Diary of a Network Geek

Or, what’s with all the polls?
So, I’m skimming through e-mail the other day and in the middle of a note about something totally unrelated, a buddy asks why I’m doing marketing research on my blog.
Hunh? I think. Marketing research? Then, it hits me that he’s talking about my latest poll. He reminded me that, hey, it’s my blog and I can write whatever I want. I don’t have to do market research on what my readers want on my own blog. Oddly, it never even occurred to me that I was doing that. Admittedly, I did feel a shift in my demographic from professional, male geeks toward something more, er, feminine and not quite as geeky, so I guess that triggered my need for feedback and research.
See, not only do I have a degree in Marketing, but I was raised by a life-long salesman and marketer. Dad drummed those things right into me before I even got to college. “Monitor progress toward goals” and “Be sure to ask the right questions” and “Set measurable goals” were all things he tried to teach me. Not just about business, but life. So, market research is part of who I am. It’s what I do. Kind of an odd thing for a geek to know, I suppose. Of course, I know a lot of things that are odd, even for geeks. For instance, when I remember to listen to my own inner voice, I can size people up pretty quickly and accurately. Good trait for a therapist, or a salesman.
But, I don’t think I have the right personality to make a good salesman. I’m not anywhere near outgoing enough to make that my bread-and-butter. I’m far too quiet. Honestly? I think I would have made a good priest. Yes, even with my dubious background, I would have made a decent priest. Not a monk, but priest. Sadly, I was raised Methodist by Baptists, so that option wasn’t really right for me. And, frankly, I never trusted our ministers, so that option is out, too. But remember, before every priest took his vows, he was a regular guy. Even a priest has a past. Oh, and, I can work a room, too. Some of my friends know what my stand-up would be like. They’ve heard me do ten or fifteen minutes just on my ex-wife and, mostly, they were rolling. I get that from Dad, too. He could tell off-color jokes at a funeral and get away with it, not to mention those crucifixion jokes he used to tell at Easter.

But, I digress. So, I can’t help the marketing research. It’s just one of the crazy things that make me who I am, like being double-jointed or knowing about knife-throwing or being obsessed with language and the written word. Just another mostly harmless quirk. As long as I remember not take it too seriously.
Now, about those tattoo stories… Should we start with “How Uncle Jim Got His First Tattoo”? Or is that too much like one of Kipling’s Just So Stories? Or, would my faithful readers be more interested in the finger cutting ritual of the yakuza? You know, there’s a trick to that…

Or, Uncle Jim takes on a boarder.
That’s so much classier than claiming to be a slumlord, don’t you think? Of course, with the state my house is in, it might be closer to the truth! Anyway, I just thought I’d update my gentle readers with the knowledge that “Doc” moved in today. It’s going to be a bit while we rearrange everything, but, I think it will be good once we’re settled. Hilda is getting used to the idea of having someone else in the house, which is good. My poor, brown girl has been so anti-socialized from her time in the clutches of the Harpy that she’s still a little skittish around strangers. (And, trust me, kids, few are stranger that “Doc”! Just kidding, Doc, just kidding.)
Also, Doc brought me clove cigarettes. Now, this might horrify some of you, but, yes, I’ve been smoking a bit. Just one cigarette per day and two on the weekends, but, still… I’ve been under a lot of stress this year and, well, it’s the holidays and… Okay, here’s the deal. I was jonesing for a smoke some time back and, when I told my head-shrink about it, his response was, “Well, it’s not as bad as some of the things you’ve done. Other than the health aspect, of course.” Sheesh! Well, with that kind of encouragement, I lit up again. And quit for a couple of days. And, lit up again. This time, I promise, it’s just through Christmas and, after my current batch runs out, I’ll stop. Again. (Oh, yeah, like anyone reading this blog really cares that much, right? I mean, it’s not like my mother reads this. Whatever.) Sometime I’ll have to explain more about why this time of year tends to inspire me to smoke. Until then, I’ll just remind you that I am Mr. Bad Example. But, what I thought was funny about the clove cigarette thing was that “my people” were taking care of me.
Never ceases to amaze me how folks come out of the woodwork to give me things I need or want or whatever. I’m like the Geek Godfather. My favorite phrase is “Yeah, I think I know a guy.” I’m told you used to hear that on the South Side a lot, back when my Dad was a kid. Regardless, my people always come through for me, no matter how bizarre the request. Sure, sometimes it’s a close call, but, still they always come through. Always. It’s almost enough to make me believe in guardian angels. Almost.

Well, enough update. While Doc settles in some, I’m off to see a The Chronicles of Narnia with another friend. And, with that, I’ll leave you with a quote. As a “prize” for guessing who said it, I’ll vote your way to whoever comes up with it first. (Except for you, Doc. You’re too damn smart for your own good!) Good luck!
“In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.”

