A Popped Grape

A few years ago, I worked with a guy named Dean. Nice guy, worked as a saleman for our company. Unfortunately, he never sold anything, and he liked to look at porn on the clock. But that's a whole different story. Dean had high blood pressure. On some days his face was all red and he would shake a little bit. He would joke with me about it, and say things like "the Deansters going to just pop", or "I feel like a grape getting ready to be popped". And he looked that way too.

I know nothing about high blood pressure, other than I seem to have a case of it. It started with me feeling really strange, and getting red in the face. My chest would ache, I felt very tense, and I just suddenly realized, "I was a grape!". A couple of times I was asked "why is your face all red?". So I did what any concerned person would. I went to the grocery store and stuck my arm in one of those machines that check your weight and blood pressure. The first time I tried it I was in teh very high normal range. No sweat. But I wasn't really 'feeling it' at the time. A few days later, I was feeling like 'the grape', and I was at the grocery, so I gave it another shot. I don't know what "Hypertensive" means exactly, but it was flashing red with all sorts of warnings so I know that's not good.

So what the hell causes high blood pressure?

• Diet - Too much fat, not enough veggies.
  
• Excercise - Stand up once in a while and walk around.
  
• Stress - Get a new job.

That seems to be about the right order too. Which tells me I need to eat better, and just chill out.

Anyhow, I love thanksgiving. This is a bad time to think about 'eating better', because I have been eating like a fucking pig. You're supposed to this time of year right? Just half an hour ago I stuffed a turkey into the oven for dinner tonight. He is a healthy 20 pounder. We will be enjoying him with sides of stuffing, sweet potato caserole, and possibly some mashed potatoes. Yum.

Well ... about time to rotate and baste that turkey.

Historic Comments
You're a hard man to find an email address for. Email me!
Zachary Miller | Homepage | 07.22.05 - 7:15 am | #

Also, I guess I could post it to you. That might help. znmiller at sbcglobal dot net
Zachary Miller | Homepage | 07.22.05 - 7:16 am | #

Wireless Retards

Unfortunately retarded people are not a good source of wireless networking. If they were, I would have myself the wireless equivelant of an OC-768 out here. It's 7:23AM here in Warrensville Ohio. I just drove a couple of hours to get here to teach an Office Integration 2000 course here at a State Run retardation care community. At least the second half of it as I understand. I am guessing really. This course was supposed to be completed by another instructor who put it off, and then got sick for two weeks. So lucky me, I get to finish it off.

I have not been here in months. It's been nice. We have no network connectivity here. We did at one time. But one day, the connection went dead. I inquired with the local administrator here and he was a snooty little bastard. Looks like we stepped on his toes. I was very nice on the phone, but it didn't cheer him up at all. I imagine that if I managed a network for retards, I would be an asshole too. He did not want our classroom on his network. Nobody asked him about it. So when he 'found' it on his network, he pulled the plug from the wiring closet. He sure showed us! The conversation ended something like this.

Me: Well, I am sorry that we were on your network. I certainly hope our network did not harm yours?
Mr. Switzer: No, but again nobody asked me about it.
Me: Right, sorry again about that.
*pause*
Me: Hey, are you related to a Shane Switzer in Columbus?
Mr. Switzer: No, I'm not (sounding annoyed).
Me: All right, well thanks for your time.
Mr. Switzer: Uh-huh. *click*
Me: How you doin'? Hello? How's your babies?
*dial tone*

Now I am in the middle of nowhere, with no network to speak of. It really sucks. When I rolled in this morning I was overjoyed to have picked up a signal. But it's several buildings away, and far too weak to make it's way to where I will be. And I would rather not roam the halls around here. There's retards everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE. You couldn't swing a laptop bag here without striking a blow to one. I have all ready heard my favorite retard wandering the halls this morning. She will ask you "How you doin?" and usually before you can answer that question, she asks "How's your babies?". This is the extent of her conversation skills. She is retarded afterall. So I always answer with something to the effect of "I'm great", and "they're just fine". But sometimes I get the feeling she just doesn't even care. Damn retards are so inconsiderate. She's all ready up the hall asking someone else about their babies.

Now I should probably get this classroom ready. I think they come in here at 8:00. But then, there is no way to know for sure. Since the previous instructor left me no paperwork.

8:05AM - Normally my students would come strolling in about now. But not this morning. I just called back to the office in Columbus. I have a class from 10 to 2:00PM with NO evening class. That makes me happy. I am a bit disturbed that I was 2 and a half hours early for class. But I don't care. I am just happy I won't be trapped here all day. Thank you o' Lord.

