October 26, 1999
You may have thought that yesterday's adventure with John the Networking Guy was just about as bad as my day could get. If you thought that, you would be wrong. After John the Networking Guy left, I had to call our service provider to see if we could get an FTP site set up.
PHONE
Ring, ring.
ISP GUY
Hey, this is yer ISP. What can I help y'all with today?
MY BRAIN
Oh God no.
ME
Um, I'm not sure if this is the right number to call, but we have a business account through you and were wondering how to get an FTP site set up.
ISP GUY
Hmm... I dunno if I can help y'all with that, but let me get your business name and your name, okay?
ME
Sigh. I work for This Company and my name is Jan Bednarczuk, that's B-E-D, N-A-R, C, Z, U-K.
ISP GUY
Hey, I think I knew a guy with that last name!
MY BRAIN
Oh dear Lord.
ISP GUY
No I'm sure I did! He lived in like... what was it... um, Czechoslovakia, that's it!
ME
...
ISP GUY
...
ME
... Uh, I'm from Ohio.
ISP GUY
Huh. Well, do you have any Czechoslovakian in your family?
MY BRAIN
Why me, God?
ME
Um, no, Ukrainian actually.
ISP GUY
Oh, well those are the same thing though, right?
ME
Uh, actually no. Czechoslovakia isn't even really a country anymore.
ISP GUY
Huh. But they're in the same AREA, right?
MY BRAIN
I will now attempt to kill you by sending powerful brain waves through the telephone connection that will electrocute you in your seat.
ME
Sigh. Basically, yes, I guess they are in the same area.
ISP GUY
I knew it. Well anyway, I can't help you with this FTP thing or whatever, but I can transfer you to the business department.
ME
That sounds good.
MY BRAIN
Dammit, I was just getting warmed up.
PHONE
Ring, ring.
ISP GIRL
Hey, this is yer ISP, can I help y'all?
MY BRAIN
Sweet Jesus, are all these people from Texas? What have I done to deserve this?
ME
Sigh. Yes, I'm from This Company and we just need to know what we have to do to get an FTP site set up.
ISP GIRL
...
ISP GIRL
Uh. An... F-P-T site..?
ME
No, an FTP site.
ISP GIRL, sounding PANICKED
Um, yeah! Can you hang on for a second!
ME
Why not?
PHONE
Ring, ring.
PHONE
This is yer ISP's voice mail, just leave a message at the sound of the beep and have a nice day, y'all!
ME
Argh.
Anyway, after that it WAS time to go home, thank God. Because I was one more "y'all" from homicide, and I don't think that any court in the country would have convicted me.
In non-job-related news. Keith's interview on Monday went really well. Apparently the guy pulled his resume out of the stack because he was in the Navy, and as we all know, the Navy builds character. Also, the interviewer was once in the service, and maybe he wanted to help out a fellow serviceman. I'm not really sure how these things work. Anyway, the interview went well, and Keith thinks he'd like the job. The only problem with it is that it's in, um, Redmond. (No, it is NOT for Microsoft, thank you very much.) So, since we're committed to living in the Seattle city limits, it'll be a hellish commute for him. He says he doesn't mind too much, though, so I guess now we're just waiting for them to call back and make an offer. I remain hopeful.
I guess that WAS job-related news. Oops. In completely unrelated news, I've been listening to Keith's Jane Siberry CDs a lot lately. They really seem to fit my mood, which lately has frequently been calm, tranquil and serene -- yes, this is quite unusual for me. She's a Canadian singer-songwriter, and I'm really getting into her music. In fact, I had the CD on repeat yesterday for like five hours. I'm not sure if anybody else does this, but when I first get a CD I tend to listen to it over... and over... and over again until I practically have it memorized. It's OK though, because the Jane Siberry CD was worth listening to over and over and over again. I think the best way for me to describe it would be to say that it's spiritual music, except that "spiritual" has all kinds of weird religious overtones, so that doesn't really work either. Look, why don't you just go get one of her CDs and listen to it already?
News from Danny He reports that grad school is insane. I am not particularly surprised by this. I would, however, like to present a brief excerpt from an email he sent me last night:
To: "Jan M. Bednarczuk" [bookworm@jetcity.com]
From: "Danny" [danny's email]
Subject: Re: one more thing
Sorry I didn't write back sooner--I have midterms this week and things are a little crazy. I don't understand why they run grad school the way they do. We had this problem set to turn in for genetic analysis. One of the problems has been re-used for years. In the class before us, one person got it right and in the year previous to them, no one got it right. People have been killing themselves to do this damned problem (one of 10 on the homework I might add) We got the answer key back today--the answer to problem number one alone was 10 typed pages, front and back. What is wrong with these fucking people. We get problem sets with things so completely complicated and implausable that I can assure you they would never, ever occur in nature. If you put these flies (Drosophila) under a UV light, in a blender containing the worlds most powerful mutagen (think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles glowing green shit) and then returned one million years later, I can say with some confidence that the series of mutational events required for the answer to problem number one would never have occured. I remarked just the other night that they are training us to analyze the bizarre to the point that when we get our PhD's we will only be able to ignore the obvious. The example I came up with, "Fascinating, my flies now have a cloaking double minus mutation resulting from a translocated duplication as a result, light is bent around them and the adult flies are invisible. How odd that we have seen this event twice this week." "Actually Dr. N, the cork came undone and the flies flew out of the bottle." "Simpleton."
Ah, grad school.
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