Oh, wow, I could have used this in college!
Last week, I was talking about whisky, but this week, it’s beer. Or, something rather like it. You see, some genius at Nestle has invented, and patented, coffee-based beer. Ah, the joy of beer with caffeine and a hint of coffee taste. According to the article, the drink “pours and foams like beer, but smells of strong coffee and packs a concentrated caffeine kick.” So, you can get that double buzz from both the suds and the juice, as it were. A little “hair of the dog that bit you“. Wowzer, I could have used this the morning after a buddy and I split five pitchers of beer between the two of us, in just under four hours. Lord, I get woozy just thinking about that one.
Say, I wonder how this beer-coffee goes with cold pizza?

Wherein we learn that everything is relative.
So, last week a church, I don’t see anyone I know right off the bat and plop down at the end of a row. I’m not sitting long enough to get even a couple of sips of coffee before I’m bouncing back up to say hello to K. I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks and, since I know she’s started seeing someone new, I’ve avoided calling. New relationships are fragile and delicate creatures that tend to burst like soap-bubbles under the pressure of opposite-sex friendships, so I thought descretion should be the better part of valour and all that. Regardless of all that, K looked more lovely than usual, which I told her after recieving a very chaste hug hello. We exchange a little prayer team gossip (yes, it does exist!) and, while we’re catching up a bit, Mr. New Guy careens by to touch her and call her some pet name. Hmm, I thought, marking territory. Boy’s already in trouble. But, I stay focused on the conversation and don’t stare off after Mr. New Guy. I do, however, confirm without being blatant, that he was, in fact her new beau. Enter J, stage left.
“Uh, do you mind if we move up a couple of rows?” J asks.
“No, not at all,” I respond, smiling because I know why he wants to move.
“I just felt like we were hanging out in the middle of everything”
“Sure, dude. No problem.”
“Well, and, uh, I could see K with R and, well, uh, it was, weird.”
“Buddy, you don’t need to explain, I knew why we were moving. It’s cool.”
We both laugh a bit and, I throw in a concilliatory, “I’m not too impressed with her new guy.”
“Oh? You mean R?”
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, he just seems so weak-chinned and, well, bland.”
“Oh, no, he’s not at all! He has his own company and does…” Well, from the description, he does basically what I do, but he owns a server farm and pimps out web-hosting space.
“Hmm, well, he still seems pretty bland to me,” I said and shrugged.
“Oh, no, really, he’s not,” J said and then, after a dramatic pause, adds, “He has a sordid past.” I could only gape at J, who knows about 99% of my dirty laundry, at least in general terms.
“Dude, who do you think you’re talking to? ‘Sordid past’? I only know two or three guys who have a past more sordid than mine!” I went on to name two guys who we both knew, one of whom has a story about being arrested in a foreign country, drunk and naked on a hill-side. Yeah, that’s pretty sordid, and, yes, I have a couple of tales that come close to that, but no, we won’t be reading about them here.

I guess my point is, J had forgotten about a lot of that stuff from my past. I don’t talk about it, so he doesn’t think about it, but I sure can’t forget it. Jeez, I won’t even go into the story about how I met my ex-wife! But, see, J is an accountant who lives a very nice, well regulated life. In fact, that’s why I like him. So much of my life seems so chaotic and unpredictable that it’s nice to have someone more solid and well grounded around. My friends, these days, are my anchors to reality. They’re the handle I grab onto when my life starts to spin out of control. Though, that hasn’t been happening a lot lately, for which I am very grateful.
I’m trying not to regret that past, but see how it can help me. That craziness is what makes me so easy to talk to, for instance. I mean, after some of the things I’ve seen and done, what’s left that could shock me? And, no, that’s not an invitation to try. I’ve inspired my father to get tattooed, for pity’s sake! What can top that? Well, a lot, actually. But, again, that’s just not stuff I’m going to commit to print in any format.
Maybe I should go back to school and get my degree in Psychology. Lord knows, I understand every kind of crazy there is, many from the inside. But, I’m better now. In fact, as I write this, I’m negotiating the sale of some paraphernalia left over from that strange, twisted life I led in the shadows. I look at that gear and try to remember who I was when I did those things. Four years ago and it seems so far away. And, yes, there’s a part of me that’s tempted to go back. But, after escaping Hell once, I don’t dare tempt fate again. The scars are small and healing well. I’m far from whole, but, as the saying goes, I’m getting better.
Trust me, after where I’ve been, there’s no where to go, but up.
Oh, and just a little Advice from your Uncle Jim, if it seems like a bad idea, there’s probably a reason, but just plain fear isn’t reason enough.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
   --Ralph Waldo Emerson

A primer from Patrick Norton.
Yes, that’s right, Patrick Norton of TechTV and The Screen Savers fame. Pat’s written a little article in his blog over at Extreme Tech about switching to Linux for “free”. I put “free” in quotes like that because, frankly, nothing is free. There are some things that just don’t work or don’t work as well in Linux as they do in Windows. And, there are programs that simply don’t run under Linux. Oh, sure, you can try to use an emulator or whatever to make it happen, but I’ve never, ever really trusted those suckers. Especially not with my financial data. To me, that’s what will “kill” Windows, a Linux-version of Quicken.
Anyway, Pat has a good overview of the pros and cons of switching to Linux and it’s worth taking a look.