I am sick of working on my resume. I like it. I'm ready to mail it pending some peer approval. So now I think I will look through what I captured in the way of networks this morning with Audrey.



GRDAP1 is the one that's right around the corner, just out of reach. If I wasn't so lazy I might drive over there and leech it. But the parking lot is probably filling up now with staff so it would be a bad time to idle there.

Wris.com? Well aren't we proud. Congratulations, you WEP'd it dudes. What we are seeing here is the Goofus and Gallant of networking. The upper guy WEP'd everything, the lower guy secured nothing. These buildings are only about 300 feet apart. Perhaps they thought the SSID was their biggest concern, so they hid it. That will make it harder to connect surely. But still pretty easy to grab data from.



My capture runneth over! Damn you Cisco and your clever WiFi traps! I forgot Cisco has an office up this way. As I pass it on the freeway I am bombarded with hundreds of non-existent access points all at once. It makes me want to go exploring Cisco even more. If I could make my way through this haze, and attack their network anyway, wouldn't I be cool? Bah, I'm sure any real AP's in there are WEP'd.



3m3ra1d - DUDE J00 ARE TEH L33T!!!

ashlandscales - I can't be 100 percent sure, but I think this access point is attached to a weigh station for the highway patrol. It would make sense. I understand some trucks are WiFi equipped to provide quick trade offs of information for their "home base".



Sounds like a nickname for 'giving someone the finger' doesn't it? The FlyingJ is a gas station and also an eatery. It's one of those havens for truckers that slightly resembles the Star Wars Cantina. Among other things, they feature 2 full service counters, a foodery, baked goods, a CB shop, DVD selections, pay showers, and an Internet Station. These are little booths that you chuck 5 bucks into and then you can surf the web for a while. Silly. Sillier yet, is that you can sit in their parking lot and use their connection for free. Save the five bucks and put it towards some of those silver ladies mud flaps in aisle 3.



Hello Mr. Car Salesman. I would like to purchase a car at cost. I have those figures here with me. If you will not sell me the car at cost, I am afraid I will have to mail these figures to your past 200 customers. They may be irritated when they find what your markup is on these vehicles.



A neighborhood that would like to be explored. Applejacks? But if it doesn't taste like apples, why do you like it? Them: "We just do, all right?". Sorry. That was an Apple Jacks cereal commercial joke.



Now here is something interesting. I have had people ask me "Ray, if the SSID is hidden how do you connect to it?". My answer is generally, "if I look under the networks available, there are blank lines I can click on".

But then the SSID must not be hidden, it must be blank. If it's hidden, I should be asked to put in the SSID. So look at the above picture. We have a blank one, a hidden one (its' marked hidden) and then another blank. Odd. Perhaps I have been confusing "hidden" with "blank". I will have to explore this on my next war-driving expedition. Hopefully Discount Man and I will hold one this weekend.

That is about the extent of the interesting things I found this morning. I have spared you the countless 'linksys' and 'default' SSID's I came across. Not bad considering I hit every one of those from a highway where I was passing them at 80 MPH. You see, these things WANT to be explored. They are calling out to me as I speed by them.

Current Mood: Comfortably numb.
Musical Inspirations: Moby's 18 album, and Lord's Of Acid's Lust (The Most Wonderful Girl) I WANNA TOUCH MYSALF'!!

Casualties Of War

Just got back into town. Man is it good to be home. We were only gone for 2 days, but it seemed much longer. And now it feels good to be in my own bed, with Audrey in my lap, blogging again. Oh yeah, and Casualties Of War is on one of the movie channels. Michael J. and Seann Penn in their finest team-up film.

On Saturday we took the trip from Ohio on down into Huntington West Virginia. Oddly enough, I had a map to get there. About a year ago we took a trip to Virginia beach, and we must have passed through this town. The trip took about 3 hours. Once in town, we checked into our room at the Red Roof Inn. What a dump. The recliner had cigarette holes burned into it. The bed had big mattress dents. And we discovered later that we didn't even get shampoo. Nevermind about the missing iron and coffee maker I was supposed to have. The extra 10 bucks I paid for the room only got me a little desk that my huge laptop didn't even fit on.

The only good thing about the hotel is that there was an access point right across the street. I was happy because I thought I might be able to hit an AP from the room. We hit lots of access points. In fact, for being such a small town, they sure had a LOT of access points. My wife had Audrey in her lap and was reading me off SSID's and who was WEP'd as they sprung up.



