15 September 2009

Adios Swayze

It's been a hard battle but RIP knowing you earned me 10 points in the Celebrity Dead-Pool. In your memory I composed this little piece.

In ’52 was Swayze born
A child one of five.
He met his wife in ‘70
14, too young to drive.

In ’75 they did wed,
In ’82 his father dead,
To the bottle he did turn.
In ’94 his sister died…
An OD from which he learned.

Lots of movies he did make.
Ghost, Road House and Point Break.
Dirty Dancing and Red Dawn
But Fatherhood made me yawn.

Then in ’08 pancreatic cancer
Afflicted this old dirty dancer
He continued to smoke , lost some liver
And some stomach (just a sliver)

Next Year (’09 )by no chance,
He retired to the ranch.
In September Autumn came…
The cancer proved too much to tame.

Bless his heart, he gave in…
And I received more points (yes 10!)

30 April 2009

At the bank trying to Refinance.

How many people are going through at least a piece of this scenario below?

Scum Banker: “No, you cannot refinance. Your credit score is too low.”

Living the American Dream: “Yes and it’s going to get a lot lower if you don’t refinance and drop my monthly payment.”

Scum Banker:“I’m sorry, even if your credit was perfect we couldn’t refinance you because you don’t have enough equity in your home.”

Living the American Dream: “So you’re saying that you essentially won’t refinance the amount I owe because I don’t have enough equity even though I didn’t have ANY equity when you gave me the loan in the beginning?”

Scum Banker: “Yes. You see, we COULD refinance you but you would need Mortgage Insurance since you don’t have 20% Equity. The PMI will actually increase your monthly payment despite the drop in the Interest Rate.”

Living the American Dream: “But if I don’t have it on my current loan then why will I need it on my new loan.”

Scum Banker: “That’s to protect us in case you default.”

Living the American Dream: “But didn’t we just bail you out from everyone defaulting? Didn’t the government back your loans? Aren’t you still on the hook from me for the same amount now WITHOUT PMI?”

Scum Banker: “Yes. But that’s the rule and I’m sorry it’s not flexible. If you will excuse me I must get to an appointment. I’m having my Mercedes that I received as a Bonus from the Bank pimped out with pinstriping on the back that says $timulu$. You should come back next week and check it out. It’s going to be Money. It’s the 600 in the parking lot that with the License Plate that reads PMI MAN!”

Living the American Dream: “Really? Thanks for the invite I’ll be sure to swing by next week and check it out. I need to swing by Home Depot next week and pick up a Sledgehammer on Wednesday. Will it be back from the shop by then?”

Scum Banker: “It will! Come on in and I’ll give you a test ride if you like. Hey, would you be interested in opening a Money Market with us today? The Interest rate is 0.000000000000001 % which is above industry average and it comes with a free Koozie that says I Heart My Banker!”

Living the American Dream: “No, I’m going to have to pay for this Sledge Hammer to be engraved with I Kill My Banker and that is going to eat through some of my cash. See you Wednesday!”

19 March 2009

Letter to Buddha

Dear Buddha,

Kuhn here. Hope the diet is going well. I’m sure you are tired of people rubbing your belly. I know you preach that Nirvana can only be reached when you cease to want. I try my fat friend, I really try. Unfortunately, I have run into a hurdle that I am afraid I cannot overcome.

You see, we’ve been working on this cutover for about two years and are wrapping up the first month of “post-cut Cleanup”. There are a lot of issues and a lot of things to keep track of. Lots to do. We’ll get it knocked out, it just takes time. “So what is the want?” you ask. Well, I’ll tell you. As I sat here this morning, virtual waterfall in my head, I start working 4 separate issues. People coming in and out asking for shitand generally making me fucking irritated. What pushed me over the edge though and caused me to seek your guidance was the mother fucking Payroll lady coming by asking for my time-sheet.

