http://www.ComputerBob.com/journal_archive/2004/01.php .
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If you're looking for a good veterinarian that you can trust, I recommend that you avoid
Banfield,
the vet that's inside many PetSmart stores. Because they have convenient hours, I took
Mini there yesterday, for a two-minute procedure that costs $14. When we got there,
they printed out a consent form that listed only one item, without any price: "Physical Exam." When I saw that, I
told the woman behind the counter, "She's not here for a physical exam -- she had a complete physical exam right
before we moved here a month ago. She just needs to have her anal glands expressed." The woman replied, "Oh, don't
worry -- it always prints that out." Ten minutes later, when a technician met us in one of their examination rooms,
he quickly looked at Mini's teeth and then asked me if she is current on all of her shots and if she has been eating
and acting normally. I told him that she's been just fine, and that our vet had checked her out and given her all of
her shots right before we moved to Florida last month. Then, he said, "I'll just put this estimate on the screen
for you to look at before
the doctor comes in." I was shocked to see that the "estimate" showed a $28 charge for a physical exam along with the
$14 charge for expressing Mini's anal glands. When the vet walked in, I complained to her about it, but she was very
rude and patronizing. In a sarcastic tone that seemed to imply that I must be an idiot to not know it, she told me
that they always do a physical exam on any new patient. I told
her, "If that's the case, then someone should have told me that when I called and asked how much you would charge to
express her anal glands, or at least when I specifically asked about the physical exam when I saw it on the printed
consent form." She replied that maybe I had called and talked to someone at a different store by mistake, and that
maybe I had misunderstood the answer when I had asked about the physical exam that appeared on the printed consent
form. Long story short: Mini and I walked out without getting her anal glands expressed, and without
paying them anything.
Yesterday, a friend in the Frostbite State wrote to say that it was 16 degrees below zero (F) there, with a windchill of 30 degrees below zero (F). We wrote back, telling her that it was 86 degrees (F) warmer than that here, with no windchill. As I write this, it is 20 degrees below zero (F) in the Frostbite State, with a windchill of 43 degrees below zero (F), while it is 85 degrees (F) warmer here in the Sunshine State.
All of that reminds me of the email message that I sent to friends and relatives several weeks ago, when we found out that we were going to move to the Sunshine State:
I would like to apologize in advance for my upcoming behavior. Having spent the past 17+ years of my life in the frigid, frostbitten, northernmost regions of the country, I anticipate that I will spend the next few years annoyingly taking every opportunity to tell you how nice the weather is in the Sunshine State, compared to the weather where you live. I'm sorry.
To see how your weather compares to the weather in other places, visit my Weather Page.
Like many others, yesterday, I received a few hundred email messages containing the Novarg/Mydoom email worm. Luckily, my safe computing practices, firewall software, and frequently updated anti-virus software all worked to prevent my computer from being infected.
As promised, I just added a new section to this Web site. From now on, you can find Florida Photos in the navigation bar to the left. It contains gorgeous photographs taken by amateur photographers all around the Sunshine State. To help promote the beauty of my new home state, I expect to add many more photos to that section over time.
Those who are very observant may notice that I also enlarged both my CB logo and my palm trees at
sunset photo on my home page. In addition, I added new photo icons for my site's Florida Photos and
Steve's Weird Photos sections. Finally, I made the left navigation column 35 pixels narrower, to reduce the
amount of wasted space, and to allow more room for the primary content area on each page.
The past week has been mostly a blur, as I spent nearly the whole time suffering from the flu. I can always tell when I've had a high fever, because it always causes strange nightmares that continue after I've woken up and fallen back to sleep. Of course, due to the fever, the nightmares make perfect sense, even after I've woken up, which makes them worse than normal nightmares. I'm sure glad that, as of this writing, I'm mostly over the flu.
Now that I've done all the behind-the-scenes work to make it relatively easy to do, I'm going to add a new section to
this site. I haven't decided on its name yet, but the new section will feature gorgeous photos of the Sunshine State,
taken by friends and family. As I've said before, I just love it here!
This morning, I created a file called header.html, that contains all the HTML code required to display my
normal-sized CB logo and slogan at the top of each page. Using the same php Include technique
that I described on January 20, that one header file now gets inserted into every page. This is an example of the type
of behind-the-scenes work that I do that most users probably won't notice, but which I know makes this site much
more efficient and much easier to maintain. Users who are on slow dial-up Internet connections may notice that my
pages now snap onto the screen even quicker than they did previously.
This afternoon, I changed the way that all of my Web pages work. In the past, every page contained the entire HTML code that displayed the navigation menu, search box, and compliance links in the left column of the page. That worked fine, but if I wanted to make any changes to the contents of that left column, I had to manually search and replace that column's code in every single page.
