Six Months

It's been six months since the Work From Home order came down at my place of employment. On Monday, however, I have to go back into the office for the next week or so. To be clear, this was no one's first choice.

Since we're now in a new fiscal year and the purse strings have loosened somewhat from what they were in March, the organization is doing the right thing in light of the current pandemic and issuing all its employees laptops. In my particular division, that amounts to approximately 150 pieces, all of which will need to have our standard software image applied prior to being deployed.

Normally this would not be a problem, but working from home presents a few challenges. Since I am the departmental imaging "guy" and want to absolutely limit possible exposure to COVID because I fall into a high risk group, my supervisor suggested that I image the machines at home. The logistical difficulty of doing this was not insurmountable, and I certainly felt comfortable taking on the task. Even imaging from USB sticks instead of over the wire I could realistically expect to get 25-30 machines prepped per day

That was all well and good, and I was actually feeling pretty excited about it because to be honest I'm getting pretty tired of just staring at a screen for 8 hours and doing precious little else.

Well, this plan was run by my supervisor's boss and she put the kibosh on it immediately. "Non imaged equipment cannot leave our facilities."

Well damn.

Enter plan B. My colleagues would clean up the lab (a closed room with its own door that had gone from being an actual computer lab to one very messy store room) and I would come into the office starting Monday for the next five days to do the imaging work in house. I'm not exactly thrilled with the prospect because I'm still very skittish about being out in public, but my organization has gone to great lengths to follow CDC recommendations in terms of social distancing, mask wearing, and hand washing, so it's not going to be like say, spending an entire day at Target. My supervisor told me that for the duration of this project I wouldn't be working any additional tickets (so no face-to-face interaction with our customers) and he felt that by keeping me in isolation in the lab this would further minimize my overall exposure.

Okay, fine.

Ben and I both went to get swabbed today. This was not prompted by my (or increasingly likely his) return to work next week, but rather an unfortunate encounter Ben had last week. I'll spare you the gruesome details, but suffice to say that the selfish, callous disregard displayed by a certain individual (whose identity long-time readers of this blog will have no trouble discerning) who may have exposed us to the virusafter all the care we've gone through to follow the rules and avoid being exposed—has resulted many subsequent sleepless nights and that individual becoming unwelcome in this household ever again.

In Case You Missed It

Hearing these two men speak actually gives me some hope for this country.

Like millions of others, we've been watching the Democratic Convention this week, and I have to say how…refreshing…it is to hear adults in the room again; to hear adults with vocabularies bigger than that of a 5-year old speaking with an eloquence and passion I haven't heard for the last four years.

The Democrats must win the Presidency and flip the Senate this year, or the incredible experiment that was the United States will have failed.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but register to vote. Check your registration. Have a plan to vote, in person or by mail. Text VOTE to 30330 for polling information and to get help securing your ballot.

Prophetic

I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance." ~ Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Pronunciation Poem

I take it you already know
of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
on hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
to learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
that looks like beard and sounds like bird.
and dead—it's said like bed not bead—
and for goodness' sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).

A moth is not the moth in mother,
nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
and then there's dose and rose and lose—
just look them up—and goose and choose,
and cork and work, and card and ward,
and font and front and word and sword,
and do and go and thwart and cart—
come, come I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five.

ORLY?

Trump told Homeland Security that he had "Magical Powers" so don't tell him what's illegal. BAT. SHIT. INSANE.

Toggle Election

From Greg Fallis:

Republican Friend: I've been a moderate Republican all my life. I voted for Trump last time, but I didn't think he'd actually win. I can't bring myself to vote for him this time.
Me: Great. Glad to hear it.
RF: Don't be too glad. I'm not voting for Biden either.
Me: Those are the only choices. Trump or Biden.
RF: I'm voting for Jo Jorgensen.
Me: Who?
RF: Jo Jorgensen.
Me: Who is Jo Jorgensen when she's at home?
RF: She's the Libertarian candidate.
Me: So you're voting for Trump.
RF: No, I'm voting for Jorgensen.
Me: Same thing.
RF: No, it's not. I'm voting my conscience.
Me: Bullshit. You're dodging your conscience.
RF: No, I'm not. I said I can't bring myself to vote for…
Me: Yeah, I know what you said. And I know what you meant. You mean you don't want to feel any responsibility if Trump is re-elected.
RF: No, that's not it.
Me: Bullshit. That's exactly it. You don't want to vote for Trump, but you're not going to do anything to prevent him from being re-elected. You're more concerned with soothing your conscience than with protecting the Constitution.
RF: That's not true. Biden won't fix the nation's prob…
Me: Does Jo Jorgensen have a popcorn fart's chance of winning?
RF: No, but that's not the point. The point is…
Me: Fuck your point. This is a toggle election. The choices are truly binary. Yes or no. Up or down. On or off. Biden or Trump. Those are the only choices.
RF: I have to vote my conscience.
Me: Fuck you and fuck your conscience. You're a coward.
RF: I'm not a…
Me: You're dodging all personal responsibility to act for the good of the nation. It's no different than saying you oppose the pandemic but won't wear a mask. Fuck you.
RF: It's not like that at all.
Me: Did I just say 'Fuck you'? I believe I did. Fuck you again.
RF: Are you angry with me?
Me: Shut up. Go away. Fuck you and everybody you know, you fucking coward.
RF: I understand you're upset.
RF: Hello?
Former Republican Friend: Hello?

I'll Admit…

I'll admit I'm one of those
Democrats who has wanted
to see Trump impeached from Day 1.
Why? I believed
he was dishonest, grossly incompetent,
morally bankrupt,
self-serving, and
profoundly unfit
to hold the office of the
President of the United States.
And you know what?
He has proven me right
over and over and over
and over again.