Once inside the hotel, we got dressed up in our wrinkled clothes, and then it was back in the car to go find the funderal home. It was a short ways from the hotel. We were just outside of downtown, and the funeral home was on the other side. Downtown was only about 10 small blocks of single story buildings. It was actually a nice little town.

One we made our way to the wake, we greeted the few relatives we knew of this man and made some small talk with friends. It was a while before we got into the line to the casket. Once there, it was awkward. We were not direct relatives, or really direct friends. But we wanted to support Arthur Jr. Art Jr. is my wifes, brothers, 'special friend'. Basically, they are partners. The church doesn't like to accept that some people are gay, and have homosexual relationships. Therefore they are 'special friends'. I'm getting away from the story. There we are at the casket, greeting the widow. She is a very sweet woman. And her husband was an extremely nice man.

Looking at him in the casket was like seeing a stranger. I hadn't seen him in more than a year. We usually conversed with him at parties and get togethers around the fourth of July. But within a year, he had taken ill with a disease that ended his life quickly.

It was painful for the family. They had just recently all been together to celebrate the couples 40th wedding anniversery. I got the impression that they knew this might be their last anniversery party together. And that made you feel even worse. Arthur Wills was only 61 years old. And up until 1 year ago he was a perfectly healthy, happy man.

This morning we woke up around 8:30AM. It was nice sleeping in, even if it was in a dirty hotel bed. I was so ready for breakfast. Rotary's brother called inviting us to go to a park. We declined. Instead we went to Shoneys for a greasy breakfast buffet. The food wasn't bad. It wasn't fine dining, but it was all you can eat redneck style. I was pleased until I got a $17.55 bill. Whoah! No wonder they feed you so well here.

We had a lot of time to waste before funeral services. Several hours. So we did some shopping. But we didn't want to drive too far away from the small dowtown area where the funeral home was located. Wouldn't want to come to a funeral late. We hit a few shops, and then I just had to pull a quick war drive.

With Audrey in my wifes lap, I drove down the Marshall University strip. Access Points galore. Most un-WEP'd. The problem was, no parking. Like most campus areas, you need a special parking pass to go anywhere.

After cruising a few residential areas, I came across a nice strong signal, with a good parking spot. Location? Someone's law office. I know, because the building said "LAW OFFICES" on it. Pretty cheap looking law firm. I hopped right onto their access point, and grabbed an IP address. By subtracting a number, I found the one other compuer on this network and attached to it. Username: guest Password: guest

It was Windows XP. So I should have only had access to "ShareDocs" which never has anything in it. Here is what I got.



So basically, some weenie went against Windows XP's better judgement and shared the entire C: drive. I immediately went in and started poking around. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood, but I didn't find anything all that interesting. Some documents, a few odd programs that must be DOS based. I took a .wpd file from a Documents folder. I think it's a Word Perfect Document. Which, when opened with a plain text editor can be made somewhat readable. Just some losers file. Boring really. We decided to move on.

Our search for a coffee shop was hopeless. In this small town everything is closed on Sunday. So on to the funeral we went. It was a tremendous turn-out. We seated ourselves in the rear of the parlor to let the familys have the front seats. After a while, the funeral patrons were bringing out extra chairs to seat people behind us. Art Wills was a loved man, with lots of friends.

The service was really nice. They had a friend of the church lead the service, versus a minister. And they had a man sing some songs such as "amazing grace", and oddly enough "wind beneathh my wings". I hate the song, but it was done very tastefully. When that song hit the radios, it made me want to vomit. And the fact that everyone was acting like it was the song of the century made it worse. To top it off, this song means a lot to my wife who lost her aunt. It was very emotional.

We went on to the cemetary where two highly decorated soldiers removed and folded a flag that covered Art Wills casket. Very respectful. Art was a vietnam veteran. We then went by to the widows house where the family returned.

It was very uncomfortable, but I was glad we went. It seemed to be more family than anything else. And the night before my wife and I had a brief conversation with the widow that made me glad we made the trip. She told us how happy she was that we came. And how happy she has been to have Michael (my wifes brother) around during this dificult time. She told us how they compliment one another. And she shared some stories about how they were opposites of each other which always gave them a strong marriage. As she spoke with us, I looked around at all the photos. It was like a timeline of their loving marriage. It was terribly saddening.

