Nice crew here at the County – working in the courthouse annex for the last week or so has been nothing but pleasant. Broad variety of issues and concerns, from migrating systems from 2000 to XP to major server concerns. Calvert is blessed to have so many skilled employees in the tech department. There are some politics, but those follow in any place with more than 5 workers. The department as a whole seems quite cohesive, and able to run as a pack. Additionally, it’s a pleasant surprise to see it pretty balanced gender-wise. Most of the tech-rooms I’ve been in have been either heavily male-centric locker rooms, or a mostly female-type library environment. The more balanced, the better it seems to me.

Since I’m temping, I don’t have a lot of security access or the like – my primary duties are getting the phone and setting up service tickets, since I’m still not totally in the loop regarding policy and can’t change many things from my end. I have, however managed to be useful, in addition to doing the standard help desk stuff like talking people through navigation on the file server, power user stuff like outlook or excel questions, and imaging drives for new machines. I would really like to see this gig change to a more permanent position, but that may or may not be happening, depending on what the county wants or needs.

One of the people over in GIS made a comment about snatching me up, too, so there is a possibility of a paradigm shift, I suppose. Mapping software is something I have a knack at, so I figure I could be of utility there.

This gig came at a good time… my savings were getting close to the depletion point, and it’s nice to have the ability to pay the basics off every month, and even maybe recover some a bit.

I have Good Friday off, and maybe that weekend will be a good time to go with BHK to Washington , DC for the cherry blossom festival. (http://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org ) I’m way overdue to donate blood, too. Maybe a trip to the Red Cross can happen then, as well. I’d prefer to give platelets, but if I can only do whole blood, that’s fine. I missed the blood drive last weekend due to my cough and my back, and it’d been nagging at me for a while.

St Marys College Campus, originally uploaded by garyfgarcia.

Spring has really Sprung here… I’m used to evergreen Florida , but the shock of things coming back to life really drives the contrast here after a season of winter. There are all sorts of things flowering already – white popcorn-type trees, pink and yellows dotting here and there amongst the yellow-green of fresh shoots and leaves beginning to show. There are still a ton of bare branches out and about, but the blooms are just making things look so awake and alive.

BHK has gotten a real fascination with reality TV in recent months – America ’s top model, American idol, my sweet 16 and that pussycat club thing (I enjoy watching American idol with a group, primarily due to the social factor – I’m not as concerned about the outcome as I am the comparisons and discussion about it). My preferences are more in line with House and The Riches, though the 2nd episode wasn’t as good as the first. Dresden Files is surprisingly entertaining to me too, so far. I’m looking forward to new episodes of Venture Brothers and Hyperdrive – I’m hoping the next season of Dr. Who is better than the last. Heroes, I’m waiting to watch a season at a time, and I tried 24 again, but it wasn’t my thing. Polished off Police Squad on my PSP at lunchtime at work, so my next series in hand will be Red Dwarf and Invader Zim. (I still have the Incredibles on the memory card to fill the little Zefrank synch void left behind. I’m getting better at PSP’s Grand Theft Auto – Liberty City Stories, too.

My time on the Emergency preparedness committee hasn’t been as fruitful as I’d hoped. I fear that for it to be effective, I may have to take charge of it. I really just wanted to be on a team, but if I have to take the bull by the horns, I will. I’d like to plan out an evacuation strategy for North Beach, including how to contact as many people as possible – I’m going to try to push CodeRED notifications through for that, in addition to emails. It’ll cost the city about $5000 a year, but it’d be well worth it. I wonder how much it costs the city to put up a Stop sign, for usefulness comparison.

Newton and Pye are getting along pretty darn good these days… my only complaint is that Pye picks on Newt while he’s trying to eat or use the little box… both of which should be safe zones. Newt is still a bit hissy with Pye, too… it can be hard to tell when he’s playing and when he’s really POed.

Adam’s now on the Tennis team. From what I’ve seen, he’s a great athlete, but really needs to practice in the Tennis Department. Jimmy’s playing too, but I missed seeing his stuff. On the romance front, it seems that Adam and Kendall are going to prom together as ‘more than just friends’.

In-laws are going to Salem next week to work on the house… I wonder if BHK is going to want to visit them there at all for Easter? Tina is planning an Easter dinner with BHK and me, but that’s all I know so far on that front. I’d like to check out the dawn services just to see what North Beach ’s congregation looks like compared to Fort Lauderdale … plus, I do enjoy seeing the sun come up over the bay.

1 year ago – code template, interest cloud, pda cam dies, p&B in german, song tapper, bus on fire doodle

2 years ago – easter manatee, complimented, server/servant, spliced people, germs

3 years ago – Lj then and now (I spend less time now), bro, ice cream cake, Smokey & the Bandit

4 years ago – bro got me some Godzilla movies at the gift store up the road.

5 years ago – minority report poll, breakfast with Danny, grabber rabbit meme spreads, Words describing animal traits, Ketchup packet bear, Klaatu’s speech, scary dream, link-to poll

6 years ago – babelizer, mushy-feelings, book-burning