Woody Cavenaugh

Coming into work today my wife and I realized that Guilford County must have some sort of one day a month free license to drive like a complete butt head. There can be no other explanation. One idiot driver, that's a normal commute. Two idiot drivers, that's unlucky. Three idiot drivers, that's a movement. Four idiot drivers, that's an organization. Five idiot drivers?? Five idiot drivers, that's a county sanctioned event.

Their infractions are all of the things that you have seen in a lifetime of driving, only in a single day. We had idiots cutting through dirt lots to get ahead in line. (They flipped us off when we legally pulled into traffic and they ended up behind us.) Sara says maybe I shouldn't point and laugh when they don't get what they want through cheating.

We had idiots passing on the double yellow past the "Do Not Pass" sign to pass two cars that were doing the speed limit +5mph. I guess since he was driving an 80's Chevy truck with a commercial plate and had a ahem...suntanned neck it is excused. I just wish he didn't need so much of our lane to pass us on the narrow 2 lane part of Summit. Its dirt or trading paint.

The wrong way on a one way street is always a favorite. My question is which is better, stopping and trying to perform a three point turn to get in the correct direction (stopping traffic in the process). Choosing to "Damn the Torpedoes" and drive to the next intersection. Or stop, throw it in reverse and pretend you have one of those backwards cars that only looks like it is going the wrong way on a one way street. Obviously the correct answer is to not go the wrong way on a one way street, but that is not always possible, especially if you don't know where you are.

We had tailgaters, we had lollygaggers, and the ones I hate the worst, those guys who don't know which lane they want to be in so they keep switching back and forth. I hate those guys.

Everyone reacts to them differently. Some yell and scream, some try to keep the idiot from getting what they want. Me, I like to point and laugh. Sometimes, I just make funny faces at them. I figure laughter is the best medicine. Sara says that laughter might be the best medicine, but it won't cure a gunshot wound. She's one of those who grips the steering wheel and growls complex curses at the ancestors of the offenders. To each their own I guess.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Technology just continues to amaze me. This is probably why I went into IT to begin with.
For instance this new satellite software package that NASA is talking about. They had a satellite that was equipped with cameras and lots of heat detection hardware. They installed software that would make it interested in hot things- interested and chatty. So this satellite is cruising in orbit and sees something hot, it starts snapping pictures. No one on the ground knows what's going on until the satellite phones home to chat about what it has seen. The scientists were surprised and pleased to discover that the satellite found an active volcano in Antarctica. Scientist on their own would take months or more to find such a thing on their own.

Now I am sure the tin foil hat crowds are going to pop in their copies to Terminator and start preaching about the evils of Skynet. Sure, ok. Yes, sometimes we design smart systems that seem a little crack headed. The patriot system would probably be fine if someone would just play the occasional game of Tic Tac Toe with it. Some things even claim to be smart but are simply evil.

Most even if a little weird are still amazingly cool. But I am the sort of geek who keeps up with places like space.com excited to see what new cool thing has been discovered on mars all the while looking just as interested in what is going on around Saturn. I wouldn't be surprised if one of its moons had some form of life. Perhaps not little grey men, but maybe microbial life forms as strange as what is currently being found around the volcanic vents around the world. I live for this kind of thing. I can sit and read about it for hours.

In medicine we are replacing parts with stuff grown in vats, or stuff created in machine shops or radio shack.

How can you NOT be impressed by that?

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:32 AM | Permalink

Before you continue here, please note that I have an entry for both Saturday and Sunday. Though they have nothing to do with today's topic, I figured it was noteworthy as it is the first time that I have come in on a Monday morning and published entries I wrote at home on Saturday and Sunday for those days. So go ahead, this entry will be here when you get back and Saturday's is an important public service message.

Ok, back? Good.

As most of you know I teach Fencing as a volunteer three nights a week at the Downtown YWCA in Greensboro. That's three nights a week I am getting home late in the evening with the occasional weekend going off to who knows where to a tournament coaching my students. Lately, things have been very busy in the local fencing world due to Summer Nationals in Charlotte this year. We have several students qualified and every club night we are trying to squeeze in every possible second of practice we can. Afterwards the staff is sitting around coffee cups planning and organizing so the event can be as smooth and enjoyable for our fencers as possible. I didn't really realize this was having any sort of negative impact on the world, sure, I get a thorough scolding three nights a week from my wife who is stuck in town waiting for me to finish so we can go home and get to bed. It is a problem I am really trying to work out even if it doesn't ever look that way to Sara. This weekend the full impact of our sacrifice to fencing was made known to me when Sara casually mentioned hanging out with some of the other fencing widows. Turns out I am not the only one who takes a good scolding three days a week. Of our coaching staff of four, three of us are committed to relationships and the patience of their significant others is being tried.

