The morning of old tags

No, I’m not talking about an old license plate that had the prefect combination of letters and numbers, or a custom plate. Nothing like that, not car tags are being mourned here.

I’m morning the loss of the old style of dog tags.

The metal oval ones that about two inches wide and little over an inch tall. That’s what I’m talking about.

Now, I’ve never served in the military, but I’ve had a fair share of tags. Mickey’s Surplus, an Army/Navy like store not far from my parents’ house makes them while you wait. You used to have to send off for them from there, but now they take about ten minutes and you can wander around their now expanded store. You can touch things now and not have a deep-seated fear that everything is going to collapse on you. I mean everything.

I barely remember the old Mickey’s before the expansion. I couldn’t tell you where things were or anything, but I remember being told, constantly, “Don’t touch that, you’ll make everything else fall down.”

The only thing you were allowed to touch was the basket of fake worms and stuff for fishing.

At the house, when we were old enough to ride our bikes away from the house, you got a set of dog tags. They had your name, phone number, address, and allergies if you had one. And this was like a big thing. You couldn’t wait to get your own set of dog tags. It never once entered your mind that the purpose of them was for body identification and retrieval.

It was just cool! You had real military dog tags! You got two identical tags, a long beaded chain, the short beaded chain, and two black silencers, for around $8. They were required to be worn while we were out riding our bikes, or doing other activities. Especially when we were out on our paper routes.

I’ve had several sets since I was nine and got the first set. Mickey’s expanded and they were able to make them in house while you wait. You’d fill out the form and go and wander around the store and you could hear the big clicks and thunks of the monster typewriter machine that made them.

Ten minutes later, custom tags, and a shirt or boonie hat picked out, you’d pay and go home and everything would be good until you like lost both of your tags or something, then you would go and repeat the procedure.

For years I have always worn one tag. It was just something I did and got used to and never thought much of, unless I didn’t have it on for some reason. I felt, and insert the eye roll here, naked without it on; off kilter if you will until I put it back on.

Since my knee surgery in February, and subsequent really bad reactions to some meds, my mum has mentioned several times I should go and get a second set of tags made, and put the allergies on one, and contact information on the other.

Finally did that last week, I ordered tags and I got them today. There’s just one problem, these aren’t like my old tags. These are like really light and embossed instead of imprinted. It’s weird. Yeah it’s easier to read the embossing than the imprinted ones. The metal they came one isn’t even that strong, I could bend it without any effort, my old ones, took a hell of lot of effort to bend them in any amount.

They just look like, funny. It’s not the same as the imprinted ones. Very toy like, and the weight is funny, and I keep looking to see if I actually have them on. They are like whimpy. I want my old styled ones back. They looked strong and permanent, not dull and pretty, like toy.

So, my rambling on basically comes down to, I don’t like this new embossing style tag, bring back the imprinted ones!

The only upside to this set, was that there was an option to order other colors of silencers than just black. The blue and clear are awesome, a friend of mine suggested I get the neon greenish ones, as they would match my bathroom rugs. :: eye roll ::

Scrubbing Bubbles Girl Attacks

So, while the justice system has not failed me, the Financial Aid office has. I have no money because I'm a GA. And because I'm a GA the University pays for my tuition therefore I cannot get the loan money that is set out for tuition. Fair enough.

Not fair though that after they reassess how much money I'm allowed to borrow they just stop. They don't disburse the money to Revenue. They pay my Perkins Loan to Revenue, but they don’t do anything with my Stafford Loans.

So yesterday, I went and asked how come my loans weren’t disbursed to Revenue so that I can receive my refund and pay bills and buy food. Their answer: I’m not sure. That’s what the lady told me. Then she printed off a sheet of paper and walked it over to someone’s office. She comes back telling me to come back on Thursday to see what they found out.

So tomorrow, Scrubbing Bubbles Girl will go to Financial Aid with her trust can of Scrubbing Bubbles, lemon scented at the moment, and handy Mr. Clean Magic Reach stick thingie and do battle with the evil human form things that work there.

Rar!

Just stuff of the long winded boring variety with a life lesson from Battlestar Galatica

Our Lovely Network and Computers.

So, I'm sitting here at work waiting on my boss to get in so that I can be added to the most recent Blackboard Section so as to set it up for the student who will be in it. We have a whacked network system in all ways possible. We have run out of IP addresses so we cannot let some computers login. And, anything you save in My Documents or on the desktop is not saved to that machine you are working on. It’s saved to a folder on a server, which is why if the servers are down you cannot log in at all. Even if you don't want the internet it just freezes up.

Genius isn't it?

It also means it's like impossible to delete anything. The next time you login it pops back up. Bloody annoying. But this is what led me to finding something that I didn't know I still had. Which is cool I guess. A Word file containing two pages of something I wrote while at my former job of being an Office Assistant and working graveyard shifts. It's like the wax on wax off thing of sledding.