Well, that is what blogging is all about, no?
I’ve actually had this book, Writing Personal Essays: How to Shape Your Life Experiences for the Page, sitting on my shelf for more than a year and am just finally getting around to reading it. I’ve been reading so many insightful, thought-provoking, gut-wrenching, velvety, and just really well written blogs, not to mention the ones that sound and feel so familiar, that I’ve been inspired to improve my own writing, especially on this blog. Well, perhaps “shamed” is a better description.
A friend of mine recently asked, essentially, “Dude, what’s up with the Mr. Sensitive posts?” Frankly, I have no idea. Blame it on the rain. Blame it on the holidays. Blame it on my birthday which is circling like a giant, black vulture. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that I held back so much for so long because of who I was with or life circumstances or whatever that it got all backed up and now it’s pouring out because there’s no where else for it to go. Maybe it’s the repressed exhibitionist in me sneaking out. Hell, it might even be that my friend who’s a month or two out of a year long engagement has a date but I can only seem to meet interesting girls on the Internet, but I’m always “nice guy” material, not “wow, he’s hot” material, and never will be. Ick, that sounds so bad when I put it in black and white.

This all comes back to that old question, “Why do you blog?”
Honestly? What’s behind the thoughtful posts lately? You really want to know? What else? Girls. Why else have I done anything in my life, worthwhile or not. It’s always in relation to those marvelous, mysterious, fascinating and infuriating members of the fairer sex. Which is a misnomer, really, since I’ve never known a one of them to play fair. Always batting their eyes and making my hands all sweaty or my heart skip a beat. Sadly, the thing I miss in this particular medium is hearing their voices and seeing the expressions on their face. I can watch a woman’s lips move and not even hear what she’s saying after a bit. All that matters is seeing the magic of those delicate lips and teeth and tounge move in harmony. And, while some guys might be “leg men” or whatever, for me, it was always the eyes. And, the ears, freakishly. Something about a delicate, pink, shell-like ear that always makes me want to tell stories. And, there’s the change. I have a more feminine audience and, suddenly, I find myself wanting to explain, to justify, to persuade. All those things and more.
But, of course, the classic melancholy of a writer kicks in and I’m sure that none of them are really reading this or would really listen to me in person. Who would want to listen to my foolishness? I tell myself. With all the truth and honesty in those blogs I linked to up above, who would want to spend their time sifting through my verbosity to find the tiniest grain of truth that even I forgot was there?
In the end, that’s all I want. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Someone to listen to me. Someone to hear.
I saw a movie with Jennifer Connelly in it this weekend. She was laying on some lucky actor’s chest, playing with his sweater and looking all wistful while he was saying something. Her pale green eyes were all but translucent as she said her line. Of course, I was so busy watching her mouth move that I have no idea what she was saying. It hurt so bad that I had to get up and leave the room. How could I have misjudged my ex-wife and my life so badly that I actually married someone who didn’t understand that was all I wanted? Even after I told her? And, now, there are days that I feel like that will never happen. I think, sometimes, that’s the way it should be. That I’m just meant to be alone. Worse, I’m getting used to the idea.
And, now that this little essay has gotten a little too personal, so I’m going to go have a drink. A strong drink

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world."
   --John le Carre

Know them and defend them.
With a whole lot of help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, of course. The EFF has a relatively new campaign to both raise awareness of blogger’s legal rights and to help carve some out for them. Not many people realize that there are some liability issues with blogs and what’s written there. Folks use their blogs in a number of ways, but some of them might result in charges of libel, among other things. And, of course, there are the famous cases of people being fired for blogging about work. Well, the EFF has long been an electronic watch-dog group, keeping tabs on our eroding freedoms online and, of course, trying to stem that flow. They’re good folks with a good cause and it’s worth looking into.
You can sign up for a “badge” for your blog to help raise awareness at this link.

Support Bloggers Rights!