In that vein I am going to work extra hard to make fencing less of an impact on my home life, or part-time home life as it were. I am going to try not to meet after fencing for the planning sessions. I will try to keep my weekends fencing away to just one per month or less and... Well, I guess that's about it isn't it. I mean no one is asking me to choose, I can still do both, I simply have to balance my time better between the two.

If knowledge were power I could run my computer off of plugging it into my butt. Of course, that might just be the potato salad talking...

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I know I said something last week about going to see Fahrenheit 9/11, that was before the entire weekend sold out on Friday night. We went Friday night and they were sold out. So we had a little dinner and planned to go to first matinee on Saturday. We arrived at noon and were told that they were sold out for the entire weekend. That is very impressive for a documentary no matter what you think of the man. So we had some time on our hands...

We decided to go see a movie. But the theater that had 9/11 didn't have anything else we were burning to see so we went to Brassfield and caught Shrek 2. I really enjoyed this movie and I look forward to adding it to my DVD collection. I like a movie where I feel like I can relate to the characters and this is one of them. The story moved well for me, the humor was consistently funny and I liked the music. A word about the music. Though I enjoyed it thoroughly it tended to take me out of the story to start thinking about how cool the song was. I got teary in all of the right parts and left the theatre feeling really good. So good in fact we went to the Grande to catch Harry Potter 3.

Three theaters in one day, not bad considering I hadn't been to see a movie in the theater since Fellowship of the Rings.

Harry Potter three.
Again, I didn't read the book. If a book is to become a movie I want to see the movie first and not second. Everyone knows that if the movie is going to be exactly like the book it has to be several days long. Sometimes people act like they have forgotten this, but that's just snobbery coming out. Always watch the movie first, and if you like it, go read the book. I really enjoyed this movie just like I enjoyed the other two Harry Potters. It is the perfect blend of fantasy, action, humor, and drama, for both adults and children. Only two parts of this movie made me ask Sara, "What was that about?". One of them the book didn't enlighten on (The significance of Chocolate). The other was a cool detail but wouldn't have really added anything to the movie. I suspect some people didn't even notice it. I had read some reviews that talked poorly about the werewolf. Having never met a real life werewolf myself, I was completely convinced by this one. I don't know what they are talking about. Should we ever buy Harry Potter 2 on DVD I would consider owning this one too.

Right after Harry Potter we went to bowl with some friends. I will have to type even faster now, it looks like I am going to have a nickel sized blood blister on my poor little thumb. Well, either that or a bad bruise. This, I think was the fifth or sixth time in my life I have gone bowling. Every time I go bowling I have a great deal of fun. I never remembered it being so expensive though. The two movies were cheaper in the end. Shrek 2 was something like $7.50 for both of us. Harry Potter was $10.50 for both of us. Bowling was over $20.00 for the both of us. So in the end three and a half hours of movies was cheaper than two games of bowling (or is that two games of bowl?) that took two hours. I found this really odd. I had a great time though, and I could probably do it once a month.

As a footnote I will talk about seeing Along Came Polly. I actually had to go look up the title on imdb because I had blissfully blocked it out of my mind.

My boss loaned me this DVD. I am going to try not to hold it against her. Its bad. Its bad. Its really really bad. It was so bad that we didn't watch all of the special features. The couple that we did see were bad too. Someone once warned me never to be involved with anyone who planned to write and direct their own movie. This movie proved this point.

Why does a comedy need comedy relief?

Literally this movie felt like a series of jokes strung together around a couple of lose plots. Philip Seymour Hoffman's subplot of being a washed up child actor was better than the main plot. Dude. If your wife cheats on you on your honeymoon the marriage is OVER. Deal with it! You don't make comparisons and try to figure out which one is less risky.
It was the worst hour and a half I have wasted in a long time.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Its Saturday as I write this and I have been living the lifelong tradition of Saturday morning cartoons. It was here with my cup of coffee and relaxed attitude that I made an observation that has really stunned me. Hence I am here writing this to begin with.

In a thirty minute cartoon at least a third of it is commercials. Of those commercials you have one public service message, a toy ad or two and the rest is wall to wall candy. Each candy commercial had the exact same message. "Eat our candy and your reality will be altered so you have more fun."

