Month: May 2019

Asking for a friend

Posted on by backuphill

black and white business career close up

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So let’s get this straight…generally speaking…

The people who are against the death penalty for murderers, rapists, and child molesters are the same people who support abortion and infanticide?

The same people who are outraged by animal shelters killing unwanted animals are NOT similarly outraged by killing babies.

The same people who are worried about animals going extinct place more value on the animals than on human life?

Is any of this incongruent?

Again, asking for a friend…

Trailer park

Posted on by backuphill

gray camper trailer on grass field

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Sometimes you do nice stuff for people. Sometimes you don’t.

Sometimes people take advantage of your niceness. Sometimes they don’t.

There are some people staying in my yard, in a trailer. Let’s call them, family. This is the second time they have stayed in the yard, only the first time they were staying in a bigger POS than they are in now. This accommodation was made within the last 15 years, the former was at least 30.

Regardless, I didn’t have much of a say in whether or not they moved into the yard the first time and once again I didn’t have much of a say about their return either. Sometimes, against your better judgement, you have to do nice stuff.

What I didn’t want was for the yard to start looking like a trailer park. What I am getting is that the yard is starting to look like a trailer park. The living space and storage of the trailer is slowly creeping outside and into the yard.

Sometimes nice…isn’t.

Welcome to the trailer park.

Communication busted

Posted on by backuphill

marketing man person communication

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Things around here are just not working.

Have you ever had a hard time talking with someone because you just don’t have anything to talk about? Or, had a hard time just because every time a conversation starts it ends up in a disagreement?

Not only do we live in a society that seems to have a hard time having a conversation, but often we find the same thing happening in our personal relationships too. There is just no way to break down the walls and just no way to carry on without conflict. So, everyone does their own thing and then nothing gets any better. Really, it just gets worse. The next time you try to engage someone the meltdown just comes that much more quickly.

What’s left is perpetual egg shell walking and no real relationships, just shallow surface existence.

The death of conversation is upon us.

Precedent can be dangerous

Posted on by backuphill

book shelves book stack bookcase books

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Sound the alarms! Everyone to the streets! Crisis! Crisis! Oh my! Let the fear-mongering begin.

Alright people, let’s calm down.

Precedent can be dangerous. The Supreme Court has shown this in the past and is showing it again in the present. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

A court can’t rely solely, or place too much weight on precedent (past SCOTUS decisions), or things can’t/don’t/won’t change for the better.

If the Supreme Court never breaks with precedent, then it isn’t actually doing it’s job and would just continue to “pile on” bad past decisions.

Think of it this way – as a parent, are you allowed to change your mind in how you parent a child if a decision you made previously didn’t have the intended outcome? What if you didn’t have that ability or you were required to maintain the bad decision because that was the way it was always done in the past? Yeah, I don’t think any of us would like that.

The Supreme Court should be no different. Sometimes, the court has to fix its own bad decisions from the past. Prime example: Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896). The “separate but equal” precedent was never a good decision to start with and everyone knows for all intents and purposes that it would not be applied equally. For the next 58 years there were lots of challenges to Plessy and that precedent. The court held with precedent. It wasn’t until 1954 that the court finally broke with precedent and decided that “separate but equal” was not equal in Brown vs. Board (1954), correcting a previously bad decision.

Those who protest about breaking precedent now, in essence, are arguing again correcting previously badly or erroneous interpreted decisions. Is that what you really want from SCOTUS? To never fix their errors?

Little caulk

Posted on by backuphill

black claw hammer on brown wooden plank

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There are some things in life that require a little more skill that just a weekend warrior can handle. Tasks that are sometimes necessary, but also dreaded at the same time. A skill that can’t be improved unless you do it a lot.

I don’t get to use caulk much, but when I do I try to make a mess out of it.

OK, not really, but I sure could use more practice! No, wait, I don’t mean that either because more practice would mean more things that needs to be sealed or fixed or leaks stopped…so scratch that. Should I be wishing for more caulk in my life? How about if I am just magically bestowed with great caulking skills?

So, the weekend saw me use the sparse caulking skills I have on a project that I had been putting off for about a month. It is now done. Some places on the job turned our rather well, if I don’t mind saying. AND other places look like a blind person was doing the job (it’s sealed, but looks messy). Good thing I am not being graded on this or I probably would have scored a C- on looks (some nice beads but also messy in places) but a A- on “there ain’t no water getting through that.”

Thankfully, I don’t have any more caulking jobs in the foreseeable future.

Any weekend warriors/DIYers out there that have projects they are putting off or absolutely hate doing?

We meet again

Posted on by backuphill

It’s Friday and it’s meeting time.

Again.

I know I have complained and whined about this before. Just so we’re clear, I am doing it again and will continue to do it in the future too.

That’s how serious I am about not having meetings on Friday mornings.

Like really serious.

Apparently the memo I sent out (and by memo I mean this blog) hasn’t been read by everyone. So, please spread the word.

The long road home

Posted on by backuphill

yellow and black detour signage

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I was returning home last night after dropping my daughter off with her mom.

