A while back someone asked me why I did my job and wasn’t I tired of it yet. My response was no I’m not tired of it, I actually enjoy what I do.
Working at a college is very interesting and it is a nice place to work. From one perspective it can be frustrating since we don’t get paid like our private industry colleagues. However, I can truly say I am making it possible for many students to do their classwork. Sometimes a job is more about altruistic ideals and about making a difference than collecting a big paycheck (not that I would be opposed to a raise 
).
One of the things I do is administer several computer labs on campus. I am responsible for 7 computer labs, with a total of 146 computers. In the first half of the current semester those labs have served 2,431 unique users (approximately 44% of the total student population). There have been 23,190 total logins and a combined usage of 27,838 hours and 40 minutes. The fact that this was possible because I did my job well is a big deal to me. I am proud of the work I do and feel like I am making a difference.
Tonight we dyed Easter eggs. Karen and the girls did an experiment and used natural ingredients to make the dyes. The colors all turned out well except for green, which we supplemented with food dye. You can view the pictures I took here.
Today we took a trip to the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens which was really cool. Lesson learned, make sure you charge your camera’s batteries before going. I took 54 pictures (view set) before both sets of batteries I had with me died. It was a good time though, I’d go back again. Well worth checking out if you are in the area.
Check out And Great Lyrics Quiz Rock Roll The (via Defective Yeti).
It is a quiz of 50 items, each item contains the complete lyrics for a song. The trick is that the lyrics have been arranged in alphabetical order. See how many songs you can figure out.
I got 14 out of 50 (numbers 2,8,13,18,21,23,24,25,26,29,38,45,47,50). It’s enough to make your brain hurt after a while.
I found today’s Dilbert not only incredibly funny, but very very true (which is probably why I found it funny, but I digress).
Here is a link to the comic. I’ll just hang out while you read it….
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Too often we in the IT industry (and I’m sure others) are faced with very old-school methods of doing things because “that’s how they’ve always been done.” Things change very quickly and even the method of doing something two years ago is hopelessly out of date today. Certainly there needs to be a balance. Doing something in a new way just for the sake of doing it in the new way doesn’t make any sense either. Sometimes the old way is the best way. You really need to be flexible about things.
Speaking of archaic, check out these terms of use. Seriously, I don’t see the harm in putting the actual comic in my blog as long as it links back to the main comic page. I’m not a commercial site, it is in effect like me cutting the comic out of the paper and putting it on my wall. But since they made the rules I’ll follow them. Sure I’ll make fun of them, but I’ll follow them. 
If I get 2 posts a year it will always be about how much I hate switching my clocks between “Standard Time” and “Daylight Savings Time.” Here is a nice article that claims Daylight Saving Wastes Energy.
Another thing to remember, and I’m sure many parents will agree at how annoying this is, is that it is now perfectly bright outside when the kids go to bed. As if it was too easy getting them to sleep, so let’s throw another trick just to mix things up. Erin goes to bed at 7:00 PM and it was still light until about 8:00 PM. Time to bring out the extra blankets to cover the windows… 
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