God dammit (no offense) I’m fucking salary. You can’t ding me for shit anyway lady so what the fuck good is it? I could get up right now and walk out the door and you would *STILL* have to pay me for the full 8 hours. “Get to the point tourettes.” You say? Here’s my want. There are actually Several to choose from I just need one though:

  • Make my life as simple as this simple person’s. I won’t nag and nag about a useless piece of paper like she does. I’ll just hang out doing the simple things. Perhaps I’ll take up fishing or building my own rock garden. Who knows.
  • Kill this fucking lady. Apparently you cannot explain to her the irrelevance of time sheets for Salaried people. Throw a fucking lightning bolt at her, perhaps a flood takes her away on the drive home, an Earthquake would do the job nicely too. Dead Flaming Fish falling from the sky would really make me happy.
  • Make her life so fucking complex that she takes her own life. Give her half of what I am working on and it should be sufficient. If possible keep the flaming fish though. I think it would be cool.

I await your guidance and delivery most rotund One. Like Steve Perry from Journey I remain,

Faithfully,

G. Warren Kuhn.

15 January 2009

America's Most Wanted

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,480003,00.html

Calling all Cars... be on the lookout for a 45 pound monkey. Don't make him angry or he'll fling poo at you.

So, When he gets Mad, does he shit on demand or must he carry a bag of ammunition with him?

If he runs out of poop does he start shooting other body products?

Monkeys are good stuff.

Jesus Tapdancing Christ!

The President of the company where I work has been delivering Daily Devotionals to the entire company via e-mail. Since I am in fact an Ordained Reverend I thought "What the Fuck, I'll throw one of my favorites in." So, imagine the response of someone who is searching for "Ecclesiates" and comes across this site.

I'm not a Jesus Freak, just a plain freak. I go to church for Weddings and Funerals and with my recent divorce revealing the farce of Marriage, I'm not attending Weddings. So, just Funerals.

Enjoy.

Ecclesiastes 1

Everything Is Meaningless

1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is Meaningless."
3 What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.
11 There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.

14 January 2009

This is Torture?

So I read this article about the Bush Administration confirming an act of torture and I'm expecting to get some good details. You can read the article above but I'll give you the synopsis right here:

Susan Crawford refused to refer Mohammad Al-Qahtani for prosecution because he was tortured. She went on to say that she is convinced he would have been the 20th Hijacker on 9/11 had he been able to get into the country.

So, I run down my list of tortures and wonder what he got:

Bamboo under the Fingernails.
The Rack
Repeated insertion of a Catheter
Electric Shock
Knee Capping
Forced Dookie Extraction with Salad Spoons

Then I find, to my surprise, that NONE of these were performed. Here's what they did to him:

Sustained Isolation
Sleep Deprivation
Nudity
Prolonged Exposure to Cold

That's not torture. That's my life! If I'm home alone (Isolated) I'll stay up late naked. I've been known to keep the heat off and/or turn the AC down as well. I cannot believe that is considered torture BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION! Bush is supposed to be the one that questions whether Castration is Torture! If I find out waterboarding involved a trip to the beach and a skim board then I'm going to convert to Islam and blow something up. I'd love to "Waterboard Naked" then reap the benefits of being "tortured".

What makes it even worse is that Ms. Crawford firmly believes that this person is a terrorist but we cannot prosecute because he was "Tortured". If that's going to be the case then why don't we just Torture the guy to the point of Death. Then we won't need the trial, problem solved.

I know, there's a lot of tender people out there who think I'm off my rocker and they're right, I am. But you know what? I wouldn't be stuck with the dilemma of having a terrorist I cannot prosecute but also cannot release in good conscience because he is in fact determined to attack this country.

So if you are the President and are sworn to protect the country what do you do? Guantanamo looks like the only option short of killing them where you found them.

I'm going to close with another thing that pisses me off about Arabs. OK, you've got your own alphabet and script, that's fine. You guys, the Chinese, the Koreans, the people who play Dungeons and Dragons are welcome to any alphabet you want. Do me a favor though: When you convert to something the Western world can read, FOLLOW THE FUCKING GRAMMAR RULES. Over here, if there's a Q then it's followed with a U That means Mohammad Al-Qahtani Either needs to be Al-Kahtani or Al-Quatahni. Just like Al-Qaeda is either Al-Kaeda or Al-Quaeda. You're just doing it to piss us off. Why don't you be like the Asians and completely westernize for us. Instead of Jiang Chow Dhang he goes by Joe Dang. See.... We like him, buy lots of stuff from his country and all because he was accomodating. Give a little, get a little. Fuck, these people are driving me Qrazy.