I knew I was gonna have to take the long road home since the highway in the opposite direction (my usual return route) was backed up because of road construction. It was clearly visible from the other side of the highway that the construction workers had closed one of the two lanes that was supposed to be open to keep traffic moving (it was in the plans to keep two lanes open at all times, posted on WSDOT website). Looks like that wasn’t the case after all.

Anyway, knowing this in advance, I took the long way around.

I found it rather interesting that the people who set up the detour route left a little bit to be desired with the route. I have navigation and already had a fairly good idea around the backup, but it was odd that the detour round ended in the middle of nowhere. It just stopped. I knew where to go from there, but someone who was not familiar of the area would have had no clue what to do next when the “Detour End” sign came up. Seems someone may have run out of signs and just decided to end the route because there were at least two more turns on the route to be back to where someone would have started normally.

I guess with navigation you are really never lost.

Take the long road home once in a while. You might see something you didn’t expect. Plus, do you really need to be in a hurry all the time?

Did you hear that?

Posted on by backuphill

man using smartphone while sitting at the table

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Did you hear that? I am surprised if you didn’t.

It was loud.

Or maybe it was just loud because it was in my confined space.

What what is?

It was the sound of my head hitting my desk.

No, I wasn’t under it looking for the Cheez-it I dropped.

It was my head hitting the desk out of boredom.

I say boredom, but really I have a ton of things to do. I have a ton of things to do, but this particular task of software testing and verification is tedious and boring. Staring at the screens all day and very little movement has left me rather sleepy.

I have other tasks that would be much more interesting and stimulating. However, this particular task I have put off longer than I should so I am plowing my way through it. I am only about half way done. Ugh!

I have a feeling my head will have a few extra lumps on it when I am done. How many bounces will my noggin take off the desk? Care to take any bets?

Do you have a task at work that is tedious, boring, and positively mind-numbing?

People are ugly

Posted on by backuphill

I have debated and debated with myself about sharing this comment from one of my blogs because, really, should something like this really see the light of day? But, after much contemplation, I have decided that exposure is better.

Simply put, people are ugly. Discrimination is ugly. Hate is ugly. Discrimination and hate goes both ways. It isn’t just an issue for certain backgrounds, heritages, or colors.

Behind the scenes, I have been trying to get Google/Gmail to do something with the email account this comment came from. So far, crickets. Haven’t gotten a response in user forums and can’t find a place to be able to report abuse from such an account. Interestingly, the tech giants are eager to silence some opinions, voices, points of view, but not others.

Anyway, it’s pretty clear to see from the user info that the intent of the email account is to harass a certain demographic of the population, but also to hide behind the anonymity of the internet. Oh, but there is an IP address, so not really all that “secret” if someone has the means track them via that method.

ugly1

Oh, and the comment will probably shock you. Actually, it probably won’t. If you have an opinion on anything and have a blog, you’ve probably run into some of these ugly people in your comments section, provided you allow comments. I have noticed some blogs don’t allow for comments. I can only assume it is for the reasons seen below:

ugly2

Kind of makes your stomach turn, doesn’t it? Even if it isn’t shocking. Do you take it as harassment? A threat? Both? Or do you pass it off as some ugly, unhappy person sitting in their elderly mom’s basement leaching off her social security and spending time trolling people all day?

At the end of the day, I know not all people are ugly. But, unfortunately, there are more ugly people than pleasant people. Well, maybe that isn’t even true. I guess what I am trying to say is that the small minority of ugly people make a lot more noise than pleasant people, thus we end up hearing more about ugly people than pleasant people.

So, pleasant people, go out there and make one person’s day by doing something for them that make a bright spot in their day. Heck, even smiling at someone can make their day better. Try it.

Have you had a comment like the one above? What do you do it if you have? Do you delete and ignore, engage and respond with kindness, or something else?

-less

Posted on by backuphill

burning wood above rocks

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I found one more thing that needs to have -less at the end of it. To remind you of where I am coming from on this, let’s look at other things that are -less…

Anything that is gluten free is pretty much tasteless.

There are smokeless cigarettes (or so I am told. I am not a smoker).

Supposedly Red Robin has “bottomless” fries and Olive Garden has “endless salad and breadsticks.”

Our home are going wireless on just about everything.

There is a crisis in our country for the homeless.

We all want to live carelessly and fearlessly, but often end up feeling helpless and hopeless because of the state of the country.

Anyway, hopefully you get the point.

I discovered one more thing over the weekend that could use a little -less at the end. A campfire. Not specifically the fire, but the smoke. How about we figure our a scientific way to make those things smokeless?

Yes, I know, if you make them hot enough they smoke less (oh, look! It’s possible!) but that also requires, in many cases, a larger fire and when you live in a city that isn’t an option. Plus, no matter what you do, there is going to be smoke (unless it’s one of those fake campfires made of gas…) and maybe a little is OK to start with so you have a partial feeling of woodsiness. Anyway, smoke gets in your eyes and it hurts. It gets in your lungs and makes it hard to breathe.

Smokeless campfire. Sounds good to me.

Anything else in life you would like to see as a -less? Comment below!