To fix that, I created a separate file called navcolumn.html, that contains the HTML code required to display
the left
column. Now, instead of containing the entire code to display the left column, each of my pages contains a one-line
php Include
statement that gets the navcolumn.html file and inserts its contents into the appropriate spot on the page.
The result is that, from now on, I can change the contents of the left column on every one of my pages almost
instantly, by simply
changing the navcolumn.html file. The other result is that the filenames of each of my pages now end with
.php -- to make the php Include process work -- instead of .html -- so, if you have any
bookmarks to my specific pages, you'll have to update them to the new filenames.
This afternoon, we went with Jim and Linda to a beautiful little island, where there were many interesting and
funny-looking birds, including some that look like their bad toupees have slipped out of place. After taking pictures
of another gorgeous sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, we ate at the Golden Corral, a mid-high-end, all-you-can-eat
buffet restaurant. Among other things, I had a tender, juicy steak, some tasty Bourbon Street Chicken, some excellent
pot roast, and a delicious piece of nutritionally dubious
red
velvet cake -- is it safe to ingest that much red food coloring? As always, it was an absolute joy and
blessing to spend time with Jim and Linda.
There will never be a shortage of evil in the world. Sadly, when you refuse to drink the Kool-Aid, there's usually someone standing nearby, eagerly waiting to shoot you in the head. That's what happened today.
I know that God knew it would happen, and even though I have no idea what will come next, I'm absolutely positive
that God led us to move to the Sunshine State for a purpose, and things will work out in the end. Stay tuned.
I've said it before, and I know that most of you won't understand it, but I'm going to say it again anyway,
for the benefit of those who do. I refuse to drink the Kool-Aid.
I started learning my new job at the beginning of the two busiest, most pressure-filled weeks of the semester -- the week before classes started, and the first week of classes. That's like joining the Indianapolis 500 and having to drive your car while you're still building it. To make things even more difficult, I've learned that my department:
The result of all that is that I increasingly feel like no matter how many breaks and lunches that I work
through, and no matter how many extra, unpaid hours that I work, there will always be much more to do
than I will ever have time to do before its deadlines.
I hope I'll be allowed to spend the time that it takes to make things run more efficiently, and I hope that
things slow to a more normal pace some day soon, but I really don't know if they ever will. For
now, I'll have to keep plugging away, and try to stay open to whatever God wants me to learn through this difficult
time.
I've always imagined that one of the joys of Heaven will be reuniting with loved ones that we haven't seen for years, and spending time reminiscing and just enjoying being with them again. I think that today came about as close to what I've imagined as is possible here on earth. My wife and I drove to visit my Uncle Dom and Aunt Tere at their home, and then the 4 of us drove 1/2 mile to the home of my cousin, Rita and her roommate, Rita (AKA Smitty). I hadn't seen Uncle Dom, Aunt Tere, or Cousin Rita in 30 years, and I had never met Smitty before. We spent the entire day with them, and I just couldn't be happier about what a nice visit we had. Despite the 30-year gap in our visits, there were no awkward silences -- we sat and talked as though we had seen each other every day for the past 30 years.
I'll always remember that my Cousin Rita, a quiet, gentle, thoughtful, talented woman, was one of the first people in my life to teach and encourage me when I started learning to play the guitar about 36 years ago. She's still a very humble, encouraging soul, and I loved seeing her again. Those who've spent time looking through this site may remember that, when I was a kid, Uncle Dom gave me a camera and photographic darkroom equipment, and taught me how to use them, giving me a valuable hobby and a lot of self-confidence at an early age. I'm absolutely convinced that the time and effort that Uncle Dom invested in me way back then played a vital role in my ability to completely avoid alcohol and drugs as a teenager, even though many of my peers abused them -- a few to the point of brain damage or even death. It felt great to hug Uncle Dom for a long, long time, several times today. Though he's been retired for many years, he knows all about all the latest technologies and technological research, as well as their ramifications for the future. I'm sure that, if he wanted to, he could make big buck$ as a consultant to several high-tech companies. Aunt Tere is a joyful woman with a sensitive, caring, generous heart, and a great sense of humor -- it was a real joy to see her smile and hear her laugh again after all these years. And Smitty is one of those outgoing, friendly, accepting people that you immediately feel like you've known your whole life. By the time we got home from their house, Smitty had already emailed me several gorgeous postcard-quality photos that she's taken in the Sunshine State. I'll post them here as soon as I figure out how I want to display them.
To me, one of the best parts of today's visit was that, even though
we all know that each of us has lived through probably more than our share of horrible traumas and tragedies in the
past 30 years -- some life-threatening and others nearly cripplingly painful -- our visit today was all about
counting our blessings and feeling joyful that we were able to spend time with each other again. My only regret about
the whole day was that I forgot to take along Grandpa's Watch, because it is
still carefully packed in the box-within-a-box-within-a-box that protected it during our 1600-mile move to the
Sunshine State. I guess I'll just have to remember to take it along the next time we visit them.
