A Friday Commute, With Emphasis

Traffic was heavy on my way home from work tonight. I left work a little late, that is always trouble. And there was a very light rain, and that really bogs things down. But, it is Friday, and life has to try pretty hard to ruin the jubilation a weekend brings.

Shuffle was working in harmony with the traffic, keeping perfect time with the ebb and flow of the commute. We were cruising.

Behind me was a Suzuki XL7, silver, with a personalized plate, "GRANMA1" Two older women were chatting amiably, casually in the front seat, and it looked like there were a couple more elderly ladies behind them. Everything was slow, but moving, a live version of Maggie's Farm was playing, and it was great.

Soon, though, the gentle, kindly ladies in the car behind me were starting to get a little anxious. They were swerving into the median to see if things were starting to break up ahead, but it was a solid, slow moving parade as far as could be seen.

When I looked in my rear view mirror I could see them passing wine, drinking right from the bottle, and lighting cigarettes using a can of sterno. The passenger opened a 16 ounce can of beer. She rolled down her window, and flipped the bird to the truck driver stuck beside them.

From their aggressive maneuvers (falling back and then speeding to catch up, almost hitting my car)
it was obvious they were becoming impatient. When the COTA bus cruised past in the median it was more than they could bear.

Jamming their car into the shoulder right behind the bus the driver stomped onto the accelerator and slammed into the bumper. The passenger threw an empty quart beer bottle at the back of the bus.

Central Ohio bus drivers are trained professionals and know how to deal with threats. From the drivers window a mostly empty bourbon bottle described a perfect arc over the top of the bus, and landed almost exactly in the center of the Suzuki's windshield. It was a terrible sound as the windshield cracked and split.

A tremendous kick from the passenger drove the ruined windscreen out of the car and onto the side of the road. It made it easier to open fire on the defiant bus.

In fear for their lives the passengers on the bus returned fire, It was hard to say which was worse the noise, the stench, or the potential traffic jam that could result from this exchange, delaying the commute for hours.

As they drove out of sight, still in the median, still moving much faster than the rest of us, I saw the passenger and both "ladies" from the back seat scrambling out the hole where the front window used to be, jumping on the bus, and throwing tear gas grenades into the holes the gunfire had opened.

New Computer, New Tablet, Surface Pro 3 Does It All.

We here, Life Explained, have stepped into the future.  We needed a new computer, as our youngest son is getting ready to go back to school, and our old computer was ancient, it is probably seven or eight years old.  In computer age that is too old to believe, too old to use, even too old to donate.  It was so clogged with files, music, strata, upon layer, tier, years of our family life, piled onto an spinning disk.

In a way it would be fun to look back at the things we have filled the storage with, a scrapbook of family times, and memories.  But, it takes forever to start, and loading a file is like a dental visit painful, lengthy, and remarkably unsatisfying.  

We bought the New Microsoft Surface Pro 3, it is a remarkable machine, lightning quick, with 256 GB of storage, an Intel Core i5 Processor, which means almost nothing to me, but man this thing is pretty cool, I will post pictures soon.  I will post pictures of everybody in the family holding the new computer.  But, I will wait until everybody has been awake for a while.

People might be thinking, "you are an Apple user, Tim, why Microsoft?"  Great question, people.  I am an Apple user, but there was a time I thought an Apple product would never darken the sunny day of my narrow minded life.  I even had two Zunes, and really liked them, but when they gave up the line and my son bought his first iPod it was clear Apple had taken the lead in the "small, hand held, gaming, music listening, picture taking and manipulation devices."  

And from my first iPod, to my iPad, and on to my iPhone I have been happy with each.  They have been computational troopers beyond compare, and I still have, use and love them all, well not so much the iPod, I still have and love it, but it doesn't get that much use.  I am trying to convince my wife to use it as a camera, a facebook device, and to assist in her shopping wars, it is a slow process.

When it was time to replace the computer, we needed something that ran Microsoft Office, and something that was still at least a little cool, and this baby is it.  It is a robust, full fledged computer, that acts like a robust, full fledged tablet.  With a great deal of flexibility in both.  Also, it is a good looking little machine, sleek lines, and a brushed aluminum shell, that looks great with the keyboard, sold separately, of course.  Another ingenious device, the detachable key board is powered by the computer.  One less thing to charge

The Microsoft Store is filled with intriguing apps, and it seems that app shoppers are much fussy through Microsoft, than Apple, I downloaded "Imagecut" it had an average of three stars, and it is the easiest photo cutting app I have ever used.  I see big things for my friends, trips to Europe, and possibly Europa, keep your eyes open.

Having had this wonderful device less than 24 hours I can tell you it is going to be a valuable member of the family for quite a while.  If you are thinking about getting a new PC, and want something that is fun, fast, flexible, and just cool, think about the Surface Pro, I am happy, admittedly not a power user, but an apprentice geek, and that should count for something.

new software, and ice cream.

We are in the process of upgrading our accounting software at work.  After a lot of hand wringing, turmoil, finger pointing, name calling, and a few very entertaining fist fights in the hallways, stairwells, and break rooms they have decided to go with a  Microsoft product.  It has a Windows based architecture, and most of us are familiar with that program, so it made sense.

Our old software was based on the Abacus, not the operating system, the wooden frame with the little beads that run up and down little dowels.  Every time we hired someone new we would need to bring in a consultant to show how to use the Abacus.  And that was starting to run into some money since hardly any one, anywhere in the world knows how to add anything on one of those things, and if you start going too fast not only will your calculations suffer you could easily lose a finger nail, and with the cost of a decent manicure hovering right around, well I don't really know how much it costs, but my friend Brian said it is probably around $40.00, and maybe more, depending on the additional items chosen, and I trust Brian, he used to work in the "beauty field."

But, it was kind of fun on busy days watching our customer service people whipping those little beads up and down, while they were talking on the phone, and the noise was incredible, voices and singing beads raising a chorus of sales success to the heavens, the memory still brings a smile.  And it was one of the main reasons we never upgraded to the "slide rule" version, it was just not the same.

With any beginning there are skeptics, and this is no different, a faction of our accounting department (the ne'er-do-wells in accounts receivable) has revolted, taking over the 6th floor break room, the one with the soft serve machine.  We are mobilizing the custodial staff with a contingent from the legal department and several units from R and D to form into a double pincer movement to restore order and recapture the ice cream.

All in all, though, we feel we should be able to have this change completely implemented by the end of the month, with minimal loss of life, and little damage to the espresso machine, man, we love that machine.