Ah.....another holiday weekend
The downside to this time of the year is that one becomes accustomed to having short work weeks. In about two weeks we're going to run out of holidays for several MONTHS. That always makes winter seem longer. There just aren't any paid days off between President's Day in mid-February and Memorial Day at the end of May. Ick.
But at least the days are getting longer now.
On the other hand, I kinda would like it to snow. I miss snow. It was almost 60 degrees here today, so I have a sneaking suspicion that there won't be any snow. I have, however, been given permission by an online buddy in Norway to wish for snow in Norway for my birthday. Apparently he doesn't think it's winter until it snows and they haven't got any snow which is unusual for them. I offered to help out and he said to go for it. I am not to be held responsible for any problems caused by major snowfall in Norway. The last time I wished for snow for my birthday was in 1996 and several states were declared federal disaster areas. I was advised to NOT do that again.
Philosophical Question of the Day:
Posed by a UFie, of course. :o)
"Can a deity create a minion who's better than him at something?"
Krikkert was replying to raptor 187 who had asked if Krikkert was better than him at *everything*. It certainly is a good question, don't you think? Apparently the answer is, as raptor put it, "yes, for some values of deity." He mentioned that Zeus was better than some things than Chronos. So perhaps there is hope for Raptor afterall....
Get Out of Jail Free Card...
Well, I wasn't really *in* jail, but I did get to visit. :o) The inmates were more respectful than I had expected, based on experiences with the Champaign County jail. They asked if we were the health team. When a few inmates had to walk between us to get out of the block door, they all said "Excuse me." when they passed through and most of them tried to squish themselves down to be as unobtrusive as possible.
I don't think I'd like to live there. Everything is hard--surfaces are all cinderblock or metal. At least the sink and toilet are porcelain. The rooms are about 8x10 feet with two residents in each. The bunk beds are attached to the wall and there's a window in the exterior wall at the end opposite the door. I also don't know that I'd be very happy living with 126 other people. It'd be bad enough to have to share a large room or even my house, nevermind sharing an 8x10 foot room.
I did learn that the prison system has an employment system for the inmates. There is a dairy and a textile plant at one facility. In the arts/crafts building at this particular facility, there were two saddle trees waiting to have saddles built on them. Presumably the saddles are later sold. The hallway of the security building was decorated with paintings made by inmates. Many of them were stunningly beautiful. These guys have some serious talent. However, at some point they also got in to bad situations and made some bad choices. Being an artist is not exactly a reliable paycheck when you're trying to get back on your feet. It's tough when you're stuck in a bad environment with few options that are positive. And it may be that they didn't discover their artistic talents until after they were incarcerated.
Updating databases
We've been going through the past contact investigations and checking the computer data against the paper records we have for testing, then shredding the paper records for the persons who tested negative. Persons who tested positive or who were lost to follow-up before getting tested will have records kept. This looks like it will clear up about 3/4 of a lateral file drawer. The paper records are effectively useless for most purposes anyway. The records were filed according to the name of the actual TB case they were associated with. So if I wanted to find the record for John Doe, I would first have to know which case he was involved in. We have a total of five corrections case files. That means searching through all the file boxes and drawers. For a few of the cases the contacts were sorted by institution, so there are multiple folders within each case that the contact could be found. Needless to say this means that you can't really find people that easily.
To go through the paper files, I added a column to each of the spreadsheets for the case's initials, then combined the spreadsheets into one big file. Sort the data by the inmate's name, ID number and case name and suddenly going through all those records is simple. I can sort and re-sort the data in whatever way is convenient. I'm not sure who set up the spreadsheet, but they didn't understand the feature that enables you to print specific rows at the top of each page of a multipage document. Instead, they put in forced page breaks with repeated header rows. There was also some sort of goofy color coding system for some records. None of the rationale behind the spreadsheet or the filing of the paper records was documented anyplace and, of course, the person who set it all up no longer works here. Metadata may seem like a giant pain in the butt when you're setting it up, but it's *really* useful in situations like this. It's the only way you create institutional memory and continuity in operations over time.
I think one of the most important things I can do at the office is to organize things and to develop metadata for various systems and procedures. Perhaps it's just me, but I prefer to be prepared for emergencies and disasters, instead of trying to react to them after they happen. Certainly emergencies can't be expected to run smoothly, but if you figure out what gets goofed up, learn from your experiences and actually make the changes to fix the identified problems, then you eventually come out really far ahead. I think the mentality at the office is to just keep doing things the way they've been doing them because that's what they've always done. They also seem quite determined to not learn new things. There are plenty of days where there is slow time and learning, documentation or process improvement could take place. Perhaps this is what my boss was talking about when she said she thought I could raise the bar a notch or two.
Quotes from Run's House ("reality" show based on the life of Rev Run, formerly of Run-D.M.C):
"Nobody in the world goes bear hunting. They go bear hiding or bear running."
"Why does everybody go white water rafting? Why doesn't anybody go dark water rafting?"
Rev Run was commenting on something his wife Justine said about things they could do while on a family vacation in Colorado. Reality shows may not be the brightest things on TV, but he *does* have a point about running or hiding from bears as opposed to seeking them out.