Case in point. In an add selling candy you can purchase and consume by the foot, a voice over talks about fun fruity colors. What you see are psychedelic colored swirls while two kids with an inch of the candy in their mouths swinging the other three foot in circles getting dizzy in the process. They both fall down and enjoy their sugar high while the world swirls and spins around them. Then two normal kids walk up wondering why the two on the ground eating the candy are having so much more fun than them.

I saw another where kids put a liquid candy into a solid candy and suck on it. They have the whole reality shift and are showed as blissfully watching the world swirl around them.

There were different candies all sold on the same theme. Eat this and your perceptions will change and you will have fun and see swirly colors surrounded by friends who love you. Kool-Aid man is a pusher. He brews liquid methe in his lab and everyone comes running for the amazing clear cool beverage that makes them all have more fun.

And we wonder why America has a drug problem. We're selling kiddy crack on TV getting them ready for the real thing in middle school. I for one don't even have a child and am completely outraged by this.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I changed the picture on my main page from the back of my head (my best side) to an outdoor view. I thought I had better at least once talk about what you are looking at.

That view is the view outside of my office window on UNCG's campus. It is refreshed every ten seconds via my webcam.

Now comes the disclaimer: It is summertime- summertime on a university campus. "Near Naked" is the prefered dress code among the coeds in the warm months and here in Greensboro most of the year is made up of warm months. Therefore, if you come over to the blog and find yourself offended by some near naked image walking down the sidewalk in the distance, go read someone elses blog, wait a minute and come back here, the picture should be updated to the point where the offending flesh will have walked out of the camera's view.

Interestingly enough late spring (before summer sessions) and early fall (after summer sessions) sees the largest percentage of "Does your momma know you dress like that.". The answer is always, "No, of course not, that's why I came to college in the first place.".

During the summer months, the students are for the most part of the hard core variety, and wear cloths more appropriate for air conditioned buildings.

You have been warned...

Now sit back and enjoy the weather!

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:05 AM | Permalink

Hopefully, when I get finished watching on Friday night I will have two reviews to write. When I go to see a movie I have absolutely no problem suspending disbelief so as to give the movie maker every possible fair chance to tell his story. With that in mind, my first review will be about the movie. Was I entertained and enlightened? I am always stunned by the guys who go to a movie and spend the whole time actively looking for plot holes, jump cuts, and booms in the shot. With that attitude why did they waste their money? The time for that is the second and third times you go see the film. The only thing I can think of is that they want to be the first to say, "That guy's shirt was red one minute and green the next. This movie sucked! Like hobbits and elves really exist!" There is a special place in hell for these folks and the movie they get to see for all eternity is Gigli.

The second review will hopefully be more about his political addenda. Michael Moore and I have a good deal in common on the surface. We both belong to the club of bearded fat men with high opinions. We are in there with Kevin Smith, Uncle Jessie, Luciano Pavarotti, and Santa Clause. But just because Michael and I are hairy, overweight, and bought our anti-Bush tinfoil hats from the same place doesn't mean that in the end I won't find him a horses ass. (Sorry mom, I meant to say patoot.)

I have been trying to distance myself from all things Michael Moore because I feel that filmmakers should have their work seen, and not necessarily themselves. If you have a story to tell, tell it. Don't tell it in person during a six month media blitz, have a so so showing in the box office, and than spend another three months going on about how the man kept your ticket sales down. Kevin Smith, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg do pretty good jobs of this. They do the dog and pony shows before opening night but they don't grandstand. By the way, Han shot first. Trying to rewrite history won't change that fact George Lucas.

If all goes well, I will have my glorious opinion plastered here Monday morning.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I knew it was bound to happen eventually. Someone was going to visit my little blog and give it a critical review. I suppose now that I am doing it five days a week is a better time to go after me than when I was just starting out and trying to develope the disappline to do it consistantly. I hear that the guys who write for a living get criticism they are pretty good about taking it well or at the very least not taking it personally. It is something I am still working on, and I have to say I did pretty well. I always figured when someone posted something critical about my blog I would have to realy chew back a reactionary response, all the while being indignit at my desk. Fortuantely this did not happen. I received it in my email inbox. I read it. I sat back. I read it again. I laughed out loud and forwarded it to Sara, and Kim. And now after some reflection I am prepaired to address it. The message reads as follows.

Woody, I was trying to find Eddie's address on the computer. I put in Eddie Cavenaugh and hit search. I did not find his address but guess what I did find. I found your writing. Please watch the word "shit" it doesn't look good. Just some Motherly advice. I enjoyed reading your articles You do have a talent for writing.
Love Mother

Well that about says all it doesn't it?