This trip has served as a reminder that all good things come to an end. One day, my marriage will end. Not in divorce, but in death. It certainly makes you appreciate who you have in life.

It's getting late now, and I am beat. My wife is all ready dead asleep, and I am not far behind her.

Historic Comments
Idiot.
I hope you get arrested, what you did is illegal and connecting your wireless card to a CB antenna more than likely fried it's transmitter
Anonymous | 09.28.05 - 9:53 pm | #

my favorite is cheer

Today's oddball title was stolen from a student I had this morning who was 'fat fingering' in a mail message to send to a partner. I was showing them how to use Outlook Express as documented in Windows 2000 Module II form Computer Prep. He intended to say something about enjoying cherry pie. But when he spelled cherry wrong, he didn't know how to correct it. So he just stopped typing. This simple phrase gave me a chuckle on an otherwise ho-hum day.

I was dreading coming back to this location in the forest this morning. Once I was here it wasn't so bad. I only had two students for my morning class. And they were pretty good students. They learned a little bit about folder structuring, file names, and even a few tidbits about e-mail. I am now between classes and dreading my 4 to 8 PM class. I all ready have about 8 people in the class, and there will be a 9th tonight. Trying to do simple labs becomes difficult when nearly all of your students have a hard time interpreting instructions. It gets even tougher when they begin reaching over and helping each other out. In fact, I had a guy Tuesday night look at the background properties of windows and tell his partner "you can have this thing look for new wallpaper on your computer". "How?", she asked. "You click there where it says search", he yells back. That got my attention. Had he discovered some new feature? Then the girl hollers back to him, "Uhm ... that says *stretch*". They're not all bright bulbs.

I have spent my day rather well. I just put a good hour into my resume and cover letter for a position I am applying for. I know it's not good to obsess over something like this ... but that's how I am. Perhaps it's part of that manic depressive living deep inside of me. Once i start thinking about something I want, it won't go away. Now I am spending endless hours of time working toward it. It's going to turn into depression when I find out that this position has all ready been filled. But I'm going to try and imagine that's not the case. I have to be optimistic. Even so, I will have worked pretty hard on a resume. And that's a good first step to admitting it's time to do something else with my career.

I like training. If I get out of it, there will be things I will miss. Namely the performance. When you teach to a group, you are like the star of your own show. You have all their attention. They are hanging on your every word. What you are saying is so important, that they take notes. There is a certain satisfaction in that. And I just like teaching people something new.

I'm really sleepy now. I think I will have Audrey play me some ambient Moby tracks while I get some shut eye between classes.

QUACK!

Know what that sound is? It's what you hear when you are a fucktard. This morning I come to work. The drive was miserable. A little bit of rain hits the road and suddenly everyone is wanting to steer into you. But let's forget about that.

So I walk in the door and find that this contract instructor has all ready started her class. She was brought in to teach a 3-day Oracle class. She is from Texas. And she is an idiot. About half an hour earlier I got a phone call from the office. It seems that there was a problem with her classroom setup. She was missing her powerpoint viewer! You would think an exerienced instructor with Internet access would know what to do. But who said she was experienced. She was obviously a certified Oracle instructor. And that is about the extent of her knowledge.

Our receptionist thought fast. She knew in the back offices we had copies of just about any Microsoft software. So she brought out an Office 2000 CD and handed it off to our instructor. She stared back blankly. "You can install Office 2000 ... custom install, and get powerpoint from this". But it was no good. She had no idea what to do. So she was told "someone will be in shortly to help you".

That someone was me. When I arrived, I threw open the door, and there were 12 students staring back at me. The instructor pointed to the open CD-ROM drive and said "that's the computer you need to put it on, not that other one". That was helpful for me. Because I knew that that other computer was actually a router. She also let me know that her D drive was "inaccessible". So I sat down, installed the powerpoint viewer, and headed out of the room.

That was easy. I grab some coffee and head into the server room to see how sick our mail server was this morning. As soon as I sit down, my door is opened, and there is numb-nuts. "It's telling me my D: drive is inaccessible". So I go into the room again. Now her students look slightly annoyed. I know this stupid game. She will soon be bashing this 'damn training center' for it's failing hardware. But I detect that some of these wiser students have all ready figured her out. I can *FEEL* them rolling their eyes at her. I walk to the machine, put her disc in, and bring up her stupid slides with ease. No problem. As I try to sneak out of the room again she turns and asks me (in front of her class) "so what was wrong with that thing?". I explained "You have to let the little disc spin around a bit before you try to access it" *wink*. It's hard to explain, but I put on my 'big boy' voice. The kind of tone you take when you are telling a 3 year old not to put twinkies in the VCR.

