Each year as the winter ends, my heart yearns for baseball. Not professional ball, though that is nice too, but minor league ball. We have a local team - a feeder team for the Mets. We have the Tides. We have a major class stadium, and I love sitting on the first base side and watching baseball.
I have a glove, but I hardly ever take it. Not too many balls come to where we usually sit, and when they do, they are usually too fast and hard for a novice like me to catch. Well, I am not exactly a novice. I played catcher for several years as a junior high and high school student (not a school league, but a youth group league). But still, that was a *few* years ago, and most catchers don't catch balls like the ones that come our way.
They have hot dogs, sausages with peppers, funnel cakes (my daughter's favorite), soda, beer (too many overdo with the beer), soft pretzels, ice cream, cotton candy, and of course, cracker jacks. I typically stick with water and maybe a pretzel. I am too interested in the game to spend my time stuffing my face.
I watch each pitch, each swing, each ball. I keep score in my head, even though they have those large LED screens. I do all the charge calls, and sing all the fight songs. I participate in all the "waves".
I can't wait for my first game this year. I hope it is soon.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
New MP3 - some small frustrations
I got a new MP3 player the other day. I had a 1GB that I have had since 2006 and it had been a great little unit - it does everything I need it to do, except that it didn't quite hold as much music as I would like for it to hold, so a few days ago, when I was shopping for Father's Day presents for my hubby and my dad, I saw this nice little 4GB with upgradeable memory (it has a mini-SD slot), I decided to pick it up for myself.
It came a few days ago, and I spent one day just letting it charge at work. Didn't expect it to do anything else. Then, that evening, I started transferring music to it. Worked pretty well. Got a good mix going but wasn't nearly finished when I was ready to crash for the evening.
Played it at work yesterday, and was very pleased. Then last night, I spent some more time transferring more music after I installed the mini SD (which I haven't even begun to fill.) My only complaint? The lanyard.
I spent probably an hour trying to get the darned lanyard on it last night (while it was transferring music). It just wouldn't go through the stupid hole. Then again this morning, I was trying to force it through the hole, using a paper clip and a twisty tie to assist me. Still no joy. I ended up going to the website and searching the forum for "lanyard". Guess what I found - there was a post from a user explaining that there is a small piece of plastic inside the hole that needs to be popped out before the lanyard can be pushed through. He did it with a staple that he had unfolded. Uhm, yeah. That is something that most people will automatically think to do. "Gee, let me take a staple, unfold it and poke it in this hole in case there is left over plastic that needs to be reamed out before I can insert my lanyard." Crappy design people! The lanyard hole is darn small enough as it is, let's not make it even harder to get that tiny little thread of a piece in there, okay?
My lanyard is now in place (I used a pushpin, as I don't have a stapler - don't ask why.) I still don't have all the music on the player that I want to have on there, but it ran out of battery last night before I finished transferring stuff. :) I will finish tonight. It also has an external speaker, WIFI (in case I want to listen to Internet radio) but I can also use that to upgrade the firmware. I can also use it to connect to Flickr, though I am not sure why I would want to. There are a bunch of other features I ahven't even looked at. I really only got it to listen to music though. :)
So, what happens to my old MP3? Well, my daughter has lost hers, so I may give her the old one, or I may keep it (it is loaded with exercise music, while the new one has a different mix on it ), so I could still use that when I go to the rec center.
So what type of music am I putting on there, you ask? Mostly "relaxing" music. I have been in somewhat of a blue funk lately. With my grandmother's recent health decline and then death, I spent many weekends up with my parents helping to care for her, so I was listening to "soothing" music, both in her room with her (though I am not sure how much of it she was hearing that last weekend), and then in the car while I was traveling to and from my parents' home. I also have been listening to it while I am at work because it doesn't interfere with my work or bother my workmates. It seems to fit my contemplative mood. Is that good? I don't really know. It may be a sign that things are just a bit too low, but I have good reason to be feeling a bit low. Surely, I will rebound soon, and I will want peppier music. We will have to wait and see.
It came a few days ago, and I spent one day just letting it charge at work. Didn't expect it to do anything else. Then, that evening, I started transferring music to it. Worked pretty well. Got a good mix going but wasn't nearly finished when I was ready to crash for the evening.
