Dude, you're getting a Dell, or, Resistance is futile.

We don't have many Dell computers in our home. Longtime readers may nod in agreement at this statement, but for the benefit of the uninitiated, we have many computers in our home. And while not all are in service, all ARE serviceable; that is, with just a bit of TLC, I believe we could have no fewer than thirteen PCs online simultaneously.

Granted, I would NOT do this for a number of reasons.

Firstly, most of these boxes were "designed for Windows XP". Now, I have nothing against XP- I have one machine that is an XP machine- and it's physically OFFLINE.

Next, most do not have green power supplies. Although all of the monitors in the SUL are now energy-efficient flat panels, the power supplies aren't really worth upgrading, as most of the PCs that are not in service are pretty much waiting to be cannibalized.

Finally, it's just not practical. Four individuals running 13 PCs in a SOHO environment?

The reason Dell came up is that a certain Dell PC crashed one of my external HDDs recently. I know for certain that it's a particular Dell because every time I plug the external drive into this Dell, it asks if I want to repair the drive. Mind you, this drive normally is hooked up to another Dell or a Lenovo or an HP or Compaq machine with no problems. This particular Dell has issues, though, and the last time I use the drive, I ignored the repair message, and in turn it made the drive unusable. I don't know why or how, but this machine is now persona non grata.

End of story.

Lego data news-

I'd been using Peeron's database for some time, but recently it came to my attention that BrickLink has a more complete database. Not only does it seem more complete, but the part numbers are properly formatted, they are already in a separate column and the descriptions do not succinct and do not seem to require editing. The data will still require a bit of formatting to fit my particular usage. That's the good news.

The bad news is that unlike Peeron's single page text file format, BrickLink displays its data on webpages. Not bad, as its still copy-and-paste. What's really from my perspective is that each page displays fifty part numbers.

There are 837 pages... a relatively small price to pay for superior data.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

My night in a cage with a hot woman

My life is pretty conventional- boring by some standards, I suppose. In a few weeks, Jennifer and I will celebrate our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary (yay, us!). Well, all things considered, maybe we're not conventional in that sense. Conventional more in the manner of Bilbo Baggins: no drama, no adventures. We mean what we say and we say what we mean.

This past Wednesday night was different, though- at least for me.

I work nights, of course. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but the "double-wide in the sky" is a secured office. Our entire facility is secured, of course, requiring credentials just to enter the building, but because of the nature of the work and the data that is handled in my department, there is additional security. I naturally can't go into the specifics, but only a small percentage of employees in the plant can simply walk in.

Chloe (not her real name, but in certain circles it might be thought of as exotic and sexy) came up to the office Wednesday night and knocked on the door. As she is well-known in the plant, she was admitted.

I should also mention that our plant is quite noisy, and I have a rather large fan on my desk because the HVAC in our office is challenged, to be polite. I was engaged in a project, and between the noise of the factory and my fan, I didn't hear the short conversation that took place between Chloe and Hagar (also not a real name- he asked to remain anonymous!), even though his desk is barely 15' (~5M) away  from mine. Out of the corner of my left eye I thought I saw something apprehensive in his face, and then he gestured toward me. She seemed to sashay  over from Hagar's desk to mine. She was casual but comfortable in her walk. The clap of her dust spotted, stained, steel-toed black boots seemed to accent her faded, form-fitting blue jeans and ink-stained t-shirt. I looked up, and she explained what she needed in her been-around-the-world alto voice. I looked up at Hagar, and he gave me that all-knowing "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" look. I said to her, "Sure."

I pushed my work aside, and we went off to the cage. This was the first time in my life that I'd ever been alone with someone of the opposite sex in any cage, and this one was watched 24/7 by cameras. In the harsh fluorescent  lighting, I could see the glitter of the gold pixie dust on her face mixed with sweat which accented her plaintive eyes.  When we arrived, she showed me her problem: her box. I hoped no one was watching (remember, there are cameras everywhere). I grabbed the box, and gently blew on it. Some- okay, a lot of dust came off, but the LED on the front panel continued to flash yellow. Paraphrasing the spokesperson from a popular Dell commercial from several years back, I said, "Dude! You got a Dell!" Even though her problem was not fixed, she laughed at this.

I'm not an A+ technician... in the real world where I work, HR doesn't even know what to do with me and my coworkers, so I like to think of myself as semi-I.T. On a good day I'm not too bad at problem-solving, so I thought this through: if I had a PC with a flashing yellow light under the power button that wouldn't boot- what would I do? The best answer that came to mind was this: untangle the spaghetti mess in the back of the PC: USB, power, Ethernet, and monitor cables all snaking around each other like in an Indiana Jones movie.

However, in the real world of home and church, I do provide technical support, so I did what anyone would have done: I got rid of the spaghetti mess. I unplugged EVERYTHING from the back of the PC, and then, after untangling the cable mess under the table, I blew on the all of the I/O ports and reinserted each cable.

I was not surprised when the PC booted normally.

She thanked me, and I returned to Data Services and my waiting project.

It is said that "sex sells". Well, to be perfectly honest, I don't really know how to write about sex- this little true story was my first foray into "off-color" writing- I hope a few laughs came out of it.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.