Gunny Walker

  So I went this morning to Wood Personnel Services this morning. I filled out the application and all the paperwork. I tried to wow them with my skills. I've driven a scissor lift, forklift, narrow aisle, and electric pallet jack. I figured that says, "Hey I'm not afraid of power equipment." Also I worked a Wal-Mart for years. "Hey, I'm not afraid of manual labor."
  Then they tell me. The forklift jobs that they have are $8.50. For a second shift job, I can expect a quarter more. Yehaw! What a big waste of time. I could go back and work at Wal-Mart for close to that kind of money. And get the shift and hours that I want.
  Of course, I did fill out an application at another temp agency Thursday. They called me back and had me take a proficiency test Friday morning. Of course, he said that it was a lot like taking a SAT. Unlike my SAT, I actually finished it. Barely. It was a lot harder than I remember my SAT being. They actually gave me a calculator and a piece of paper. Let me give you an example...
  You have to paint a room that is 11.5 by 12.5 feet. All the walls are 99 inches high. Three of the walls have a 2 foot by 3 foot window, and the fourth has a door that is three feet by eight feet. You can paint 10 square feet with one gallon of paint. If you paint all the walls and ceiling, how much square footage will you have painted?
  Luckily, I was in the room alone. Between questions like that one and problems that actually required metric conversions, I was cussing.
  When I finished the guy asked me how I did. I told him I didn't know. I probably did okay, but after 25 or 30 of questions like that one, how am I supposed to feel?
  Oh well, more job listings to cruise. Later...

  Boy am I dufus. How could I miss it?
  A man comes to earth. A carpenter. He's here to change mankind's ways. He's here to preach a story of love and peace and "You humans better change your ways or you'll destroy yourselves." Eventually, he is killed by mankind, but comes back from the dead. He reiterates his stories of goodwill towards all. He only sticks around for a brief period after his resurrection then ascends to the heavens never to be seen again.
  The question is what did I just describe? The Passion of the Christ or The Day the Earth Stood Still? If you've never watched The Day the Earth Stood Still, then sit down and watch it. If you never noticed this before, sit down and watch it again. That's what I plan to do now.
  On a side note, I would like to say that I did not enjoy Sin City. It's a very good looking film, but it struck me as pointless violence and sex. I thought it had minimalist plot. I might watch it again, though. The one point that I did like about it is that I have yet to figure out what order in which the events occurred. Of course, that's also what made Pulp Fiction so interesting to me. Well, that and the fact that there was some character growth in Sam Jackson.

  You know there is one thing that I missed in both versions of The Shining.
here or here.) It's the whole "redrum" reference. When Jack Torrence is sitting in the bar drinking his red rum and looks in the mirror behind the bar and sees "redrum" reflected there. That's when you know things are just about to go bonkers.
  If you don't know what I am talking about then you should write redrum on a paper and look at it in the mirror. It's been to long since I read The Shining. Maybe I should go hunt down my copy and read it again.
  I was watching The Day the Earth Stood Still and was amazed how that Klaatu threatened the Earth. Mankind was on the verge of strapping nuclear devices to rockets and sending them into space. Of course, if we wanted to destroy each other that was fine, but on the course that we were on we would destroy more than our own planet. Klaatu said that it would not come to that. If we continued on our current course, then the other worlds would destroy us first. It's interesting that violence (or war) would lead to our demise.
  Of course, this is a common approach for all of those old fifties films. Be it giant ants, living dead, or even comic books, these things all base themselves off of the bomb, and ultimately off of nuclear war. They play off of fears of destruction of all mankind by that power. Of course, not such things play as well today.
  In 1960, The Time Machine showed a world destroyed by war, but in 2002, The Time Machine portrayed the world destroyed by the destruction of the moon in an attempt to build a gated community there.
  In I, Robot, it is the efforts of one company that ends life as we know it. Spider-Man and Terminator both show what happens when corporations get too involved in the designing of weaponry. (Of course, there is the government aspect there too, but that seems to always be prevalent.)
  I'm not trying to make a point here. It's just that when I was watching The Day the Earth Stood Still, I was thinking how it would not make it today. We don't really have any nuclear threats. (Of course, if Bush is right, then it's only a matter of time.) Today, we seem to fear big business and the rich instead. I just found that funny.

