and mangled it enough to get the new one in. And of course whil putting the new one up the bolt fell off just to flip me off one last time.

Step 4 drill pilot holes for the sheet metal screws to hold up new ballast. This was of course after putting the box of screws down and then circling the house twice because I could not find them again (or the fairies need to borrow one). After asking them to give them back and finding them, and running the extension cord from the part of the house with power and getting the drill and the bit. Holes drilled and screws screwed. This was securely up and more importantly when it needs to be changed the next time it will be easier to do. Although there's not much left to the cord for the power supply so the next time might be the end of the fixture but that should be sometime after we have downsized into a condo after Piglet moves out.

Step 5 connect all wires after stripping the old ones and their near petrified casings.

Step 6 put the bulbs in and turn the power come back on. It lit up and the house did not burst into flames.

Step 7 take the bulbs back out and button everything back up. And the light still works.

The saving grace to the whole process was that J took the piglet off to the park and shopping while I did the most of m growling and swearing and tool dropping.

Buffy

2009-04-12T00:27:17Z

When you see this, post another Buffy quote in your LJ. Let's see how long this can go on.

Buffy: I told one lie and I had one drink...

Giles: Yes, and you were almost devoured by a giant snake. The words "let that be a lesson" are a tad redundant.

It's that time of year again...

2008-12-12T21:52:04Z

The annual picture with Santa at Emerald Square Mall...

In the picture:
Henry (Age 4)
Pinky Ear the Bunny (Age 1 day)
Santa (Ageless)

mongo @ 2008-11-14T18:13:00

2008-11-14T23:16:41Z

So there's this fella with a parrot. And this parrot swears like a sailor - I mean he's a pistol. He can swear for 5 minutes straight without repeating himself. Trouble is, the guy who owns him is a quiet, conservative type, and this bird's fowl mouth is driving him crazy.

One day, it gets to be too much, so the guy grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him really hard, and yells, "QUIT IT!". But this just makes the bird mad and he swears more than ever. Then the guy gets mad and says, "OK for you!" and locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet. This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches, and when the guy finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a stream of invective that would make a veteran sailor blush.

At that point, the guy is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer. For the first few seconds there is a terrible din. The bird kicks and claws and thrashes. Then it suddenly gets_very_quiet.

At first the guy just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt. After a couple of minutes of silence, he's so worried that he opens up the freezer door. The bird calmly climbs onto the man's out-stretched arm and says, "Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I'll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on.".

The man is astounded. He can't understand the transformation that has come over the parrot. Then the parrot says, "By the way, pardon me for asking, but what did the chicken do?".

When was the last time...

2008-11-14T14:28:02Z

Driving home from work this morning and I went by the Mobil on Rte 1 in South Attleboro. $1.99 9/10.

Gas is under $2 a gallon again. Don't know for how long and the changes I made to my driving habits and patterns are probably going to stick but... wow. I think the last time gas was this cheap I wasn't married yet.

Now I feel old. I should probably be yelling at kids to stay off the lawn (not a bad idea considering it's wet and covered with leaves which are slippery but stil).

Hear, Hear!!!

2008-10-30T16:49:46Z

Copy this sentence into your livejournal if you're in a heterosexual marriage and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

Ah, the joys of home ownership

2008-10-21T15:45:16Z

It's that time of year...

The leaves start to turn and you wrestle with when to turn on the heat again (it's on but not very high). I just renewed my oil contract for the next year. I will pay no more than $3.89 per gallon of oil this year. The current price is $3.51. I got last year's oil at $2.80 per gallon for the year. If the dollar stays strong and investors don't get spooked and OPEC doesn't do anything crazy, the price might hang out there or even drop a touch. But at least there's the ceiling.

It almost makes me miss the apartment with heat and hot water included...

To anyone who was at final revels of KRF on Saturday 10/18

2008-10-19T01:52:58Z

Our digital camera has turned up missing. If you should happen to find it, please let us know.

I'll be calling the office in the morning too but I'm trying to cover all the bases.

Thanks for your help.

And since it's Plimouth Plantation do we get to use the old punishments if we catch them?

2008-08-05T13:38:50Z

http://www.patriotledger.com/news/cops_and_courts/x1386717152/Vandals-hit-Plimoth-Plantation-stealing-furs-hatchets

Lessons from my 3 year old...

2008-06-09T01:34:35Z

To blow a really big bubble, you have to close your eyes and be really happy.

But don't fall asleep.

And while we were out playing (or he was playing and I was reveling in my victory over the stubborn pipe at last) the sun hit that perfect spot in the sky when everything took on a warm pink glow. It only lasted about 15 minutes but it was just a quiet moment, sitting in my yard watching my son.

Take a moment when you can, close your eyes and be really happy. The big bubble is optional.

Lead Pipe 4, Mongo 0

2008-04-26T19:46:01Z

There's a pipe in the back yard sticking up about a foot or so. Just high enough to trip up a toddler, especially one who's not looking where he's going. So with the warm weather, it seemed like a good candidate for outdoor projects.