Today marked the end of my first full week of work at my new job. It was a hectic week, in which I met about 50 college administrators, staff, and faculty members, and learned a lot of new skills. Along with a few hundred other responsibilities, my office has to make decisions regarding whether to offer or cancel each of our hundreds of upcoming eLearning courses, based on each course's current and projected enrollments. In order to do that, we have to analyze both current and historical enrollment figures for each course. One day, after spending a little more than an hour, printing eLearning course enrollment data from a mainframe database, and then manually typing that same enrollment data into a local Excel spreadsheet -- a task that my office has done manually every day or two for the past several years -- I made a phone call to the college's MIS manager, and within a half-hour, she had written a series of mainframe database queries that will automatically do that entire job for me from now on, taking only about 3 minutes each day.
I took a few photos from the balcony outside my office this morning. I'll post one or more of those photos here once I finish that roll of film. I currently work at the college's district administrative offices, on an island, with picture-postcard-gorgeous views in all directions. Soon, I'll be moving to a more mundane office on one of the college's 4 academic campuses on the mainland, because my boss, Mike, wants me to serve as a constant presence and influence on-campus, to give our department more credibility, and to help promote our eLearning courses and services directly to the college's deans and faculty members.
This afternoon, Mike looked out the window of our 7th floor office, down to the channel that flows right past the east side of the building. "Look at that," he said, pointing at the brackish water. "There's a bagfish." I looked where he was pointing and saw a light-colored, almost-square blob, floating a few feet below the surface. "Is that really a fish?" I asked. "Nah, it's a plastic bag," he said, as he burst into laughter. My job has a lot of responsibilities and pressure, so it's good to know that it's OK to play around a little to relieve some of the pressure. I really like working for Mike.
Tonight, my wife and I were supposed to go out to eat with Jim and Linda on the Gulf Coast, but something really strange happened that caused us to postpone our plans. For some reason, many, many drops of water fell from the sky, starting late this afternoon and lasting until this evening. The natives call it "rain," and act as though it is a perfectly normal occurrence.
Instead of going out for dinner tonight, I called my good friend and mentor, Pat, back in the Frostbite State, for the
first time since before I left there last month. He was instrumental in convincing his vice president at the
college up there to hire me as an instructional design consultant back in 2002. Then, he spent more than 18 months,
mentoring me, and teaching me the "political ropes" of that institution. A couple of months ago, he also served as
one of my
professional references when I applied for my current job here in the Sunshine State. Though he now humbly denies that
his guidance and influence have affected me very much, I know that I will always owe a debt of gratitude to Pat.
I've been crazy busy at work so far this week, learning how to maintain and update the entire distance learning
sections of the college's course catalog and online database, and going to the various campuses to meet some of the
administrators, faculty members and staff with whom I'll be working from now on. On a good day, my commute to and from
work takes about 35 minutes each way -- on a bad day, it takes closer to an hour each way. I can't say enough good
things about Linda, the woman who used to have my job. She now lives in Boston with a 2-year-old and a newborn, but she
spends several hours each day, training me how to do my job through long-distance phone calls. She's extremely well
organized, and wrote an entire notebook of step-by-step procedures for me to follow, to do most of the functions of
my job. Tomorrow is a college
inservice day, which means that I'll get to relax a little and spend the whole day going to workshops with all the
other college employees. I was glad when my new boss, Mike, told me that in the future, I'll be leading some of those
workshops.
Last night, I added the new Palm Trees At Sunset photo and description to the top-right corner of my home page. As you probably know by now, I really love this place! Since we arrived on Christmas Day, I think we've had our windows open 24 hours a day, every day. I have to keep reminding myself that we're not just visiting this wonderful place -- we actually live here now!
