Wednesday, 22 March 2006
Thanks, Google, for giving me the opportunity to beta your web design tool.
I'm at lunch now and having a great day. I worked out a long simmering dispute with another department and the settlement was extremely successful for both parties, and the company as a whole.
Couldn't have gone better.
Tonight - starting the "Why Catholic?" Series. Other than an apologist discussion of why we do what we do, and believe what we (well, I use the term 'we' loosely - I certainly don't agree with a few of the Church's more ... conservative ... positions) believe, I am not sure what we'll be doing. I'll be sure to let you all know, though.
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Thursday, 23 March 2006
Feelin' a little blue and melancholy today. Work is going fine, but the meeting yesterday was only superficially conclusive; as I got into working out the situations which led up to having that meeting, smaller problems cropped up.
Guess that's just part of the resolution process :) ... you first create a framework within which you can solve the little crises that pop up now and then. Since we're creating a process here, every situation is a "problem" at first, until you identify that situation's solution. Then the solution just becomes part of the process. It's not a problem, then, when that situation comes up the next time.
So now I feel better.
Tonight I'm picking up some SVdP* material from Lori, another member of our conference. She's going to be out of town next month for a little while. I'll be covering for her while she's gone.
___________* SVdP = St. Vincent de Paul Society
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Friday, 24 March 2006
TGIF!
I love Fridays ... especially when I'm gonna be *FAMOUS* :)
Actually not so much - but I will probably have a second or two of fame via "Trading Spouses" on FOX tonight at 9pm. Judy Hornaday is a friend and fellow member of the local FanForce Star Wars chapter, and in late January she was "traded" with Shon Chaffee, who is from a tiny little town called Rabbit Hash, KY. FOX came and filmed us at Fuddrucker's here in ATL three times. Once with Judy at a typical meeting, once with Shon at a pick-up meeting just for filming purposes, and then once again for some extra footage.
They never explained why exactly they needed more footage ...
???
Regardless - it didn't matter to me, and in fact I enjoyed it, mostly because of the FREE beer and burgers that the show's producer comp'd for us :) ...
One thing was rather a source of frustration. The producer and the crew of "Trading Spouses" never told us the catch ... the theme for the show ... the line of continuity on which Judy and Shon resided at opposite ends. We speculated that it would be "Star-Wars-wife vs. non-Star-Wars-wife" for a long time. But two weeks ago the episode description on the website and national TV listings told us it is evidently "wired v. non-wired families."
...
So anyway, some of us in the fan club are getting together tonight to watch it at our president's house.
Here's hoping that we impress all of America with our impressive dorking-do ... !!!
---
After the "Trading Spouses" viewing, I'm ducking into the nearest bar to watch the end of the Gators vs. Georgetown Sweet 16 matchup.
Tomorrow morning, after catching a few hours of sleep, I'll be driving over to York, South Carolina. I'm spending the weekend with my sister, 'Becca, and her family. Will be watching NASCAR on Sunday, and hopefully the Gators in an Elite 8 game vs. Villanova/Boston College !!!
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Tuesday, 28 March 2006
Holy freakin' Moley !!!
Gators in the Final Four ... Man, Gator sports is really looking up. We've got great football, basketball, and baseball teams. Guess you could say I'm pretty happy. Hoo - RAH !!!
First, Gators play George Mason at 6:07pm Saturday ... After that comes LSU v. UCLA ... with the Finals on Monday night. I am predicting an all-SEC Final with Florida coming out champions. (But not easily - LSU will put up a hard, hard fight.)
So anyway ...
Didn't have a "Monday" update yesterday because I was too busy at work. Working Abuse for a large website services outfit like I do, things build up over the weekend, since the Internet doesn't take days off like I do. Most Mondays are like that. I shut down 3 fraudulently set up websites (criminals used stolen credit card info, thus ensuring they remain safely anonymous). I also had a copyright violation (of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or "DMCA"), and two hacking investigations to do.
We're also breakin' in a new manager, Matt, which takes a fair amount of work as well :) ...
I got a little raise this last pay period - of about $750.00 per annum. Evidently, according to management, I only rated a "3" on a 5-point scale. This really bothers me! As I understand it, though, *any* raise whatsoever around here is a rarity indeed, so I can't complain too much.
Ah, well, if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem, as they say, and although I think I solved a lot of problems, that sentiment evidently isn't shared by management. Craptastic.
Well - tonight is trivia night once again. For the last 10-12 weeks I was part of a bowling league, but before that came along my friend Sara and I would tear up the NTN trivia charts at a place called Bonz Sports Bar & Grille. I miss it :) ...
