The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

My life as a Chinese Fortune Cookie

Today was an interesting day, in the old Chinese way. I'm in my car, pulling out of the driveway and noticing a significant list to starboard and the steering is a bit wonky. I have my suspicions and it does indeed turn out correct: the passenger front tire is flat.

I'm already running a bit late to work, but hey, what's another hour or so? Jack up the car, remove the airless tire and slap on the rather pathetic excuse for a spare, causing my car to transcend the look of silliness into the realm of ridiculousness. Once the donut is secured to the wheelbase and the flat secured in the trunk, I head out in search of the nearest Tire Kingdom, a few miles away.

There, I am informed that it would take at least two hour for them to patch the tire. Not wanting to stick around in a waiting room with a blaring TV and decade old car trade magazines, I head back home. I inform The Office that I will be even later than expected.

My job at The Company can mostly be performed at home; even if a server needs to be rebooted I can call a partnering company with access to the datacenter and have a warm body go in and perform the necessary button pushing if it comes to that. Email and checking the trouble ticket system can be done from home. The only thing I can't do is answer The Office phone. For now (as one of the longer range goals of Smirk is to have The Office phone forwarded as needed).

Two and a half hours later, I call back to Tire Kingdom and yes, my tire has been patched and ready to pick up. An hour later, after finishing up with a hysterical client that's having email problems and can't get anyone at the office (well, no wonder—Smirk having jury duty, P studying for exams and I with a donut for a tire) I retrieve the now patched tire. Since it is so late by this time I figured it's of no use to actually go into the office and instead just go back home and swap the patched tire for the donut.

On the way home, I pass a gentleman riding an adult tricycle whose tire fell off in a most comical way, and I am reminded that it could have been worse.

Obligatory Picture

[The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades]

Obligatory Contact Info

Obligatory Feeds

Obligatory Links

Obligatory Miscellaneous

You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go ahead, I won't bite. I promise.

The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent links to that entry only. The format for the links are simple: Start with the base link for this site: https://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are interested in, say 2000/08/01, so that would make the final URL:

https://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01

You can also specify the entire month by leaving off the day portion. You can even select an arbitrary portion of time.

You may also note subtle shading of the links and that's intentional: the “closer” the link is (relative to the page) the “brighter” it appears. It's an experiment in using color shading to denote the distance a link is from here. If you don't notice it, don't worry; it's not all that important.

It is assumed that every brand name, slogan, corporate name, symbol, design element, et cetera mentioned in these pages is a protected and/or trademarked entity, the sole property of its owner(s), and acknowledgement of this status is implied.

Copyright © 1999-2024 by Sean Conner. All Rights Reserved.