And what do I do with this? Leave it in the “My Documents” folder for it to be there forever? For some student worker in the IT department to find when they are board and sifting through throngs of old information many years from now? It would just get tossed to the side as they find another account that has much more juicy content that was acquired in ways that fall under the 'inappropriate use of educational resources' column.

Maybe I will post it. Maybe. It'd have to be like beta'd and stuff. There has to be something wrong as there is not a thing underlined in red or green when I view the file in Word. That like never happens. Word always has a fit over everything as it thinks that it's smarter than humans. Okay, so some humans it's smarter than but not all. Not that I take Word's opinion as the word of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or anything. I just find it oddly disturbing that it's not lit up like a seasonal celebration to inform me that I have sinned agains the Microsoft Office way of writing.

The Revenue Office Blunders

Today, in all its cliche-ishness, should be a wonderful day. Last night the Revenue office was going to do direct deposits of excess funds to checking accounts of students who entered their checking account information into our new Banner system.

Yes, that's right. Students have to enter the information. Students who have probably never written an actually check in their lifetime thanks to the invention of the Credit Card, Debit/Checking Card, and online bill pay. They are trusting us to enter the correct information.

What?

Payroll doesn't even do that! Payroll wants a copy of a voided check along with you writing down the appropriate numbers to verify all this information. All the jobs that I have had where we did direct deposit it was the same way. Fill out the worksheet and attach a voided check. If you didn't, you weren't getting paid.

I think Revenue is just asking for trouble. Yes, the first semester that we are using this new, do everything on one system called Banner method, they want to direct deposit excess funds into our accounts instead of issuing checks or leaving the money to sit in our Revenue accounts. Which is nice because then you can buy things in the scalper's bookstore or in the computer store, both in the Union, and say that you want to use financial aid.

So while I'm waiting, completely impatiently for my money, well actually your hard earned money that was given to the Federal Government in the form of taxes, to come to me, I can't help but think that it's all not going to work and that tomorrow, the really long line at the Revenue office is going to be going all the way back through the hallway that connects Grinstead to Administration full of hot and bothered college students who didn't get their money like they were supposed to.

Science Fiction has good lessons in it.

There's this show that is currently being retold called Battlestar Galatica. It used to come on back in the 70s or 80s, I don't remember, but it comes on the Scifi channel now. In the first episode of the new version, they are outfitting the Galatica to be a like museum and someone is trying to convince Adama to let them install these networked computer terminals on the ship.

Adama refuses. He says that the ships computers weren't all networked together for a reason. That it slowed the spread of viruses from the Cylons and that the Galatica should be now as it was in battle. That's the jist of the conversation. He has a point. Maybe networking everything together isn't the grand idea that everyone thinks it should be.

We were doing just fine here when we had different systems for payroll, enrollment, and revenue/bill pay. Everything worked good! Sure each system had its quirks, but they are a lot easier to navigate, and understand. Now, while everything is on one system, you run into the problem if one thing goes down, everything goes down. Insanely frustrating.

Maybe the officials here should of watched Battlestar Galatica. They would of learned that networking everything together isn't neccessairly good.

I am Scrubbing Bubbles Girl! Rarrrrr!

I’m not a squeamish person. Or a squirrelly one; at least not generally. Oh I have my hang ups, everyone does even if they don’t admit it. My one sister is the complete opposite, she cowers in the face of tiny spiders and calls for her son to come kill them. He’s been doing this since he was three. He is seven now.

After all I live in University provided housing, bugs are a given. Huge Honkin space cockroaches that you find usually belly up in the stairwells or along the walls. Or real living ones that stick their faces out from beneath washing machines.

I’m not afraid to kill bugs, or huge honkin space cockroaches. Last spring I was the hero of the tornado party in the basement as I killed two by stepping on them really, really good.

And yes, last week I did scream/screech (I didn’t know I could reach that high of pitch until then) when that wolf spider invaded my space when I was going to hang out clothing on the solar dryer clothes line. But then I killed it and went on my merry way.

However, last night, I hid out in my living room, scared to death to go into the other room and go to sleep because, as I was laying in bed at 2315 or so, a winged nocturnal rodent went flying by me.

Jumping Jesus On A Pogo Stick! That’s a good non vulgar expression to describe what I said when the bat flew by me. I jumped down from my bunk I sleep on the top bunk as it makes me get up in the morning and turn off my alarm thus improving the chances of being on time to class, work, and appointments, grabbed my sweatpants and high tailed into the other room shutting the door behind me. Probably pissing off the people living above me and below me as the door rattles the walls if it is shut hard.

Called Public Safety to come and catch it and they did. Unlike the last time, and oddly enough my previous post on here, only one officer came. I asked him about it and he said that he was brave enough to handle it by himself and that the other two were just wimps.

So today, when I’ve had to enter the other half of the apartment, I carry with me a Mr. Clean Magic Reach stick thingie as it was the first thing I found. My broom and Swiffer thingie are missing somewhere. Maybe the bats carried it off as a preemptive measure to prevent bodily harm coming to them.

So now I will be known as Scrubbing Bubbles Girl who carries around a Mr. Clean Magic Reach stick thingie as a side arm and does battles against bats as a training method for when the justice system fails me.

