TBD

After another inventory of the girls summer clothes, I decided we didn't have enough, so we did more clothes shopping this afternoon, and then they got to make use of the mall play area for about thirty minutes.

Afterwards we went to the NCAA Women's College World Series final game, which was here in OKC. It was pretty cool, but there was a little bit of a fiasco that I'll have to fully endulge later (the title is TBD because it will go along with the story). I should be packing after all.

We just got in from about four hours at the zoo. We are all so very tired. But we still have other stuff to do yet...

Barbeque at dad's, followed by the girls going to the arcades for a couple of hours with my brother and step-mother while my dad and I watched the races.

Chasing ducks and fountains

The primary agenda of the day was clothing. School is out, and much of the kids' summerwear has been outgrown, so we went shopping at the mall, preceded by a short visit to the bank. We picked up I think six outfits between them and a pair of work pants for me to replace a recent casualty.

After shopping we had lunch, and the girls wanted to go to the book store, so we spent about thirty minutes there, where they each got to pick out a book. While paying for the books I had a particularly embarrassing moment where I accidentally dumped much of the contents of my wallet behind the counter and the bookstore clerk girl had to collect all of my things and hand them to me. Turns out none of the stuff was terribly embarrassing in and of themselves, but it was still like having a total stranger go through your wallet, all the while you can't help but think "what was in there?" Don't worry, no birth control aides were present, you sick bastards.

With no hard plans from there we went to a park and the girls got to play for like an hour and a half. There was a funny scenario where the girls were chasing a family of ducks, but the ducks couldn't fly away I guess because of the younger ducks, so they just waddled really fast. It was a funny site I wish I had video tapped.

We were supposed to try to catch a baseball game this evening, but a last minute check of the schedule showed them to be out of town, so that tainted our evening plans. But we went to Bricktown anyway and I let the girls cool off by playing in the dancing fountains. They did that for about thirty minutes and got completely soaked (I'll put up a full page off pics later, but here's a before, during, and after for now). We walked up and down the canal for awhile so they could dry off, and then we had dinner at the Zio's on the canal, requesting an outdoor seat on the balcony so the girls could further dry off.

At the start of our meal outside, it was partly cloudy at times, but very sunny and warm most of the time. While we were sitting there, a very large storm cloud crept in over us and the temperature dropped noticeably. Remembering the mention of possible tornadic activity in the metro area this evening, we got finished with our food and took off.

Turns out there were tornado producing storms heading toward OKC, but fortunately they veered north rather than to our part of town. Though I think they went through some neighborhoods of people I know, so I do hope everyone made it through unscathed.

I p(ic) freely

Some storms avoided... others still in sight. It was my last workday before my trip next week. Yet I am so un-ready to travel.

I'm inching closer towards my running goal. A 9:18 mile today, 1.5 miles in 13:38. I'm not sure how/if I'll be running while I'm away. Most hotels have gyms, but we'll see...


Working on a photoblog, though it's way not done. When it is, I'll link it up everywhere on the site. The main idea is that I have many pictures that aren't of the kids or family that don't really fit in the family album. So with the trusty photoblog I can post my whimsy pics freely.

Twice Deceived

Not a typical work day. I had a security conference to attend this morning. It was very good, but I had to leave early to make a meeting that I "couldn't miss".

Next time I'm skipping the meeting. I would have enjoyed the rest of the conference more than the tirade thrust upon me at the meeting.

Since the last day of school was yesterday and summer camp doesn't start until next week, my little brother is watching the kids today and tomorrow.

I picked up the kids after the illustrious meeting and we went to Circuit City to partake of an amazing rebate that apparently no longer exists. Bastards. (screenshots were taken just a couple of days appart, both before the rebate expiration dates)

Picked up a concession prize instead, the latest Story of the Year. Not a big hard drive, but it kept me rockin' on the way home.

Resistance is Organic

(de-politicized rant warning)


Amino acids don't voluntarily bond to form proteins and eventually life because they want to, or because they think it would be cool to "grow".

Viruses don't destroy healthy cells and replicate with their carcasses because they wish us ill or because we are trying to kill them.

Bacteria doesn't become resistant to anti-biotics because they're crapping their pants about how good we've become at creating wonder drugs.

The fact is, resistance isn't futile.

It's human. It's natural. It's organic.

Since the building blocks of life first formed on this earth it has been resisting the impossibilities. It has been saying, "Take that cruel world, you only thought that molten hot volcanic vent a mile deep in the ocean would scare me away".

Only today there was an article about bacteria found living in radioactive toxic residue. This stuff is weird, but it's out there, and it makes our human forms of resistance look mundane, however valid or seemingly righteous.

So yes, it is completely understandable that any person would resist any non-self-induced status. Or just any status for that matter. It's only natural. It's in us, like gatorade, through and through.

We, as Americans, resisted to create this great country. We resist continuously as our constitutional right allows. And we often resist our responsibilities.

All of that said, I respect, completely, each and every person's right to resist. If you're in my neighborhood we'll even do a little co-resisting some time. All I'm asking is that we remember every now and then that it's not always so terrible to unite about something.

Unity, in this divided world that we live in, can be viewed as resistance to chaos after all.




( rant inspiration)

Last day

Of school. Perhaps of normalcy.

The bad part about school being out is that the neighborhood is less calm. More ambiently restless. I've never liked that part of the summer.

And the semi-official arrival of summer also brings with it some other jitters. There are vacations on the horizon, for which I am largely unprepared in most capacities. I forgot to get the addresses of Shelby's close friends before school was out (her birthday usually falls on the first week of the school year and we like to give more heads up about her party, and also not have it be too far after her actual birthday because of the Labor Day weekend). The mere fact that there's only a couple of months left to plan for Shelby's birthday (before reservations have to start being made) is an issue I hope to still have time to recover from.

And then there's the fact that there are metaphorical storm clouds gathering in the professional life. I see them, they look nasty, they appear to be heading this way, but there are no storm sirens or weather warnings, so maybe they just look bad and everything will be fine after a little heavy rain. But it is just too dificult to tell right now if this is a brewing cyclone or just some rain and ruckus. The trouble with storms like this is that if it gets tornadic, reaction time plummets, and those in the vicinity likely go for a ride without seat belts.

If I could buckle up I would. Or at least wear a helmet.

Eeeww

9:27 mile and a grody moment.