09 January 2009

Buffalo NAS (Non Available Storage)

At work we had a need for some storage but didn't need to make an investment in a SAN. It was really to store Archived Data. We opted for a simple NAS from Buffalo Technologies. We should have spent the money on Buffalo Chips. They would have worked better.

The unit comes in and is easy to setup. We mirrored the drives for some fault tolerance. The Active Directory Integration was quirky but it worked in the simplest sense. We load the data on there and we're humming along! Sweet, an inexpensive NAS with RAID that's helping store Archived Data. What I like a lot is that the unit can email you if there is a problem so we can address it before it becomes critical.

About two months into production we get an email that one of the drives is bad. While annoying, it's not really a problem. We get with Tech Support, end up having to rebuild the array and it's working fine again. Turns out it wasn't a bad drive, something just got screwed up apparently. After moving all of the information back to the array we're rolling again.

Fail on me once, shame on you. Fail on me twice shame on me.

Shortly before the new year we get the emails again that there is a problem. Now were on the phone with "tech support" who tells us the drives are fine but the chassis needs to be replaced. They will send out another. OK, it's a pain in the ass because now the data is down and we need it for end of the year work. I thought the railroads replaced the pony express but apparently it's still running and that's how Buffalo ships their replacement parts. Finally, the Stagecoach pulls up with the part. Take it into the Server Room, throw the drives in, power it up and..... nothing. NO-THING! NADA! ZIP! DONUT HOLE!

Get on the phone with Tech Support and tell them the data is not on the drives. "Yeah, that sometimes happens." WTF? What the hell is the point of mirroring the data? This flipdick is casual about it and tells us to send it off to a data-recovery specialist to get the data back.

We call our vendor out of frustration to see if we can get someone who actually knows the product. They let us know that a Senior Tech with Buffalo will call us. Apparently their Buffalo Rep was at a Convention pushing Buffalo's latest product. "Need to lose a Terabyte of Data and don't know how to do it? Try the all new Buffalo Linkstation StB!" The StB is their technical acronym for "Shit the Bed" which is what it will suddenly do on you once you've gotten it loaded up with data.

So, we're waiting for the Tech Support guy to call. He doesn't call that day. Understandable. The Sales guy probably didn't leave the convention floor until after business hours. I'm sure they'll call tomorrow.

I'm sure some of you are saying "restore from backup" of course we didn't backup the Archive Data. That's our bad but we can rebuild it no problem. The main problem is where to put a Terabyte of fucking data. I don't normally leave a Terabyte laying around the server room "just in case". I usually opt to mitigate the risk with FAULT TOLERANCE. I'm okay with losing a drive since they are RAID. I'm also okay with losing the controller on this since I can put the two RAID drives in a new Controller. I'm astounded that I cannot recover data from this Buffalo device and the tech support people are so casual about it.

Rather than use a Buffalo NAS in the Future I think I'm going to buy a Big-Ass hard drive, load all of the data on it that I want to archive then take it outside and hurl it at a brick wall. I'd have a better chance of retaining the data on that drive.

Day 3 - Still no Call from the Senior Tech. We did get another Chassis yesterday (without asking). Nice Inventory Control.

07 January 2009

Compensating Incompetence

This morning I get a forward from a compadre from a friend of his who's in IT. The message was this:

"I can't take it....The new guy asked me how to end task a process in task manager today???? WTF??? And they are paying this guy 10 grand more than me a year???? OMFG! Tim, instead of transferring data from one server to another with a query he wanted to export the data to excel and then run a macro of mouse clicks to transfer the data one freakin piece of data at a time.........WTF? I am officially in the Twilight Zone!"

While it's driving him up the wall, it will be funny when he leaves the company in a sad sort of way. This fool is making a lot of money with skills a decade old and probably has no formal Information Systems Training. He Probably "got in the industry" because he had a Commodore 64 and knew how to load programs from cassette.