The response to this ought to be mature, fair, and honest. I am going to be my best to be a grown up about this.

Mom,
I'm a big boy now. Sometimes you need to use the occasional bad word. (I should probably go figure out which article she actually read.) Bad words if used correctly can sometimes be used like punctuation marks. Sometimes its just what you have to say. Like OSINTOT. I didn't mean anything bad by it I'm sure. I will try to cut it out I promise.

Woody

Critics...

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There was a death of a family member in our greater organization. I wasn't all that close to the coworker, we know each other's names and have pretty good ideas of what we do for the organization but that's about it. With friends and family I feel a sense of duty towards family of the deceased but whenever I go to a coworker's I always end up feeling a little guilty.
My duty is to be a support and a comfort to the survivors, and in my own family I can perform this duty pretty well. But with friends it is more difficult. I always end up studying their funeral rites, and that somehow makes me feel cheap. Instead of being there as a unit of support, I become a documentary TV show snooping into the lives of strange cultures.
In my own family the rite has changed very little over my lifetime. Someone dies, we get a phone call in the middle of the night, and the next morning bright and early we go down with covered dish in hand to visit with the survivors. The night before the funeral we go to the funeral parlor to look at the corpse, the next day we go to the church where a service is held, the body is in an open casket as the guest of honor. We leave the church and follow the hearse with our headlights on to the gravesite. There the closed coffin is set in a rack above the hole and we do a little church thing minus the singing by the grave. Then as suddenly as it beings, it ends, the priest evaporates into the ether and everyone wanders around visiting each other and speaking in hushed tones, "The body looked good."
The only change in this happened when I was very young. The earliest funerals I can remember when we arrived at the house with our covered dishes you open the door, sign your name at the podium and right next to it was the guest of honor, next to that was the TV. The TV was never on though. This changed with the death of my Grandfather Cavenaugh. It is said that no one knows if he had a heart attack when ditch burning got out of control, died, and was burned by the fire, or he fell (he had Parkinson's), caught fire and died of a heart attack. That's what is said, but those that found him whisper that they saw the look on his face and they know exactly what happened. But we don't talk about that. But I digress... The point was that from his funeral on we always went to the funeral parlor to see the deceased's body.
The death rites I have seen of non-family are all so different that I can't help but be a spectator. Some of them were simple, some of them were formal, some of them were informal, but two stand out in my mind. At one the corpse wasn't present. No one went to the house; we met in a hotel meeting room and were served a catered meal and chatted among ourselves. There was no indication of what we were even there for. The other I will never forget. It was Quaker. I hope everyone has a Quaker for a friend so you can experience the Quaker service. When you leave the meeting house several hours later you will know the deceased so well you will feel like you knew them all of your life. I can think of no better way to do it.
It's not how I want to do it, but that doesn?t make that way any less special. In fact, I think that having experienced that it is having an affect on how I want things when I make the transition. First and foremost I am a Cavenaugh, my lineage is traced to an Irish crown and we must always honor our history. To honor my lineage I want good Irish music playing, jigs and reels only, there should be a feast for the living and enough alcohol should flow to pickle each and every mourner. If you are interested in what I mean go look up the lyrics of "The Night Pat Murphy Died", its all right there scripted for ease of use. For the present I want all the mourners to tell every funny story they have about me. If they don't have one they should make on up by telling a joke and putting my name in it. For the future I might want to be cremated (haven't made up my mind on that one yet). If I am cremated I want my ashes welded into a smallish stainless steal box and I want that box welded somewhere hidden and safe within the Fairlane. A small engraved brass plate should be placed in the existing 2 inch by 4inch spot on the center console just in front of the shifter knob. You'll know where I am talking about when you see it. If my spirit doesn't immediately go to where it's meant to (by the end of the wake it should be anyone's guess where that might be), then I can be at one with the car until I do, if that won't bring me to peace nothing will.

