Another Another Reason I Don't Understand People

Oh boy. You know, I wrote this whole thing yesterday evening about this random email. right? Well, some smart aleks tossed around the question of this email eating up our 100Mb limit of space that those who store their emails on the server have been crunched down to, and they figure if this email doesn't die, it'll eat that space up fairly quickly. It actually won't since it's all text, but the thought of a single reply all email killing the space max is amusing.

Anyway, after yet another comment from someone about not hitting "reply all" to the email, it wasn't 15 minutes before yet another genius popped a reply all to request to be removed from the email list.

I mean, seriously, do you people actually look at your email and think before you hit reply? I just had to laugh.

If anything comes out of this, I'll bet the original sender will think twice before sending an email to that list again...no, probably not.

Another Reason I Don't Understand People

Email. Nearly everyone in the world has or has access to an email address, and most of those people have been using it long enough to get a misdirected email or two. Not spam, mind you, but just an email that went the wrong direction. It's an innocent enough problem, and a misdirecte email is nothing to get bent out of shape over. Really.

Well, on Friday, I got a random email having to do with some kind of approval. I glanced at the addresses on it, and found that it was directed to a group email that I logically would belong to, and whoever replied to this email managed to reply to a huge list across the organization instead of whoever they needed to reply back to. This isn't the first time that this has happened, but what's weird is the chaos that comes out of these misdirections is always the same.

The first part is logical enough. Person sends reply to the entire organization (whoops), and someone from within the organization (often in that person's area, by the sound of it) replies stating that they needed to reply to whoever or that they shot the email off the wrong way or something. That should be the end of it...but it isn't.

Enter three days of replies like this: "I am receiving these emails in error. Please remove my name from the mailing list." And then a handful of following emails that say "me too." This set of emails gets followed up by someone stating the obvious: "The email was sent in error. Please disregard." Is that the end? Nope.

You see, people don't read their emails starting with the last reply. They either start at the beginning or somewhere in the middle. They also don't read the email string to the end before replying to it. Hence, after this email of "please stop replying," we get a renewed round of "Take me off the list" emails, because all these people see is a bunch of replies to an email string they don't want to be a part of.

So today, after an even longer string of "please remove my name" emails, another email was sent saying "everyone got this in error, just disregard it." Not a minute after that email, came another "remove me email." And they're still coming. There was only one single email about the issue and one more stating that it was misdirected. Every subsequent email has been about people asking to remove themselves, and if they would just stop replying, it would be over with.

Finally, enter the last email today where someone has repsonded yet again telling everyone to not reply all, and adding to the mix that people have been sending emails that they are frustrated with all the emails. That makes me laugh because these people are perpetuating the situation themselves by replying all to the email string. They are sending emails to get something done about the emails they're receiving, and those emails are saying stop the emails even though they would have stopped the emails themselves if they never replied to them to begin with. Pretty whacked, if you ask me.

I just don't understand where these people come from or why they were allowed to touch a computer. I mean, on the one hand, the level of tunnel vision is amusing, but really, they need to stop hitting "reply all."

Heroes and Spiders

I accomplished something this weekend that, for me, was a pretty significant step. Last week, I wsa mowing the yard and the mower completely died. It had been misbehaving for a little while now, but it always started and chugged its way through the small yard I have to get through, but on Tuesday when it went down, it didn't come back up. My suspicion to begin with was the gas. I have had the same can of gas for the mower for several years (yes, years) and I finally hit the bottom of the can last week, so I figured the bottom of the can was worthless. I dumped the gas out of the mower, went down to QuikTrip and got some fresh fuel. I refueled and tried to start.

Nothing. It kind of started, and then popped, sputtered, and died. I couldn't get it to start back up for anything. That's not for lack of trying either, since I thought that maybe the gunk leftover from the gas had gotten into the lines and I just needed to work it out. I worked it out for 30 minutes yanking that cord, and it didn't work out.

Fast forward to Sunday. I had been meaning to try starting it again figuring that I'd perhaps flooded the engine royally on Tuesday by priming and pulling all night. I tried it, and no dice. It would start at all. It caught a couple times, but never for more than five seconds.

I did some research online to see what to do, and I read the horror stories. Most of them began with little more than a simple tune-up though: check spark plug, gas, oil, etc. So I put my mechanical hat on and instead of a computer, I set myself to dismantling the lawnmower.

I pulled down my tools and started pulling bolts off beginning with that gas tank. There was a screw on the top I figured had to come out first, and in doing so, I found the air filter...well, a hard sponge caked with mud and dirt that was supposed to be the air filter. So I washed the gunk off the sponge and set it to dry. I removed the gas tank, which was easy and all I found there was lots of old grass. I removed the spark plug and the business end of that part was black and caked with burned what-not. That was probably the big problem, but I went on. I checked the oil and found sludge.

Yeah, sludge. It looked like black paint. You know what color oil is? It's a sort of clear brown. Looks like thick tea (sort of). When I dumped the oil, this was something straight out of an oil derrick. So I was off to Wal-Mart with the Queen and Princesses to find a spark plug and oil to see if that would fix my problem, leaving the mower in pieces in the garage.

With the new parts in hand, I put it all back together and gave the cord a sharp tug. It roared to life and just purred. Time was, I would have said it was broken and headed to Wal-Mart for another cheap mower (which is what this was), but I decided I didn't want to spend the money for another mower, since I need to save for the princesses to have school clothes. So I fixed it, even though strictly speaking, all it needed was a basic tune-up.

