Diary of a Network Geek

What a way to spend the weekend!

My wife and I shopped all weekend long. Saturday, we were at Target, which we pronounce Tahr-jay, like the French. We both had gift certificates from our respective birthdays and the whole family needed clothes. I was quite pleasantly suprised at their selection. Not only did I get the socks I needed, but I found two pair of really nice, affordable dress pants. I was shocked!
My wife got a bunch of clothes there and at Academy Sports, too. But, we never were able to find any school uniforms for our daughter. Too late in the season, I guess. We’ll just have to tell her to stop growing!

Sunday, we dropped off our daughter at her biological father’s and slipped off to Niko Niko’s, our favorite Greek sandwich shop, for lunch. After that, it was an expensive little stop at Half-Price Books. We hit the mother lode there. We got two huge tattoo books, several art books, a couple of books on type and typography, and even some fiction by William S. Burroughs. And all at half-price, or better!
Then, it was off to Texas Art Supply. We did even better there. Not only did I find more books on type, but my wife found a great acrylics set that was at half-price! Though, we didn’t know that until we’d checked out. What a great suprise!
Finally, we were off to British Isles to get my frou-frou aftershave. Well, they were out, but, not only did they promise to call me when it came in, but they gave me the tester for FREE! Of course, we then felt guilty and had to buy some stuff, but I think that might have factored into their decision a little. In any case, I can’t say enough about the wonderful folks who own and run this store.

Whew! I’m so tired I need to get to work and rest!

Seven heros, lost.

I turned on the TV to watch cartoons this morning and was presented with tragedy. Just like the Challenger 17 years ago, they played the footage over and over again until the horror of it was so burned into my head that I’ll never forget it. The last generation had the JFK shooting, mine has Challenger and now Discovery. I grieve, along with the rest of the country, for the seven heroic lives lost.
But, I grieve for the space program and the setbacks they will now encounter due to this horrible accident. How many missions will be scrubbed? How many new technologies will not see the light of day? How many delays will there be in the already lean experiemental NASA portfolio? Seven lives are gone, but much more will be lost as a result. I mourn for it all.
But, life must go on. I hope that they find out what went wrong quickly and minimize the delays for the rest of the space program. I hope that budgets don’t get cut more than they have been. I hope that we still reach towards the stars.

Ad astra, per aspera.