Pat White is still my favorite–possible all time favorite–WVU player.

Announcer: Pat White just did a somersault on the sidelines, trying to convince Coach Kearns he was okay to go back in the game.

My dreams last night involved walking up hill, all night long. It was if Eighth Street took over the entire world.

You know those days where you feel like you’re busy all day long, but have very little to show for all your activity?

Today was one of those days for me.

The worst part was dealing with multiple, futile, network issues.

One of my laptops is missing the certificates needed to get onto the encrypted network. Apparently, there is no easy way to remedy this problem, although I did spend an affable 30 minutes at the Help Desk talking to Matt as he searched for drivers and certificates. Eventually I abandoned my laptop and headed back to my office. They were going to keep looking and see if anyone else knew a possible solution. (Let me make one thing clear, I love our Help Desk guys. They’re nice, funny, and will find an answer to your problem, even if it takes awhile. Compare that to other help desks (ahem) and I think you’ll agree with me. So I’m not saying this was a failure on their part. I’m jsut saying this is how my day went.)

The second network issue was trying to figure out how to get my PDA on the wireless network. A couple months ago I tried, and then gave up since what I really needed it for (a calendar program that could sync with GroupWise) was working perfectly. And I have a perfectly good laptop. So I just dropped it. Unfortunately, my boss has been getting a ton of PDA questions, and one recurring question is “why can’t I get wireless in HSC?” So I picked up that abandoned task and ran with it. And I learned several interesting things. Apparently, OIT policy for PDAs is they will not support them. If you can get your PDA on the wireless, that’s fine. But if you can’t, too bad for you. So I again sauntered back down to the Help Desk. After several guys going, “I can’t get it to work either, but if you figure it out, can you let me know?” I ended up talking to one of the guys in Networking, who apparently didn’t realize there was a problem, and told me he’d work on it and get back to me. So again, a solution is in the works (and this solution will be helpful to other people as well, which is good) but as a task, I’d have to say my success rate was pretty low.
But on the bright side, I was able to help several people, so that’s always a good feeling. So I suppose the day wasn’t a total loss.

So the database is coming along nicely, though I don’t think writing code counts towards my November writing goals.

As of now, the database has all the administrative functions I wanted to add. Although it could use a few tweaks, it does everything I wanted: I can search by author, title, series, genre, or year. I can enter new books, edit existing books, and delete books.

Last function to be added is going to require a lot of grunt work, and that will be linking individual book reviews to the database.

I got up early this morning and wrote for about 20 minutes before work. Revised through chapter two one. I’m going to try and get out of bed a little earlier each morning, so I can write for a few minutes longer each morning. I figure this will be easier after daylight savings time ends.

Additionally, we had our traditional number of trick-or-treaters last night: 0. At least we save every year on candy.

ADDENDUM the First:
It’s interesting, the revisions I’m doing. Since I just wrote without thinking, coming back after more than a year, it’s pretty easy to see the problems in the text. So far, the biggest issue is that I had very few details: I hadn’t actually described any of the characters, so they were simply amorphous beings without height, weight, or (for the most part) style. Easy enough to fix though.

I’m listening to the post game show (this game sounded so much better than last weeks game) and I have to say that the more time passes, the more I like Pat White. During the post game interview not only did he sound polite and modest, but he also complimented his teammates.

Everyone else may want Steve Slaton for the Heisman, and don’t get me wrong, he’s really good, but me, I really like Pat White. So here it is: Dear Pat White, please keep being a nice guy.

(settles down in front of computer)

Okay Internet! Let’s go! Entertain me! Michael’s working all weekend long and as long days scheduled Monday and Tuesday, so I’m ready to be entertained! Let’s go!

(waits)

Rats.

(wanders off to read four or five books)

Welcome Hannah Rose!

Congratulations Kim & Mike! At a month early, 7 lbs 3 oz is pretty good!

I can’t wait to see pictures!

What’s that boy? Timmy’s stuck in the well?

Perfect.

Michelle: (muttering to self while working on database) Books. Books. Books. Books…
Michael: You sound like a zombie.
Michelle: (adding sepulcher tone to muttering) Boooooks! Boooooooks! Boooooooks!
Michael: Great. You’ve turned into a book zombie.

Okay, I have to admit that I love reading cute overload, even though sometimes it’s just way too twee, and I usually am annoyed by the titles and comments.

But THIS! This is amazing!

I warned Michael, but he looked and immediately said, “Oh My Gosh! That is SO CUTE!”

So you have been warned.

I just sat down to check my mail, and then two hours are gone?!

I am NEVER going to finish my book at this rate.

There’s a new Sony Bravia Ad. (If you don’t know why this should make you happy, go watch the high bounce ball ad and the paint ad.

AND I found another Bravia ad I’d never seen before (thread).

There are also new videos up at EepyBird (otherwise known as the Mentos and Diet Coke guys).
But as if that wasn’t enough, today I found Lego Abominations. (Make sure you read on to see the Headless Horseman lit up.)

AND a site with color photos from World War I. (That’s not fun like the other things, but pretty amazing nevertheless.)

And if that isn’t enough to make your Monday better, I don’t think anything will help.

The database now has better search functions, and the search results are linked to a more complete listing for a selected book.

Woot!

Well, despite the relative unpleasantness of the past week (and believe it or not, there were things I didn’t bother to write about) things seemed to have settled down to a relative calm.
We replaced the light on Monday–took about an hour and a half, and we didn’t have to rerun the wire (if we’d had to do that, the project might not have been done until spring.

Michael called the insurance company immediately after we discovered the windshield was broken, and the insurance company took his information, and immediately helped him get set up with an appointment to repair the window–even though it was 9:30 in the evening. We received a message the next day that our deductible was $200, and this morning we got the windshield replaced. The only problem was the the window collapsed on the way there, so there was a mess of broken class in the back of the car (luckily on the sheet we had put down when the glass first cracked.

And the frustrating week at work (mostly due to the fact that we are understaffed, and look to remain understaffed for some time to come) will be a faint memory as I take the next week off to travel with Michael to a conference. He goes to seminars and talks, I’m going to sit in the shade and read, and try to eat seafood for every meal but breakfasts.

Hopefully we won’t get any calls while we’re gone, telling us something else has happened to the house, or any other type of bad news.