You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2009.
Do you read the EULA* that comes with your software?
The following was part of a EULA on an Avery Labels app – this free software customized labels for a printer using both graphics and text. That is all it was for and all it did. So…why for did they feel the need to add this last item?
5. HIGH RISK ACTIVITIES: The Software is not fault-tolerant and is not designed, manufactured, or intended for use or resale as on-line control equipment in hazardous environments requiring fail safe performance, such as in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication systems, air traffic control, direct life-support machines, or weapons systems, in which the failure of the Software could lead directly to death, personal injury, or severe physical or environmental damage (“High Risk Activities”). Avery and its suppliers specifically disclaim any express or implied warranty of fitness for High Risk Activities.
Um, yeah. My first choice for High Risk Activities is a program that formats labels on printer paper designed for address labels, business cards, and Christmas cards. Right. I do draw the line on the life-support machines and Air Traffic Control though. Avery specifically excludes such things in their warranty (express or implied).
No problem.
His father grew this plant for decades, patiently nuturing, watering, and feeding it a special cactus fertilizer mix. He would baby this plant along for an entire year hoping for a single bloom which would last a single night. I was told many stories about this magnificent bloom and how it would fill the greenhouse with a glorious scent.
Getting a cutting from this precious cactus thrilled him no end. DH read everything he could find about it, badgered asked local garden shops for advice, propped up its leggy forms with my favorite moon trellis, and allowed it to expand and spread as it wished across the sliding patio doorway where it showed its love by presenting us with a mutitude of sparse, angular, lead-gray, twiggy stems. It has resembled nothing more than a dead bush for most of the first few years. What passed for “leaves” looked like elongated versions of a Christmas Cactus plant. Outside of getting more and more leggy, and even more ugly, there was not a sign of a bloom anywhere for six long years. It grabs a LOT of space across that area of the room
A week ago, small buds were visible on several of the vine-like branches. They are very fragile and susceptible to chill, breezes, and perversity. How many would (any?) survive
SEW returned today from an extended bike trip to discover a single perfect bud poised on the threshhold.
Early Bud
Night Blooming Cereus begins to open
Once these suckers decide to hang in and do something, they really go to town! We literally watched the bud open, too mesmerized to collect cameras until it was well and truly open.
Amazing. Gorgeous. Not as fragrant as I thought it would be, but I am assured that the scent wells, builds, and lingers. The bloom is easily seven inches across, possibly larger. The bloom will have faded by the time I leave for work tomorrow morning.
These are native to desert climes. They can grow in hedges in the Southern Texas deserts, but are easily overlooked because –hey– they are boring when not in bloom! And they only bloom when they bleepin’ well want to, typically June-ish. Some bloom every year (once they start that is!) while others go on an every other year cycle.
A time. A season.
Now I’ll never convince him to get rid of the blasted thing!
In a rare moment of non-rain, I snapped this picture of a recently familiar sight in our parking lot at work:
Holiday Attachment Issues
He has been carting this tree back and forth, rain and shine, for weeks. Town budget woes mean there is no free tree pick-up after the holidays, so he has been waiting for clear weather to take it to his camp grounds where it will blend it with the rest of decaying nature.
It’s been a long-ish wait for him. He is one dedicated recyling tree hugger environmentalist. Who lives in an apartment (and that may be somewhat relevant).
Answering machine light blinks.
Press Play.
“Good morning. I am calling for Stephen Woodbridge. We are interested in interviewing him for our ‘Inside Business’ television series on GIS technologies and (his company) iMaptools. My name is Andrea Miller. I am calling for my employer to arrange the interview. Please call (# provided).”
This message came in at 8:57 AM today.
Today at 7:37AM Stephen left for a week-long bike trip largely in non-phone areas. I left him a message on his turned-off-to-save-the-battery cell phone right after I played the message back.
He tried to call me at 8:07PM but I didn’t hear the phone due to exuberant reading and play time with grandkids.
I returned the call at 8:37PM. It is now officially a game of tag. He’s *it*.
Oh. My. Goodness.
We Are the Wallpaper Queens
Joanne Mary Snyder left today.
She left behind a daughter who cherished and adored her (it was mutual), and friends who welcomed her wit and wicked sense of humor. On the 8th hour of wallpapering an eighteen foot, warped, uneven wall — that was wealth!
She left behind cancer, constant pain, a lovely head of hair (enhanced by Clairol, I hear, but perfectly suited to her), and a hand knit hat that got caught up in her bedding and never returned from the laundry.
Mostly she left a lot of love for all who knew her. Those memories and that love will help as we adjust to her absence.
But it will take a while.
This sign has been taped over the hall bathroom sink since the winter holidays. We had guests, you see, who might be there when we were not, so hubby posted this helpful sign.
I get a giggle every time I read it.
I noticed it on my McDonald’s coffee cup (for the record, I do not like their coffee, but there were no alternatives just then). I was drinking it as I watched the ground crew shot-put my luggage up to the “air bridge” and I gotta say, there were ample examples why these workers were not basketball players, or quarterbacks.
Watching your luggage go airborne, veer to the left of the platform and tumble back down is a good way to get your dander up, your heart racing, and feel your teeth clench. Waky waky, indeed!
The return flights were um… more waky waky than anyone could have anticipated. The high point was the driver of the shuttle bus back to the airport who provided a running monologue on the buildings and landscape which was very nice. He was late, but so was my plane, so it worked out okay.
The snowball effect of running late continued so that I was in serious danger of missing my connecting flight home. I had originally moaned about the 2 hour delay but then regretted that it wasn’t longer.
While waiting on the tarmac to be released, I called DH to get my gate and departure update. Hurray! I was coming in at gate A75 and my connecting gate was A49, leaving at 10:10PM. I raced out as quickly as I could manage (memories of cattle drives and an old TV show called ‘Rawhide’ spread a grin across my face). I glanced up at the express shuttle – closed. Rats! I scurried to the series of moving sidewalks repeating the gate and time over and over in my head (A10, 10:10) and finally reached the gate, out of breath and glowing like a proverbial racehorse.
Not. my. gate.
After verifying that I should be at gate A49, not A10, I realized that I must have transposed numbers in my head. It was now 10PM. Sweating and beginning to limp, I did an about-face and now trotted along the moving sidewalk heading halfway back from where I started.
Yeesh!
Made it! Lots of people sitting, no one boarding. And no one boarding. And no one boarding…
Outside a lovely light show played, crackled, and danced. This was the reason everything was backed up. The reason we were late deplaning from the previous aircraft, too. Something about the ground crew refusing to go outside and operate machinery during lightning or something…
We did board at 10:40 and proceeded to sit there on the tarmac for the next three-plus hours waiting for the lightning to move, waiting for our turn to take off, waiting for them to approve depareture in the direction we were headed…
I finally pulled into my driveway at a quarter to 4 in the morning. I had a 10AM dental appointment.
And you know what? It was still worth the trip! (But the waky waky has been a bit of a problem for the past day or so).
I am not the only one frustrated by the limitations of Yahoo 360.
But now they publicly admit that support is non- existent because (cue swelling majestic music) a NEW! IMPROVED! yahoo 360 is coming!
Um…yeah.
So I am moving. Actually, I am here at WordPress already on wobbly legs with scalded, stripped archives. New toys to explore!
Come see about me, won’t you?
KaliDo 