life

$25 to Hump a Stranger's Leg

Blog kitt decided around 23:00 on 8 November 2004 to publish this:

Bella the taskmaster

Blog kitt decided around 17:17 on 4 November 2004 to publish this:

This evening, after working all afternoon on a project with Mike, I did not want to go for my daily run. I was supposed to have an SFUC game, but the weather didn't cooperate, and the game was cancelled. So, the daily 2 mile run was on the schedule instead.

As mentioned, I did not want to go on this run. So, I head into the office to start working again on the project. Bella, the short, stinky one, comes up to me and starts pawing my leg. She was so cute, I started petting her.

We often play a game of chase. It usually starts with my getting down into the doggie I-want-to-play position (think: all fours, front paws out in front, butt in the air). When Bella catches on, she'll bay, then run away, usually to the other side of the house. I get up and chase her. When I catch up to her, she bays again. I then turn and run the other way to the other end of the house. She chases me, and bays when she catches me. We then repeat this until either I get tired, she gets bored or Kris yells at me for creating a Crazy Dog.

After a few moments of petting Bella this evening, she got into the I-want-to-play position and started baying. The chase was on!

We chased each other through the house for over 5 minutes. When we were done, I was all warmed up and ready for a real run.

Despite my rump being sore from last night's workout, I ran the set 2 mile loop in exactly 18 minutes. I was pretty happy (considering Tuesday's night run in 19.5 minutes).

Bella the task master. I'm right on schedule with my ultimate off-season training

Back to the Real World

Blog Posted by kitt at 13:06 on 2 November 2004

And today, we're officially back to the Real World, away from the ultimate community. The RW is a strange place to be after 5 days in the UC. I guess the biggest differences are the sense of fairness and the ability to undo.

Think about it: in ultimate, there's the spirit of the game. SOTG (nearly) guarantees respect between individuals. So often in life, that respect is lacking (just drive to the grocery store and count the number of times you have to drive 1/2 the speed limit, get cut off in traffic, have people cut in front of you in line or something similar).

And, if you disagree, you can redo the whole thing! Send the disc back. What a deal. You can agree to disagree. In the RW, it doesn't work that way. In the RW, everyone still disagrees and gets pissy at each other. Bah.

Anyway, Real World. Work. Stuff to do. Life goes on.

Ways to Piss.Me.Off.

Blog Instead of being asleep at 19:39 on 1 November 2004, kitt created this:

There are various ways to piss me off. Actually, there are many, many, many ways to piss me off. Here are just a few that I experienced, why, just this past weekend.

Take credit for my work
Don't do the work you're paid to do
Get mad at me because I can't solve a problem of your creation
When you're part of a group, don't pull your own weight
Don't give me enough information to help me help you solve your problem
Sit around on your ass while your boss is running around like a chicken with her head cut off
Tell people my idea was yours
Stick your nose in where it doesn't belong
Start a job, do a crappy job, then leave it 95% unfinished
Lie^H^H^H Exagerate to people about what you do
Fail to give credit to all the people who support you
Hire someone to do your job because you're too lazy to do it (or maybe can't do it? not sure there), thereby doubling the cost of your job to your employer
Do a shitty job
In a panic, ask me to solve your problems because you were too clueless to plan ahead
Don't plan ahead
Waste people's time, thereby burning big favors from said people
Dress poorly when it reflects poorly on your employer
Show extreme disrespect to your coworkers

I'm not 100% convinced that any one of these things would piss me off by itself. But when the same person does all of them, well, I admit I'm pissed.

One of the problems I have, however, with getting pissed, is that the person I become is not a person I like. I don't like getting angry. I don't like the downward spiral that happens when I start complaining. I don't like that sometimes I need to rant, and that Kris takes the brunt of that ranting. Poor Kris. He's so good to me. But this is an entry about being pissed off...

Personally, I can't stand being angry without a way to solve the problem. I don't want to complain, I want to solve the problem. What's wrong? Fix it.

But how do you fix clueless, egotistical, immature, disrespectful people? With patience? With understanding? With maturity, respect, gentle persuasion and, well, not a little manipulation?

*shrug*

I guess I can give it a try.

Site updated, ready to go public

Blog kitt decided around 10:51 on 23 October 2004 to publish this:

Finally managed to update the site to Drupal 4.5 and install a node based permissions module that I've been waiting for since Drupal 4.1 when I started this site.

As a result, I can take this site live. Instead of having it hidden behind an unpublished (but public) URL, I can transfer the site to kitthodsden.org, where it truly belongs.

I think I'll also set up hodsden.org itself to be something similar to www.zawodny.com, where Jeremy lists sites of people who share his last name, whether he knows them or is related to them or not. There aren't that many Hodsdens, and it's not difficult to set up the DNS for them.

The trick, of course, is going to be stopping search engines or crawlers from hitting sites I don't want to be crawled, such as Sam's and Jackson's sites.

I would suck at Fear Factor

Blog Posted by kitt at 23:42 on 22 October 2004

I would so suck at Fear Factor.

This evening, when changing loads of laundry, I looked into the empty washing machine bin, as I am wont to do, and noticed a small black object at the bottom of the tub. Since the light is broken in the garage (yeah, yeah, just added it to my list of things to do), I couldn't see it clearly, and reached down to pick it up. As I was reaching, my though was, "This is either a piece of wood from the garden mulch, or a bug."

It was a beetle / june bug / thingy from the garden that's really gross.

I screeched and threw it aside (to a known spot so that I could actually throw the thing away later). Kris concernedly called out, "Are you okay?!" over my screeching. Yes, yes.

I just picked up a bug with my own hands.

A very, very clean bug. Ick.