I get a free subscription to “Information Week,” the softcore executive-digested version of “Software Developer” magazine. In this week’s issue there’s an article by Chris Murphy entitled “Speak Up for the IT Career,” whose thesis is there’s a huge market for talent in IT, but few young people wish to go into IT/Programming in college, so companies are forced to outsource.

Telling quote from the article:

One of the first IT courses is a beginning programming class, which involves hours on end alone at the computer. “It’s a turn-off because people think that’s all there is to IT, and there’s a lot more than programming…I’d rather be in a team diagnosing problems, not in front of a computer all day.”

What do you get when you cross two newlyweds with a 48 hours of uninterrupted together time?

Sex?

Nah…painting.

The Devine Mrs. C hated her kitchen color, so I brought her flowers on Friday, made us some drinks, looked longingly into her blue eyes and said, “Honey, let’s paint the kitchen.”

Trips to Lowes ensued, exhausting our last gift card and about $200 more, buying paint, painting paraphernalia, and painter’s tape. After disembowling our kitchen/dining room, we set out binding it with strips of blue tape at each sensitive edge. Then we assaulted it with Kilz Primer, then another coat. Saturday came and went, and our kitchen was white, with a murky tinge of brown beneath. We awaited the morn, ripe for our final victory.

In my readings through Exodus and Leviticus, Aaron fascinates me. Brother of Moses, spokesman for the Lord, father of four sons, first high-priest of the Israelite nation, this guy (basically) had more power and importance than any other man of Israel, yet he’s a footnote. What was he like? How did he weather being a perennial second?

The Torah doesn’t give us much to go on for Aaron. So much of rich biblical history passes him by–the plagues of Egypt, the Exodus, the golden calf, the construction of the Tabernacle, Moses’s law–and yet we don’t see any of his motivation. WHY did he construct the golden calf when he knew it was wicked? HOW did he survive two of his sons being “consumed by the fire of God” (Leviticus 10:1-4)?

The difference between great people and everyone else is
that great people create their lives actively, while
everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting
to see where life takes them next. The difference between
the two is the difference between living fully and just
existing.
-- Michael E. Gerber

Indeed.

The New Mrs. Combs’s summary found here

Basically, it went off without a hitch, or so the bride saw. I got to see the labor unrest with the caterer, my family arriving 2 hours (!) too early and crowding the foyer of the church, my cousin the usher arrive after having spilt coffee all over his white shirt and gotten a new one.

It was a great day, one I will cherish for many reasons:

Ah, life in the land of feast or famine…

I bowed my head this morning and said, “Lord, if it be in Your will, please make the way straight for me this day” And it has been.

* * *

http://www.typingtest.com/

79 WPM…ugh…used to be over 100

Yes, yes, all the women of the world may now weep, I’m off the market.

</End egotism> Doesn’t suit me.

I’m married to the most wonderful, spastic, loving, tender woman on the face of the earth, and I have been for going on two weeks!! I was off work from the 16th through the 26th and didn’t miss it much, but then who does? Spent lots of money, had a great wedding, reception, and honeymoon.

Curmudgeon: n.

An ill-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions.

I’m getting there. Whitney and I ate our pizza and swilled our Pepsi before the morass of cable TV before us, and VH1 ran a spot promoting DAVE MATHEWS BAND: Storytellers, premiering tonight at 11pm

Me: “Good LORD! 11pm? Who’s going to be up on a weeknight watching THAT?!”

Yup, how do you spell old fart? H-A-R-O-L-D.

I’m a morning person. Yeah, that must be it.

I now have 72 channels, ranging from news, sports, human interest, travel, cooking, learning, and not-too-recent movies. It takes me 20 minutes to flip through them all, comprehend which channel I’m watching, and discern why I really don’t want to watch that channel at that second. I just spent the last two hours trying to reaclimate myself to cable.

I have a headache.

I can feel my attention span shortening, my life wasting away, and a strange desire to buy airwick air freshener. Things have changed somewhat in the time I’ve been away from cable. News is now NEWS, DAMNIT! “News” is the presentation of current goings-on, possibly with human interest stories and some weird stuff to give flavor. NEWS, DAMNIT involves 3-4 blonde anchorpersons, a crawl going across the bottom of the screen, a rotating “FOX NEWS” banner in the lower corner, and snazzy graphics proclaiming the latest UPDATE regarding the president’s digestion or Alan Greenspan’s incontinence.

My powerbook’s been held hostage in Louisville for the past week, so no blogging from home, and (as we’ll soon see) I can’t blog from work. My apologies.

This is, at once, the best and most chaotic time in my life. Work is sucking unbelievably, but my personal and spiritual life has been blessed. Maybe God is trying to tell me something.

First, the facts: They fired 300 employees, then re-organized our department (no impact to me), and slipped in a not-so-subtle warning…

You enter in the morning whistling a happy tune and by the end of the day you desperately don’t want to work there anymore.

As reported over on Gabe’s Blog, here’s a snap of the new, extended wheelbase mini:

* * *

Had insomnia last night so I finally decided to watch Sin City

This stylized movie version of Frank Miller’s graphic novels by the same name stars nearly everyone in hollywood who’s under 40 and who’ll work for under $2 million: Brittany Murphy, Rosario Dawson, Jessica Alba, Josh Hartnett, etc. Dark and surreal, the “plot” is actually 5-6 vignettes that occur in “Sin” (short for Basin) City, a land of angels, demons, murderers, and corruption, with the normal Film Noir inversion of sympathentic/antagonistic chracters–the “officials” are mostly evil, and the ex-cons and prositutes are the “good guys”.

link

$94…Santa, I’ve been oh so good this year.

My family’s napping, so here goes…

I’m so HAPPY :D These past two days have been heaven…relaxing, fulfilling, and just neat. Drove Whitney & Joey down here in the MINI, and the first thing Joey said as we pulled into the garage is, “Harold, is that your BIKE? Why don’t you every ride your BIKE?”

…good question…

The saga of my lovelorn Cannondale: I bought it in the spring of 2002, when I was on a biking kick. I’d had a crappy Giant mountainbike when I was in college, and since I was out in cosmopolitan South Lexington, I thought…hmm…maybe a road bike of some sort. Then my father goes, “Son, I’ll buy you whatever kinda bike you want”.

It’s the day before Labor Day weekend, and it’s all falling apart here…

Okay, good stuff first: I got the yard mowed (after 4 inches of rain thanks to Katrina, it was a jungle), the trimming accomplished, and the car washed in the past couple of days, but I’m horribly behind on all things wedding.

I just ordered cable. I’m tired of having fuzzy broadcast reception…just basic, no digital/TiVo/etc. Whitney and I are both newshounds, so maybe that will assuage our yen to be plugged-in. Plus, hey, Cartoon network :D

I call this blog Harry’s Ruminations, because I think alot, and right now, I’m obsessed with how much things suck and how little I can do to stop them from sucking.

First, let’s get it out of the way: I lost yesterday. I had a good, fun day, but I lost, finishing 3rd out of 6 drivers. Interestingly, all of us were on r-compound tires, so this isn’t a bad showing, and I actually lead the class for most of the runs, but I never improved on my 63.7 time, so I got beat by a 62.4 on the last round, then knocked out of 2nd by a 63.4.

In 1969, Camille came to Louisiana and killed 250 people. For the last 10 years, they’ve said the next category 5 hurricane to hit Louisiana will obliterate New Orleans. Tomorrow will likely be that day.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL…LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

Well, morale took a hit,
and some managers were somber
but I still have a job,
and will wonder no longer.