Mild Amusement

I've been going on a lot of hikes lately. I've always liked being outdoors , and it helps keep me in passable shape. All in all, I don't think it's all that bad a deal, so I try to do it as much as possible. And as it turns out, I know quite a few like-minded people , so I've had plenty of opportunity to enjoy this particular activity in the last few months. In fact, I've enjoyed it so many times lately that it's led to all manner of shenanigans. Fittingly enough, an old coworker of mine actually started up a series of summer hikes. At some point, someone forwarded it to a friend, and she then forwarded the invitation to me. Long story short, I ended up hiking with some coworkers. That whole series has been interesting, to say the least. The first time I did it, I carpooled with someone from work, but we were running late. That meant we had to hustle to try to catch up with the rest of the group. She assured me that this was feasible, but she neglected to ...

Whenever you go to the doctor and complain about pain, they ask you to rate how bad the pain is on a scale from 1 to 10 . This is largely due to the fact that there is no way to objectively measure the pain  (#5 in the linked article covers this one). I don't know enough of the science behind it, but I imagine that everyone's body reacts differently to stimulus (different muscles, different chemical responses, different everything, really). Worse yet, everyone's pain tolerance is different, often wildly so. Keep that last part in mind, it's going to be important in a little bit. A while ago, I was talking to the Mild Ex about some of the folks she works with, and she was joking about how guys are all wusses. None of the guys wanted anything to do with needles and shots, apparently. She went down the list, and all of them refused. The very first woman she asked, however, happily agreed. Translation: guys are wusses. As it turns out, I don't necessarily disagree. ...

I mentioned recently that I have a new laptop , so I've been having fun playing with the new toy (I'm a developer, remember? As far as I'm concerned, a laptop is a toy). Sure, it's meant re-learning a few things on the new machine, but for the most part, I've enjoyed having an upgraded machine that can do more than my old laptop could. I will also admit that there is something to be said for the Apple sense of polish. There are a bunch of little things that I just like about using the new laptop. However, there is one little thing that seems to always mess with me. You see, the charger for the laptop is magnetic. There's nothing particularly problematic with that, except for that the charger comes with a little piece of plastic to cover it. I think that's largely because it is magnetic, so that you don't have lots of cruft messing with the magnetic. Regardless of the reason, though, I noticed right away that there was an extra little piece to worry a...

Okay, so let's start out with a few facts. First off, I get up pretty early on the weekdays. It's a fact I've mentioned on this blog a few times (my favorite is still the time when I got accused of stealing my own car ), so if you've been reading for a while, then it should come as no surprise. The other fun fact about me is that I don't use the snooze button. I think I've hit the snooze button something like twice in my life, and both times, it was entirely by accident. I actually remember having to run back to my room to turn off the alarm because I was already up, and I didn't realize that I had hit the snooze button instead of the "turn off" button. Given these two facts, I have gotten very used to waking up early and I'm not usually late to work. I'm not complaining, mind you, but that's just how things have conspired in this case. It's actually worked out in my benefit, and I'm glad that's how things worked out. So...

I mentioned last time that I occasionally volunteer to teach an email class, and it has led to all sorts of laughter at my expense . However, there's a new twist to the story now. One of the things we talk about during the class is an email signature. We use them all the time at work, since typing your name and title gets old. People also tend to prefer to include contact information there, since it might be easier for someone to call you than to reply to the email. All in all, it makes sense. On top of that, the email program we use makes it pretty easy, so everyone tends to just slap a signature on the bottom of their emails. In my personal life, I don't tend to do this very often. I always just slap my name on the bottom of my emails, because that person clearly has my email. If I want that person to have my phone number, I will give it to them by some other means (usually they just ask me and I say, "it's XXX-XXXX"). In other words, I have no real reason t...