Post 44

In 1955, a Colorado Springs Sears advertised in the newspaper a hotline to Santa. The only problem was there was a typo. Who did they get instead?

The Aerospace Defense Command Commander-in-Chief hotline. Ooops. ADC were the ones responsible for the early warning detection of the Soviets. The first caller was a 6 year old both who called and started reciting his Christmas list. Colonel Harry Shoup, Director of Operations for ADC, wasn't particularly amused at the "prank" call and asked to speak to the boy's mother. After a minute or two COL Shoup and the boy's mother figured out what had happened. Realizing there would be a lot more kids calling in, COL Shoup directed his airmen to "check the radar" for indications of Santa traveling throughout the world for any child who called.

Three years later, ADC morphed into the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a joint US/Canadian operation, but the mission to track Santa every Christmas Eve continued. Now media outlets were starting to call into to NORAD to get "official" updates on Santa's movements. US and Canadian airmen and their families volunteered to man the hotline throughout Christmas Eve to give out updates to all who called.

In 1997, NORAD's Christmas Eve operations moved to the web where you can track Santa's movements through periodic updates throughout the day on Christmas Eve. In 2007, Google Earth positioning was added to NORAD's tracking system. Now you can track Santa's movements with updates every 5 minutes on his position around the world while a new video from the SantaCam is uploaded every hour. Last year the website got over 1 BILLION hits.

You can track Santa in a number of different ways...

First is the Website - NORAD Tracks Santa
GoogleEarth has a plugin for NORAD
Follow NORAD's efforts on Facebook!
NORAD has even set up a special Twitter account - NORADSanta

Post 43

So it's 2 days before Christmas. Secretia recently asked:

Have you experienced secret saddness over the holidays?

My answer is pretty simple. I get sad because I know holidays are a time of stress and that always makes my relationship with Mrs Ryan worse. I'm sad because at a time when we're supposed to be happy and joyful, we're resentful and fighting.

Take this morning for example... As you may know, my oldest daughter can't be trusted with food in the house. She'll steal any kind of sweets she can get her hands on. Well they went to grandma's house and brought home cookies for Santa... that's fine. After they went to bed I took the cookies and locked them up in the van so she couldn't get at them. This morning I drive away from work... get about a block or so away (I'm already a couple of minutes late, not a big deal but still...) I get a phone call... Mrs Ryan is pissed because I only took 2 of the 3 boxes of cookies out last night. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize there were 3 boxes..."... pause... MrsRyan: "You're still driving away aren't you?" Me: "uhhh yeah..." MrsRyan: "Figures... Now I have to fix your screw up..." Seriously did she expect me to turn my car around and drive home to pick up a box of fucking cookies and walk 20 feet to the van and put them in? What the fuck? So I talk to her on the phone before I go to lunch... ask her if there's anything I need to pick up at the store... "So are we going to just pretend we're not having a fight?" What??? Oh shit she's still pissed about the fucking cookies! And here we go again. She goes off on a "I'm always fixing your screw ups" rant and says something about boxes on my desk... Apparently yesterday she put 3 shoeboxes on my desk. Just put them there and didn't say a thing. I've asked her before not to put things on my desk without telling me what she wanted done with them. But did she? Of course not. Instead I'm supposed to ask her what she wants done with them or just telepathically figure it out.

It's pretty much like this for just about every life event in the year... holidays, birthdays, anniversaries... There's some conflict that seems to arise a day or so before and poof, day ruined.

So now she's txting me... I told her I was sorry I was snippy with her. She said "You're sorry now, until the next time I don't like something and you take it out of me again. I'm not your punching bag." A> Just because we argue about something does make you my punching bag. If that was true I've been your fucking punching bag for 15 years now. B> At least I am sorry. You're not sorry and then next time I say something YOU don't like you'll take it out on me again. And you still won't be sorry.

Anyways...