  I've got a job interview tomorrow. Well, I've got a test actually. I went and turned in resumes to a couple of temp agencies. I've decided that Comcast is not for me. Of course, I had to make it clear that I want second or third shift. The last temp agency found me a job on first shift. Of course, they also called me the same day as Comcast. So I guess you know what happened to that job.
  Anyway, I just thought that I would say something. Of course, they have forklift jobs there as well. Maybe one day, I'll get one of those. I can do a forklift job. It's boring, but I can handle boring. What I can't handle is answering phones where all I get is chewed out.
  Also, I just thought I would post that Rutherford County is having a tax auction. I'll have to post over there on the right in the column over there.

  So, I've been working at Comcast for a full six weeks now. At seven days a week, that means that I've been working at Comcast for a full 42 days. Of course, there is the whole ninety day grace period which we were told some of us would not make it past. So, I'm roughly halfway through my grace period. Now seems like a pretty good time to reflect on what's happened.
  I have made two sales. I have had to tell many, many people that since they don't rent that router/modem/computer/TV from us, I can't troubleshoot it. Yes, people do call us because they mess up their TV. And they know that they did. Half of the people calling in with interent problems can't understand why this is not a problem with their internet connection. If I can see that you're pulling an IP, then our job is done. Sometimes people call in the middle of the day. I ask them what operating system are they running. They say XP. Then I go into the "Okay, click on the start button and then on run" routine. They inform that their computer is at home while they are at work. I really want to ask them, "Then how do you know it's not working?"
  Sometimes when asked what operating system they are running, they tell me, "I'm not running an operating system. I'm not running anything. The problem is not with my computer." Actually folks if you aren't running an operating system, then the problem IS with your computer.
  If you have a Mac don't be surprised if no one is familiar with it. You decided to join an elite group of less than ten percent of the population. Expect problems. If you buy a car from Italy, expect to ship it back to Italy to find really good mechanics. In defense of Mac users. Many of them understand this. The ones that I hear from do not.
  The most shocking call is a woman who wanted her bill explained to her. She did not understand why her bill was over two hundred dollars when she was told that the first month would be $9.95. The truth is that she had been receiving cable for three months and even watched a couple of pay-per-views but had only paid that first months bill. That bill was a grand total of $11.14 with taxes and fees. Of course, it's hard to figure out a tactful way of telling her that. She wanted to discuss a payment plan. I told her that we really needed those boxes back. There was no way that I could reconnect her.
  The easiest call that I have gotten was from a Linux user with a router that was swapping out a modem.
  Anyway, as I started out saying, I am roughly halfway through my trial period. I am not sure that this job is worth keeping. I'm tired of not working on a GUI interface. I'm tired of not being able to do things in two states that I can easily do in the other two, thereby extending some of my calls to thirty minutes. I'm tired of seeing that no one seems to be getting commissions. I'm also tired of not being able to transfer the call to my supervisor or tier two (The bigger geek).
  Maybe I should wake up early tomorrow and start looking for another job. I don't think that this one will cut it. But for now, I'm think that I am going to see Sin City.

  Do you know what I don't understand? I don't understand stalkers. I don't understand liking some one so much that I have to follow them around all the time. I don't really have a life. I'll admit that, but do I have to leech off some one else's life?
  Although if I had a stalker it would be cool. Imagine if somebody just wanted to follow me. That would make me feel important. After all, I'd be so important that some one would need to adjust their shedule around mine. Granted, I'm not the President, but it's still one person more than I have now.
  I'd also be really cool to my stalker. I'd leave my stalker little gifts like dirty socks, empty bottles, napkins that I blew my nose on. As long as my stalker didn't try to touch me, I'd be cool with it. Although, if my stalker goes to far, I'd have him/her arrested but not press charges. Because after all, this person makes me their whole world. All I ever need to do to get a boost is think about them. That person that made me their whole world.

