Ponderings and Musings

It was a bright, beautifully sunny day here in Central New York today. Unfortunately, that did not stop the flood waters that are literally swamping parts of New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland. As I type this entry, it’s raining again, with thunderstorms and heavy rain predicted through midnight.

Work has been somewhat hectic as we are trying to keep up with telephone service repairs. It’s not easy to fix one telephone wire, let alone a junction box with several thousand wires, under several feet of water. This is one of the few occasions where I’m happy to be inside in the Network Operations Center instead of being out in the field getting dirty, and wet. Bravo to the crews out there that are helping in any way they can.

Earl’s company’s plant in Binghamton was four feet underwater as of yesterday. Today the water had retreated to less than a foot.

My aunt that lives in Conklin, just south of Binghamton, was rescued from her home as it was being flooded. Apparently she was airlifted out by helicopter. A home down the street from her house blew up from presumably a ruptured gas main.

The Fonda Speedway in the Mohawk Valley would more appropriately be called Lake Fonda. Perhaps they can race speedboats instead of supermods this weekend.

Any roadway, except the main expressway, that crosses the Mohawk River near our home is currently closed. No mall for this boy tonight, as it’s hard to just get there from here. It’s not worth the effort anyway.

And it’s raining. And raining. And raining again. I think our pool is finally overflowing for the first time since we’ve lived here.

I heard the sun will come out tomorrow.

A couple of days ago I mentioned a little bit of disappointment I had felt because I attended my high school annual alumni dinner and I was the only one from the class of 1986 in attendance. While the whole affair was quite enjoyable, I was looking forward to seeing how some of my contemporaries were doing.

Well today a little handout arrived in the mail advertising my high school class’ 20 year reunion, to be held during the annual Field Days on August 4! I can not believe that I’m actually looking forward to getting together with my old classmates but I have to admit that I am.

Here’s a picture of my grandmother, my mom and myself taken right after my graduation on June 29, 1986. I’m happy to say that I’ve exceeded my own expectations of where I’d be today.

I’ve often quipped at work that on the day that Armageddon arrives, I will be on-call for work. The earth will be ending and some nimrod is going to be complaining that they can’t dial the time and temperature line because their phone line is out. “It’s Armageddon, it’s very hot.” That’s what I’ll tell them.

Yesterday I mentioned that it had been steadily raining for the past 24 hours or so. The rain continued until around 11 a.m. today. I can’t get onto the National Weather Service website to see how much rain has accumulated, but I can tell you that there are *a lot* of telephones not working in the area.

A few things happening in the area:

1. All roads in nearby Herkimer County are closed due to flooding.
2. The New York State Thruway is closed between Exits 31 and 28 due to the rising waters on the Mohawk River and Erie Canal, both of which run parallel to the Thruway. Due to the closure, as of this writing the Thruway is backed up at least four miles as eastbound traffic tries to exit through the small tollbooths there.
3. A restaurant in the small village of Dolgeville decided enough was enough and fell into the East Canada River.
4. To our south, parts of the cities of Binghamton and Oneonta are under water.
5. A portion of Interstate 88 washed out.

There’s a lot more going on, but I have to pretend like I’m working at my desk when I’m trying to do this research.

Last night was interesting for me because my pager rang for the most of the night, coaxing out of slumber and into SuperTech mode. I’ve had about two hours sleep. I’m a little punchy at work. I’m thinking I told a customer to fsck themselves instead of just thinking it, but that could just be the sleep deprived paranoia kicking in. I think I would have remembered that conversation.

Mother Nature is certainly keeping us on our toes this year!

It has been raining for the past 24 hours. It’s been coming down pretty much non-stop. They say it’s going to just keep raining for a while.

And tonight, the floods arrived.

Have you ever took a moment and pondered what your cat or dog thinks about you? I sometimes do. For example, as I type this blog entry, Tom is looking at me like I’m rather nuts and is voicing his displeasure with what I am currently doing. This is totally going to go into the “Too Much Information” file, but I’m typing this on my PowerBook while sitting on the john.

I believe in multitasking.

Tom and I have a lunch routine that must not deviate or else he’ll express his disappointment in me by meowing and making burying motions over his food dish.

I do wonder why he is so adherent to a timetable. Is it because I need to keep to a timetable myself? Have I trained him to do things in a certain way, or has he trained me?

There are moments when we’re out and about that I’ll see some random animal in our travels and wonder what they’re thinking. Does the pooch in the purse really like being in a purse? Is the squirrel trying to eavesdrop on a phone conversation while running across the road via telephone line? Do the birds really look for clean cars to do their business?

I find it all very curious.

Sometimes, I think we all need to go back and remember when things were simply stated. Take a look at these videos on youtube.