Still moving crap at work. We have a ton of people out of the office so... Sorry charlie but we're moving your crap, if you don't want us to move it, you have to come into the office and move it yourself. And there's a huge storeroom upstairs (if you remember from the beginning of the blog I was cleaning that out) that we have to move out of... so now I get to move just about everything out of there downstairs. That should be fun.

Anyways... I'm having a crappy day.

Merry Christmas.

Post 42

Well we're in the midst of the great company reorganization... which includes moving people all around. Imagine a game of musical chairs, except instead of chairs you have cubicles and instead of moving yourself you have a ton of shit and computer equipment...

We knew they were going to start moving people around... we just didn't know it was going to happen NOW! So in order to move the sales/marketing people to the other side of the building, which was supposed to happen this week, we had to move the people who's cubicles they were currently occupying. And of course those people couldn't move until the cubicle THEY were moving to was empty... all in all I moved 18 people yesterday. And those were all people who had to move before the sales/marketing people could move today and tomorrow. *sigh*

I got my Christmas present from the company today... The Hickory Farms Beef Sampler.

Here's the most thoughtful thing to do for your favorite beef lover.

Uhhh..... yeah. wow... so many jokes I can make with that. But let's just stick with the "If I'm only giving my beef lover this $15 box of food, she'll be sorely disappointed."

In other news... I need to rant for a minute. This really bugs me... see women are always hooting and hollaring about how they're stereotyped in commercials... and yeah they are... but men are too. Men are stereotyped as being boorish, unable to cope with kids, and slobs. How many commercials have you seen where the guy is home watching the kids and they're driving him nuts and he's SOOOO relieved to see mom come home and save him? A guy is incapable of handling his own children and mom has to come save him??? How many commercials have you seen (esp around Mother's Day) where the dad is helping the kids make a special surprise for mom... and in the process destroys the kitchen? A guy can't cook a simple breakfast without destroying the kitchen??? The latest commercial is a radio one for AT&T Uverse where the guy is getting ready to watch football on "his lucky couch"... His wife politely asks if the kids can TV and if he can watch TV downstairs... he completely ignores her and blows her off because he has to watch TV on his lucky couch and screw everything else... *rolls eyes*

So I was wrapping presents last night when I came across this:


Gee Buzz and Woody... I had no idea... I'll leave you two alone now to finish your... um... business.

Best Christmas music you'll hear all year is by an a capella group called "Straight No Chaser". SNC was formed in... the late 90s at Indiana University in Bloomington. Their most famous song was a version of the 12 Days of Christmas. A couple of years ago the group's found posted the video of it on YouTube... which caught the eye of the president of Atlantic Records who signed the group to a 3 record deal. Their latest song is the "Christmas Can Can". Anyways they're a great a capella group and if you're going to spend some money on Christmas music, spend it on them.

Ok that's all for me today... talk to you all later.

Post 41

Hey all...

Not a whole lot to talk about here... But I feel the need to chat with you all anyway.

Colts won last night pushing their record to 14-0. They're only the 3rd team in NFL history to go 14-0. They extended their league record for wins in a decade to 115 and extended their league record for most consecutive wins to 22. Peyton Manning threw for over 300yds and 4 TDs (he had one INT which was totally Dallas Clark's fault). That gives him over 4000 yds passing for the season, his 10th season of passing over 4000 yds... 2nd place on that list is Dan Marino with 8. Also last night was the 7th 4th quarter rally this season, also an NFL record.

Ok enough about the Colts...

Remember WT? She's the one that looks like a corporate Avril Lavigne... Anyways she made a World of Warcraft joke this morning. Woohoo... she's hot AND a geek!

As with most places, there are cliques... My place is no exception. One of the cliques appears to be the Sales clique. Well with the new reorganization JN was reorganized into the Sales team... and appears to have joined that clique. I've never been particularly fond of sales people... so to me, that's kinda sad.

I think I have all my Christmas shopping done for Mrs Ryan. She's getting things for her hobby... I pretty much know what I'm getting because I was there when she bought it. She'd have a hard time trying to hide a new desk chair from me.