Russell Junior is currently pointing and laughing at his father who just got put into a wetsuit so they could all go rafting. He's got an infectious laugh and he's really whooping it up. His dad is putting on his best "wet cat" look.
Weekend Plans:
The usual mundane stuff (laundry, cleaning, etc), plus I'm hoping to get in some gaming (Asheron's Call). The gaming will depend upon getting all the necessary software installed and configured properly. I haven't been able to buff my chars in a while, probably due to failed plug-ins, so I haven't been able to go hunting the big monsters. While there was once a time when my main character found it just about impossible to kill the azure gromnie (a big blue lizard) on the beach, she's a wee bit past that point now. (At one point there were eleven dead Morennas laying on the beach while a nearly naked Morenna was still trying to kill the gromnie so she could get her stuff back off her other bodies. Since you lose armor, weapons and strength with each death, this was rather a losing proposition. I ended up calling one of the regular gaming crew for help and I could HEAR them all laugh when they got down to the beach and saw the "Sea of Morennas". I did, however, get full points for being persistent.) Morenna is now a level 80+ archer with a killer set of purple armor. Well, it used to be killer armor. I'm sure it's just above average now.
My other chars include a sword char named Miss Anne Thrope, a war mage named Tsu Dho Nimh, and two "mules" named Guy Noir and Conestoga. Anne might be lvl 20. I don't think Tsu got to 25. The mules didn't even get into their teens. (They're called mules because they hold cargo.)
Anyway, I miss spending half the weekend gaming. As long as I didn't get lost or get picked on too much by the monsters, it was pretty fun. Once I start collecting monsters chasing me, I have a hard time running away AND healing or drinking a health potion fast enough to keep from dying. Michael, Don or Wayne usually ended up spending a lot of time keepign me from dying while Mitch or someone else actually killled the critter. And everybody got worried whenever Michael said "Uh-oh." cuz it usually meant he'd aggroed something we'd all hoped would ignore us or he'd managed to die in an "inconvenient" place. "Inconvenient" to Michael meant the most impossible place where all four of us who were left would have difficulty getting the critters killed or kept occupied long enough for someone to get Michael's stuff off his corpse. This was inevitably on top of a spawn point, so new monsters kept popping up right on top of us.
I wonder if I can still find my old hunting area with the killer jello, aka Knath, and the Lugians. It wasn't major kill points, but the loot was fairly good for selling and I often found some unusual potion or plant that Michael was looking for. Michael's "trick" was to spend weeks trying to find particular plants and then I'd play for an hour or two and find three or four of them. I finally just started leaving random plants in his char's apartment for general amusements. Speaking of apartments, I hope someone's been paying the rent on Morenna's apartment.
But at least the days are getting longer now.
On the other hand, I kinda would like it to snow. I miss snow. It was almost 60 degrees here today, so I have a sneaking suspicion that there won't be any snow. I have, however, been given permission by an online buddy in Norway to wish for snow in Norway for my birthday. Apparently he doesn't think it's winter until it snows and they haven't got any snow which is unusual for them. I offered to help out and he said to go for it. I am not to be held responsible for any problems caused by major snowfall in Norway. The last time I wished for snow for my birthday was in 1996 and several states were declared federal disaster areas. I was advised to NOT do that again.
Philosophical Question of the Day:
Posed by a UFie, of course. :o)
"Can a deity create a minion who's better than him at something?"
Krikkert was replying to raptor 187 who had asked if Krikkert was better than him at *everything*. It certainly is a good question, don't you think? Apparently the answer is, as raptor put it, "yes, for some values of deity." He mentioned that Zeus was better than some things than Chronos. So perhaps there is hope for Raptor afterall....
Get Out of Jail Free Card...
Well, I wasn't really *in* jail, but I did get to visit. :o) The inmates were more respectful than I had expected, based on experiences with the Champaign County jail. They asked if we were the health team. When a few inmates had to walk between us to get out of the block door, they all said "Excuse me." when they passed through and most of them tried to squish themselves down to be as unobtrusive as possible.
I don't think I'd like to live there. Everything is hard--surfaces are all cinderblock or metal. At least the sink and toilet are porcelain. The rooms are about 8x10 feet with two residents in each. The bunk beds are attached to the wall and there's a window in the exterior wall at the end opposite the door. I also don't know that I'd be very happy living with 126 other people. It'd be bad enough to have to share a large room or even my house, nevermind sharing an 8x10 foot room.
I did learn that the prison system has an employment system for the inmates. There is a dairy and a textile plant at one facility. In the arts/crafts building at this particular facility, there were two saddle trees waiting to have saddles built on them. Presumably the saddles are later sold. The hallway of the security building was decorated with paintings made by inmates. Many of them were stunningly beautiful. These guys have some serious talent. However, at some point they also got in to bad situations and made some bad choices. Being an artist is not exactly a reliable paycheck when you're trying to get back on your feet. It's tough when you're stuck in a bad environment with few options that are positive. And it may be that they didn't discover their artistic talents until after they were incarcerated.