I sneezed a messy sneeze all over my hand while I was running. You know, the kind that makes strings of goo between your fingers. I wiped it on my already sweaty-gross shirt and pressed on.

I know. Yuck. Really freakin yuck.

But I didn't want to stop. I was already running very late (no pun intended), which meant that if I stopped for any measurable length of time (it's not like there's kleenex nearby in a gym... would have had to hit the locker room), I would have just packed up and left if I wanted to pick up the girls from school on time. But I was only .3 miles into the run. Also, it was way packed. Even if I had time to go clean up and finish the run, I likely would not have had a machine to return to.

So, what does a guy do in a situation like that? That's right, he reverts to basic human instinct. Use the closest available absorbent material.

And I still made good time, so I'm not sorry about it. But there's no way in heck the cute girl that was jogging next to me will EVER give me the time of day.


(spoken like a true dumb a$5)

Circumstantially Graduated Pomp

OMG. What an exhausting night. Following a very festive ceremony, Shelby is officially 1st grade pending. Unbelievable. I'm very glad for her, but I am also concerned, as there are many challenges ahead for her. I do think kindergarten wasn't very difficult for her, scholastically. But 1st grade is such a different beast. Hopefully the summer will see some growth that will comfort me in this regard.



I left work a little early to swing by for some food and then went to the school. Even though the festivities weren't set to get started until 7pm, we've learned at that school that with most events, if you aren't there by 6pm at least, forget about any kind of decent seat. Well, I picked up a pizza, got to the school around 5:25, and the girls and I ate and got inside by at least 5:45. Even so, five or six rows back from the front was the best we could do, which means a whole lot of people were there at 5:25 or earlier like I was but chose not to eat or ate earlier, all so they could get good seating. So I guess we'll need to try two hours ahead of time for the next event. Sheesh.

Anyway, from there it was time to play relative seat lottery. We had lots of potential attendees from both sides of the family claiming they would be present, but no true picture of who all would really be there. However, everyone wanted a reserved seat. The trouble with that, of course, is reserved seat maintenance. There's probably some kind of formula for pressure received from peripheral audience members looking for seating that is directly proportional to the number of seats you are holding, and that increases exponentially as show time nears and overall available seating reduces. And because we had no clear picture of who exactly would attend, we had reserved a whole row of seats (~10 seats) in the middle section. Well, since none of the relatives started getting there until maybe 6:40, for nearly an hour the ex and I were ourselves trying to hold those seats, so we pretty much couldn't go anywhere for more than a few seconds at a time, lest the seats we worked so hard to maintain be overrun by the seat vultures.

And as misfortune would have it, more people showed up than we had seats for, and by that time it was standing room only in that place, so I felt pretty bad it worked out that way. But there were people that showed up that I wasn't expecting, AND there were people that DIDN'T show up that I WAS expecting, so how could we have really known how many seats to hold? I couldn't imagine trying to hold two rows of seats with just the two of us there for that. There was actually a group in front of us that was attempting to hold two rows, but that didn't work out. They lost half a row to the seat hounds when they let their guard down, and they had more people seat-guarding than we did. With our seating situation as it was, we squeezed togother (i.e. in some cases two people to a seat) and had Darby sit on the floor. But even then a few of our family had to go stand up in the back. Talk about guilty conscience. I would have given up my seat had I not had the camcorder tripod all setup and ready to go where I was at.

I'm not sure if you can imagine it, but with Shelby and Darby wanting to run around and play with the other kids (on stage even, which just wouldn't do, and there was plenty of pressure there because we wouldn't let them even though every other kid in the place was running around creating havoc), and all the seat maintenance issues, it was more than an hour of near-chaos for the ex and I.

Once the festivities were underway and all the seating pressure was largely relieved, the school did quite the good job putting the ceremony together. There were a couple of song-and-dance numbers that the kids performed, a lengthy multimedia slide-show retrospective of the year, and the traditional diploma/name-calling session with pomp and circumstance playing in the background.

Following was a reception in the cafeteria with cake and punch and more chaos. While overall it went well, and was a special evening for Shelby, it wasn't without the fraying of nerve endings. But I am not dead, so I must be stronger, right?

Oh, and we even got to meet Shelby's apparent boyfriend, the source of a recent bringing home of flowers by Shelby that I failed to blog about. The little boy's mother informs us that Shelby is "the love of his life" as he never stops talking about her. None of that helped to heal the nerve endings I can tell you.



It was after nine when we got home, and after ten before we got to bed. Tomorrow is the last day of school, and then next week begins summer camp, which is all mostly good. It would be better if the year weren't screaming by and I was thereby more prepared.

More with pool

I actually won a game of pool legitimately today. Of course, I lost one out of stupidity as well. And I won another on someone else's error. It's starting to feel a lot like college.


Started getting resumes for my open staff position, but that's not looking so up at the moment (though I will say we've had candidates come in from coast to coast thus far). I've updated the previous blog entry with a link to the job posting and the resume submission page, but be warned, the job posting that made it out there is no where near as accurate as the one I have posted. They used small portions of what I submitted, but for various, often valid reasons didn't use a lot of what I had to say. I have also updated the home page linking it to the "now hiring" blog entry, potentially increase visibility. But probably not. <12,000 hits to the home page is not so much for something that's been out there for eight years. Maybe when the actor Shawn Wright breaks into the big-time people will find me by accident. Of course, that could be bad, because then he'll want to take my domain name that I've had legitimately for many years. But anyway...


Shelby graduates kindergarten tomorrow! Crazy stuff, huh?


Mile in 9:35 today. I have determined that I must sustain a 6.7 mph (or greater) run for 18 minutes to achieve my goal of 2 miles in 18 minutes.

Reciting

Darby had her piano recital today, her first. She did pretty good. I didn't have the forethought to grab a beverage before hand and got quite parched during the two hour recital (28 kids).

She has another recital in June.

Clocked

Darby has a piano recital tomorrow, so we had practice for it today. I think she'll do okay.

Afterward (it was supposed to happen before hand but didn't work out timing wise) we met with a family friend at the Saturday Computer Sale to look at laptops for his soon-to-be graduate daughter. Unfortunately, since we didn't do it earlier as originally planned, the last model that was in his price range was sold while we were standing there in line. Grrr. So we're going to try again next month.

BUT, also while waiting in line, I had the pleasure of being outright CLOCKED by my own daughter.



She was jumping up and down, like she always does, only instead of hurting herself as is not uncommon, she hit the top of her head square against my eye socket as I was leaning down and gave me a lickin' I'll not soon forget. She drew blood. And it still hurts.

