Memoirs of Sagacious

When every time you actually log in you are at least 2 revs behind on WordPress updates.

Now let me go update this turkey before some Bulgarian script kiddy defaces my site.

It’s been an insanely busy couple of weeks. Working for a university during Fall startup can be a real bear (if you’re one of the ones who actually gives a shit — I think anyone who works at a university or maybe even anyone who has been to one will know what that means). This Fall was no exception. I spent most of my time supporting a fragile and poorly documented web CMS and its main users who pretty much always operate in freakout mode. I’ve pretty much vowed to never support something that isn’t well-documented. Yeah, like well-documented home-brew software, –or my being in a position to choose what I support while still being able to pay the mortgage– will ever happen! Anyway, that took up a lot of time. And while that has been going on, I’m taking two classes this semester (first semester in part-time studies taking two instead of one).

In the eves I’m taking the follow-up course to the Introduction to (Java) Programming course, Algorithms & Data Structures. Aside from finding out when I showed up on Thursday (thinking that the class met one day a week) that I had missed the first class and that the class really met two days a week (great first impression!), it’s been going well. The teacher’s a real-world programmer for Red Hat, so he’s definitely got a lot more real-world experience than the I-moved-over-to-CS-from-the-math-department-because-I-had-to academic programmer types who know tons of stuff but don’t really ever have to work on big software projects under timelines and to keep their bills paid. It might seem subtle, but to me it’s a big difference in knowledge and skills. Anyway, this teacher seems really fired up and is someone who genuinely loves the technology, so I’m thinking this class will be a really good opportunity to learn stuff from a programmer who can impart some real world experience and knowledge. I’m repeating myself, methinks. (Give me a break, it’s 04:30AM and I’ve found myself wakeful)

The second class is an introduction to Latin. This is the one I’m most excited about right now. I’ve been wanting to learn Latin well enough to read and write it for at least 12 years now. I can date it to the time I picked up “Teach Yourself Latin” at “The American Bookstore” in Amsterdam when I was living there, it had to be in 1996. I had been studying English vocabulary (as I’m generally naturally inclined to do) and the etymologies piqued my interest. I got fired up about it again in another class I took at Villanova where we read some Augustine and The Aenead. So I decided to burn up some electives on Latin (first, then after a couple years, on to ancient Greek). The class seems to be moving at a reasonable pace. There’s a ton to know. I feel so lucky to have spent some time learning German at Santa Monica College back in the early ’90s. Even though my German is still pretty weak from atrophy, various grammatical concepts seem to have remained and things like the case system don’t seem so daunting. The teacher seems nice and has a sense of humor. I hope to do well in the class. Here’s to hoping that work won’t get in the way and bork up my attendance, since this is also the first class that I’m doing that happens during my work hours. My new employer’s been great about OK’ing the schedule shift, so it should be fine. We’ll see how it goes if there are any big emergencies though. Anyway, my state of sleeplessness feels like it is going to come to an end very soon…. I’m signing off.

I’m not talking about divine revelations, which is another subject entirely. I’m not talking about the faint whisper on the wind of the imminent demise of you and your way of life that we all hear/feel every once in a while. (Don’t we?) To further clarify, the type of whispering I’m talking about is the raspy, slight hissing sounding whisper — a susurrus of vocalizations. I’m not talking here about the “hey, your ball is hanging out of your shorts” type of warning that is spoken in a normal voice but in a low volume so as not to draw undue attention to you while you correct your stray ball. I am also talking about adult human beings who whisper. These are the people who feel their information is important enough to share, but is of such a sensitive nature that it can’t be heard above a certain volume, but that they have to use that raspy/hissy form of the whisper.

I could be wrong, but I honestly can’t recall anything I’ve heard an adult whisper to me being of any value to my life. And I don’t think there was much value to the person whispering it (because by dint of the act, that person revealed himself to be a whisperer, which to me makes him look bad). And if the whisper was about some absent third party, which a higher ratio of the time it is, it certainly wasn’t  enriching to that person!

I hear some of you whispering “Do people actually whisper?” Yes, in my life, people — adults, are sometimes whispering. Again a chorus of whispers rises to ask why I would associate with whisperers. Of course it’s in situations where I don’t have control over who I associate with, but for reasons of commerce, I sort of “have to”.

I’m almost sure a whisper is not only a pain in the ass (because you have to strain your ear to hear this valueless piece of information) but it’s universally worth ignoring. In fact, I wonder what it would be like to halt any would be whisperer in his tracks and just refuse to listen to anything delivered in a whisper. I like that idea. And i have done it, only not as a policy. Enforcing it is definitely something worth considering to me.

But perhaps I’m just being unfair to whispers and am not seeing all their good uses. Perhaps I should start trying to say good things to other people in whispers. “Pssst” (Look left, look right) “Those are cool socks you’re wearing.” (Wink, then walk away.) Or something like that. There have got to be good uses for them. Maybe this post is really my realization that it’s my calling to start a valuable whispers movement.

So I make a deal to trade my Grosh for a Suhr Classic. The deal’s going well. Then I decide I want to ship it via UPS ground and to insure it. I remember in the past that there were all these restrictions for insuring a package via UPS — like you had to have a driver sign something and some other equally inconvenient hoops. I also remember taking a package to a “The UPS Store” in my area and them not even being able to provide what I needed to properly insure a package.

Rather than deal with the headache I decide to take it over to the same UPS Store and just have them do the paperwork. I go in ready for a fight because the first time I walked in these cats didn’t seem like they were there to help. Rather they were there to get rid of you as quickly as possible by standing behind a bureucratic mountain of paper work that can only be surmounted by paying ridiculously inflated prices for something that should never cost so much. I walk in and this total geek is there — a guy I remember from my first trip in the store. I tell him I want this package shipped ground and insured for $1800. He curtly peppers me with questions, “What is it?”, “Is there a case?”, “Is it a hard case?”, etc. etc. (I think he’s looking for ways to deny my request and get me out of his face). I answer positively to everything and meet the requirements for being allowed to stay in his face. I fill out some paperwork, and then so does he. He hunts and pecks it all into a computer running Windows. Every couple keystrokes I hear Windows’ default error and warning sounds from the popups he’s getting. I figure it’ll be a while.

Then he breaks it to me that for $1800. insurance I’ll need to send it 3-day. “That’s fine”, I say and ask him how much. He says something like $79.90. I don’t recall the exact figure, it’s right in the $80. range, which is easily $40. more than I’m willing to pay. I ask him about the alternatives and he only offers me ground, insured for $1000. for around $27. or ground uninsured for $23. I try to figure out what the trick is to getting a ground package shipped with insurance over $1000. but I don’t know if one exists. It looks, according to that pencil neck, that I have to do the expensive 3-day option. (I’m sure he left some other options out —to get rid of me). His ploy to get rid of me works. I almost considered leaving it there with him and just shipping the guitar uninsured, but then it occurs to me that I just told him and the chick behind the counter that it’s an $1800. guitar and now I’m going to leave it in their hands without insurance. I think “fuggit” and tell him nevermind. I walked out, took it to Fedex and they shipped it 3-day insured for $1800. for $32.50. That’s how it was supposed to go with UPS, but they’re too fucked up to make things simple.

So from now on I’ve got a big pile of brown that “Brown” can eat. I’ll use Fedex. It’s not too much to ask to keep things simple and affordable.