This is not what I intended to write.
Really, it’s not, though I’d imagine my ex-wife will think I planned it just for her. I didn’t, but, then, she always was a paranoid narcissist. And, I know I’ve been writing about her a lot lately, all I can say is that I hope it’s because I feel detached enough from her that I can let that part of my past go and out. Anyway, a recent post on another blog sort of hit me where I live, though not for the reasons one might think. You see, my ex-wife left me twice. The last time, thankfully, for good, but the first time was years ago, before she was my wife.
I was living in Chicago at the time, in a suburb named Mount Prospect. She and I had been involved, in the Bibilcal sense, for a little over a year. She’d left her second husband, though not divorced him, and was lonely. I had obligations to my Masonic Lodge that predated her by several years. In fact, I was in position for a fairly rare opportunity to lead the Lodge, as Master, for a year at a very young age. She, however, wanted me to drop everything and move down to Texas for her. Obviously, being who I am, I told her I couldn’t do that and, if what we had meant anything, she could wait another year. After all, I figured it would be for a lifetime once I got there. What happened next should have been a red flag to me.
She started getting extra friendly with a guy from work. She and her daughter went to the beach with him and his daughter. They ate lunch together and more. It didn’t take long for the bells and whistles to go off for me. I asked her to stop seeing him and she gave me the old line about needing to get out and have friends. Friends, sure, but this guy was after a whole lot more than that and I told her so. She told me that I was just being controlling and jealous. That escalated until, finally, I was given the boot because I just was holding on “too tightly” and being “too controlling and jealous”. Before we were done, I told her exactly what he was after and how he’d get it. I knew because, in college, I’d seen or tried to do the same thing.
Fast forward about six weeks. I’ve become the Master of my Lodge and I’m already swamped with work. Pile on all the changes that were going on at my job, which made me the head network and support “go to” guy and I hardly had time to eat, much less check phone messages or e-mail. One Saturday night, I go over to my parents to eat and do laundry, as I often did. Since I was single and had nothing better to do, I stayed later than I intended and was too tired to check e-mail when I got home. So, I let it go until the morning. I don’t know how many e-mails I had from my ex-wife, but, let’s just say, more than one. And, since this was back in the days when everyone still used modems, when I got done checking e-mail, I had phone messages waiting for me. Again, more than one. More than one tear-soaked, blubbering, snot-bubble-blowing, barely coherent phone message, begging me to take her back. Oh, the litany of how I’d been right and how she’d been wrong was long and flowery and moving. And, like the fool I was, I took her back.
Later, I found out she’d left this “prize” because he’d been with prostitutes, was a self-confessed pedophile and had allegedly forced himself on her sexually. I often wonder if she’d have come back to me if he’d been less messed up. Would it have been such a mistake on her part? Or, would I have been, as I am to her now, Satan incarnate. See, the irony is, not long after she was promising to love me forever and do anything to make the relationship work, she was also telling me that she wasn’t comfortable with seeing me right away, either. She was wrong, she claimed, but she had to put limits and restrictions on our relationship so that it was “safe” for her. Yeah, that was red flag number two.
But, no, I still turned a blind eye to that and we met in San Francisco during the Folsom Street Fair to “make up”. And, so we did. Now, flash forward to this time last year, when that all played out again, the only way it could have. Only this time, if she comes back, I’m calling the police to have her removed from my property.

I try not to think too much about what my life would be like if I’d only held firm back in the Summer of ’97 . But, I do still wonder sometimes. Would I be happier than I am? Would I be better off? Well, maybe I would and maybe not. I’d like to say that I’m older and wiser now, but, mainly, I’m just older and not wise at all. I get like that at this time of year. The new year is approaching and so is my birthday. I find myself looking at where I am and how I got here. It’s never where I thought I’d be and the path is never the one I would have chosen, but I keep plodding on.
What else is there to do?

I have something fun coming here.
Well, at least, it’s fun to me. Apparently, some folks aren’t looking forward to New Year’s Eve. Now, I can imagine a number of reasons this might be true. Thankfully, I have The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Holidays which has helpful advice for such unhappy events. If nothing else, it gave me a chuckle. Well, as we get closer to ringing in the new year, I will reveal a little new year’s web app that I stayed up late coding last night and was inspired by this book, and the dear, sweet thing who’s so grumpy about the oh, so happy holidays. Besides, having something to look forward to may just improve their mood.
Or, not, either way, I take no responsibility!

You’ll notice the poll is gone.
Well, that’s because while you all were out partying this weekend, I was giving in to peer pressure and recording the requested sound samples. I’m still not sure which of you weirdos wanted to hear me read SmooveB, but at least an equal number wanted to hear me read Robert Frost. I have a strange and varied audience. Very strange. I got one, um, “private” comment, but, so far, no one else has mentioned anything about the sound files. Not sure what to make of that this evening. Well, anyway, I hope you enjoyed them!