After that ordeal we went to see Shrek 2. Pretty funny stuff. But I kind of think they're starting to tailor too much to the adult part of the audience. One or two sexual innuendos that most kids miss is probably okay. But having one every five minutes gets the kids thinking maybe that's just normal and socially tolerated behavior even for children.

We had to run an errand and then get some dinner after that, but on the way back I noticed the sun was within a few minutes of going down and we were by the lake, so we went to the park to watch the sunset, throw some frisbee, and play at the park until dark.

Did I just break it?

I foolishly turned on the new "post pages" feature of the new blogger without knowing how it would impact things. I'm thinking it has broken all previous intra-blog links, but I need to verify. If so, fixing it will suck.


UPDATE
Most is well. I did a test and it worked, but a couple of other things unexpectedly broke and got fixed.

ATTENTION WAL-MART MANAGEMENT

You folks do good work. But please (puh-LEEEZ) consider the following when revising corporate policies and procedures in the future.

The following items have a matter/anti-matter style relationship with signs reading "Speedy Checkout". They cannot and should not exist in direct proximity of one another.

- The Wal-Mart "smoke shop" (that one lane that has ALL of the tobacco products)
- Non-speedy employees
- The acceptance of personal checks

These things can exist independently within your stores, but no combination of the above should be allowed to occur while there is a sign immediately present that reads "Speedy Checkout" (hereby "SCL").

Points:
When an employee has to obtain various packs or cartons of tobacco products while operating the SCL, there is a significant possibility of non-speediness occuring. You then run the risk of invalidating your sign and, in this litigious society, being held liable by, well, your customers anyway, and that should matter for something.

The very nature of the SCL dictates that employees operating it be speedy. This is not an age discrimination thing either. If you have a little old lady operating the SCL and she's lightning fast, that's cool. But not just any employee should even be permitted to operate the SCL. Candidate operators should be SCL certified. You should even incentivize the program by offering incrimental bonuses to SCL operators that are consistently (and increasingly) speedy (but still accurate and efficient of course). These people (quality SCL operators) are the Top Guns of your workforce, and should be respected and treated accordingly.

The actual processing of personal checks is not at issue. It is the preparation of the check by the customer that is the issue. As you cannot take over and control the customers (though we realize you are working on that), it is best to avoid this potential disaster all together. Permitting it to occur simply facilitates huffing and puffing by all SCL customers that are already not somewhere else fast enough. Credit cards are okay (there's no preparation by the customer after all), but only if the SCL operator is trained to be ready to press the credit button when prompted. At no time should there be "dead air" (moments of nothingness occurring after the credit card data has been entered by the customer but the SCL operator has not yet pressed the credit key), as it is a direct threat to speediness by all accounts. Operators must be spot on with the process. Re-visit second point if not clear.

If you do not perceive these points as valid, you should at least considered changing your signs to read "Restricted Checkout", implying only that customers must have less items, with no implication of haste. Those of us that take the word "speedy" to heart would be less disappointed in that scenario.


Bottom line:
At no time should a 3-customer deep SCL process at a rate slower than a 10-15 customer deep non-SCL. This metric is simply not tolerable performance by the #1 company in the world. Rampant propagation of non-speedy Speedy Checkout Lanes should be viewed as a fundamental threat to your continued corporate prosperity.


Bonus issue:
NON-TECHNO-SAVVY PEOPLE SHOULD BE COMPLETELY DISALLOWED (or at least strongly discouraged) FROM OPERATING THE SELF-CHECKOUT EQUIPMENT.

(This has no relation to today's issue, but is an issue I've long want to spout off about. Seemed like a good time.)


The back-story:
Shelby had a field trip for school today to a local park. Her mother took off work to participate. I got a call just before lunch time letting me know that Shelby had an accident of the bladder variety. I determined that it would be quicker to drive to Wal-Mart and purchase an outfit and underwear than to drive all the way home and back. Overall that plan was a success, but it wasn't as easy to execute as I would have liked. And whether any time was actually saved or not is borderline questionable.

With the gate closest to me at work closed for construction, and the next closest gate not open until 1130, I had to traverse a sizeable portion of the base at 25mph to get to an open gate. Then there was the typical near-lunch-time traffic to slow everything down. It was close to 20 minute post-call before I was even at the Wal-Mart. Obtaining the merchandise was quite quick, but then I got to the check out area, and picked the seemingly logical (and shortest) line, the Speedy Checkout Lane. That was unexpectedly unwise. I was in that line for close to ten minutes. I even got a phone call from the ex in the middle of all of it wondering where I was. I snapped of a "I'm standing in line at the Wal-Mart, what would you like me to do?" a bit too loud and I think the lady in front of me took that to heart when executing her transaction.

Of course the best part of the whole deal was, as I was already quite flustered with the drudgery of the experience, the feeling of near-bursting frustration that overcame me when the SCL operator said "I hope this thing works, it didn't yesterday", in reference to the check processing thingy, as the customer handed her a check.

So the speedy checkout was... not very speedy as it turns out. I truly believe that, had I chosen a different line (or had the SCL actually been speedy), I would have been at the park before the ex called.

Pushing it

Ran my mile in 9:37 today. Felt pretty good, so I thought I'd stretch it a bit to 1.5 miles. Did that in 14:14, which seems okay. Don't think I'll do that every run day though, at least not yet. Still need to shave 37 seconds off my mile.

What's that smell?

I had italian food for lunch yesterday. I didn't finish it, so I had it boxed. And I was so proud of myself for not then leaving the box on the table at the restaurant. I do that way too much.

This morning when I got in the VUE there was a terrible smell. I couldn't figure out what it was the whole way to work. On the way to Wal-Mart before lunch (see next blog) I still couldn't figure out what the smell was. It wasn't until I was on the way to lunch after Wal-Mart that I realized the source of the smell.

Guess I should have left it on the table.

This evening was Darby's awards ceremony for soccer. Her team got third place. We also received her soccer pictures and I have posted one to the album.

Now Hiring

PLEASE NOTE - 16 JUNE 2004 UPDATE
This position has been filled. I thank everyone who helped in this regard for their support and participation. Hopefully if I'm looking for new help in the near future it will be to expand my team rather than to replace someone on it. For historical purposes (I'm mean, it's already part of the blogosphere), the below entry will remain in tact, just don't send me any further messages or resumes about it. Thanks.