This was just the beginning of the idiots I had to deal with today. By 10:30AM I was full of rage. Partly because of the idiots, and also because of my work schedule. I am facing solitude for what will probably end up being weeks on end. Several times a week I will be driving out to a forest to teach the monkeys how to use Microsoft Office products. 2 hours out, 2 hours inbetween classes. 2 hours to drive back home. That's six hours from my 14 hour days that I will not be getting compensated for. I'm not exactly sure how this is a fair working relationship.

So I did what anyone would do. I hit the job sites. I have hit them before in the past. But today I felt like I was really looking. I think I have been slowly but surely talking myself into walking away from this job. It's futureless now. The longer I stay, the more meaningless my roles become. How will I ever get a raise when I go from teaching routing, to how to use a mouse. I am moving in reverse, and that is unacceptable.

I made the move to document a few jobs that sound really cool, and would probably pay very well. I even went out to the office supply store and bought some really nice paper to put my resume on. That %100 cotton stuff. So you will be taken seriously. Then I began work on my resume. And boy does it need work. I figure I have a couple of hours of downtime tomorrow I can use to work on it.

Well now bedtime is near. I need to get up early so I can drive into the forest again for class. Can't wait.

Wireless Cows

When I traveled to Tiffin just the other day I kept thinking to myself "what a barren wasteland". When I tell people I live in Ohio, they automatically thing I live amongst cows and cornfields. Traveling around I see why. After you travel about 30 miles outside of a city. There's nothing but cows and corn for miles.

Throughout my 2 hour+ journey to "Mohican" today I had Audrey trucking along looking for access points. I puposely waited until I was long outside of city limits before starting up the scan. Just to see what's active out here. What did I find? Nothing. No surprise really. In fact, I found so little that I decided to chart my trip for you all. I pointed my cantenna towards all sorts of things, yet none of them registered on my stumbler tool.



It wasn't until I hit the town of "Buttler" that I found anything. And that was only one or two access points. Before I knew it I had left the town. I saw one sign welcoming me, and another sign about two miles down the road that thanked me for my visit. The next little town I came to is what I think is "Perrysville". They registered a few access points on my list. But still only a small handfull. In the photo below you will see the entire list. Sad isn't it?



Unfortunately I had to drive about 7 or 8 miles past of these access points to get to my current location. A juvenile youth correction facility in the middle of a forest. And I do mean "a forest". Behind me I havd a giant ugly fenced in compound full of bad kids. In front of me a beautiful forrest loaded with old pines. The trees out here are so thick here it's amazing. Looking into the woods there is no sign of civilization. In fact. I was standing outside of my car on the cell phone and I couldn't believe how quiet it is out here. Creepy really.

Now I am in my car avoiding the wildlife (like a spoiled city dweller) and playing on my laptop. Unfortunately we are holding two classes a day out here. The first runs from 9:30AM to 1:30PM. Then I have a second class from 4:00 to 8:00PM. This sucks because although I am here all day long, I am only teaching 8 hours of it. Therefore I don't see a lick of bonus for it. It's a rip off. I guess the good news is that I don't have any classes tomorrow (Wednesday) or Friday.

So here I sit between classes with 2 hours to waste. At least I have my lappy! *hugging Audrey* And of course, I have YOU the reader. At least I think I have readers. People sometimes tell me that they enjoyed my journal. Please do leave comments. I read those (even if my counter doesn't really work).

Teaching Monkies To Fly

Last night I went home feeling rather stressed out. I downed several white russians. Not a bad drink. It's a nice way to get good and loaded without the bad taste of hard liquor. Before I knew it, I had drank about four. I slammed two (and I mean slammed) before even starting dinner. After eating and having a couple more I headed down to check my e-mail etc.

I saw that Kevin Rose was online and had messaged me. I gave a hollar back and let him know I was around (even though my away message said otherwise). I also explained to him that I had quite a long day. So I was going to remain in hiding with my messenger. He said he knew the feeling. Then I went on to tell him that my day consisted of teaching Word 2000 to computer illiterate state workers.

There is a certain sadness to my job that I know other instructors pick up on. For that matter, many IT people have to understand my pain. Sometimes I feel that I am not making a difference. Not that I should go home and cry. I get my paycheck. Who cares right? But what is the reason for all this? What do people take away from one of my classes? Often I figure the skills they do learn will not do them any good.

