Today's lyrics of wisdom, from The Folk Implosion:
Never know what I'm looking for until I find it
Never know where I am until I leave
Not aware that I care until I'm angry
Never know what I'm thinking until I dream
In the second verse, the first line becomes, "Never know what I'm looking for until it finds me." Sneaky. Go buy One Part Lullaby, if you haven't yet. It's good.
Today was kind of a non day. Woke up even earlier than yesterday, continuing the trend of the week. I don't actually like this morning business. If I leave for work before 10 or so, I have traffic problems to deal with. Got to work, had more good coffee, ended up having to explain to a passing cow orker what the french press is. I think I'm going to be known on my floor as the coffee guy.
Had a meeting this afternoon with people from WebTrends. We've been using two older versions of their product (3.0 and 3.5) and they're up to 4.0 now. We have problems with their software, and they're aware of it. They're not, however, fixing it. Instead of making the software faster, or making stuff work better, they're adding more features. Some of the features are things we need, but what we really need is for the problems to be fixed, and speed of the whole thing increased since the biggest problem is speed, or the lack of it. We don't have the available time or computer resources to spread the stuff out so that reports that take six hours to run don't stop everything else. They think they can just get us to sign on the line for their very expensive and not-very-good product. I'm thinking at this point the answer is no. I wouldn't mind buying more horsepower if it were also going to run better software, but it's not better software, and I mind.
After work went to happy hour for another person who just quit, after being invited by Paul, who quit several months ago but is still on the email list for these departure drinkfests. I didn't know Tiffany at all, but she's leaving and I don't need much of an excuse to go drinking. It turns out Tiffany sees her role in life as matchmaker for all her friends, so she invited the guys at the table to a birthday party she's throwing for one of those friends next Friday. I might actually go, just to see if it is indeed possible to meet somebody in this town, except that's the night Emily comes in from Holland and I'll be picking her up at Dulles. I think the last thing Emily wants is to be dragged, jetlagged, along to a birthday party where she knows no one and to which her brother was specifically invited to mingle with single girls. I suppose I could be wrong, but I think not.
Of course there's a further problem with that assortment of people: get two male geeks in a room and they're going to talk to each other and not the girls in the same room, no matter how attractive those girls might be. This has not changed for geeks since, oh, junior high (merely the subject matter under discussion). I'd like to say that I'm not affected by this, but I'd be lying. Who wants to talk to pretty girls when you can figure out over a couple beers, and with the aid a few cocktail napkins and empty beer bottles as props, how it'll be possible to set up a wireless network in the office that'll make it possible to sit in nearby restaurants and use network resources?
There are plenty of single men in NOVA/DC. They just don't know how to talk to girls. FWIW, the girls don't seem to know how to talk to geeks either. The ones that do are already married, it appears. It also appears that technical skills are not selected for in the typical mating process.
Agh. Tomato sauce on pasta for dinner = heartburn after dinner. I think it's time for Alka Seltzer and bed.
(2000-03-02)