  Today, the DNS servers went down again. It's the third time in the past week. Of course, I had to tell several times that I don't know when it will be fixed. No, I hope that this doesn't become a regular occurrence. I can't say why they keep going down. I don't know what's going on. I just answer the phones. The tech's don't actually report to me.
  When this happened last week, I looked it up on a couple of sites. I actually used what I learned to get a couple of folks up and running. OF course, it involved stealing bandwidth from some other ISP, but hey, they probably won't figure out it was me.
  Some people started getting upset when I started asking of they were running XP. Several people angrily informed me that the problem was not in their computer. So those people didn't get helped. If they had been nicer...
  If you want a cool site, then I recommend DSL reports. It's what got a couple of people up and running tonight.

  You know it's amazing. I leave work about 12:30 in the morning. That would be the perfect time to post. There's nothing that good on TV. It's really quiet. It's the perfect time to sit alone and think about stuff. However, I don't think at all about posting here. No, the only time that I think about posting here is when it's one in the afternoon, and I really should be getting ready for work. I can't get one the 'net before work because if I do then I some how wind up being late for work. I just lose track of time.
  It's amazing how dependent that we have become on these electronic devices. You can't believe how upste people are when they can't watch TV, or listen to that ball game over the 'net, or even do their work. People complaining about not working shocks me. Even if it's a job where you make good money.
  Last Thursday, Comcast's DNS servers went down for about six hours. Of course, if you knew what a DNS server was, then you would know how to fix it. It's amazing how many people were complaining because they couldn't connect to the internet. The funny thing is that they were connected, but we couldn't tell them where anything was. Of course, if we wind up telling them a patch, then we have to tell them how to repair it back next week.
  The most shocking thing is the number of people that call in saying how much money this is costing them. They tell you that being down right now is costing them 300 dollars. Of course, if I made three hundred dollars a day, then I would complain about nothing. Let's see 300 dollars a day at five days a week at 50 weeks a year equals about 75,000 dollars a year.
  I tell you that if I ever get to making that kind of money, it's time to quit my job. I'm rich. It's time I started being eccentric. And as I'm sure that most of you know, it's time to walk across the country.
  That's right. If I ever get rich, I'm going to walk across the country. You can mark my word on that.
  Since it is now 2 in the afternoon, I'm going to skip the spell and grammar check and just post this. I'll try to remember it when I get back home. It's been a long time since I've been fishing. 12:30 at night is the perfect time to go though. Maybe I need to check my poles.

  What a night last night was. The DNS servers went down. Of course, we may have lost some customers last night. The thing I can't figure out is why the DNS server went down for six hours. It was a nation wide event and caused the phones to back up 60 callers deep. Of course, they put a message on the phones that everyone had to listen to a message that said that all of the internet customers were down.
  Of course, that didn't stop stupid questions such as, "I heard on the recorded message that all of middle Tennessee is down, but does that include Antioch?" or "Do you know when it will be back up?"
  Of course, had I thought about it, I could have gotten a lot of people up and running temporarily. After all, it's just a DNS server down. After work, I went to a favorite site.
  Here's what happened. If you type in a website address, your internet service provider stores IP addresses for that website's server. Therefore when the DNS server went down, Comcast had no idea where the website that you requested was located. If I had thought about it, I could have just found a DNS for the folks to use temporarily.
  Of course, I guess I was just to busy getting yelled at to think about that. That explains why people's AIM, MSN messenger, and Weatherbug were still working. Those things have either assigned IP addresses, are using a different DNS, or just remembered what it was from yesterday.
  Some times I just feel silly. I should have known how to fix it. Of course, since Comcast customers "obtain a DNS server automatically", Comcast could have just changed one server for another. Surely they could have managed to do that in less than six hours.