22 AUGUST 2005 UPDATED UPDATE
This position is open again. The below descriptions and disclaimers still apply. See the more recent post for new job description links.

Now back to the originally posted blog, already in progress...
The day started off with a phone call from Scotland. And it was the harbinger of big changes to come. Terrible changes.

For two and a half years now, my staffing picture has been static. That's a good thing. I've been fortunate to have a fantastic team of solid professionals, and we've done some great things together. Unfortunately, that is about to change, and while it could certainly turn out positively in the end, everyone on my team is critical to the overall success of the team, and this kind of change always brings with it significant risk. I'm optimistic, but very worried.

As it turns out, my Scottish phone call this morning was the instigation of my worry. One of my employees has been planning for quite some time to move to England. We knew it was coming, we've been trying to plan for it, but it kept getting pushed back, so we were hopeful that we'd get to keep her just a little longer (and a little longer, and a little longer). She's a very big part of the team, and while I'm sure we'll do just fine without her in time, it will initially suck just getting back to where we are now after 12-18 months of re-integrating someone new. But now she has been offered a job in the UK, and we have only a month to replace her. We wish her well, but.... Ahhh!

Her position is not gap-friendly, so we have been authorized to bring her replacement on board ASAP so that they can learn enough from her brain dumps to hit the ground running before she goes. Ideally, we'd like to start someone on or before 1 June, but that is a darn aggressive goal that would mean finding someone like, five minutes ago. However, with a 25 June departure date for my current employee, there is very little time to dilly-dally.


All of that said, if you have the following qualifications (SEE BIG GIANT DISCLAIMER BELOW), we should probably have a conversation at least. But these are pretty firm, so please please please don't spam me with overly aggressive resumes that don't meet the experience and reference checking muster. We'll know VERY quickly if you are a good fit for the position, and if you are not, we'll waste no time removing you from the position (it's been done before, and we have so little time to spare), so please don't waste our time or yours. Thanks!


The MUSTs:

*) Customer Support - The biggest piece of the job is customer support for web applications and sites, but don't go getting excited just yet, as there are equally important qualifications to follow. This one will just get your foot in the door. And mind you, even if you have mastered the other musts, but can't work well with people either in person or on the phone, you won't do well at this job. You will need to be able to troubleshoot our applications, as well as the network connectivity as it directly impacts access to our webservers.

*) Software Requirements Analysis - We build applications that manage workflow and business processes. You'll be organizing and conducting IPT meetings and system reviews with user groups to determine requirements for new applications and/or new features to existing applications. At times you'll have fifteen people in a room, all with different opinions of how a process really works. You will need to manage the room, facilitate a consensus, and garner approval for the new requirements. But requirements come not only from users. You must be able to sit down with a stack of regulations and itemize the requirements imposed upon our applications. There are several regulations that must be monitored for changes so that our application development schedule can be adjusted as such changes impact the applications.

*) Quality Assurance - This position is our last stop before new software deployment at the end of a development cycle or bug fix. In addition to testing for common errors and obvious mistakes, you will be verifying compliance with previously compiled user and regulatory requirements.

*) Web Authoring and Content Management - You must know HTML like the back of your hand. In-depth knowledge of web standards and usability principles is vital. Familiarity with non-WYSIWYG authoring tools is helpful. Basic web graphics capabilities is important. Knowledge of XML, XHTML, CSS, and javascript would be valuable.

*) Webserver Administration - You will not be expected to be an MCSE, nor would you be expected to build webservers and manage them end-to-end (though that never hurts). However, you need to have an in-depth understanding of how webservers work, and of how to manage both Apache and IIS webservers. You should know how to manage web and FTP sites with IIS tools, stop/start/restart services, as well as manage index services for web searches. If you don't know how to create a virtual directory, setup a redirect, specify new MIME types, install an SSL certificate, or understand the basic security underpinnings of a webserver, that wouldn't be very helpful. With regard to security, understanding how NOT to setup a webserver is more important than knowing how to click next->next->next->finish to install IIS on an existing windows server.

*) Training - You will need to be able to train user groups of varying sizes, from individual users at their desks to large rooms of people, with or without PCs. You will be training new users on our applications and existing users on upcoming new features.

*) Clerical Skills - As the facilitator of several user forums and reviews, you will need to organize these events, distribute an agenda, conduct them in a professional manner, take notes, and distribute minutes. Some user support efforts involve scanning of documents for later use in an application. There is also equipment tracking involved.


The almost musts:
*) Fluent in Government-ese - If you have heavy present or past experience working with government customers, procedures, policies, and regulations, you'll have an easier time of integrating into the position. If you don't have this experience, you should not be rigid in your ways of doing business. Working with the government is... different. More different than anyone who has only ever worked in the commercial sector could ever imagine.

*) Database Design and Analysis - You are not expected to be a DBA, but a clear understanding of relational databases will become vital when communicating new application requirements with DBAs and programmers. These skills can also help with the resolution of user support issues (i.e. fixing a typo in a form field via database tools) that don't need to involve a DBA. Any better than basic knowledge of SQL will help, but firm comprehension of Oracle PL/SQL will really make a difference.

*) Application Development - You do not need to be an application developer to fit this position, but having an application development background of any kind definitely helps. If you do have a developer background, particularly PL/SQL and Java based, you may get to participate in smaller development projects as time permits. If team dynamics shift in the future, with the right experience and/or skills development, your participation in our development projects could grow significantly.


The nearly almost musts:

*) Bachelor's Degree or a LOT of experience, but preferably both. The labor category requires a 4-year degree or equivalent experience. Complying with required labor qualifications without a degree is difficult. Also, considering that there are at least 9 degrees between the five team members presently, you'd be in good company to have one yourself.

*) A U.S. DoD Secret (or better) security clearance, or the ability to achieve one. In other words, no shady pasts. Nothing against you shady or formerly shady people, but if you can't get cleared and keep your mouth shut, we can't use you. For clearance purposes, significant financial problems in your past can be considered shady. Sorry.

*) Unwavering patience and attentiveness to detail. The requirements analysis piece of the job is crucially important for hopefully obvious reasons. You must be able to speak at length with a 60-year old, non-computer-savvy government employee that could care less about you and your silly application. You must smile at him, listen to all of his stories from 33-years of federal service and make him enjoy himself to the extent that he will begin spouting off details about his day-to-day processes that are automatable. All the while you should have been taking notes that are detailed enough to create design specifications.