I'm not training doctors to find a cure for cancer. I'm not educating geologists who will later develop energy saving methods. I'm not training soldiers to murder our enemies. I am teaching Word to someone who will never use it.

I could only compare myself to Mathew Broderick and the monkies. When I laid down my analogy to Kevin and told him it was like that movie (with Mathew and the monkies) to which he replied "which one?". Now that I think about it ... there have been multiple titles with Mathew and a monkey But I was referring to that movie where these evil people are teaching monkies how to fly.

Why teach monkies how to fly? What the hell was the point of flying monkies? It's not as if we will ever put monkies into 747's and have them piloting commercial airliners. If you remember the film, there is a dark secret plot. The monkeys are being used as guinea pigs to see the effects on a pilot whos been exposed to radiation.

So what's with the monkies? I am teaching monkies how to fly. I give people skills they won't ever use. Why? Because I'm paid for it. They walk away feeling they have gained something. And sometimes they have. But not in these classes. Perhaps if I felt that I reached just one person. More often though, I feel that people really don't care. They see that they can get some classes and learn some computer related things. But once they are in the class they realize "I don't care about this stuff!".

Remember in the Matrix when Morpheus found Neo? Neo had actually been looking for him. That was important. Neo wanted to know things. He had been seeking answers. Imagine if Morpheus tracked Neo down, and Neo wasn't at all interested in learning the truth. Would he still train so well? Would he aquire the same skills if he knew in the end all of his work was pointless? It is my belief that the average person has the desire to become an IT-ish person, until they find that it's an unrewarding career. Sure, you can make good money. But you devote your life to a machine that will never thank you for it.

Like anything else, you have to be interested in something to learn about it. To work with it day in and day out. I can teach those who care. Yet, I can't teach someone to care. And sometimes, I feel that's what I'm really teaching. I teach people why they should care about IT.

Thats enough rambling. I had to get that off my chest.

Farmers Use WEP

While driving out into the wide open country that is 'Ohio' this morning I had Audrey (the laptop) at my side looking for Access Points. One of the few complaints I have about her is that her speaker kind of sucks. It's very small and music sounds really lousy on it. However, when I listen to music, I always plug in headphones. So who cares. On this drive, I wanted to play tunes, so I plugged my little FM stereo sending unit to the headphone jack. So I could play tunes from iTunes, and still hear the bells go off when KisMac stumbled onto an access point. And did it ever stumble!

Oddly enough, I was still hitting access points FAR out into the country. At times I was looking around a dead wasteland of weeds and left wondering "where in the hell could the access point be?". When there is nothing but farm, I must be picking up farms. It didn't surprise me really. Exploring southern Ohio I have also picked up many farms. I imagine the 'modern farmer' probably keeps things well synched with one another. Perhaps even use some tools for measuring crops, soil, etc. Or hell, maybe they want to ride around on their John Deere tractors listing to mp3's off a mapped drive back in the barn. Who am I to judge?

Below is a sample. Notice that all the access points have a MAC address that starts the same. The first three pieces of the MAC address (BSSID) indicate the 'vendor' of who manufactured the Access Point device.



Must be the same farm. Or connected farms? Who knows. Blew my mind. Notice that most of the points are WEP'd, some are not. All were found in the same stretch of road (a few miles) which is indicated by the time they were discovered in the far right column, and the fact that I was plowing down a 55mph highway at about 80mph trying to get to work on time. I know, I need a laptop battery. Forgive that it's suddenly 1969 again. *singing* In the summer of 69' - Whooaaahh!

Now here I am in Tiffin Ohio. Its lunchtime for me (2:15PM). No Internet. This sucks. I have about 2 hours before my next class. I was hoping for some wireless signals out here that I could leech on. No such luck. Closest wireless signal I could sniff out is about five miles closer to the residential areas of "Tiffin Ohio". I am now in the upper floor of a very old building. I asked a student when I arrived "any wireless connectivity out here?". His response, "wireless what?" was a good indication that they were behind a bit on this technology stuff.

I should have known. I'm coming out here to teach people how to use Microsoft Word. I guess it's a break from the kind of classes that I had been teaching. But I doing these courses requires a LOT of patience. My students are generally lacking in basic point and click skills. Anyhow ... off to eat my lunch and pray that 8:00PM comes fast so I can buzz back to Columbus.