ODDREE.COM

The Walls Have Ears

I just love burying myself into a cubicle and hiding ... For hours. I can listen to the conversations all around me through the walls of the cubicles, and sometimes I am lucky enough to hear people talk about me.

This afternoon I finally wrote up some "quiz" questions I was asked to create last week. Why I am being asked to write questions for a class to "screen" the students, I will never know. I was told, "write some questions about HTML and Dreamweaver to qualify students for the class". Hrm. So ... I can't ask them questions about Dreamweaver for a Dreamweaver class. They don't know it yet. I can't quiz someone on how to use HTML Tables if they aren't expected to know that yet. And why is the instructor writing the pre-screening questions? Isn't that a conflict of interest?

At any rate I put it off for days, and I knew I would be bugged again about it if I didn't git-r-done. So, I threw together my 15 questions and e-mailed them to the "training administrator". A few minutes later, one of the other employees here wandered to her desk. She says, "Steve sent me these questions in notepad! Why would he do that?". I could hear every *grunt* and *sigh*. It was super.

I actually sent the file to her in PLAIN TEXT. Notepad just happened to be her "plain text viewer" of choice. Obviously, she didn't know how to move it into Microsoft Word, and she really wanted a Word document. But now that I heard her talking snotty about me, I was ready to have fun with her. I had forgot to include the answers to the questions I had sent her, and she was asking "what kind of questions" they were. So when I replied, I saved it into a different format ... RTF! Microsoft Word (once installed) adopts the RTF format, but the icon is strange and it's sure to keep her guessing. Besides, I could probably do better.



I just know that she will ask me to change them ... which is why I put them off for almost a week in the first place. I all ready have my next format of file lined up, XML! XML is the future. And since we are in a discussion about Web Development, I think that the XML format is appropriate.

Breaking Protocol

When I came into work this morning, there was a small pow-wow of the consultants gathered around and they were giggling at my expense. They gathered around my desk and had a look at what I was wearing. One of them tells me, "they got on my case last winter about wearing a sweater over a t-shirt". I made a face. He continued, "they told me that it was 'unfashionable' and that you should wear a collared shirt under your sweater". Hah! They should have seen what I was wearing last week. Anyhow, I hiked up my sweater and showed them the t-shirt I was wearing. It says "SPLASH!" and has a picture of a bare chested Mermaid on it. One of the best Thrift Shop finds of this century. I threatened that if anyone complains about the way that I'm dressed, the sweater comes off and I will parade around in the mermaid shirt until I'm forced out the door.

Ray's iPod ... On It's Way!!

I would like to thank those of you who helped me get my iPod. Last night, I got my fifth referral. I went ahead and clicked the little "Request Approval" button, and went to bed. About 11:00AM this morning, they approved me. Not even 12 hours later. That was quick! Most people have wait a week or more. Now all that was left for me to do was to fill out my shipping information, and finalize the deal! Now my order reads as "Processing". Next, it will move onto "STV" (Sent To Vendor), and from that point, it's just a matter of waiting for it to show up on my door step.

To repay those of you who used me as a referral, ipods.gloop.net now randomly chooses one of my 5 referral friends and uses their referral ID. I wish all of you luck. I will be sure to keep everyone posted on new details, etc.