Friday, September 16, 2005

Usual breakfast at the cafeteria. Cindy brought in her mom's deliciously moist recipe of Bisquick coffee cake and we celebrated the welcoming of Lucia, the return of Kristina, and the "we're glad you didn't leave" of James. We learned one or two Mondays ago that James declined the job he was offered at Student Academic Affairs because they held firm on their salary offer and James held firm on his. I'm glad he didn't leave because he's extremely valuable to our office, but I'm sad that he seems to be in the same situation the rest of us are in. It confirms my belief that the easiest way to get a worthwhile raise is to find a job outside the University. Drop-in Computing Support and Services session. Kirk and Alan helping. Rick S called in sick. About 30 people—a zoo. We couldn't get wired or wireless to work until one of the students happened to try a wall jack I hadn't seen and got a connection. The TV displaying my laptop's screen blinked on and off inconsistently even though I tried lowering the screen rez, num of colors, or the refresh rate (already the lowest possible for all)—I eventually figured out that the screen freaks out when the current focus is on a windowed DOS box but if I make it full screen it instantly becomes fine. I never encountered that before, and it seems neither had Alan. We just thought the equipment was bad. We managed to get everyone through the process of writing down MAC addresses for registration with the Library's website, and Kirk took them across to the lab next door to do the reg. In all, we tallied 4 successful wireless connections/configurations (2 for me, 2 for Alan). When I got my first one working, I threw my hands in the air and yelled, "It works!" and a cheer went up throughout the room. But for the most part it was a somber affair because we've been plagued by a variety of problems that—I believe—could have been avoided. Near the end, as we got more and more problems resolved, one student told me that she loved me. Late in the session I realized that I accidentally stole the laptop from James who needed it to do his supplemental application workshop. I rushed back to the office, but everyone was gone, so I sent an apologetic e-mail. This week has been so crazy for me I wasn't thinking properly. I hope he forgives me. No time for lunch today. Dinner at home with Mom Ryan and Patrick: non-chilean teriyaki sea bass, mashed potatoes, peas. Work for Corinna: another address labels draft. Today Mom Ryan tried on lots of the clothes donated by Aaron's family and decided which ones she would keep and which didn't fit or she didn't want and could go back to places collecting clothes for other Hurricane Katrina victims. I learn today that Aaron's family (The Vargas Family: Marsha, Jennifer, Jonathan, Alex, and Aaron) gave Mom Ryan a $200 gift card to Bed Bath and Beyond! Mom Ryan also received a $200 check from Family vanDommelen-Gonzalez Gallegas! We are moved to tears over such generosity, and it all helps more than we can measure. I called the Hawaiian Airlines number and immediately pressed zero. Although the automated greeting does not say you can press zero to get a human, you can. It took about 4 minutes to get them to understand my privacy preferences. We watch one of the funniest Simpson's episodes I have seen in a long time: Trilogy of Error. The ending got chopped off because Atomic Clock Sync failed to sync our clock properly (even though it had shown a ping earlier today! When I manually did a ping, it corrected the clock by over 4 minutes!). Grrr! Need to find new clock sync software.