neorants

So, it almost pains me to say it, but I’m actually getting used to them, now that I’ve made some space on my desk to shift their position a bit. So long as one monitor is directly in front of me instead of the gap between the two screens, I can cope, and am growing to appreciate the extra space. However, I still miss the extra height, and would have much preferred two 24″ monitors to avoid going below 1200px vertical resolution.

In any case, it’s certainly not the end of the world, and it’s pretty nifty to fire up a full-screen Ubuntu VM in VirtualBox on the second monitor, to work with a real OS for any serious development.

So, my employer recently gave me a new laptop, which is great. They talked about getting us “a couple of monitors” to hook up, as well. At the time, I mentioned that I would much prefer one large widescreen to two monitors. A couple weeks went by, no new monitors, I was happily working away in my 20″, 1600×1200 world. Until today. Below, see my new setup. Now I have two 1680×1050 desktops instead. I feel like some poor lab rat in an experiment where they’re trying to induce a split personality or something. The multiple desktop thing always has annoyed me. I never grew fond of virtual desktops in *nix, either. I just don’t work that way. I’ve promised myself to give it a few days to see if I can adjust, but so far, it’s not looking good. As you can see in the photo, I’m still gravitating toward one display.

And yes, before anyone says anything, I know that’s insane.

New Work Setup

[Update: I'm coping.]

You know who you are.

I just got back from seeing Fireproof. It’s my sincere prayer that all those who are in a marriage that is hurting see this film. It was phenomenal.

My dad is finally at the age where he’s applying for social security. He received his paperwork yesterday and they had placed his cover sheet on the disability request forms of someone else. As he was telling me about this, the following exchange occurred on his speakerphone:

Dad: I can’t believe they messed this up. This is a federal agency! Anyway, so I’m going to…
Me: Wait. Wait, wait, wait — rewind, and say what you just said again.
Dad: What?
Me: "I can’t believe they messed this up. This is a federal agency!"
(Mom, in the background, laughing hysterically)

That made my morning.

Here’s a downed utility pole even closer to my place. I got these shots last night. Not long after I got home, my cable went out. It was one of those on, then off, then on, then off, etc things, which means someone was likely monkeying around working on power or phone lines and knocked it out. Thanks, guys. Either way, I’m just glad I had hot water this morning. Anyway, here are the pics.

Utility Pole 1

Utility Pole 2

Utility Pole 3

That is all.

Not content to rely solely on my (considerable) artistic ability to provide a rendering of the damage to power lines yesterday, I snapped a couple of shots of the real thing. As you can see, there is now a bright orange “do not cross” line to ensure people are aware that they are not to drive through the multiple large trees in the road.

Trees 1

Trees 2

…when you have it. I don’t, at the moment. What was left of Ike has taken its toll on the Louisville area, and I’m told I may not have power for another 2 to 7 days. At the office, however, we’re running on a generator, which means I have access to a computer. After attempting to explain the problem I found not too far from my home that may have some bearing on the electricity being out, I decided an illustration may help them understand. See if you can spot the issue.

Tree.

Update: My mistake. According to the status page on their web site:

Harrison REMC reports that most outages were wind and tree related.

So apparently they know. That’s a relief. I thought they were related to alien takeover of our power grid.

With the infamous joni51, whose computer is acting up:

joni51: can u try to fix this thing?????
Neo: what, like come over and putz around on it?
joni51: it ust doesn’t work
joni51: yea and the j keeps missing
Neo: lol