Finally I'll leave you with my new favorite holiday saying...

Post 40

Sorry I've been away so long. Not really anything planned, just didn't have a hell of a lot to write about.

Friday night was the company Christmas party. Nothing spectacular... Only one real story to tell from it...

Before I tell the story from the party I have to make a confession. This secret from LiLu's blog is mine:
I made the secret after visiting a co-worker's cube and seeing a picture of him and his wife/fiance/gf... I don't know what it was about the picture but there was just something about her that made me think she was an absolute animal in bed.

We back to the party... he came... with his girlfriend. And... she. did. not. disappoint. The guy is a rather quiet, meek, straightlaced guy. She's bubbly, flirtatious and outgoing as hell. She (and he) was the first one on the dance floor and was sexy as hell out there. It was like she had no inhibitions.

Anyways that was my story...

Work itself is going fine... We had a massive layoff because of the idiot previous management team... So it was my job to walk around to everyone's desk that got laid off and pick up their computer equipment. A couple of things came to my head while I was walking around... first was Monty Python Holy Grail:


The second was the finale of every episode of Survivor... On every finale they have a scene where the last players go through all the other players torches and say something in remembrance of them... "Yeah I remember XXX, she was a tough competitor blah blah blah" or "You know, XXX was on the other tribe and got kicked out early, so I never really met them... But they looked friendly..." I was the same way... going around to each desk... LM was a nice friend... GI I never really met, still sad they're out of job...

MJ was one of the people who got let go... so was HT...

Our corporate rec center is officially open for business. We have a ping pong table, a big screen TV with a Wii (only Wii Sports so far) and lots of tables for playing cards and such. To kick it off we had a few tournaments... Ping Pong, Wii Bowling and Euchre. I played the Euchre tournament and lost in the 2nd round, 10-1... Both me and my partner never had a chance... we just didn't have any cards. It was over in like 5-6 hands.

A couple of shout outs to a couple of friends who are going through some tough times.

One friend has been having a lot of marital problems and separated a while back... this weekend he told her he wanted to officially end it. I know it's not easy for you, but it's probably for the best. You tried to make it work, I know you wanted it to. I'm sorry it didn't. If there's anything I can do for you, please let me know. My first inclination is to buy you a nice bottle of wine, since I know you love wine so much, but really I wouldn't know where to actually send it to. So consider that an open invitation.

The second friend is also having problems... Yeah I know you screwed up, and you know it too... but sometimes there's an underlying problem there. It really doesn't sound like your relationship was healthy to start with, with all the distrust and suspicion. He says he can't stay with you, but can't let you go. So it's time you let him go. If he can't, you have to. Because the going back and forth only hurts you both. Sometimes you just gotta rip the band-aid off.

Ok... that's all for today... Talk to you later!

Post 39

A day in the life...

5:17a - Woke up to daughter playing in the living room. She's autistic so she has sleep issues. Not uncommon for her to get up in the middle of the night and play. Thought the clock said 6:17 and was about to get up when I wondered my alarm hadn't gone off at 6:15. Looked at my alarm clock closer and realized I still had an hour to sleep.

6:15a - Woke up and stumbled to kitchen to make coffee. Sat down at computer and played online for about 15 min. Daughter still playing in the living room but came in and got breakfast.

6:30a - Woke son. He stumbles out to the kitchen and gets oatmeal for breakfast. While eating we have this wonderful conversation:

S: Did you hear that noise?
Me: What noise?
S: It sounded like knocking.
Me: I didn't hear anything...
S: Oh... the noise was in my head, that's why you didn't hear it.

7:30a - Shooing kids along getting ready for school. Mrs Ryan makes her first appearance, gets her coffee and plops down at her desk.

7:45a - All three of us out the door. Me to work and kids to wait for the bus. Barely make it out of the driveway before the bus gets there, otherwise I would have had to wait.