Today was my birthday, and it was probably the best birthday I've ever had! After going out to buy a bunch more household items that we needed, I took Mini and Max to our mobile home park's completely fenced-in doggy park. This was the third day in a row that I took them there, because they really love it. It's great to be able to take their leashes off and let them run and explore in a completely safe environment. Though we owned an acre and a half in the Frostbite State, none of it was fenced-in, so I could never allow them to run free in our yard. The first couple of days that I took them to the doggie park, Mini would hesitantly trot off about 20-30 feet away from me, but then run back to me for security before trotting off 20-30 feet in a different direction. Today, she explored the far ends of the park, but came right back to me each time I called her name. Today, I also saw Max run as fast as he could run for the first time since we adopted him more than 3 years ago. Boy, can that little guy run, and he sure does love to do it -- it does my heart good to see how delighted he is to be able to run all around the doggie area whenever he feels like it, artfully dodging between the many chairs, park benches, and palm trees at full speed. When he makes a quick turn at full-speed, he leans into the turn so far that he's practically laying on his side! After taking the pups to the dog park, I did something that, having lived in the north all my life, I've never, ever been able to do on my birthday until now -- I went for a dip in an outdoor swimming pool! Our mobile home park has an outdoor heated pool and jacuzzi, so I tried out both of them. The air temperature was about 78 degrees (F) at the time, and the pool's water temperature was a very, very comfortable 90 degrees (F). I know from past experiences that, although I'm a very poor swimmer, I am an excellent drowner, so I mostly just sat at the bottom of the steps in the shallow end of the pool. The jacuzzi was almost too hot -- I was pretty comfortable just sitting in it, but when I put one of my hands near one of its many jets, the water coming out was almost burning hot. My wife took a few photos of me enjoying the pool and jacuzzi, so I'll probably post those here later. After the pool, we drove to a local pier on the Gulf of Mexico, to walk around and look at the shops with Jim and Linda. I wore shorts, a shirt that reads, Robertology: The Study of Bob, and sandals -- another first on my birthday. Then we went out for dinner at the Texas Cattle Company restaurant, where I got a 17oz. T-Bone steak dinner for free because it was my birthday. It's a good thing my dinner was free, because the other 3 dinners cost us $82 and change -- including $5.95 for a plate of fried Florida alligator meat appetizers, because none of us had ever tasted alligator meat before. To me, it tasted like slightly rubbery chicken McNuggets. My steak was so tender that, after a few bites, I put down my steak knife and cut the rest of it with my fork. The restaurant also offered us monstrously large (10 inches tall, 8 inches wide) slices of 6-layer chocolate cake for $8.95 apiece, but we declined. After dinner, we went back to Jim and Linda's house to visit some more and to have some normal birthday cake. As I've mentioned before, Linda is my wife's sister, and Jim is her husband. They're wonderful, loving, fun people, and we're very grateful to them for everything they've done and continue to do to help make both our move and transition here as painless and joyful as possible. When we got home, my wife gave me another Bob Shirt to add to my collection. This new one says, Badda Boom, Badda Bob.
The other day, I forgot to say that, when we got new license plates for our two cars, we ended up with plates
whose license numbers are only one digit apart. Our clerk told us that is very rare, because there are about
17 clerks at the Tax Collector's office, and they're all assisting customers with getting license plates, so usually
other clerks take several plates between the time your clerk completes the paperwork for your first set of plates,
and the time they complete the paperwork for your second set of plates. Getting sequentially numbered license plates
certainly wasn't a sign or miracle by any stretch of the
imagination, but it was kind of cool that it happened.
Happy New Year! Last night, we went to Jim and Linda's house for a New Year's party with a small group of their closest friends from church. On the way there, less than a half-mile from our home, we narrowly avoided a head-on collision with a Volkswagen Beetle that was going south in the northbound lanes of the divided highway. At the party, we all ate snacks and shared what we're each thankful for in the past year. Then we had a lot of fun playing Taboo (the women won) and Cranium (the men won). At a few minutes before midnight, we turned on Dick Clark's tired, formulaic "dropping the ball in Times Square" adver-tainment extravaganza. If you wondered why the cameras constantly showed Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and other Disney characters, it's because Disney owns the ABC television network (and probably Dick Clark, too). It appeared that Dick is getting pretty tired of pretending to be excited about the start of yet another new year. For one thing, instead of standing out with the crowd in Times Square like he used to, he stayed in an indoor TV studio, allowing 3rd-tier celebrities to schmooze the crowd for him. Then, somewhere around 15 seconds, during his final countdown to midnight, he said something like, "15... 14... 13... etcetera, etcetera." A few minutes later, he declared that Donna Summer's disco hit, Last Dance, "is one of the greatest songs ever." Then, she joylessly performed that song for about the 9-millionth time. Dick, you're over 100 years old, and it's really starting to show -- please do yourself and the world a favor and retire.
Sometimes, things just work out so perfectly that you can clearly see God's hand in them. One of our concerns about moving 1600 miles was whether we would have to go without medical benefits for a period of time after my wife's ran out in the Frostbite State, but before mine began in the Sunshine State. Well, at midnight last night, my wife's medical benefits expired, but mine began. Pretty cool, eh?
Publix, the grocery store chain where we shop, and where our bank has branch offices, hires mentally challenged workers to bag its customers' groceries. That was a pleasant surprise for me for two reasons -- first, it's great to see mentally challenged people being happy and productive, and secondly, all of the popular grocery stores in the Frostbite State require their customers to bag their own groceries. For those reasons, I didn't mind at all that my first 14 grocery items ended up in 12 separate plastic bags.
In the past several days, I've come to realize that, for the past 17+ years in the Frostbite State, I felt like a
lead guitar player in a polka band. Not that there is anything wrong with polka bands, but I'm very happy to report
that my personality and sense of humor fit in much better in the Sunshine State.