  Last night was a pretty crazy night. It was my first night out of training and my first night on the phones at Comcast. I was supposed to start work at 3:30 in the afternoon. I showed up ten minutes early to get ready. Then the fire alarm went off.
  We all went down the ten flights of stairs, and I would like to say that if you hear a fire alarm and have to travel down ten flights of please take off your heels, ladies. (Or men could apply there, I guess.) Anyway, we got down and the fire department started to arrive. Some one started to shout, "Find your supervisor. We need a count of heads."
  I just knew my supervisor's name. I was briefly introduced and then we went through a roll call of people that hadn't found their supervisor yet. Quite a few of them were in my training class. I'm glad to see that I wasn't alone.
  After an hour or so, some of the managers said that it was time to back inside the building, but the elevators were not working. We climbed up the ten flights of stairs only to find as we exited the stairwell, the fire alarm went off again. We staggered down the ten flight of stairs. We waited outside for another thirty minutes and were told to go back upstairs, but the elevators were still not working. We were also told to go directly into available on our phones. Showing up to work early was a complete failure.
  Luckily, the elevator was working.
  The phones were backed up all night. I worked six hours before I got the chance to breathe between calls. Luckily, I only had a couple of times before I had to ask for help. Once for a guy who couldn't get his Mac mail to work properly and once to figure put how to take a check.
  I talked to one of my class mates after work, and much like myself, she claimed that she had forgotten everything that she had learned. Or at least she felt that way. I guess that's about it. It can only get better than my first day.
  On a brighter note. I actually fixed three connectivity issues. Not bad for the kid that's still on AOL.

Much like last year, I'll be celebrating here on the blog the same way that I did last year. So here is another list of facts. It's up to you to figure out which ones are true and which ones aren't.

1. I considered going to truck driving school for a full thirty minutes. The train of thought was stopped when I realized that I don't really like driving a car.
   
2. My dream is that if I ever become wealthy enough, I want to walk across the country.
   
3. I still think that Madeline Kahn is the sexiest woman out of Hollywood.
   
4. I once killed some one in the library with a candlestick.
   
5. I will try tuna in almost any other food. Tuna in chili. Tuna in shells and cheese. Tuna on a saltine cracker with cheese from an aerosol can.
   
6. I have never been to Spain, but I kind of like the music.
   
7. I got my middle name from brother's best friend at the time that I was born.
   
8. I am actually fourteenth in line to replace the Pope.
   
9. I enjoy drinking white grapefruit juice, cranberry juice, and small amounts of lemon juice. All without alcohol.
   
10. I started shaving my head because I have "Andy Kaufman" style hair.
    
11. I think of TV as "something to watch while waiting for web pages to load."
    
12. I have a strawberry shaped birthmark on my back.
    
13. I have wondered many times if Rogaine would help bring back my lost stubble.
    
14. I love the smell of fresh mulch.

  So there you go. Good luck.
Guinevere Walker

So here's the definition of what kind of person I am, by analyzing my birth month. It's pretty self explanatory.
  Take the quiz: "What does your birth month reveal about you?"

April
Active and dynamic. Decisive and haste but tends to regret.Attractive and affectionate to oneself. Strong mentality. Loves attention. Diplomatic. Consoling, friendly and solves people's problems. Brave and fearless. Adventurous. Loving and caring. Suave and generous. Emotional. Aggressive. Hasty. Good memory. Moving Motivates oneself and others. Sickness usually of the head and chest. Sexy in a way that only their luver can see.
  The thing that cracks me up the most about this thing is that they misspelled lover at the end.
  The thing that worries me the most is the "Sickness usually of the head and chest." What's this bit about the head. Is this thing calling me crazy?