September 26, 2006

           See this date palm? At least I think those are dates. Did you know more animals eat dates in Africa than any other fruit. I don’t care for dates, having once OD’d on fig newtons as a lad. Dates remind me of the same, although I love dried apricots, so go figure. Anyway, this is what a pregnant date tree looks like.

           I’m beginning to get antsy about doggie wigs More specifically, the process of running the office for these things. You see, they have come to do the one thing I warned them not to do – count on me to run things. I’ll show them or teach them how to run it themselves, but I am not a clerical worker.

           I’ve been asked to elaborate, since what I am doing right now would appear to some people to be clerical [work]. Wrong. (This is creative, there is no deadline, and I can quit when I like.) More specifically, I found that clerical work attracts the very worst of managers short of lumber mills. If you took a clerical office that was always frantic, running around meeting deadlines, and devised a new scheduling system that made things run smoothly, guess what?
           Right. Some bonehead manager would take on additional work until the place relapsed to as bad as it was before. I’ve seen this peckerhead behavior in every office I’ve ever known. Today, I had to stop what I was doing to go get the telephone number of whoever they talked to last Friday. Hmm, good thing I wrote it down, considering it had nothing to do with me. So charging my full rate is not discouraging such calls. What to do?
           They were ripping a wall out of Chip Tech this morning. Looks like they are installing a new sign on the roof. This provided much fodder for wry humor but took until 11:00 AM to get my order. Things like, “I see my mainframe has arrived.” You kind of have to be a computer type. Or “Is that the memory I backordered?”

           I went on two service calls so I’ve got some extra cash in my pocket. Maybe I’ll do the movies or something. Not so fast, I just got another call. See you later. Okay, I’m back only $40 richer, but I learned a lot. One of the things I’m learning is that programming still, in the long run, pays more than repairing computers, and teaching pays the most. Where there is a limit to what I can teach, no such restriction applies to programming. The problem there is that it is hard to price programming. Pssst, buddy, wanna buy some programming, only $15,000.
           The picture is of a fruit display at the nearby market. Peer closely and you can see the spots are fruit flies. I got used to these harmless insects in South America but they don’t do a thing for the North American appetite, who would rather ingest insecticides, polish and chemical flavors any day. This infestation caught my eye because fruit flies get drunk a lot if left alone, much like Canadians on welfare. It could also explain why there are so many of both.

           It was past dark, so no bike ride when I got home, and besides, the Greyhound track is locking the south gate for reasons unknown. Maybe too many old guys biking through there and wearing out their asphalt? That is why I had time to do programming. I’ve heard it said that it is a lonely occupation. If you do a good job, that would be true of any career. Besides, a good programmer would not notice being lonely. It does require patience and quiet which could explain the lack of good programmers who are married with children.
           Yes, it was CSS programming, and I’ve really hit the bad stretches. I have roughly 400 pages of condensed research material that I’ve read several times each. There is only so far each author can take the subject before branching into his own preferences or writing browser-specific code. It is, I’d say, three times as complicated as I thought when I first began, mostly due to poor design. Beware ye who deign to follow my footsteps; CSS is like learning to use a slide rule. Bothersome, and you find out disappointingly late that you can’t add or subtract with the damn thing.

           I’ve actually passed the point where what I am learning in CSS has any practical use for now. Yet, there are unexplained gaps in the material that need setting straight long before delving into the theoretical junk. It is not a real programming language as it cannot make decisions or operate on lists of variables. That has not stopped them from claiming it can. I am still on the lookout for an example or two. One of my habits is to glance at the final chapters of any text book, a curiosity-driven moment to see what each author considers the culmination of his work. Some of it looks like scenarios from a madhouse.