*) Team integration. And this is not stated lightly. Our team has been successful because it is well integrated with the customer, the company, and with itself. Furthermore, because this position has the greatest exposure to the customer, it also tends to be the information proxy with regard to "what's going on with the customer". If you are not a team player through and through, you'll not likely enjoy yourself. HOWEVER, you still need to be able to work well in isolation (i.e. be self-motivated, able to achieve progress without direct supervision, etc).

*) Loyalty. Please don't mistake the order in which this item appears on this list as an indication of lesser importance. Team cohesion is critical to everyone's success, including yours. Lack of loyalty to the team, the company, or the customer will create problems that will ruin everyone's day, also including yours. Loyalty also implies longevity. The team is successful because our staffing has been consistent. If you don't intend to stick around and/or have a stable work history, that's definitely a minus.

*) Ethics. Ditto the previous item. The company I work for will not stand for unethical behavior. If something is not illegal, it isn't also automatically ethical.

*) Aptitude. There is a certain forward-thinking aptitude this job requires. It's difficult to describe in words, but I'll know within five minutes of speaking with you if you have it. Others without it have tried to fill this position. They have tried and failed.


Questions NOT to ask (me):

- What company do you work for?
If you want it bad enough, you've already modestly navigated my site and already know the answer. If you don't already know the answer, I might already be questioning your aptitude for the job. (Update: If you've read the updated disclaimer with the link to the job posting, you know this answer anyway)

- Who is the customer?
You might also know that already if you dug around enough. But even if not, "the government" should do for now.

- What is a labor category?
Not entirely important except that you need to fit in it with your skills, experience, and education. With regard to a "government position" vs. a "company position", think of it as middleware.

- What is [insert something from above description of MUSTs]?
If anything in my list of musts or near musts sounded outright foreign to you, with some exception, you could already be disqualified.

- Why do you make up words in your description?
Because that's how I am. You'll definitely need to get used to that. But you can laugh at me if you want. Continuously. Everybody does.

- What is the salary range?
That depends on so many factors. Your qualifications in particular. I will say that my company is not notorious for high salaries, so don't go thinking you'll be riding the wave of the second dot-com boom. There are a number of other benefits that add to the total compensation picture. If you're only looking for that next raise, you won't be happy with us.




BIG GIANT DISCLAIMER CONCERNING ABOVE EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY
I am NOT personally an authorized hiring agent of my company, nor do I officially and completely represent the company or my customer in this regard. The official job posting should be considered the official source of information concerning the referenced position, not this blog (though you'll find some of these words did make it to the job posting). I am the immediate supervisor of the position in question, and therefore this blog entry is strictly my opinion via direct observation of the duties required. I will be assisting in the hiring process, from contributing to the job posting (less acurate, but more official and legal than my version) to racking and stacking resumes to conducting second or third interviews as necessary. Contacting me will only help to show you the door. You must walk through it, and be qualified to do so.

(but even if you contact me, you'll still need to submit a resume online via the job posting)

Mileage

9:46 on Monday, 9:45 today.

Not good with rumps

I bought a rump roast yesterday with the intent of making it today. Only I didn't realize how long it would take to cook (~ 2 hrs), so I ended up having to make something else quick for the girls for dinner. So while they were doing homework and practicing piano and taking baths, the roast was cooking away with an uncertain future. I was worried because the girls go to their mother's Thursday through Saturday, so it was going to be me and the roast for a few days.

It worked out not so bad, after all. I asked the girls close to bed time if they felt like having some of the roast since it was done and they were eager to try some. So there we were, the three of us having roast at 8:45. But quite a bit of it got eaten surprisingly. Shelby and I each had three helpings and Darby had two. Now at least I have a manageable amount of leftovers, instead of practically a whole roast.

Voices from the past

Thanks for writing Mr. Lego!

My high school trombone instructor found my site and wrote to me with some appreciated words of encouragement. That was unexpected but cool.

I really like to play pool. But oh how I suck at it. Even so, I had two accidental (i.e. other person screwed up) pool wins, and two quite deserved losses today.

Pile of Crap

I was going to go off about losing two games of pool and a game of darts today, but instead I have this pile of crap sitting on my floor.

And figuring out the best way to dispose of a pile of crap is always the trickiest part.

You see, one of my children got hold of a ballpoint pen and left it in a pocket. I did a load of laundry last night and put it in the dryer before bed. This morning I stuck my hand there only to find still damp clohes, so I turned the dryer back on and took the kids to school.

This afternoon when I started taking clothes out of the dryer I found that nearly EVERY item in that full sized (light colored) load had significant ink stains. Several of the girls' school shorts and two pairs of my work pants (one of which was new and worn once) are in ruins. I'm thinking more than a $100 worth of clothing is sitting in that pile, completely wasted. So it may as well be a pile of crap.

I may try another wash with some OxyClean, but I have serious doubts about the effectiveness of anything against ink.


So I also find in that load of laundry a crinked, wash-tattered check. One that I had written to Darby's piano instructor on the 6th of May. One that I had given to Darby to give to her teacher. One that I had asked of Darby to confirm delivery, to which she responded affirmatively. Needless to say, she got a strongly worded lecture.




UPDATE
Oxy no workie. Pile still crapy.


UPDATE 19 May
Initial assessment of damages:
9 kids school shorts
1 kids school skirt
2 daddy work shirts
2 daddy work pants
1 soccer uniform

Replacing these items right now on the web would be $230.

Play day

Mostly took it easier today. But not entirely.

Took the girls to see Home on the Range. While the girls liked it, I highly discourage it for most adults. Too freakin corny. I mean, of all the movies Disney has sent direct to video, this one should have been on the list. Hint for Disney: Lion King 1.5 goes to big screen; Home on the Range goes to little screen; Result is more cash for you, and more fun for us parents.

Afterwards we went to a park for a bit, followed by a drive around Lake Hefner (the girls wanted to go all the way around the lake like daddy does when he rides). We stopped on the dam for a bit to admire the view.

After seeing all of the people walking/running/blading/riding around the lake, the girls wanted to partake as well. So we scootered/rollerbladed for just a bit (a mile tops, but probably less), then we did a little kite flying nearby until the kite broke (again). But I must reiterate, that kite was quite the big bang for my buck.