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**
** UPDATE regarding Trading Spouses:
**
** I had some face time on national TV :) !!! You are now
** reading the blog of a bonafide Famous Person. My time is
** come - fortune shall soon follow!
**
** It's very disappointing how badly FOX treated Judy. She is
** not the bad mother figure they made her out to be. So
** much was taken out of context, and inserted into a different
** context with pretty malicious intent on the director's part.
**
** Ah, well. Too have expected better from network television
** was the greater mistake!
**
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Thursday, 30 March 2006I'm very happy with the "Why Catholic?" series that my church is sponsoring. I go every Wednesday night to my friend's place, (which just happens to be around the corner from mine) and about three or four of us just sit, read along, and discuss the points from the "handbook" the Church provided.
This series is on the Liturgy, the real *work* of the Church. I didn't know this, but the Liturgy of the Word (readings) and the Liturgy of the Eucharist (Holy Communion) are both considered work of the Church. The Word gets in you and inspires great things, and the Eucharist brings Jesus himself, full and living, within you as well - with miraculous results (according to Church Tradition).
===
I managed to piss off my co-worker, Chay, today. We have a bit of a philosophical difference regarding emergency shutdown of customer websites or services in Abuse situations. Too much detail to relate here, but suffice it to say that I know and accept that I over-reacted quite a bit. Got angry at another department for, in short, muscling in on our territory ... and I took it too personally. We'll all get over it OK, but all in all, I just made myself look somewhat foolish.
*sigh*
===
Lastly, I also finally chimed in on a religious debate our local chapter of Star Wars FanForce was having via the club's Yahoo! email list. It's all good, but being religion I didn't want to run the risk of coming off as either a) over-reactive (see above!); b) pompous; or c) ignorant of their beliefs.
But I did anyway :) ...
As you may imagine, being in the Bible Belt quite a few of my friends are "literal Bible believers." Fundamental to a certain degree, shall we say. A fellow Catholic (surprisingly) posted something along the lines that "Catholicism is a fundamental sect" (!) so I felt it was my duty to do a little polite edu-ma-katin' ...
Here's what I wrote (kinda long):
The Catholic Church is neither a "sect" nor "fundamentalist."
Unless, of course, you consider founding the entire faith
(Christianity) as fundamentalist, which would also be a mistake.
Maybe Keith didn't mean for that to come across as it sounded,
especially since he went to Catholic school, too (which I didn't
know!)...
Actually, it was a *Catholic* council in the year 325 AD that
established exactly what books are and are not going to be part
of the Bible. With only one or two differences, all Christians (no
matter what faith) have the exact same Bible today.
Literal Bible-believers may not be aware (present company
excepted!) that even back then, the Catholic Church firmly believed
that each and every book had a different author who subscribed to
his own version of beliefs and lived in wildly different political and
social climates. The authors were, of course, fully human, subject to
making innocent mistakes and all kinds of prideful errors and specific
omissions. In short, it's the Word ... but it is a fallible, imperfect
Word requiring interpretation, deep introspection, and long study to
discern what *meaning* God truly intends us to get from the literal
printed word. To discern the proper meaning *behind* the words!
And that, my friends, is why Catholics have a somewhat lesser
opinion of the ible itself as a source of inspiration and life lessons
than other Christian faiths. We go to the Church itself (in the form
of contact with priests, or in the form of prayer to Mary and all the
saints to intercede with God on our behalf, or direct prayer to God
Himself) *just as much* as to the Bible itself.
(DISCLAIMER: The above is in no way intended to be defamatory
of non-Catholic Christians, or non-religious people. I provide these
words to anyone who is interested and chooses to read it solely to
show how I personally perceive Catholicism.)
The only reply that engendered was along the lines of "all Christianity traces their roots back to Nicea, not just Catholics ... " and "... a literal reading of the Bible is very close to the truth ... ."
I am not posting anything further in reply to that, however. Rather wise, on my part, I think ...
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Friday, 31 March 2006
Alllllllrighty then!
I'm departing on another 4 hr trek to my sister's house in SC tonight. But first, I have to stop by the house, set the VCR for taping "Trading Spouses" (Ep 2 of the "Judy Hornaday" show), pack, drop by Publix for my prescription refills, and then stop by Holy Spirit Church to drop off the box of SVdP swag I put together for the Ministry Fair tomorrow & Sunday.
;)
I'm so proud of my conference: with only minimal effort, I got volunteers to man the "table" at the Fair before and after all five masses this weekend. Not entirely my doing, of course, but the end result is and should be a few new attendees and at least one new member.
Pray for me: I am currently serving as president, vice prez, and secretary. My treasurer is hanging by a thread. Her adopted daughter has medical issues and desperately needs someone to take over. Believe it or not ... none of the 20+ members has stepped forward to take some of the burden off her shoulders. I succeed, but it's a real hard try not to be disappointed about that. I just tell myself that old cliche, "God will provide..." and I'm ok.
Take care ... I'll start my da Vinci Code essay next week.