Just like Video killed the Radio Star, the world of Twitter has killed my blog. This is a documented phenomenon, but I’m paying for this space and I should be using it.

The truth is (I wonder how many times I use that phrase on my blog), I don’t write because there’s nothing going through my brain worth writing a long post about and I hate fluff.

Today has been a good, albeit abnormal, day. The fun of home ownership just keeps getting better. I’ve been fighting various roof leaks for the last year or so, and after getting up this morning I found a new one in a completely different leak on the other end of the house. I fixed the one in the bathroom a while back, but this one has sprung up in the living room.

I have a theory that no project is complete until a blood sacrifice has been made, and today I hope I ended the project.

That is road rash. Well, more accurately that is roof rash. I was trying to caulk a space underneath an overhang when my arm got caught between two sections of the roof. So the result is a caulk-coated, pellet filled scrape that burns like I’m on fire. The best part is, its right on the part of my arm that rubs against my shirt. Great fun.

In this home ownership fun saga, we’ve had this leaky outside faucet for about 20 years. Seriously, we bought the house I grew up in, and I don’t remember this faucet NOT leaking. It had gotten to the point that some attention is required, so Dad and I decide to undertake the project.

For a little background, I have never in my life heard my father actually say we needed to call someone else to fix something. Ever. Mom has worn him down a few times, and he has agreed to let someone else fix things but I can’t recall it ever being his idea. This has come at some expense, mostly hilarity, as everything that could possibly go wrong inevitably does.

As Dad looks under the house, he actually utters the words “We’re gonna have to call the man” (A reference to The Andy Griffith Show episode “Bargain Day”). Just so happens, a plumber is working at the next house over, so we go up to see if we can hire him when he gets done. After some discussion  he tells us that we can fix this problem ourselves with very little problem – just replace the washer.

Now, never in the history of the Plunkett Farm have we ever fixed something by “Just replacing the washer”. This almost always devolves into strewn tools, blood sacrifice (see above), at least 4 people giving their input on how they would fix it and their quick departure followed by a success well over time and over budget.(My wife adds that this also usually involves near death experiences and “Don’t try this at home” moments)

We proceed back to my yard and grab the tools, shut off the water and give it a whirl. Whattya know? The faucet came right apart and sure enough the 30-some-odd-year-old washer was right there on the end of the shaft just begging to be replaced. You might be tempted at this point of the story to assume that our success is assured and no project as described above could ever start on a good note, but you would be wrong. More than once a cheer of assured success has been given at the first stage of a project only to later devolve into the death-defying bloodbath as usual.

As we walk into the hardware store, faucet shaft in hand, we are admittedly feeling pretty good about ourselves. With some assistance from Coach Calloway (my high school economics teacher who works there on the weekends) we find a washer to replace the 30-some-odd-year-old one and pay the high price of…. 25 cents.

Twenty. Five. Cents.

“Too easy”, I think. There has been no blood.

Fast forward 20 minutes and some talk of unbelief in the truck, and we’re now turning the water back on.

And the faucet didn’t drip.

Not one single drop.

Twenty. Five. Cents.

How many gallons of water have we paid for over the last 20 years?

Fixed in a half hour. With 25 cents.No blood, no threats by my wife of calling 911 and no risk of electrocution.

Just 2 wrenches, a washer and 25 cents.

After 20 years I expected, and almost wanted, a fight.

The logical progression was the roof rash above. The house had to have her revenge, after all.

My Dad once threatened to have our whole yard (about 2.5 acres) poured in concrete and painted green. I always gave it a laugh and moved on, but now that I’m responisble for mowing that same yard, I’m begining to think my old man was on to something!

In Alabama, we’ve had a very wet spring and early summer. That makes grass grow, but more importantly that makes it impossible to mow because it’s wet all the time. So the cycle begins… the grass is tall because its wet and I can’t mow… because it’s wet, the grass is growing taller and thicker.

Add to the mix that my lawnmower has a bad habit of leaving a nice streak of grass right down the middle of each round I make, essentially meaning that I have to mow twice. Otherwise my grass looks like it was cut by a mentally challenged 3rd grader on Red Bull and snickers.

Took me 3.5 hours to mow THE FRONT YARD on saturday. No trimming. No back yard. Just. the. front.

Today I finished up, and already I need to mow the front again.

Will it ever give up?

Not until I pave the yard and paint it green.

I’m prone to let stuff get in my head. I sit around and think about the consequences of most everything I do, to the point that I lose sleep. Sometimes (like today) it’s over something worth worrying about, but most of the time I worry about things that never materialize or just aren’t that big of a deal. I obsess over all the potential gotchas, get bent out of shape about how people view my actions or statements, and generally contemplate how the day ahead will play out in light of the event I’m worried about.