Updating databases
We've been going through the past contact investigations and checking the computer data against the paper records we have for testing, then shredding the paper records for the persons who tested negative. Persons who tested positive or who were lost to follow-up before getting tested will have records kept. This looks like it will clear up about 3/4 of a lateral file drawer. The paper records are effectively useless for most purposes anyway. The records were filed according to the name of the actual TB case they were associated with. So if I wanted to find the record for John Doe, I would first have to know which case he was involved in. We have a total of five corrections case files. That means searching through all the file boxes and drawers. For a few of the cases the contacts were sorted by institution, so there are multiple folders within each case that the contact could be found. Needless to say this means that you can't really find people that easily.
To go through the paper files, I added a column to each of the spreadsheets for the case's initials, then combined the spreadsheets into one big file. Sort the data by the inmate's name, ID number and case name and suddenly going through all those records is simple. I can sort and re-sort the data in whatever way is convenient. I'm not sure who set up the spreadsheet, but they didn't understand the feature that enables you to print specific rows at the top of each page of a multipage document. Instead, they put in forced page breaks with repeated header rows. There was also some sort of goofy color coding system for some records. None of the rationale behind the spreadsheet or the filing of the paper records was documented anyplace and, of course, the person who set it all up no longer works here. Metadata may seem like a giant pain in the butt when you're setting it up, but it's *really* useful in situations like this. It's the only way you create institutional memory and continuity in operations over time.
I think one of the most important things I can do at the office is to organize things and to develop metadata for various systems and procedures. Perhaps it's just me, but I prefer to be prepared for emergencies and disasters, instead of trying to react to them after they happen. Certainly emergencies can't be expected to run smoothly, but if you figure out what gets goofed up, learn from your experiences and actually make the changes to fix the identified problems, then you eventually come out really far ahead. I think the mentality at the office is to just keep doing things the way they've been doing them because that's what they've always done. They also seem quite determined to not learn new things. There are plenty of days where there is slow time and learning, documentation or process improvement could take place. Perhaps this is what my boss was talking about when she said she thought I could raise the bar a notch or two.
Quotes from Run's House ("reality" show based on the life of Rev Run, formerly of Run-D.M.C):
"Nobody in the world goes bear hunting. They go bear hiding or bear running."
"Why does everybody go white water rafting? Why doesn't anybody go dark water rafting?"
Rev Run was commenting on something his wife Justine said about things they could do while on a family vacation in Colorado. Reality shows may not be the brightest things on TV, but he *does* have a point about running or hiding from bears as opposed to seeking them out.
Russell Junior is currently pointing and laughing at his father who just got put into a wetsuit so they could all go rafting. He's got an infectious laugh and he's really whooping it up. His dad is putting on his best "wet cat" look.
Weekend Plans:
The usual mundane stuff (laundry, cleaning, etc), plus I'm hoping to get in some gaming (Asheron's Call). The gaming will depend upon getting all the necessary software installed and configured properly. I haven't been able to buff my chars in a while, probably due to failed plug-ins, so I haven't been able to go hunting the big monsters. While there was once a time when my main character found it just about impossible to kill the azure gromnie (a big blue lizard) on the beach, she's a wee bit past that point now. (At one point there were eleven dead Morennas laying on the beach while a nearly naked Morenna was still trying to kill the gromnie so she could get her stuff back off her other bodies. Since you lose armor, weapons and strength with each death, this was rather a losing proposition. I ended up calling one of the regular gaming crew for help and I could HEAR them all laugh when they got down to the beach and saw the "Sea of Morennas". I did, however, get full points for being persistent.) Morenna is now a level 80+ archer with a killer set of purple armor. Well, it used to be killer armor. I'm sure it's just above average now.
My other chars include a sword char named Miss Anne Thrope, a war mage named Tsu Dho Nimh, and two "mules" named Guy Noir and Conestoga. Anne might be lvl 20. I don't think Tsu got to 25. The mules didn't even get into their teens. (They're called mules because they hold cargo.)
Anyway, I miss spending half the weekend gaming. As long as I didn't get lost or get picked on too much by the monsters, it was pretty fun. Once I start collecting monsters chasing me, I have a hard time running away AND healing or drinking a health potion fast enough to keep from dying. Michael, Don or Wayne usually ended up spending a lot of time keepign me from dying while Mitch or someone else actually killled the critter. And everybody got worried whenever Michael said "Uh-oh." cuz it usually meant he'd aggroed something we'd all hoped would ignore us or he'd managed to die in an "inconvenient" place. "Inconvenient" to Michael meant the most impossible place where all four of us who were left would have difficulty getting the critters killed or kept occupied long enough for someone to get Michael's stuff off his corpse. This was inevitably on top of a spawn point, so new monsters kept popping up right on top of us.
I wonder if I can still find my old hunting area with the killer jello, aka Knath, and the Lugians. It wasn't major kill points, but the loot was fairly good for selling and I often found some unusual potion or plant that Michael was looking for. Michael's "trick" was to spend weeks trying to find particular plants and then I'd play for an hour or two and find three or four of them. I finally just started leaving random plants in his char's apartment for general amusements. Speaking of apartments, I hope someone's been paying the rent on Morenna's apartment.
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