Still, it makes for a "growing up" experience for me, since I might not have tackled it once upon a time. And it made me the hero of the moment to the Queen, since I did just take the mower apart to see what the deal was instead of giving up on it.

One thing I have found with age and how I've changed as I've grown up is another age milestone. As I look back, there was another age where the mind changed of its own accord, and I began to see things just a little differently -- I would almost say, more mature. This age is nothing new, though, as Tolkien nabbed it in The Lord of the Rings in the age in years that a Hobbit comes of age. This point wasn't made in the movie version at all because Frodo's age wasn't discussed on screen, but that birthday party at the beginning wasn't just for Bilbo -- Bilbo and Frodo have the same birth date. When Bildo turned 111, Frodo turned 33, and this party served also as Frodo's "coming of age" party. There's a lot to be said for 33 as an age of fuller maturity, because I grew up a bit at 33, more so than any age before it. I can't explain it beyond that, but during my 33rd year, I managed to get a lot of things in order that I just didn't feel capable of doing before, and despite the fact that my financial life remains in a bit of a crisis, it's more in line now than it has ever been before -- another point for the hero in our story.

And finally, you may have noticed that my subject includes something about spiders. Well, I figured the other resident of our house needed an entry, but not one to him/herself. Lately, we'd noticed a decline in the number of ants, and we weren't overrun by these red and black bugs we called stinkbugs. We they really stinkbugs? I dunno. The jury's out on that. But we noticed that recently there aren't any of those around at all, and we just didn't concern ourselves with it.

The other night, though, we think we found out why. As we were leaving the house, the Queen gave a sharp gasp when she saw a large, flat spider sitting on the wall next to our entry door. He wasn't moving at all and lay almost fully flat against the wall. He was probably four inches in diameter with his legs out like they were, and you could see (without getting close, mind you) the definition of his mouth pincers and such as he sat there. We have not seen him inside, and don't care to either, but figured that rather large arachnid was the reason we'd lost all the other, more numerous and annoying bugs we'd had before. We also figured since he was earning his keep and not going inside the house, he could hang out. If we find him inside, however, he's toast. We've seen him a couple more times, and believe me, we steer clear of him, and double check before we touch that or any other wall outside.

If we can snap a picture of him, I'll show him off.

Being "Billy Joel"

I realized I never gave a proper ending to the "Band Thing" I went on about some weeks ago. Well, I learned that this band was being headed by the singer and one of the guitar players, and the other guitar player, who we'll call The Player, only owned the equipment and was helping these two starters out in their gigs and group. So after they rejected the next guy who came in for bass (since no one liked him at all), The Player and the guy who took me up there (we'll call him The Mixer, since he's the sound guy) liked me for bass, but the singer and guitar players weren't too sure, since I seemed kind of technical. Anyway, I've gone into all that previously...

Bottom line is that these two guys could never decided anything, and they even had a time where they didn't play, and had a short falling out, and then came to an agreement, and then sucked, and then played ok (and that's just just since my Band Thing II post). However, The Plyer and The Mixer thought I was cool and Player wanted me to come back out and play piano while he played drums (all this is detailed in Band Thing II).

So I did. I surprised the heck out of them when I actually sang while I played, and they loved my song selections (since almost all of my choices are five star tunes on my iPod). That was in May, and it was a month before we could get back together for one reason or another, and finally this last Tuesday, we were able to play again. Apparently, they had only placed a mike in front of the piano the first time as a joke, and didn't expect me to actually use it. This time, they weren't sure if I'd want it or not, but I asked for it, since I have songs, and as I chose a considerable number of original tunes, no one else would know them.

You see, the first session consisted of established songs and a couple of original ones. In the interrim, I was asked if I knew any Christian songs, and so I pooled those together along with more original material.

So the second section kicked off with a host of worship songs, and as before, they really enjoyed my song selection, even though they didn't know most of them. This surprised me since the Player has something to do with the praise band at his church, which is almost next door to his house. He also didn't know Larry Norman's "Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?" which I just thought was required listening for anyone who dared play rock in church. Anyway, we took a break after an hour and a half of Christian music, but not before I snuck in three of my own songs that fit that genre.

I had inadvertently chosen a lot of Hillsong music, and so when it wasn't Hillsong, the intro to song went, "and this one isn't Hillsong." So I gave that intro for one of mine, and once we were done, I was asked who does that one, and I told them I wrote it. They were shocked. So begins their being impressive with my music. They said good things about the three we did before the break, and after the break, it was all about me.

We played for almost an hour on just stuff I'd written, and one song that I didn't, but counts as original since it isn't mainstream at all, and I know the writers and when it was written. That song is one of my personal favorites and one of the best loved of the evening. The composer and lyricist were in rare form for the writing of that one. It's called "More Stars Than In Heaven," and if you search for it on Amazon, you'll find it and the album that we have out there at the moment for the musical it's from. That song alone is worth its weight in gold.

Anyway, The Player declared that we had to lay some tracks down at some point since he enjoyed what we were playing before we ran out of time and The Mixer had to go. We're getting together again on Tuesday, and this time, I will be able to get through all of my songs (yeah, I had probably a half dozen at least that we didn't play). The Player seemed fairly exicted about it, and I played "More Stars..." for him off my iPod in both the English and Swedish production versions (sorry, only the English one is up on Amazon). He said he just loved it.

So I am interested to see where this will go. For me, I have a lot of work to do in preparing several outstanding items I'm working on, so that's it for now.