Played it at work yesterday, and was very pleased. Then last night, I spent some more time transferring more music after I installed the mini SD (which I haven't even begun to fill.) My only complaint? The lanyard.
I spent probably an hour trying to get the darned lanyard on it last night (while it was transferring music). It just wouldn't go through the stupid hole. Then again this morning, I was trying to force it through the hole, using a paper clip and a twisty tie to assist me. Still no joy. I ended up going to the website and searching the forum for "lanyard". Guess what I found - there was a post from a user explaining that there is a small piece of plastic inside the hole that needs to be popped out before the lanyard can be pushed through. He did it with a staple that he had unfolded. Uhm, yeah. That is something that most people will automatically think to do. "Gee, let me take a staple, unfold it and poke it in this hole in case there is left over plastic that needs to be reamed out before I can insert my lanyard." Crappy design people! The lanyard hole is darn small enough as it is, let's not make it even harder to get that tiny little thread of a piece in there, okay?
My lanyard is now in place (I used a pushpin, as I don't have a stapler - don't ask why.) I still don't have all the music on the player that I want to have on there, but it ran out of battery last night before I finished transferring stuff. :) I will finish tonight. It also has an external speaker, WIFI (in case I want to listen to Internet radio) but I can also use that to upgrade the firmware. I can also use it to connect to Flickr, though I am not sure why I would want to. There are a bunch of other features I ahven't even looked at. I really only got it to listen to music though. :)
So, what happens to my old MP3? Well, my daughter has lost hers, so I may give her the old one, or I may keep it (it is loaded with exercise music, while the new one has a different mix on it ), so I could still use that when I go to the rec center.
So what type of music am I putting on there, you ask? Mostly "relaxing" music. I have been in somewhat of a blue funk lately. With my grandmother's recent health decline and then death, I spent many weekends up with my parents helping to care for her, so I was listening to "soothing" music, both in her room with her (though I am not sure how much of it she was hearing that last weekend), and then in the car while I was traveling to and from my parents' home. I also have been listening to it while I am at work because it doesn't interfere with my work or bother my workmates. It seems to fit my contemplative mood. Is that good? I don't really know. It may be a sign that things are just a bit too low, but I have good reason to be feeling a bit low. Surely, I will rebound soon, and I will want peppier music. We will have to wait and see.
Assistant or Professional?
Some of you know that I have other blogs I write besides just this one. I try to keep my WordPress blog up to date on a more regular basis than this one (in fact, most of what I write here ends up there as well), but I know some of you prefer to read here or have taken this feed, so I try to write here as well. I recently consented to Google Adsense. I don't expect to earn great amounts of money this way, but who knows, maybe it will add up to something.
Today, I wanted to talk about the difference between being an administrative assistant and being a team member. As most of you know, I was an administrative assistant to the Bishop for this area a few years ago. I really enjoyed working for Dave, and I was sad to see him retire, even though I had left the job before he did.
My job was partially as one of his administrative assistants but also partially as a system administrator/webmaster for the diocese. As his administrative assistant, I handled some of his correspondence (from dictation), I took phone calls and emails for him, I handled filing, that sort of thing. Basically, I kept him aware of what was going on in the diocese of which he needed to be aware. I did that because he couldn't be everywhere at all times, but also because I had skills in areas he didn't. He wasn't skilled in database administration, so he couldn't be expected to keep himself up to date on the status of our database. He wasn't skilled in web design and development, so he couldn't be expected to keep himself up to date on the needs of the web server. Do you see where I am going with this? If there was a problem with the web server, it was my job to fix it and handle whatever issues came about from it. No one held him accountable for downtime of the website. That fell squarely on my shoulders.
Fast forward to where I work now. I am on a team (of three) webmasters. Tuesday, I found a problem with one of the websites. I met with one of my co-workers to see if he was getting the same error I was getting (he was) whihc led me to determine that the issue was that the index page was just missing. No explanation as to why it was gone. He and I looked at the backup index file. It was still valid, so he transferred it to the necessary location (since we were at his desk), and the problem was solved.