Holy Frackin Bats Part Deux

Okay, so today, well in the last twenty four hours,

Fire alarm complete with a ton of smoke and fire department here.

Followed by another set of fire alarms right after the fire department left

and now,

I just had to call Public Safety because there was a BAT flying around in my apartment.

Two officers show up, who look remarkabley like tehJerry it was scrary, and they go "Here you go" and hold out a net. I go "In there" and point to the bedroom door. They go "In there?" "Yeah it came out here flew around, almost hit me, and flew in there so I shut the door." Officers: "Oh." (add a little bit of paniced look on their face). They were brave and went into the bedroom, one of them scaring the crap out of the other one when he informed him it was right above his head.

They left with the offending bat, and you will be pleased to know that no Scrubbing Bubbles was spraryed nor thrown at the bat. (Unlike on the first incident I had with a bat in November where my Dad thought I THREW the can of Scrubbing Bubbles at the bat and it caused much confusion. I sprayed Scrubbing Bubbles in November.) Though, I did swing a broom at it when it came by me. (I was cleaning in the kitchen).

But that little thing called sleep? Yeah, not happening anytime soon. I have so much fracking adrenaline going through me along with caffienne(which doesn't really act as much of a stimulant on me all the time) that I don't think I'll be getting tired until it's almost time to get up. Perhaps I will snatch a nap later in the secret room with comfy couches in Grinstead. But there will be no sleeping in apartment tonite/this morning.

New Fic!

Linked to mine LJ for now until I get it up on mine site: The Art of Breathing by Crash

Title: The Art of Breathing
Status: Completed
Category: Angst, H/C
Pairings: none
Spoilers: Non-plot give away spoiler for Fragile Balance
Season: 7ish
Rating: 13+
Content Warnings: Language
Archive: Incoming Wormhole, Cartouche, AG
Summary: SG1 and Janet Frasier run into some trouble on their way back to the gate.
Disclaimer: Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.
Lucy Van Pelt, Peanuts Character, belongs to Charles Schulz

Rube, George, and reaper info belongs to the people who own Dead Like Me, Showtime, MGM, and them other folks.

Author’s Note: I feel strange quoting South Park but it works. Thanks to T for the beta. T, Dee, and Aniko for the encouragement.

Written for elements challenged posted on Tok'ra Flats. I chose number three, thanks to the recent viewing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and got the element of Air.

Linked to mine LJ for now until I get it up on mine site: The Art of Breathing by Crash

A possessed posse could be dangerous

Wow. I have not posted in over a month. O_o.

Not much has happened. Finals came and went. There was commencement which I did actually attend. I started my Assistantship in the Technology Internship Office. That's going okay, except for the amount of just annoying people I have to deal with. Ones who can't follow directions on how to name their files. Forty three people submitting files named 'professional development plan.doc' does not go over well. It's not that hard to stick your last name in there. Really it's not, and the world won't come to an end.

But my assistantship requires that I read a ton of papers. Professional Development Plans, Periodic Reports, and various other things. It’s driving me nuts. Their word choices, repetitive use of terms and descriptions, lack of commas and periods, and the over use of punctual marks such as semi-colons and exclamation points.

The lack of proper formatting too. Not indenting to start a new paragraph, not double spacing, completely missing the forming of paragraphs. It’s mad, oh so mad. I have an entire stack of papers that I have to grade that I dread looking at. Sometimes I wonder if these people even managed to pass comp class, and if they did, what kind of suck ass teacher did they have.

Many hours later after catching up on my grading I find that there are a few grammatical things that bother the crap out of me more than anything else. Not that I'm the grammar god, oh so far from it. The same with spelling, and I get hung up on proper word usage from time to time. However, I like to believe that I’m aware of this and try my best to double check things by consulting style guides, the dictionary, and having someone else proof read for me before I turn things in. Interns have apparently not learned this.

Four things bother me the most

- The absence of the Oxford/Harvard/serial comma. (The comma before the conjunction at the end of a list. Like the one after yellow in the following sentence. Cyan, magenta, yellow, and black are the four printing primary colours.)

- Punctuation outside quotation marks

- Excessive use of ‘and’ to start a sentence with.

- Incorrect word usage when trying to say you possess something

Posse - a group of people summoned by a sheriff to aid in law enforcement.
Posses - multiple groups of people summoned by a sheriff to aid in law enforcement.
Pose - to place in a specific position
Poses - multiple specific positions.
Possess - to have as property, to own

You do not posse skills. You do not “currently poses skills that need to be improved upon.” And on it goes.

You don't even have to know how to spell dictionary to look up the words on the internet. Merriam-Webster fixed that with http://www.m-w.com.

What’s the most worrying is that most of these students/interns are either graduating with the completion of their internship, or will graduate in the next year. Their written communication skills suck, and they are going to go out into the world and that’s a little worrying.

And G, if you are reading this, I know you are cheering. It seems I have an English teacher side after all, but I think I shall stay in complete denial of this.