We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle
I saw this quote today, and it struck me as particularly relevant right now. I need to strive for excellence – that’s one of the reasons I’m having the crazy marathon idea, to prove to myself I can set a lofty goal and stick with it.
I saw the quote as the lead-off to this article. I like the picture of the nuns too :)
I’ve had this cold lately – head congestion, sore throat and the like. A few days ago it started moving into my chest, so yesterday Allena made me go see a doctor out of concern over the flu and secondary infections (hey, I’m pretty hard headed when it comes to making doctor’s appointments for myself, ok?)
So let me tell you…if you’ve never had a “swab” done for the flu…it SUCKS. The swab is a quick test to determine if you have “type A” or “type B” flu, with the current swine flu being the “type A” variety. Basically, they stick a Q-tip about six inches up your nose and scratch the back side of your eyeball with it. Maybe that’s a *slight* exaggeration, but I assure you it’s only slight. It’s not really painful, but it is intensely uncomfortable.
The good news is I don’t have the flu at all, just a cold that’s moved into my chest, so with a round of antibiotics in hand, hopefully I’ll be done with this cold in a few days.
It’s grown quiet around here. I haven’t had a lot to say, and what I little I have had to say has been said in one or two sentence blurbs on facebook. Have you ever wondered what makes a “killer app” in the computer world? I think it’s the ability to waste time. The app remains “killer” until somebody finds a business case for it. Think of: e-mail, instant messaging, web-browsing, etc. I think facebook is on to something. It’s a great place to waste time (particularly with Mafia Wars). I’m not sure I can imagine a business case for it, but I suspect someday a few years from now, everybody at work will be required to have a facebook account (or something similar).
Following the theme of my post title, I’m shifting subjects. I suppose most people are familiar with “word clouds” or “tag clouds”. These are the little clusters of words in different colors and fonts and orientations that graphically represent some set of text – maybe a document, maybe all the tags on a blog, etc. Turns out there’s a place you can make your own for free called Wordle. And just to show that I can still string two thoughts together, Wordle is a great place to waste time too. Just for fun, here’s a word cloud of this post:
word cloud
Jumping again, I’m a failure as a mechanic. I just though everyone should know that. I replaced the starter on my tractor…tractor still doesn’t work. I replaced the fuel filter on my lawn mower. Lawn mower still runs roughly. I hate cars, and I’m thinking about adding tractors and lawn mowers to that list.
I had to travel for work for the first time in several years (first time ever for this employer). The trip was high-stress with a customer that was in crisis mode. We got things fixed – all’s well that end’s well…but the flight back home sure sucked. Our flight was delayed by 3 1/2 hours, consequently we missed our connection, consequently we spent the night in Minneapolis. I think I logged 50 hours of work over three days, and I think I logged about 10 hours of sleep for the same three days. Ugh. Even in the Army they gave us four ours a day. Some of that was my own fault of course, and some of it was just not sleeping well away from home. File me under “not a business traveler” I guess and call it done.
Enough rambling. Time for bed.
Ok, so I’ve been quiet for a long time. I’d like to say that’s only partly my fault. I had actually intended to post over a week ago, but when I tried to login to WordPress…nada.
I searched for a fix and found lots of suggestions, none of which worked. Finally I tried renaming my plugins folder and voila! I can login again!.
Turns out the real problem was a plugin I use(d) called fGallery. Well, not using it anymore! So, for the time being if you click on the Pictures link at the top, you’ll get a lovely little 404. I’ll see about finding a replacement for fGallery in the near future.
