Saturday, June 27, 2015

The Good News News Channel: Marriage Equality For the Win!

Everyone's seen this by now, right? http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage.html?_r=0

popular meme going around the web
For once, the U.S.A.  is doing something right!  Happy dance time!

Monday, June 22, 2015

Reach For the Sun

My lime tree is tenacious and resilient
 
 and it loves the summer sun.
 I was wondering about cutting it way back, but now I'll just trim the definitely dead branches and let it work on all its shiny new leaves as it pleases.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Freecycling

Earlier this week I gave away almost all of my moving boxes, paper, and bubble wrap to other people who were moving and needed them, courtesy of The Freecycle Network.  I saved myself many trips to different recycling centers, they were saved from getting a heap of brand-new boxes, and the world is saved (for now) from a large heap of cardboard that doesn't need to go to the recycling center yet. 

Grassroots organization via internet for the win!

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Beat the Dust From Your Mats

It's no good shaking the dust from your feet when you are in the middle of several hundred miles of dusty scrub and rock-and-shale desert.  But today I walloped all the dust I could raise from my car mats and then vacuumed mats and car.  I also dropped my Wyoming and Utah maps in the recycle bin.

It was very satisfying.  

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Caturday Posts: Presents from the Dumpster

I have a tendency to retrieve other people's trash and reuse it.  Most recently I found a cat tower.  Tamerlaine finds it sniffable.  Scaramouche is not so impressed and is, in fact, to sexy for these pictures.



Tuesday, June 9, 2015

The Further Adventures of Conan the Engineer


How long Conan the Engineer spent bounding lithely across the plain, he never afterwards could tell, for it seemed both that he covered great distance and that he spent no time at all, for every time that his legs wearied, he would drink from the ever more bountiful stream of aromatic liquid, and his limbs would fill with vitality, and send him once more across the leagues with purpose and energy. as the stream became a great river.

His journey came to an end, however, when he reached the headwaters of the wonderful fluid, from whence the trickles and rivers he had tracked originated.  At the end of the river crouched a giant toad, slowly drooling forth gallons of the stuff.  In spite of his delight in drinking it, Conan could not help but feel slightly sickened.  Nonetheless, a warrior who has spilled the slimy viscera of his foes upon multiple battlefields will not be easily stopped by so small a thing as a drooling toad.  He stepped manfully forward and demanded "What is this wonderful liquid, and how can such a disgusting thing as you produce it?"

The toad paused in its drooling and replied "This is coffee, the gift of the gods, brought to us even by so lowly a medium as the goats upon the holy mountain, who danced for joy on tasting even the beans.  I am incompetence, who takes even this lifegiving elixir and makes of it an irritation and annoyance.  I do this thing because it is my nature, and I am too apathetic to change."

So saying, the creature belched forth a great flood, and soaked Conan from clew to earing.  Whereupon Conan lifted his poleaxe and clove the creature in twain. 

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Styles of Asking for Help, by Gender

At work, I am often asked to fix stuff.  I'm the sysadmin so it comes with the territory.  However, the other women of the office (who are overwhelming administrative staff rather than engineers, because women in tech aren't much of a thing in the U.S.) when they ask for help often preface it with either how stupid they are and they are probably asking dumb questions, or how smart I am.  The men of the office have much less of a tendency to do this.  One or two of our male interns who are still in college, will but the full time engineers will seldom if ever tell me they are stupid.  Even if they are telling me that there is no internet coming out of the internet hole in the wall (true story).

What, if anything, can I do about this, besides being always prepared with motivational speeches for women telling me they are stupid?