The Venting Spot

[McDugan 89]

So I decided to sell of a bunch of semi-operable old laptops for parts. I threw in a couple hard drives that were laying around unused. Of course I formatted them and did a secure delete so that all my data was off them.

Last night we discovered that one of the drives I had erased and sent out had the backups of all our family pictures. Turns out those backups were, for about a year's worth of pics and video (Sept '12 to June '13) the only copies. And, oh, right, that's most of my son's 1-2 yr. old year. We have some pics in different places, but mostly lower res (uploaded to social media, etc.) and not nearly the full load.

My wife had them on her old work computer but had deleted her personal folder. Here's hoping our friend with access to fancy file recovery tools can help us out, or else I'm really going to be in a world of shit with the wife.

[IPv6Freely 2092]

Good luck if you did a DOD-level wipe on the drive. Sorry about the circumstances - that sucks.

[WatchYour5Hole 4]

Agreed on both points. The education system is broken. When making money and producing a winning football team is more important than educating its students, you know there is something wrong. Unfortunately, money is what drives this world, so it's pretty unlikely to change.

Good call on the accounting degree. Being flexible is so important. Thats why while I would never EVER encourage somebody to get an IT-related degree (complete waste of time and money), those people should absolutely work towards a general business degree part time while working after they read some books and take some tests :). You may think at first that you just want to be technical forever, but a decade into it and you will start wanting to rise up the ranks into sales engineering or management. The business degree opens up a ton of options for your future once hands-on technical work burns you out.

Which is why I am glad my major was Accounting Information Systems. A nice blend, opened me to more options.

[moteef17 7]

Wasn't sure where else to put this...here we go. Frustrating weekend in my Beer/C-league gamesa. 1st game I carried puck in deep late in the 3rd period, looking to put a pass out in front for one of my forwards. I couldn't pick him up as I made my turn towards the net, so I decided I would go behind the net and catch him on the other side. As I duck around the back of the net with a little extra speed and turn up to get the puck in front, I see a body headed right for me with contact unavoidable. We hit hard...and it was only as we hit that I realized it was one of my own D who had overzealously been crashing towards the net. My head was down (lesson-learned) and I took a hard shot in the head and we both went down. He saw the contact coming and braced for it (not sure why he didn't just avoid it), so I think I got the worst of it. I was a little dazed and had to get up slowly. As I skated over to see if he was alright, he's already chirping at me about not passing the puck, seeing him in front, etc, etc. I looked at him surprised and said - "I don't think you need to be upset here.", at which point he just kept chirping about me not passing, etc. I didn't want to get into a verbal spat, so I just skated towards the bench to get my head right and get some water. As I got to the bench a bit of rage welled up and I smashed my stick over the boards (away from teammates). At that point I realized I was in no state of mind to finish the last 5 minutes of the game, so I skated off. I don't need to play if that's the atmosphere amongst teammates. He'd been a bit edgy all game and I needed to get out of there before I made the situation worse.

I played another game the next night and took a puck to the temple/edge of cage from about 8 feet away. Frustrating play..... I was in on the forecheck and pressing one of their D. As I skate towards him, I see he's winding up to send the puck up out of the zone. Based on the angle I played, it looks like he's going to send the puck up the boards. As I start my turn away from him, he just whips the puck directly at my head and it catches me square in the side of the cage / temple area. I went down right away, seeing stars for the 2nd time this weekend. The side of my face was on fire. He skated over right away to apologize, and I kept my cool - just a freak thing I suppose.

Ugh.....

[McDugan 89]

I keep seeing arts organizations (and I'm sure this is happening in other fields too) offering internship "opportunities" that are really full-time positions that should be occupied by paid staff. Just disgusting and disheartening for so many reasons.

Edited February 11, 2014 by McDugan

[MThockeydad 469]

@moteef17, maybe you and your teammate need to go out for a beer and hash things out.

Sorry about the temple hit. That sucks.

@McDugan, no, not in construction.

[Chadd 916]

I keep seeing arts organizations (and I'm sure this is happening in other fields too) offering internship "opportunities" that are really full-time positions that should be occupied by paid staff. Just disgusting and disheartening for so many reasons.

The government is starting to crack down on that a bit. Way too many companies have been trying to use them as free labor instead of a learning experience.

[bigdmac 12]

The government is starting to crack down on that a bit. Way too many companies have been trying to use them as free labor instead of a learning experience.

My wife's company just got into big trouble for that this previous summer. The interns are only allowed to "work" a maximum of 15 unpaid hours a week, while some of the students were doing over 30. Needless to say the people in charge of the internship got in big trouble and the whole process was delayed a year. It's a shame how a company can do something like that and have a student miss out on an excellent opportunity the next year because of legal battles.

[badger_14 601]

Was going to fly out today to visit my brother, SIL, and my nephews for my littler nephew's 1st birthday - big deal, as I haven't seen the older one since he was 8 months old, never met the little one, and haven't flown anywhere since before 9-11.

