Living and Dying

It seems like today's topic should be about life and death. Primarily, Christ's death, which is on our minds this Holy Saturday. My emails this week brought the news of several deaths--a woman from my high school class, a father and a brother of friends. I sympathize with the sorrow and sadness that my friends feel at their personal loss, even as I'm also reminded of my own grandmother who passed away on Good Friday three years ago, while I was at the theater seeing The Passion of the Christ.

I suppose most blogs don't talk about death because most blogs are written by people too young to be very acquainted with death. Their time will come, if they live that long.

Death makes a good backdrop to talk about life. Today's email also brought news of a birth and the joy this new life was bringing. I have purposely cut off the head of this smiling man as he proudly holds his new child in one arm and his new grandchild in the other. His child is the older one, obviously. ;-)

Lastly today, if you need some good music to start tomorrow, try my favorite Easter Song It sounds best when your speakers are maxed out. :-) (Actually, I have the recording--I don't really know how that Rhapsody download thing works, but you could try it if you don't have the song yourself.)

Geek Meets Tightwad (Only Two Wads Allowed)

Only at my place of employment would you get an announcement like the following:

Last year the maintenance department was called 522 times to respond to plugged toilets. That's an average of over two per day. Each response took an average of 30 minutes of time, which comes to 261 hours for the year. We have found that because our toilets are water savers, using only 1.8 gal/flush, they plug much easier than the older toilets. Most of the time water saver toilets will flush OK with two wads of paper, but a third wad can cause problems. Please feel free to flush more to help reduce the number of plugs. The labor to unplug the toilets last year cost more than $5,000 while 522 more flushes would have only cost $5.63. Thanks for helping!

I just want you to know that around here, we analyze everything. Look for this information to be added to the Enterprise Data Model (EDM) after which the head Enterprise Architect (EA) will be assigning work orders to deal with the issue, pending buy-in from each of the major centers, approval of his budget for next fiscal year, and the solution to all security and sensitivity concerns.

Hero Gone to Pot

I was not happy when I flushed and got wet feet. No, not happy.

But it turned out to be a cheap (less than $3) and easy repair--what would I do without those Reader's Digest Fix It Yourself books?

Just the rubber gasket between tank and bowl needed to be replaced. (At least the spewing water was from the tank and not the bowl.)

Side benefit: clean bathroom floor.

Somehow, This Just Says It All