I started digging around it (we'll give an assist to the various roots in the way including to the former shrub with its 2 inch thick ones). I went down about 2 feet and it looks like it goes much farther than that. I have tried whacking it with a 10 lb sledge hammer. I have quite a bit of play and can spin it around 180 degrees but only lift it about an inch.

After consulting with my father in law who is just as stumped as I am, I tried water to loosen the soil in the attempt to pull the pipe up. All I did was make mud with super suction powers which filled in all of the space I created with the pick and sledge hammer.

OK fine removal is not an option without a major excavation project (which I am reluctant to do since that would take me too close to the tree roots (the tree is about 150 years old and it stays). So I figured I would cut it below ground level and fill in the hole and call it done. Hacksaw time. I found a remarkable device for taking the teeth off of a hacksaw blade. Meanwhile the pipe laughed at me.

OK time for power tools. I have a Dremmel with a cutting disk. So out I go with that. Except there's no charge on the battery. So I am charging batteries and resting in the mean time.

If this doesn't work, I'm getting a cutting disk for my drill at the hardware store.

Best. Peep. Picture.

2008-03-18T17:54:30Z

see more pics

It's a bit late...

2008-03-15T01:15:31Z

But Happy Pi Day everyone

(or everyone in the US anyway-the Europeans will hold an equivalent celebration on July 22).

I think my brain just melted out my ears...

2008-03-10T19:04:45Z

I was looking on e-lance for a side project or two. One of the first jobs listed was to design a book cover for a new book.

He said to check out his website if you want to see what the book is about. OK I probably should have know better but I went there. Curiosity and the cat and all that...

I have wondered what came before the big bang and wonder if this is the safe place where the creative forces (or the deity of your choice) set things in motion since we will probably never know what happened before that point in time where time began. But I wouldn't want that taught in schools. It is a matter of faith and for each person to decide.

But even if I were starving I don't think I could compromise myself to support this book in any form.

I didn't read the whole site but keyed in on one of his arguments because it looked the most "familiar". But he claims the Theory of Evolution cannot be true because it violates the 2nd law of Thermodynamics. Now having had some exposure to both the works of Mr. Darwin and enough chemistry and physics lectures, I can only react with an epic FACEDESK.

"It’s hard to imagine the dust from the explosion of the initial “Big Bang” can self-constructed into such a wonderfully structured universe as of today, especially the delicate structures of the living creatures on the earth."

HUH? Way to compare your sub-atomic apples to biological oranges. Just because science refutes the Biblical idea that the Earth is 6000 years old, please don't stretch a theory about the development of organisms on one planet to encompass the formation of the entire universe. Maybe the word evolution gets thrown about too much. Or we haven't progressed much farther than the Old World belief that the Earth is the center of the universe as we thought.

Texas and Oklahoma are moving closer to allowing Creationism to be taught in public schools. The world is getting scarier and scarier.

edit-- I read more of the site and his arguments are some old and some new, non-sequitors and bad science with some errors of omission thrown in the mix. At least he is not one of the ultra-evangelists who demands we accept a literal interpretation of the bible and the universe is only 6000 years old. He's almost in a way scarier in that you can find yourself giving ground on one small point and getting the whole thing crammed down your throat. Still not buying any of it.

mmm bacon....

2008-03-08T19:55:57Z

Interesting...

I have made bacon scones before and they are a bit dry (too thick even in the mini scone "3-bite" size). This might be the right mix of salty and sweet and not too thick to get too dry.

The only thing I'm not sure of is the chocolate chips.

After pushing the crud around for an hour...

2008-03-01T17:46:40Z

I've decided that Mother Nature has the runs today. That would take a whole lot of Pepto to clear up.

Another product endorsement...

2008-02-23T18:04:15Z

I did this one before but considering the pleasant experience I just had it's worth repeating.

We just had that loverly snow storm that changed to sleet and freezing rain. I went out yesterday morning and cleared away a few inches of light fluffy snow. I went out again before dinner because there was more snow and it was starting to change. I also put down some snow melt. This morning everything looked candy-coated. Pretty for the eyes, not so much for my wrists and back which have carted off too many dead jousters.

Well everything just pushed along easily with the shovel. It was frozen up top but soft underneath and never stuck to the ground. The only patch I had a hard time with was under the car because I didn't put anything down under there.

What is this miracle product you ask?

It's this

It's pet (and toddler) friendly, you can work with it with your bare hands (they don't get dried out or almost burned) and it is more environmentally friendly since it doesn't play with the nitrogen balance in the soil. It's also gentler on concrete and wood floors. I have seen smaller containers in Big Y but I buy it by the bucket at Petco. It costs a little more (but not that much) but pays for itself in time (and pain) saved.

We now return you to your regular web browsing.

Because I know that there are a few people who might like to know...

2008-02-19T18:41:46Z

It seems the Extreme Makeover team is in Warwick to redo a house.

The article is interesting because it shows a little of what goes on behind the scenes to pull off what they do so quickly.

Projo article

so I'm just reading message boards, following links

2008-02-16T18:54:34Z

and I find this...

too late for all the ducky shenanigans that happened at KRF but still

Wrong on so many levels, the top half of the page is OK but scroll down into NSFW territory