Before I get down to business, I just want to say that boo_2 is right to
suggest other options for me. I’m not angry. It may not be the first time someone’s
suggested I try an IS or IT career, and it won’t be the last, but I should
appreciate it every time it comes up, because the alternative is being ignored
completely, which is worse than the negativity I’ve recieved in past
attempts to get an office job.

It is important to exhaust all of your options before you say, “I can’t do
that.”

I’m in a much more positive mood writing this today, it was a better day
than pretty much most of the past week.

…

UPSIDE-DOWN

One of my coworkers, for anonymity’s sake we’ll call her Melissa, helped a
gentleman with his return and all that sort, and when she gave him his money
and he was almost through, she gave him the slip for him to sign for the
money he took back, facing right-side-up to him, and he took it, turned it
upside-down, and signed the bottom of the signature line.

I had to sign off as a witness, and there it was, some kind of abstract art
dangling from the signature line…

RUNNING IN CIRCLES

Later that day a lady was going to have her kids photographed at the
‘picture on a mug or T shirt’ cart in the hall out in front of us… her
boy (probably three, maybe four years old) ran freely through the store, doing whatever he pleased. This did not
concern me per se, since he did not wreck any merchandise, nor did he do
anything to disturb the other customers. He just disobeyed his mother when
she told him it was time to leave to take the picture. She abandoned him in
the store, his sole punishment, not being photographed.

When she returned to fetch him, he ran from her, and the chase went up and
down all of our aisles, circling around for twenty minutes, over and over
again, all the while, his mother cursing and swearing at him.

After we closed, Melissa and I talked about them…

“You know, I feel sorry for the kid. Did you hear the way his mother yelled
at him?”

“Yes, there’s a reason kids end up acting like that you know.”

While they went around all I could think about, is that eventually this
child will grow up into something. It’s just a matter of a decade or so and
he will be a functioning adult, whether or not his mother or the culture
around him as taught him anything he needs to know to survive.

What were the drunks in front of the liquor store on 10th Street like when
they were three years old?

…

Thank you all for your comments, in fact, thanks for sticking around when my
quality isn’t as good as I want it to be.

compassion: Indiana isn’t that
bad… *winks* The things that make the midwest ‘boring’ are what give it
its character, and well, I go for the people more than the setting.

boo_2: Thanks for the link… and let me emphasize, I’m not angry or
anything…

Call me stubborn but I don’t want to ask for money unless I have a product
of substance to offer (and I’m working on that.)

veritgo_josh: Thank you,
you’ve inspired the absolute test to determine if someone is ready to try
Linux or not.

If you cannot confidently remove Linux and replace it with your old
operating system, you are not ready for it yet.

Linux is for people who in other eras would build Heathkit radios, it’s for
people who like to type at command prompts, it’s for people who remember when
all computers had a programming environment built into them and expect it to
be there. Linux is the only thing left that keeps modern computers
exciting for me.

Because of the do-it-yourself implications of Linux, it’s only as good as
the person installing it, as you’ve well seen. 2.6.x introduced
some brand new ways to shoot yourself clear in the foot to go with all those
performance adjustment features. I’m still learning them.

At a more practical level, Linux does everything I need it to do, now. I’ve
been using it since my brother showed it to me in 1996, and now that there’s
no piece of software that I really need Windows or a Macintosh for (and I’m
aware this fact could change later) I have no reason to use any other system.
Can’t beat the price either. Perhaps it helps that I am the only one that
is hurt if my computer breaks? The regretable side effect is that I
don’t have much Windows experience. I haven’t used a Windows newer than 98
more than a handful of times, and when I have, I feel like I’m on another
planet. I often scream questions that start with ‘Where the hell is…’ or
‘How the hell do I…’

Just for the record, I’m not offended by the works of people that would make
Linux easier to install and use: as long as the functionality is all there,
as long as I can read and adjust settings with a simple peek at the /proc
files and so on, as long as I can completely manage everything inside my
computer to the extent that I want to, I’m there. If I get the services
working on my server in time, here’s a quickie look at my tweaked up Gnome 2.4 screen.
The disturbing resemblance to the Macintosh OS is unintentional.

lazarusrat: My memory
got sniped. I wanted a bigger one anyway.

…

I’m starting to feel the ‘ordinary time’ groove at work… I hope taking
off doesn’t ruin it.

See you next time.