Why do I care? Why, when people are telling me I did the right thing, do I sit around and continue to wonder if I picked a battle worth fighting? I know God will take care of me, and I know that life will continue on because for the most part this stuff isn’t life or death. It’s just stuff, be that material or intangible.

It’s a character flaw of mine. I’m not generally a pessimist, just a planner. Sadly, my plans almost never come to fruition, and the things I worry about turn out to be minor events in the bigger scope of things.

How do you let it go? I’m really interested if you have advice!

It is a well known fact that I get on kicks. That is to say, I get intensely interested in a subject or activity for a period of time and later that kick is replaced by something else.

One thing I’ve been in and out of for the last 8 years is Amateur Radio. I got my license a few days before Sept 11, 2001 and upgraded in 2007 to a General Class license. (Visit ARRL.org if none of that makes any sense). Before my upgrade I volunteered with EMA, did storm spotting and other local activities. Ann got her license and got involved in some of the same things, and we were in a great club which gave us plenty of opportunities to get out and enjoy the hobby.

When we moved to Little Rock, I just couldn’t find a good club to get involved with and there was no time to volunteer with an organization so my hobby fell by the wayside.

After moving back to Alabama, I started getting some interest back because I could put an antenna up and talk all over North Alabama. I know the area, so storm spotting was more viable and surely I would find a club that was a good fit.

None of that happened except putting up the antenna. I have always been interested in getting  a General or Extra license because it would allow me to talk over greater distances: across the state, the Country and even across the globe.

Since my upgrade I have talked to states from New York to Oregon, made contacts in Spain, Italy, Canada and the British V.I.

Tonight I embarked on my newest goal: The “Worked All States” award. Getting the lower 48 will be relatively easy with the exception of the smaller New England states… the real fun will be working Alaska and Hawaii. I’ve only talked to Hawaii one time and that was on ARRL Field Day in 2002 or 2003 at about 3am. Keep in mind that this was before I had my upgrade, so I was making the contact using the club’s callsign so officially  I haven’t talked to them, and I’ve never even heard an Alaska station. Ever.

So, now I have a new goal. The good news is that I can take my time and I have found a group that meets regularly for the purpose of getting people together for the Worked All States award. Now the fun will be trying to do it with only 100 watts and a 120 foot peice of wire strung up in the back yard.

Man, i’m a geek.

I’ve discussed in some detail here the frustrations that go with being in IT. It’s a good career choice, and I don’t regret going into the field. IT has good moments. There are few feelings better than coming up against a big challenge and finally seeing the system work when you’ve found the solution.

I do some side projects from time to time, mostly for people I know or one time support for someone who has been stranded without any help. I was doing some side work this week and one of the people there asked the question “So, how do you like working in IT?”

The answer that came out of my mouth was more insightful than I expected at 7:30am: “IT gets all the respect of a janitor with the skillset of an engineer”

Now, that may sound bitter or cynical, but I think it really sheds some light on why this industry has such a high rate of burn-out. I was actually interrupted while writing this post by a phone call from my job because a part of the system wasn’t working. To the end user, the solution took about 60 seconds, so the assumption tends to be that my job is easy or that what I do takes the same amount of time as taking out the trash. The truth is, the time that went into that solution is a combination of hundreds of man-hours.

From my recliner, I can log into the network at work. To do that, someone had to first build the network  and provide some way of getting there from the outside world and verifying that i’m supposed to be connected. Once I’m connected, there have to be servers in place that again verify my identity and give me access. Then I have to know where to find the problem, a knowledge base that can take years to develop, and then know how to solve the issue.

So, while what I do seems like it’s easy (and don’t get me wrong, for me it is pretty easy most of the time) it really isn’t that easy.

The burn-out comes from the fact that the recognition is low when the skills are high. I don’t think most people want a cheering squad every time they reset a password or restart a server, but cumulatively the minor miracles we IT folks perform on a daily basis that go unrecognized can make us question how appreciated we are.

I’ve seen what happens when an IT guy leaves, especially when they are the only one. There is usually a real awakening to the amount of work that goes into what we do.

So the next time you walk by your IT guy’s office and he’s sitting in the dark, illuminated only by the glow of his monitor.. don’t assume that just because he is reading the news or browsing a white paper that he’s goofing off. Grab the man a fresh Mountain Dew, maybe a candy bar and give him a “Thanks for what you do!”  It goes a long way, and the next time your computer breaks, you might just end up higher on the list or with a new flat panel monitor instead of a dingy old CRT from the stock room.