Now, I had been gone (on bereavement leave) for 5 days, so it could have been messed up just for a few minutes or hours, or it could have happened right after I left the previous Wednesday (it was working earlier on Wednesday.) There is no way for me to know at this point unless I can find someone with access to log files that may or may not exist. Yesterday, my supervisor was upset with me because I didn't notify him that there had been a problem. So he is yelling at me over the phone about this. Well, excuse me, but he was AT WORK while I was away on bereavement. He had the opportunity (along with my other co-worker), to check that website every day to make sure that it was functioning. In fact, he could have checked it THAT MORNING to see if it was working. But, apparently, it didn't occur to either of them to do that. So, since *I* happened to do my job to find and fix an error, I get in trouble for not *telling him* that I did my job. Gee, I guess trying to get 3 days work done in the first 4 hours I was back made it slip my mind (oh and the other co-worker physically sits right next to my supervisor while I am on the other side of the building). Why didn't my co-worker mention it to my supervisor when he got back from lunch?
I am not my supervisor's adminstrative assistant. It is not my job to keep him informed about things that are outside his ability. He should have the skills to check the website and determine whether it is working or not. I am not his assistant. I am an IT professional who is here to work on specific projects. And it ticks me off that he is yelling at me when it was just as much HIS job to look to see that the site was up and operational. Sure, he may get calls that the site was down, and he will not have known about it, and he may get in trouble for that. But that isn't my fault. I wasn't even here. He will end up getting less of those *because I fixed it* (regardless of whether I told him) than if I didn't fix it. Had I not noticed it and fixed it, how many complaints would he have gotten?
Today, I wanted to talk about the difference between being an administrative assistant and being a team member. As most of you know, I was an administrative assistant to the Bishop for this area a few years ago. I really enjoyed working for Dave, and I was sad to see him retire, even though I had left the job before he did.
My job was partially as one of his administrative assistants but also partially as a system administrator/webmaster for the diocese. As his administrative assistant, I handled some of his correspondence (from dictation), I took phone calls and emails for him, I handled filing, that sort of thing. Basically, I kept him aware of what was going on in the diocese of which he needed to be aware. I did that because he couldn't be everywhere at all times, but also because I had skills in areas he didn't. He wasn't skilled in database administration, so he couldn't be expected to keep himself up to date on the status of our database. He wasn't skilled in web design and development, so he couldn't be expected to keep himself up to date on the needs of the web server. Do you see where I am going with this? If there was a problem with the web server, it was my job to fix it and handle whatever issues came about from it. No one held him accountable for downtime of the website. That fell squarely on my shoulders.
Fast forward to where I work now. I am on a team (of three) webmasters. Tuesday, I found a problem with one of the websites. I met with one of my co-workers to see if he was getting the same error I was getting (he was) whihc led me to determine that the issue was that the index page was just missing. No explanation as to why it was gone. He and I looked at the backup index file. It was still valid, so he transferred it to the necessary location (since we were at his desk), and the problem was solved.
Now, I had been gone (on bereavement leave) for 5 days, so it could have been messed up just for a few minutes or hours, or it could have happened right after I left the previous Wednesday (it was working earlier on Wednesday.) There is no way for me to know at this point unless I can find someone with access to log files that may or may not exist. Yesterday, my supervisor was upset with me because I didn't notify him that there had been a problem. So he is yelling at me over the phone about this. Well, excuse me, but he was AT WORK while I was away on bereavement. He had the opportunity (along with my other co-worker), to check that website every day to make sure that it was functioning. In fact, he could have checked it THAT MORNING to see if it was working. But, apparently, it didn't occur to either of them to do that. So, since *I* happened to do my job to find and fix an error, I get in trouble for not *telling him* that I did my job. Gee, I guess trying to get 3 days work done in the first 4 hours I was back made it slip my mind (oh and the other co-worker physically sits right next to my supervisor while I am on the other side of the building). Why didn't my co-worker mention it to my supervisor when he got back from lunch?
I am not my supervisor's adminstrative assistant. It is not my job to keep him informed about things that are outside his ability. He should have the skills to check the website and determine whether it is working or not. I am not his assistant. I am an IT professional who is here to work on specific projects. And it ticks me off that he is yelling at me when it was just as much HIS job to look to see that the site was up and operational. Sure, he may get calls that the site was down, and he will not have known about it, and he may get in trouble for that. But that isn't my fault. I wasn't even here. He will end up getting less of those *because I fixed it* (regardless of whether I told him) than if I didn't fix it. Had I not noticed it and fixed it, how many complaints would he have gotten?
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