We brought bubbles with us, too, and the girls went through a whole bottle each. It's fun "blowing" bubbles by the lake because you don't actually have to blow. It's so windy that you just hold up the little bubble-wand and the wind is your magic bubble maker. We were making so many bubbles that a bunch of other kids around ran over to chase them.

When the girls got tired of that, we visited yet another park until it was dinner time. While I consider today to have been less active than yesterday, with regard to physical exertion, I am just as tired. Guess I can't win in that department. Being tired after a day of anything. Yet another sign of my age peeking out.

Kicking my own a$z

Since my schedule was off for the week, I went to the gym this morning for my mile run (9:46).

This was followed immediately by two and a half hours of lawn mowning, limb trimming, and limb bundling. And I'm not even done bundling. I had to get showered and pick up the girls. I've got seven bundles and at least five more to make. When I say I was trimming limbs, that actually includes the cutting down of several small trees (~ 3 inches thick, as tall as 15 feet) that were along a fenceline and had been deemed future menaces in the making. If I ever own property in the vicinity of a mimosa again, you (yes, you) have my permission to shoot me.

Once I got the girls, we had to proceed immediately to a birthday party. It was a skate party, and I brought my rollerblades. So, after two hours of skating, and the fact that I had already been on my feet all day and ran a mile, I'm certain that if my feet could act autonomously, they'd want to kick me.

Caught cold2

High temps had been ~80 degrees all week, with morning rush hour temps in the mid-sixties. Nice by most standards. I finally started putting the girls in shorts for school instead of pants, and after weeks of carry our jackets (or sweatshirts at least) around in the car in case the temporature dipped, we had finally gotten confident that, being mid-May, the warm weather was here to stay. And so stayed the jackets at the house.

When I dropped the girls off at school this morning, it was a reasonable 62, with a brisk wind. At lunch time it was warmer and comfortable without a jacket. Though it did start raining as I returned to work.

As soccer ended last weekend (!!!), the ex-wife picked the girls up from school today. Meanwhile, I was working away until a little after 9pm, never the wiser with regard to the conditions outside. Shortly before I left, I saw on a local website a display of the temperature and about flipped. It was 48 degrees. When did that happen, I thought. And, oh crap, I only packed shorts for the girls and no jackets. So I called the ex-wife to explain the situation and to make sure she would be up for a bit so that I could take some warmer clothing over for the girls.

It was probably 9:30 or so before I got home. I spent ten or so minutes going through mail (e and snail) after getting school pants, jeans, sweatshirts and light jackets together for the girls. Then I headed off to their mother's house.

As it was close to ten when I got there, I expected the girls to have long been in bed. But I was informed that they had recently been told to stopped playing and talking. So I went in to listen at the door to make sure they were asleep and caught Darby out in the hallway instead of in bed. Big trouble.

I grabbed her hand and said I guess it's time to go home and started walking her toward the front door. Needless to say she didn't like that very much. I gave her a stern raised-voice verbal-lashing and reminded her of the bedtime rules and of my disappointment in her behavior (having been told repeatedly by mother and step-father to go to bed). She was pretty shocked that I was there to begin with (she had no idea I was heading over), and also afraid she'd get sent home I suppose, and so appropriately answered all of my questions to her suffixed with a "sir". She had such a look of "man, was I ever caught" on her face. Almost wish I got the camera out for that.


Shortly after that little incident I took off, as I still had to hit the gym. By the time I got back to my part of town it was about 10:45, so I had another quick change, run (10:04), change, and leave as the cleaning crew is mopping the floor situation. I don't like those much, but running today and Saturday will allow me to get my three runs in for the week since I messed up my schedule (forgot my gym bag) yesterday.

This just in...

We've just been told that today we have "tornadic development potential". It doesn't sound so bad when you put it that way. You're supposed to scare people with those warnings, right? "The tornados are coming! The tornados are coming! Run for your lives!"

7 years

Of me working at SAIC, as of today. I can't believe my oldest daughter is already 8 years old, but it's almost as difficult coming to grips with the fact that I've worked at the same place for almost as long as she's been alive.

It's been a ride, I tell you. And I've had it all. Good. Bad. Ugly. Cool. Sucky. Yummy. Yucky. It's prégo. But I'd do it again in a second. Regrets are minimal, and mostly self-induced.

But I'm not in any hurry to go anywhere, so hopefully I'll still be experiencing this disbelief in another three or five or seven years from now. Only by then instead of email-to-blog, we'll have thought-to-blog. Now that could start some controversy...

213 years

Of baseball. That's why it's the national pastime. We've been enjoying it since at least 1791. Almost as long as we've been a free nation. There's something harmoniously appealing about the intertwining of baseball and freedom.

Play ball America. Play ball.

Posted another photo on that windscreen site. Probably the best of the three I now have on there.

My lesson for the day

If at first you don't succeed, beat your head against the same darn wall over and over again and perhaps you will eventually succeed, however unexpectedly. Go figure.

More on photos

It would figure that I've had those school photo proofs for weeks and just got around to posting them yesterday, only to receive the actual photos today. So, the album has been updated again with the higher quality photos.

In my other photographic endeavors, I had another photo posted on the Windscreen Gallery (though I'm not sure if I ever linked the first one). I'm combing my stock for more viable candidates (I take LOTS of photos from the car. Yes, sometimes while driving.) and there are already several others I'm thinking of posting.

New Photos

Though I've taken more than 600 photos in the less than one month since I got my new digital camera, I've not posted any pics to the album since February. There's more I wish to post, but for now, some school and soccer pictures have been added to the album. The school photos are scanned proofs and will be replaced with better pics when we get them. Sorry about the delay.

Finally

Finally broke 10 minutes running today. Ran my mile in 9:55, but you'd be surprised how much more difficult it was to squeeze out that extra fifteen seconds since my last run. I think I'm going to have to chill at this pace for awhile. It's the conditioning I want here after all.


Back to those high gas prices... It's up to $1.87 along the highway here in OK (at least around me anyway). Got me some $1.79 off-highway gas today since it's probably going up again soon. Turns out I wasn't too far off the low in the city according to Oklahoma City Gas Prices.

It kills me that I thought of putting up a site like that back in 1996 when the web was young and new ideas were everywhere for the taking, but I didn't have the time or resources. If I had a million dollars for every good idea I've had I'd be... well, at least a millionaire... but maybe a multi-millionaire. However, if you then took away a dollar for every BAD idea I've had, I'd probably then be in debt.