8:05a - Arrive at work. Checked on BJ's printer which I tried to fix yesterday. It STILL says "Checking configuration" from last night. Yeah that's not working right. Restart it.

8:10a - Receive email from co-worker saying he's not going to be in today. WOOT. I always feel like he's looking over my shoulder...

8:20a - Air conditioning guy is here. We're installing new AC in our server room because it constantly is overheating.

8:30a - Start blogging.

9:10a - Went to pick up 2 old printers that are redundant. I'm sure people will start hollaring when they're gone but WAH. I pull the first printer no problem. Well actually it was a big problem... HP LaserJet 5si's are HUGE ass printers. So I load it up on my cart (and almost get a hernia in the process) and take it upstairs. Last night I had cleared off a couple of shelves in our storage cage for the printers, but lo and behold, the fucking printer not only weighs a ton, but it's too damn big to fit on the shelf. So I have to just leave it in the storage room outside the cage. I go back down to get the other one and I realize that it's actually still in use by the guy who prints shipping labels. So that has to stay for now.

10:00a - Called for service on a copier... it's not printing right. It's leaving large white lines across the center of it. Fixed JS's instant messenger. We use a system internally... well I say "we" liberally... not many people here use it outside of IT. But more are starting to. Anyway JS was trying to use it for the first time and it wasn't working. Once we determined it was a problem with her setup, I compared her settings to mine and found the problem. One little check box. Dammit. On the bright side I got to hang out with JS. Not sure I've mentioned her, but she's cute in a perky kinda way. Long dark blonde hair that she is ALWAYS playing with. She reminds me a lot of one of Mrs Ryan's friends except DP (Mrs Ryan's friend) just cut her hair short. And I think DP might be a year or two younger. Anyway JS has one of those qualities that you always have to look her way whenever she's around.

11:10a - Two news flashes of things that really aren't important but are making news because for some reason we feel the need to pry into celebrities private lives... First... Tiger Woods is not perfect. Uh ok. Second... Meredith Baxter is a lesbian. She just didn't realize it until a few years ago. Uh ok. In my life here not much is happening right now. I may not be getting paid for a week or two because my interim President didn't sign off on my paperwork until Monday even though I became permanent on the Monday before that. Thanks. I'm having some issues with a lady's PC... seems she has Office 2003 and Office 95 both on her computer because an old POS software system requires Word95... and SHOCK there's conflicts. Never would have expected that to happen.

1:45p - Yeah nothing spectacular has happened today. Looks like they're finally setting up our lounge. We've got a ping pong table, a 40" screen TV, TV stand and a pre-owned Wii from Gamestop. Looks like they're kinda desperate to say "PLEASE LIKE WORKING HERE!" Staff meeting in 15min. Unless it gets cancelled. Which is normally the case. BTW, got BJ's printer working. Had to reseat the print heads.

3:10p - Copier guys still haven't arrived. Had to fix one of the printers. Seems when I started to remove one of the LJ 5si's I unplugged the network cable then didn't plug it back in. Ooops. Easy fix at least. Now I'm buying tickets to the Nutcracker for the 12th.

3:17p - Random thought... 22 years ago when Mr and Mrs McCoy had a son and named him Colt, were they predetermining that he'd grow up to be the quarterback for the University of Texas? Seriously is there any better name for a QB from U of Texas than Colt McCoy?

4:40p - Day almost done here. Copier guy finally got here at 4pm and is still working on the copier. *sigh* And looks like the Indiana Ballet Company office is only open 10a-2p so I can't buy tickets today unless I spend $12 service fee. Yeah I'll wait until tomorrow. While CopierGuy was working on the copier I had a nice chat with TK. I don't think I've talked about her before. She's not drop dead gorgeous like some of the women here but she's a lot of fun. And she's prior military too. I was chatting with her and said "Drive on" and she said "You're prior military aren't you?" I knew she was already because she's got Army stickers all over her car. Anyways we shared stories.... it was fun.

5:00p - My day here is done. Yeah thrills a second huh?