Dale Miller

I apparently dropped and damaged my bullhorn at last week’s kickball game. The hinge that holds the battery cover was broken. While trying to fix that, I pulled loose a wire. I searched all over the house and couldn’t find a soldering iron except my butane one (which has issues). I finally decided to try to use the butane one. After far too much effort, I got it to light and heat. Then I discovered that the solder wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Grrrrr… So I shut off the iron and went down to the storage building to see what I could find. Digging through boxes uncovered two fire extinguishers I had forgotten about and eventually a roll of solder. Oh … and three soldering irons. So, I was able to nicely fix the wire on the bullhorn, and ended up just using tape on the battery cover. It’s a pain to change batteries, but I shouldn’t have to do that often.

Now, I must decide where to store the soldering irons and solder so I can find them next time.

And to prove my pack-rat status: the spool of solder I found was labeled in Spanish — which means it’s the one I bought the last time I was in Mexico city — which was about 20 years ago. Yep, I’m a pack rat.

Some people have it, some people don’t. I am in the latter category. What is “it”? “It” is that quality of a person that allows them to make friends, become popular, and generally be part of the “in” crowd wherever they go. I watch people at the kickball games. Some have “it”. Some try very hard and end up being obnoxious. Some, like me, hope that someone will come up and talk to them. I am always envious of those who have “it”.

Yes, I know it’s Wednesday, but it *seemed* like a Monday. I didn’t get enough sleep last night, so I started the morning dragging. I somehow managed to get out of the house without shaving, so I was stubble-faced all day. That seemed to set the tone for the day. I’m never at my best when it’s dreary and rainy, and today was even worse. I found myself becoming depressed about most everything. Dance class was the highlight of the day, but even there I wasn’t performing to even *my* usual standards (oh, and I grabbed the wrong tights this morning, in what seems to be a pattern). I shut my office door for much of the day, mainly to keep myself from saying something I might regret. When I feel bad I tend to run off at the mouth.

I can only hope tomorrow is better.

I’m still feeling rather puny. I went to work yesterday and today, and coughed, sneezed, and sniffled my way through both days. I feel slightly better today than yesterday, so I hope this means I’m getting better. I probably shouldn’t count on playing kickball on Sunday, but I *want* to. At least I want to go out and interact with people, whether or not I actually play any kickball.

I felt fairly lousy when I got up this morning. I went on in to work anyway, mostly because I didn’t want to miss dance class. As the day wore on, I think I actually got worse. By the time class rolled around, I decided that I really didn’t need to be dancing, so I missed class anyway. I’m sneezing, coughing, sniffling, and just generally feel bad. I really hate being sick.

I had one thing I wanted to get working today — only one. It seemed simple enough: enable password synchronization from a Sun LDAP server into Sun Identity Manager. There was a section in the manual describing exactly how to do it, and it seemed straightforward. Between my lack of mental dexterity and nearly constant interruptions, I didn’t get a chance to work on it until early afternoon. I made changes in the LDAP server configuration, altered the schema to load a plugin that would modify the change log, and then got to the last step in the procedure — copying the plugin into the appropriate directory on the server. I couldn’t find the plugin. It didn’t seem to be anywhere in the installation directory, in either object or source form. Another read of the manual didn’t shed any light on the problem, so I turned to the web. I discovered in a Sun forum that in order to obtain the plugin you have to have a support contract and place a service call. It would have been nice if that had been *somewhere* in the documentation. So I signed onto Sunsolve only to realize that I was never added as a contact on the support contract. I also didn’t have the contract number, so I set out to find it. Before the afternoon was out, I had tracked down the contract number, but still don’t have myself added as a contact. It’s situations like this that really make me appreciate open-source software. What should have taken me an hour or so is going to end up taking a couple of days, and several people’s time.

Okay, I’m done ranting now.

So… kickball season started yesterday. Trippin’ Balls played two games, one at 2:30 and the other at 6:15. Being the over-achiever that I am, I was at the park early to watch the 12:00 match between the Skeet Throwers and the Kickball Mafia. That meant I spent all the day at the ballpark. I am now feeling the effects of too much sun, too much food, in particular too much *salty* food, too little water, and insufficiently warm clothing. By the time I left last night, I was cold. I have been thirsty all day today, and I have a sore throat.

However… It was great fun. We have some new (and cute) people on our team who I think are going to fit right in, there are new teams in the league, and it gives me at least some social interaction.

Today was fairly calm. That’s a pleasant change. However, tonight at choir I volunteered to try out a solo line in the Benedictus. I embarrassed myself rather thoroughly. It would behoove me to not raise my hand again.There are far too many *good* singers in the room for me to even try.