May 9, 2002

The Old Man and the Drainpipe

I fought fiercely with Nature tonight and won – channeling the deluges of heaven with my strength, my courage and a mop handle.

I have an old house with a quaint contraption over the front porch for channeling water called a "Yankee Gutter." The gutters from the roof feed onto the front porch and two drainpipes – one at each end of the porch – feed into a ledge over the edge of the porch. On the top-side, that ledge is a shallow gully lined with metal, designed to lead water water to the drainpipes. These gutters are accurate for the age of the house; however, their inefficiency provides an explanation why modern houses don't use such a contrivance. The relatively flat area of the gutters trap water as well as a anything falling from a tree or ... who knows what. The water then pushes the debris into the drainpipe, where some of it clears and a good bit of it becomes lodged in the pipe.

I got home around seven in the evening as another thunderstorm was rolling into Richmond. As it started to rain, I checked on the front porch and saw water pouring down all four sides of the porch – the drains were clogged again. So I grabbed an old metal handled mop and went outside.

I decided to start with the pipe farthest from the door. Initially, I walked out onto the sidewalk and try to clear the pipe from there. However, as I tried to look up at the pipe, I realized that it was raining so hard that I couldn't see anything. I also realized that it was raining so hard, that I was getting soaked. So I went back up on the porch. I pushed aside the porch swing at that end and got to the pipe from under the cover of the porch. I pried loose the pipe from the gutter and jammed the mop up drain. A stream of water came down, as thick around as my wrist. I jammed the pipe back into place. In a few moments, water stopped running over the edges of the porch room and I was satisfied that I had at some drainage.

When I went to look at the spout near the door, I saw something worse. The water was bubbling through the seam between the drainpipe and the gutter. I decided to try to clear that pipe as well. I loosened a wire holding the pipe to the porch and pulled it free of the gutter. That pipe felt four times as heavy as the other one. I inverted the pipe, pointing the gutter end down at the sidewalk, and a stream of water came out. As the water left, I could still feel some weight down at the bottom end of the pipe – obviously, the blockage was down at the bottom in this case. I started trying to shake the blockage free, holding the drain pipe out in the rain. Quickly, I realized that I was waving around a ten foot piece of metal in a thunderstorm. I reattached the pipe and went inside.

The first storm broke and I went back outside. I removed the pipe and gave it a good shake. First, a small piece of paint and sludge came out of the pipe. I shook the pipe again and felt something slide in the pipe. I shook it once last time and an eight inch long cylinder of compressed treebark, twigs and mulch scattered onto the sidewalk.

May 8, 2002

The Joys of Working Late

I stayed at work a little later tonight – until about 7pm. I worked on some code for the boss's website and enjoyed it. I had two hours without an interruption where I could code and debug without distractions. Around ten of six, I began making some stupid errors, so I fixed what I could and went home. Overall, I left the office with a lot of work accomplished and a nice two hour period of being "in the flow".

Now, I've had extremely opposite experiences working late – especially at the my last job where I'd stay late setting up a dozen PC's at a time. It was tedious work – installing software, cleaning up settings – with brief segments of inactivity punctuated with periods of acute frustration. In short, it was not joyful.

In a couple of his books, Tom DeMarco points out post-5pm productivity as a symptom of a dysfunctional workplace, usually caused by a surfeit of interruptions. I'll admit that today had a few interruptions. De Marco recommends turning off the phone – however, a lot of them were just co-workers, including a couple of managers, coming into my cube for assistance. I helped them, which was rewarding., and then stayed a little later to finish up some programming, which was also rewarding. In fact, I'm a little ahead on things, which is a gratifying feeling; as we wind down development next week, I can ease up on the pedals and just coast.

Need Blogging Software?

There's an informative article on blogging software on WebMonkey this week. If you're thinking of putting up a site of your own, software like MoveableType, Radio Userland or Blogger makes it much easier. I'm not much of an endorsement, mind you; NoPrize.net is still static pages molded by hand. However, as things start to get more out of hand, I may bite the bullet and install some blogging software.

That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;
What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.

In case you've forgotten, Shakespeare was a genius. And reading Shakespeare on the boss's T-1 is much more forgivable than...say.. the Onion. Maybe even funnier.

May 6, 2002

Stories and More Stories

One of the last venues for day to day story telling is weddings – family members remember previous gatherings, new acquaintances find common ground on shared experiences, and friends remind each other of past escapades. I sat at a table with six or seven unrelated people and get a nice set of tales. Michael told the story of a friend's wedding in Charlottesville, Virginia, when it snowed two feet in April; he drove the guests to the church from the hotel a quarter mile away. I added on a story about a co-worker who had planned his wedding reception at the local country club, only to have a storm blow a huge tree on top of it; the reception was held instead at the local high school – sans alcohol. Pat ended our run of stories with a recent one about a tree that fell during a storm near his family's house in Farmville; the base of the trunk was more than 15 feet in circumference. All of this was in a half hour; there was far more story swapping during the remainder of the reception and at the party at the bride and groom's house later.

Beetle Bailey Needs Geeks

If it's not on bytes, it's on newsprint for yours truly. Beetle Bailey is looking to add a "computer-geek" character as tech-support for General Half-track and his staff. Before Dilbert, Beetle Bailey and Blondie were probably the only two broadly popular comics to address office life. So, you can have your chance at fame – suggest a name for the character. He has to report to General Half-track, so General Protection Fault and Colonel Panic are probably taken. And this is the army, so Commander Taco is probably out.