Melting Pot.

The Preamble.

I think we should sit down all the politicians and remind them to stop making things so complicated!

A couple of months ago Earl and I installed a garbage disposal in our kitchen sink to aid with the mess we make when we cook and attempt to clean up afterwards. We both grew up in households where discarded vegetables down the drain are good and discarded vegetables in the garbage can are bad.

The key to garbage disposal success is to run it after filling it and giving it a drink of water while it’s doing it’s thing.

One of us, and I’ll go out on a limb and take the blame for this, forgot to run the garbage disposal after shoving some things into on Friday night. Come Sunday morning, it was showing it’s complaint by giving off a less than delicious odor. So while we were at the market yesterday, we picked up these lemony things that you drop in a grind up, thereby releasing a wonderful gas that should make the whole Garbage Disposal Experience pleasant again.

The kitchen smells like someone got frisky with the Pine-Sol. Lots of Pine-Sol.

I don’t think I understand the logic behind a “lemon fresh scent”. Who says that the smell of lemons means it clean? I mean, I don’t think we’ve ever seen a person getting prepped for surgery by orderlies rubbing lemon juice all over them. We would assume that said patient is clean but I’m sure he or she doesn’t smell lemon fresh when they’re wheeled into the operating room, a sprig of parsley on the side notwithstanding.

The truth be known, this decidedly chemically induced lemon scent is giving me a damn headache. So I’ll probably take an aspirin before going back to work. I think I’ve learned my lesson and will remember to run the disposal (is it disposal or disposer?) in the future.

And I think I’ll discard the rest of the lemon drops. You think I would have learned after my last run in with cleaning scents.

Creative Space.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

When I took my walk the day of the Summer Solstice this past week, I made a mental list of things I’d like to get accomplished. One of those things was to get the room I call my “creative space” cleaned up and to make it a more asthetically and productive environment.

So this afternoon that’s exactly what I did.

Earl and I have been using matching office chairs for the past couple of years in our respective computer rooms. They’ve matched to the point where they were both broken, ready to fling us out of our seats at a moments notice. I felt a trip to Staples was in order, so we picked up a couple of office chairs and I picked up a desk for my PowerBook setup.

The Mac Mini has had issues since I fired up the trial version of Microsoft Office on it, so I wiped the Mac Mini clean and I’m in the process of reinstalling all my audio tools. Thank goodness for firewire drives, it makes me it much easier when your important files are saved on a separate hard drive!

I also dragged the IBM Netstation from the basement up here into the studio so I would have a computer that could be devoted to work and all that stuff. It’s behaving itself on my old computer desk.

While in somewhat of a cranky mood today (which was rectified by a nap), at least now I’m feeling a sense of accomplishment and that I’m ready to tackle the work week head on.

Alumni.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Well Earl and I survived my high school’s 117th annual Alumni Dinner this evening, followed by a the presentation of scholarships and other alumni association business in the auditorium afterwards. The food was delicious and the whole program was quite interesting.

I graduated from high school 20 years ago. I thought that I would run into some classmates at the alumni banquet this year, but no such luck as I was the only representative from the class of 1986.

One of the more interesting things I noticed about the high school involves my handwriting. The summer between my junior and senior years of high school, I worked for the district cleaning and painting the classrooms to prep them for the new school year in the fall. That same year, Room 102 was divided into two smaller classrooms. Instead of numbering the new room as Room 101A or Room 102A, I took a heavy black magic marker and renumbered the existing Room 101 as Room 100 by making the trailing “1” into a “0” on the room number painted on the molding over the door. I then wrote “101” over the new classroom, doing my best to mimic the other painted room numbers throughout the school.

My room number is still posted in faded magic marker over the doorway to Room 101. I found this quite exciting.

Coupled with the work I’ve done as a hobbyist with the clock systems in the school, my legacy lives on at Pulaski Junior-Senior High School.

Earl and I are going to my high school’s annual Alumni Dinner this evening. I figured this year would be a good year to go for a couple of reasons. First of all, my Dad is being installed as the president of the Alumni Association this evening and I’d kind of like to be there for that. Secondly, and quite honestly I can’t believe this, I graduated from high school 20 years ago this weekend and I thought it’d be a nice round number to go and see if any of my fellow classmates are around.

The Alumni Dinner is an interesting experience in that it’s held in the high school cafeteria, using the school’s table settings and served and prepared by the school’s kitchen staff. Tonight, Earl and I will be enjoying a fine roast beef dinner served a la fifth period with mashed potatoes that have just the right amount of “plop” when placed on a melmac plate.

I have to admit that I’m not really that nervous about the whole affair, in fact, I’ve kind of been looking forward to the experience. It’ll be fun to walk the old hallways again.