Monday, August 08, 2005

Peter Jennings, 1938-2005 In my morning ritual, I was surprised to hear of the death of Peter Jennings.  I, of course, had no doubt in my mind that the cause was his diagnosis of lung cancer earlier this year.  I still felt a bit saddened by the news.  With the death of Mr. Jennings, I have the fond memory of watching "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings" with my grandfather, in his club basement in the home my grandparents had in Glen Burnie.  My grandfather's evening ritual consisted of watching the 6 PM newscast on WJZ-TV, with Jerry Turner and Al Sanders.  At 7 PM, World News Tonight would start.  As a young child I was transfixed on the days events, hearing the news with this gentleman who pronounced "about" quite strangely.  So, with his passing I am reminded of my youth and how far I am removed from those days.  Of the major network newscasters, I liked Jennings the most.  He did not have that somewhat annoying enunciation that Brokaw had, and he did not have that faux gravitas Rather attempted to lend to his broadcasts.  It had been a while since I had watched an evening news cast, as it is so much easier to get my news online.  It will be different not hearing the familiar voice of Peter Jennings on those ABC newscasts I listen to from time to time.  3:51:37 PM    comment []  trackback []

Cleaning Up Another's Mess The call to do some work began yesterday, and I should have known that it would have led to a rather annoying morning.  It never fails when one of us performs an upgrade.  In the defense of my colleagues, it never fails that an upgrade goes off without some post-upgrade issues--the occasional client connectivity problem tends to be the normal result.  I should have known that today was going to be harrowing, given that I was interrupted twice while on the golf course on Saturday.  Yes, I lead such a hard life, playing golf on the weekend.  Well, I received two calls on the course about work continuing on the upgrade.  Well, that continued into Sunday morning.  As I received more phone calls pertaining to the same upgrade work.  What frustrated me was that I was getting contacted about something by virtue of how current I try to maintain my technical knowledge.  Why must I pay the price for the inability of a colleague to play with these things and/or keep current?  Is it fair to have my weekend interrupted because someone else cannot plan nor take initiative on their own to know about certain tools?  Part of this come with the territory.  Working in a geek profession means that I should be accustomed to being interrupted from time to time with various concerns and issues.  Nonetheless, it is irksome to me that I played a much larger role this morning in the post-upgrade clean-up.  Such is the geeky life I lead.  3:34:06 PM    comment []  trackback []