Today I was reminiscing back to the early 90s when I was in college and gas was $0.79 a gallon. And I drove a Festiva. Rock on! :) So like once a month I had to fill up... and for REALLY cheap. I love my VUE, and will not give it up, but I anxiously await the hybrid version next year.

(grumble)

LOTS of new blogger.com changes effective today. Some good, some not as good. Feel like I have click more now than before. Jury is still out...

Oy

I'm taking the kids to visit my sister in New York City this summer. At present I'm doing hotel research, and it isn't pretty. My sister lives in Greenwich Village on Manhattan Island, less than two miles north of the world trade center site. Here are a few of my nearby hotel choices...

The closest:
60 Thompson New York City (1/2 mile south, $370/night)
The Mercer (1/2 mile south-east, $350/night)
Washington Square Hotel (1/2 mile north, by NYU, $160/night)

Other nearby gems:
Soho Grand Hotel (3/4 mile south, $260/night)
Tribeca Grand Hotel (1 mile south, $233/night)
Holiday Inn Manahattan (1 mile south, $140/night)
Marriott New York Financial Center (2 miles south, $170/night)
Hilton Millenium (2 miles south, $208/night)

Some other catchy names inside of a few miles away:
Courtyard New York Manhattan/Times Square South
New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge
Courtyard Secaucus Meadowlands


Don't get me wrong, there are other hotels, a few more miles away in the $100/night range. I just dropped-jaw when I first started looking at my choices. Obviously I won't be staying real close to my sister. And I dread what the gas prices will be up that way (considering I recently paid $1.77/gallon here in little old Oklahoma).

Nice little get together at an aunt's house for mother's day. Helped my father grill food for the masses. He took care of the hard stuff (marinated chicken, pork ribs) and I got the easy stuff (hamburgers, hot dogs). It's been like six hours since that meal and I'm still not hungry, which is unusual for my metabolism (I'm usually hungry every few hours).

Ouch

I had a maintenance appointment this morning for the VUE. It was intended to be a normal quick thing, but didn't turn out that way. Thursday night I noticed a nail in my left rear tire (didn't we do this last month?), but the angle it was in didn't look like it was doing much to the tire (didn't seem to be any loss of air or other damage). I intended to have it looked at Friday night, but the nearest tire center of repute was closed by the time I was at a point that I could do that. So I figured I'd ask the Saturn guys to look at it this morning, only it actually looked worse than it did even the day before. The tire side-wall was rippled/bulging near where the nail was at. I think it was near blow-out. The Saturn guy said the tire had to be replaced at a low-low $140. At that point, and in that situation, one doesn't really want to go driving around to bargain hunt (not to mention the fact that you tend to want matching tires on your one year old vehicle), lest there be a blow-out. I'm starting to wonder if maybe this second nail was in the tire when I noticed the other last month, but I just didn't see it until now. I may have run over something that got both tires at the same time.

So there goes the funds for new CD shopping I thought about doing today.

Since Saturn is kind enough to wash your car for you after you receive service, I thought it a good time to clean out the inside, too. So when I got home I cleaned the windows, sprayed the leather seats with leather cleaner/preserver, and armorall-ed the dash. Later I'm going to vacuum so I can use some carpet cleaner on some kid stains.


At Darby's soccer game this afternoon, she was pummeled by a kid 50% larger than her. Darby weighs about 60 pounds. This girl was said by her coach to be 90 pounds. It was not intentional, but they were both trying to kick the ball, and the larger girl got Darby's legs instead and she fell flat onto her back and hit her head. I happened to be recording some video at the time, so here's a clip to better help visualize. I put the camera down and ran onto the field to check on her and she was complain of her chest hurting, too, so I think she had the wind knocked out of her pretty good.

Building teams

Today was "team building" day at work. My staff and I put together a bowling team to participate with the other dozen teams. I bowled a 165, 133, and 171. It was a swell time, though I wish we would have also played softball as in past years.


After the day's activities I went up to Quail Springs Mall to pick up and ship the pottery the girls made the other day. I wanted to also take the opportunity of a free evening to get some bike riding in, so I brought the bike along with me, though I wasn't sure I'd have time. And I almost didn't. I discovered once I got to the Lake Hefner trail that my bike tires were about half deflated. Crap. So I loaded the bike back onto the bike rack and went looking for a gas station with free air.

I was able to get back and had the time for the full 10-mile ride around the lake. Though I was rather beat by the experience as it had been since last summer that I had completed a loop around Lake Hefner. Really I would have rather done the 3-mile trail closer to home, but I thought if I drove all the way back it would burn too much sunlight and jeopardize my chances to ride at all. It used to take me an hour to go all the way around the lake, but it only took 50 minutes this evening, when I thought at several points during the ride that I was going way too slow to make it around in any decent amount of time.

One of those jam-packed days that seem endless. So much so that once the girls went with their mother following soccer, I went back to work for a few hours, and then had to book it to the gym before they closed (11pm). I got my mile done as the cleaning crew started to do their thing. A 10:05 mile tonight. Thought I'd break ten minutes today. Maybe next week.

Got the last of my travel arrangements complete/confirmed for my trip in early June. Though I also received a wedding invitation today, for a wedding in Tulsa, and it's also in early June, the day after I get back.

She'll never forgive me

When the kids and I are at a store and we see a display of personalized items, be they pens, mugs, license plates, etc, we sometimes (though not really that often) find the name Shelby, but have yet to find the name Darby on pretty much anything. I keep thinking that will change as more kids with the name Darby increase the demand for such personalized products, but thanks to namestatistics.com, I see that that will not likely happen in the near term.

Here are the stats for the family:
Shawn is the #92 most common male name.
0.2% of men in the US are named Shawn.
Around 245000 US men are named Shawn.

Shelby is the #519 most common female name.
0.025% of females in the US are named Shelby.
Around 31875 US females are named Shelby.

Darby is the #2883 most common female name.
0.002% of females in the US are named Darby.
Around 2550 US females are named Darby.


I pretty much couldn't guess a name less common than Darby. I put in names like Brianna, Yolanda, Sasha, Monique, and Sophie (among others) that seemed not too common to me but they were more common than Darby...


Okay parents to be, you officially have my permission and encouragement to name your girls Darby. Let's beef up the demand!

No-go de Mayo

Our brilliant but not quite so original plan to have a Mexican lunch on Cinco de Mayo failed miserably. The place we chose was unacceptably packed (go figure), and we had to be back at the office for a retirement ceremony. We ended up getting fast food, which was expectedly disappointing in contrast.