But the weather came, the flight is cancelled, and there aren't any free seats (with this airline) til the 18th. So, no flight, no trip, no mini-nephew's birthday. Ticked off, frustrated, and sad.

Edited February 13, 2014 by badger_14

[RadioGaGa 162]

That sucks. I have 2 nephews out East. 1 I've seen three in just over 2 years....to other I've only met once!

[MThockeydad 469]

My brother and SIL live in Colorado. When they come to MT, they spend the entire week with her family.
We haven't been invited down there yet (they moved back to CO from MD two years ago).

I had to stop letting it bother me. They had a baby girl back in September, haven't met her yet. Now with a family of his own, I think my brother is starting to miss us a little. I'm hopeful for this summer, but not holding my breath.

[badger_14 601]

My brother and SIL live in Colorado. When they come to MT, they spend the entire week with her family.

We haven't been invited down there yet (they moved back to CO from MD two years ago).

I had to stop letting it bother me. They had a baby girl back in September, haven't met her yet. Now with a family of his own, I think my brother is starting to miss us a little. I'm hopeful for this summer, but not holding my breath.

Part of the 'ticked off' is that my parents get to go see them twice a year, but I have to stay home with the dog, and it's only because my mother is sick that I was going to be sent off as the emissary. My brother/SIL do want to see me, it's just I haven't been able to go.

[MThockeydad 469]

Sorry to hear that. I'd watch the dog if I lived closer.

Sounds like my situation is the inverse of yours!
My brother (mostly SIL) was frosty to my parents, too...their getting invited to go down for Christmas was a minor miracle.

I'll cross my fingers for you that some flights work out.

[chippa13 1844]

How is there noone else to look after this dog?

[McDugan 89]

Was going to fly out today to visit my brother, SIL, and my nephews for my littler nephew's 1st birthday - big deal, as I haven't seen the older one since he was 8 months old, never met the little one, and haven't flown anywhere since before 9-11.

But the weather came, the flight is cancelled, and there aren't any free seats (with this airline) til the 18th. So, no flight, no trip, no mini-nephew's birthday. Ticked off, frustrated, and sad.

That absolutely sucks. I'm sorry. I hate this Winter.

[badger_14 601]

How is there noone else to look after this dog?

Because all of our family members live 500+ miles away! Well, essentially. We have no family here and don't know anyone willing to handle an 80lb standard poodle with separation anxiety.

[IPv6Freely 2092]

You can hire pet-sitters, if you weren't aware of that option.

[badger_14 601]

You can hire pet-sitters, if you weren't aware of that option.

I know, I am someone's dogsitter/walker. Like I said: my parents haven't found anyone they'd trust with him. I don't ordinarily mind it (hey, I get the house to myself for a week), and as long as we can find another cheap flight, I'll go later in the spring.

There are a variety of reasons why leaving the dog to someone else's care is not practical, feasible, or wise, and I'll leave it at that.

Edited February 14, 2014 by badger_14

[MThockeydad 469]

Septic backed up last night.

Best case, frost in the ground under our drainfield and rapid thaw this past week caused it to back up.

Worst case, our drainfield is screwed and we have to replace it.


On the bright side, I know it's not the tank because we just had it pumped this summer.

[badger_14 601]

Septic backed up last night.

Best case, frost in the ground under our drainfield and rapid thaw this past week caused it to back up.

Worst case, our drainfield is screwed and we have to replace it.

On the bright side, I know it's not the tank because we just had it pumped this summer.

I probably shouldn't crack wise about that being a sh*tty situation.

In seriousness that sucks, I hope it's best-case scenario and reasonably fixable.

Edited February 14, 2014 by badger_14

[MThockeydad 469]

HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY LIKE SOMETHING CRAPPY LIKE THIS!?!



Talked to the septic pumper who pumped the tank. They said it's happened a lot in our area this winter. Huge deep freeze in December, thawing all January, hard freeze last week, 40º+F temps last week.

Frost is deep, thawing shallow, nowhere for the melt water to go.

On the bright side, it looks like my wife gets new carpet downstairs!!

[badger_14 601]

HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY LIKE SOMETHING CRAPPY LIKE THIS!?!

I know, it stinks, but number one, I'd really like to see where it goes, and number two, I hope it ends well.

(I see it looks like it will. Hooray.)

[McDugan 89]

Ok, guys, come on... he's had a bad enough time of it already, can we just stop giving him sh-t about this now?

[215BroadStBullies610 435]

Which is why I am glad my major was Accounting Information Systems. A nice blend, opened me to more options.

Do you find yourself working more in Accounting or IS? A balanced blend of both? I minored in IS and it was a nice entry-level experience to some of the applications/software used in accounting. Excel and Access, to lesser extent, are the only two I use now and had exposure to in college.

[chippa13 1844]

He is probably working as some kind of system admin for an accounting/finance department.