Bits, bytes, nybbles and other data constructs

Scenes from a geek's life:

1. My hip going "pop" as I was getting ready to leave the doctor's office. Tylenol is helping; two of the world's most awesome nurses *ever* making sure that I did not leave the doc's office until the pain had diminished. Valarie and Connie are a matched set (literally!). I've met more educated nurses, sure...but none who are so patient-centered.
(Gheekspeak follows)
2. I get my job satisfaction shots in strange doses. Few things make me happier than rescuing a customer from a mistake. One of my axioms of Mac Teching is "Walk non-technical customers through the start of an Archive and Install (preserving) because there are too many ways for a nontech to fsck it to hell and beyond." "Archive and Install" (preserving) is a common resolution for software issues on a Mac; what it does is move the /System/ folder to a new location (the "archive" part) and installs a new one. It does NOT overwrite the old /System/, /Applications/ or more importantly, /Users/ (the "preserving" part). The /Users/ folder is home to things like the Desktop, Documents, Music, Movies and all the stuff you store on a computer and want to not lose. Well, Ms. Customer made one little mistake: the did the archive and install with the "preserving" option disabled. When this happens, the /Users/ folder goes into the archive as well. Upon completion of the install, your system goes through first time setup as though out of the box and looks like all the data is gone! The call started out with my diffusing the customer's demand for scalps. I told her how I think it happened, without assigning blame (I care about happy customers, not the whys of breaking things or Who To Blame), and showed her the mystery of how to restore a archived /Users/ folder without hosing the file permissions. This customer went from mistrustful and hinting at legal action to wanting to fly me to the East Coast for personal Mac lessons. Long call, because this restore process is a bit delicate . . . but the call ended with a VERY happy customer.
(end Gheekspeak)

3. Last night, in semi-secret rites in Nygel's Point, Desolace, Dakatirr (my shaman) was passed the title of Guild Master for the WoW guild Legends Till Death . Yet another case of insufficient reluctance. I'd been looking at starting my own guild for awhile, but I literally could not buy nine signatures for a guild charter I took out for . I did not set out to take over someone else's guild, but now that I have it I'll be doing as much administrivia as I do actually playing.

4. A few days ago, Barack Obama gave this little speech about race, faith and a few other things. My inner Orator (the one who got free in speech classes in high school and college and earned the highest degree of distinction from the National Forensics League for oratory, debate, extemporaneous and impromptu speaking) was amazed. Presidents are supposed to be inarticulate boobs who cannot sting together two original thoughts without connective tissue. Presidents are supposed to be rhetorical embarrassments. At least that's been the lesson of the 21st centuty dark age that is the Bush / Cheney administration. BO was brilliant in laying out his vision for that nation, his view of this nation's historic and persistent racism. (geek sideline: while his first and last initial suggest something odorous, his full initials -- BHO -- is a Windows geek acronym: Browser Helper Object. Some BHOs suck, others are not so bad) Folks, Barack Obama (BTW, his first name means "Lightning" in Hebrew and was also the name of Ariel Sharon's armored brigade in the Sinai in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the name goes back to a military commander from the Old Testament) is the Real Deal.

4. Finally: to the piece of human debris who parked his or her car less than a foot from my van which was centered in it's space at Kaiser, forcing a buy with a sore hip and not-so-mild claustrophobia panic attacks to climb in through the cargo door: FSCK YOU WERRY MUCH, ARSEWHOLE! I was just one security camera away from keying the passenger side door of your PoSmobile. Please, for the sake of the people who must share the road and parking spaces with you, get a real license to replace the one you have courtesy of Cracker Jack and Learn To DRIVE and PARK, you miserable dollop of dog crap.