On the way back from lunch, I priced the modification to Shelby's long sleeve red shirt... $10. Which will make the shirt $30 in total cost for what may turn out to be a one-time use item. I think it's funny that I'm paying more to get less shirt. I'm starting to think I should have gone with the red polo shirt instead of the "authentic" western get-up I've been working towards.


In other kid news, Shelby got another swat at school today. Also, local friends and family don't forget to check the calendar for upcoming events. Shelby's kindergarten graduation is in a couple of weeks and Darby has a Piano recital coming up around the same time.


FREE GERBILS TO GOOD HOME
Lastly, the girls' pet gerbils had babies a few weeks ago, so they now have an excess of rodents. Let us know if you want some. All you pay is shipping. :)

Here's a pic. Don't worry, they're not as evil as this one looks.

Powerless

We had a critical problem with our "uninterruptable" power supply at work today. I've always hated that term (UPS). We had to shut down (i.e. interrupt) all of the important servers and move them to another UPS, lest the already swollen batteries (that were flooding the area with a lovely sulfuric smell) burst and spew battery acid all over Yeoman Jackson. Having to shutdown the very servers we never want to have to shutdown was... splendid indeed. And it ruined the 131-day uptime streak of one of my servers. :(

Doing Pot(tery)

There's a place at Quail Springs Mall called Paint It Yourself Pottery and while the girls and I were at the mall on Saturday, we went in there for a minute. Of course, the girls wanted to partake of the pot(tery), but it was too close to closing and you could tell they were wrapping it up. But today, once I realized that Mother's Day is THIS weekend and not the next, we went back up to the mall. My mother doesn't get nearly as many pictures of the girls as she should so I had the idea of having the girls paint a pottery frame to send to her with a photo of the girls in it. That whole thing took much longer than I thought it would, and I got a lot more involved that I expected, but the girls had a lot of fun with the activity. We have to go back in a couple of days to pick it up (it will be fired in the mean time). Had I a little more forethought, I would have made it a point to go to that place earlier on Saturday to do this then so that it wouldn't end up being late as it likely will be at this point. But we got all the cards taken care of also while we were up there.



I kept the girls last weekend, and didn't leave work early enough on Friday to run. And now there may be issues for the next month or so, thanks to traffic. On running days, I usually leave work about 4:45 to give me time to get to the gym, change, run, change, and then pick up the girls before school closes. But they just closed the entrance I use at due to construction, and that has turned exit traffic into chaos, making it more difficult to get to the gym. I made it not too much later today, but I think there was some luck involved, too. The mile is down to 10:06.

"Finished"

With Sunday School anyway. Today was the last day of Sunday school until the fall, so the girls had their parties and said their farewells.

While the girls were partying, I got the lawn mowed again, as it didn't rain like I thought it would this time last week.

And lastly, I did finally get blogged-up. Or, caught up with my tardy blogs. As promised, they were not worth the wait.

May day, may day...

The morning was terrible. It was 46 degrees out and very windy. Who would have thought they would need gloves on May 1st.

I got the girls up to get ready for soccer, and, had we only soccer to worry about, things might have turned out a little better. But I completely forgot about team pictures this morning before the game. I got a phone call to the effect of "the whole team is waiting for Darby and we only have the photographer for 20 more minutes" and we were still at home, not quite ready to go yet. C-R-A-P. So instead of being ahead on time, we were suddenly completely lacking of it. We booked it to the soccer complex, and we did make it (barely), but the whole team was standing there shivering, and they were probably standing there that whole twenty minutes they were waiting for us. So we took pictures and then had less than ten minutes to get "warmed up" for the game.

In addition to the cold and the wind, it was also lightly raining out, so if you can imagine this dreariest of days in quite some time, you might also imagine that it was very much a day not designed with soccer in mind. But we played on, and we were slaughtered. As though adding insult to injury, we were playing the best team in the league, who likewise slaughtered us in the first game of the season, though in better weather conditions.

We grabbed some lunch after the game with some family that came to watch. It was good to warm up.


The objective for the afternoon was shopping. We had a number of items to get, though our success was limited. Chief among our needs were items for Shelby's upcoming kindergarten graduation show, and party goods for both girls' Sunday school parties.

Items we needed for Shelby's outfit: Short-sleeve, solid red, cowboy style shirt; a red bandana; a denim skirt; and cowboy boots.

We first visited Langston's, a western friendly store, but as I found, not inexpensive. We did not find any denim skirts (not a surpise), but we were able to pick up a red bandana. The boots were just far too expensive considering that I'm not certain Shelby would use them all that much. We also found a nearly ideal shirt. It wasn't completely ideal, because it was long sleeve instead of short. But I bought it figuring I would bring it back if I found something better, or use it if I didn't. Turns out that was a decent choice.

The rest of the afternoon was spent visiting a mall, several stores, and a walmart. With the exception of a denim skirt find at walmart, we didn't have great success in our search otherwise. We did also get our party goods for tomorrow, so at least that was out of the way.

While on the way to another mall to continue our search, I noticed that we were doing pretty well on time, so we stopped at a park and I let the girls unwind for about thirty minutes. They were getting a bit on the cranky and argumentative side after all the looking and no touching that goes hand in hand with kids while shopping. Finally they got to get their hands dirty. And by this time, the weather was quite nice, at about 62 degrees. In fact, it was so sunny at times you would have had a difficult time convincing me that it had been dreary at all that morning had I not experienced it for myself.

We got back underway for the mall, but when we got there it was right about dinner time. So I pulled into TGIF for some good eating (we deserved it), and the girls also had some neat balloon animals made for them. TGIF had a balloon artist going around making animals on demand. It was pretty neat. Shelby asked for a heart with a bear holding each side, and Darby got a monkey on a palm tree. Here's a pic of their nifty balloon animals.

Back at the mall, we went to about every store looking for alternative red shirts and inexpensive cowboy boots, though our search was rather unsuccessful. Determined for this trip to not be completely fruitless, towards the end of our search, we stopped at the mall salon and got Shelby a haircut. She had been bothering me for a haircut since her sister got one a few weeks ago. And now she has shoulder-length hair like her sister (it was about halfway down her back). We also took care of a couple of mother's day tasks before we called it a night.

In the end, I think we've decided to take the long-sleeve red shirt to a tailor to have it made into a short-sleeve shirt. We're going to investigate that option sometime next week.