If you can't figure out Task Manager then you need to go back to the cave and STFU. Either that or suck on the business end of a 12 Gauge. Either way, remove yourself from my presence.

If you export from a database and want to import via Excel and Macros then I know an Excel guy who is great with Pivot tables and you should send your resume to him. He's in IT as well and is a FoxPro wizard.

The problem is pervasive. My predecessor where I currently work actually told the executive committee that "The Internet and web based applications are going away. Client-Server is making a comeback." He's still unemployed.

At a previous company we've had some of the following statements:

  • "It's Voice over IP. There is no Dialtone."
  • "The SAN was incorrectly configured by Kuhn and that's why it's performing slowly." No, you added an array of slower hardware and THAT'S why it's performing slowly.
  • "Kuhn doesn't understand how to install .Net applications or how the IIS Servers work." No, Your .Net applications don't install. The other developers all work fine within the production environment.
I am sure it's par for the course in every company and every department. In IT though it seems to be much much worse. Then you get the hassles from the Employees who read the Saturday "Technology" article in the Newspaper and want to engage you as an equal.

Hey, Ass-clowns... If you are reading a technology article in a Newspaper, probably written by "Technobuddy" then you are a pathetic waste of my time. "I hear the new iPhone will integrate much better in business environments than the old one." No, you read it from a guy who cannot make it in IT so he writes a Saturday article espousing his knowledge of the Mundane. I can integrate any iPhone you have by shoving it up your ass. There. It's Integrated. You'll know you have mail when your colon vibrates.

These incompetent people ought to know they are incompetent and someone needs to tell them. Example: If the moron above had come over and said "Hey, we need to move this data from Server A to Server B. What do you think is the best way?" He would have looked a lot less like an idiot than he did. That's really irrelevant because he followed up with the "How does this TaskManager thing work?" and there's no way to cover that move.

So, in the spirit of the Rant, I proclaim January "Let the fuckers know" month. Someone does something stupid, let that fucker know. Doing something that irritates you, let them know. Hell, send an email to me and I'll let them know for you.

kuhn.

06 January 2009

Panache!

I just read this article on Yahoo Finance and the only thing I can say is ROCK ON ADOLF! You know, people are always saying that Suicide is the cowards way out. I'll lay $5.00 that the people who say that have never stood in front of a train bearing down on them. So, for your review... Adolf's last moments in his own words:

"I hear the whistle of the Train. It is faint. Perhaps a three kilometers out. I wonder what they are serving in First Class this afternoon?"

"A slight rumble in the tracks. It should be approaching now full speed. Maybe a kilometer and a half away. Just around the bend. This snow on the ground is beautiful."

"Ahh! There it is! I see it now. A bullet train no-less! Look at those aerodynamic lines! Speed and German efficiency at it's finest. Hey, My shoe is untied. That just won't do."

"Getting Closer, less than a kilometer now. I see the conductor and engineer in the engine. They start to blow the horn to get me off the track. Hey Fellas! I wave to them. They keep honking. I guess if people don't move during the first 10 horn blows they do on the next 10 horn blows. I'm not moving... well not on my own..."

"500 Meters! Won't be long now... Holy Shit! Is that the new Porsche? Jesus, Mary and Josef Goebbels what a nice color! I'll need to get me one of those in the afterlife."

"That Braunschweiger sandwich is backing up on me... good think I own a pharmaceutical company and get free meds. Although this sandwich is about to back-up all over the front of that tr..."

WOOOOOSH!

"Holy shit that scared the fuck out of me. I wasn't expecting a train to come on the other track! Dammit, why didn't they honk the fucki....."

--- Flash to Conductor and Engineer ---

"Holy Shit Klaus we just whacked that guy! Hey, get the book out, How many points... 50 for a human, +2 since he was dressed Nicely in a suit, + 10 for the nice wave... That's 62 points! Woo Hoo! That beats the two deers humping on our way to Speckelburg!"

"Heinrich, this is the best fucking job in all of Germany! We have a high speed train, our own office, the beautiful German countryside right outside! Hey... I've got a craving for a Braunschweiger Sandwich... how about ringing that cute little maedchen in the back and have her bring us a couple up. And some extra towels so we can get that guy off the window."