So does anyone know what to get for a dear friends who just had his cat die suddenly? A coworder thought flowers, I am leaning towards tiqula myself.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 6:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I went on a day trip this weekend to meet my parents at my grandmother's near the coast of NC. Some people dislike travel, and dislike driving. They want to be where they are going and want to be home as soon as they're finished with what they set out to do. I on the other hand enjoy traveling and driving quite a bit. If I am riding, it is an adventure seeing things I haven't seen before, or at the very least seeing it for the first time that day. I find it relaxing. When I drive it's different. The only things my eyes see are what is in front of me and what is behind me. This time is special. This is meditation.
As I am driving I expand my awareness out to every corner of the car if the road is rough I want to feel it right where the rubber meets the road. If I have to make an emergency maneuver, I am not a person manipulating a tool. The tool and I are one creature and we respond as one creature. It is in this state which I do most of my best thinking, as I do not have the burden of conversation and productivity to distract me.
It was during this particular trip I really started thinking about ghosts. I believe they exist and I believe that anyone of any belief, or lack of belief, can believe if they want to. I'm not talking about death. Death is cut and dried if you'll pardon the pun. All death boils down to is a transition from one state of being to another. You freeze water, you burn wood, you die, and all are transitions.
And here's the output of six hours of hard meditation on ghosts. (It is actually less than six hours, I stopped a total of four times to pee and that subtracts some amount of time I didn't bother to record.) We can look at ghosts two ways; we can look at it more like a scientist and say that the energy of living transferred to another form of energy. We can also look at like someone who attributes consciousness to the energy. Both groups agree completely that the energy of living went on to be energy of something else. One group doesn't know what because they can't measure it scientifically, and I certainly understand their point of view.
The other group, which is the direction I lean towards about such matters see some sort of afterlife. Heaven, Hell, Reincarnation, Purgatory and other things which I simply am not educated in such matters to be even able to name. Ghosts are the rub in most of these cultures. They figure you die, and you go immediately to your next assignment whatever that might be. The third group, which I know the least about, includes the Native American religions, and perhaps some of the African religions. These are the oldest religions so they have had the most time to think on these matters. That being said, my thoughts on the matter are uneducated guesses at best, but that's ok. That's how people learn.
My theory: The energy of living goes wherever it's supposed to, unless some force blocks it. Perhaps it is conscious will, an unfinished task, a lesson unlearned, who knows. At either rate, my readings of ghost stories of North Carolina and the south always talk about a finite group of types of hauntings. These range from seemingly conscious and trying to communicate with the living, to little more than a repeating loop of some sound, smell, sight, or temperature. I propose that the energy of living doesn't always move from here to there like flipping on a light switch. In some cases it is more like a dimmer switch. Full on is alive and kicking, full off is whatever your religion or lack there of dictates it is. In between is a variety of states of irritated consciousness.
By irritated I mean something has to happen, a lesson must be learned, a message must be conveyed, a wrong must be righted, a pain must be let go of. In the ghostly state it is just the same as it is in real life. Seldom do you ever figure it out instantly, and even less can you apply it perfectly the first time. If that were the case, there would be one professional head shrinker per city working for the city. You go in, you tell your story, he or she imparts wisdom, stamps a form and you're completely cured forever, pay on the way out.
If this doesn't work when you are alive why should it work when you are nothing more than disembodied energy that wants to do something else? As the ghost haunts it has to work through its hang ups on its own, as it works successfully it begins to move on. What might be a woman in a Victorian dress a hundred years ago, might today be nothing more than a presence and a cold spot on the stair well.
Ok, assuming that were the case, what about the fact that there are stories of ghost who seem to go away when the house it haunts is completely remodeled. I would imagine if someone came into my house tore it apart and put it back together some different way while I was standing there trying to deal with my own problems, the shock might be enough to force me along my way too.
So we the living have plenty of choices, we can learn to live with the spirit, even make friends, we can call in a parapsychologist to study it, or maybe piss it off, we can call in a priest to exercise it, maybe all it needs is a little fresh air, or we can call in Dr. Phil and get to the root of what is missing from its afterlife.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I left the office yesterday without word. I know the meeting happened, I simply have no indication of what the outcome was. My coworker and I went our separate ways feeling the pressure of not knowing. For her it isn't quite as bad, she has health insurance, but she knows that the outcome seriously effects her take home pay. I had to work a little late yesterday taking care of a couple of things that needed to be done. I could've put it off, but I wanted to give every opportunity to get an answer.

Finally, I went home, made dinner, watched both CSI's and went to bed where I promptly stared at the wall for a while. A while may have only been an hour or so, but I am accustomed to being asleep within three minutes. It felt like an eternity.

I know what you're thinking. What the hell? At least I have a job. I could be out there job hunting or working some job that I have no interest in for minimum wage. Its true, I have a great deal to be thankful for. My stress comes from a year and a half of not knowing if I will have a job the next week or not. This is made worse by the fact that I really like this job. I like it enough that I have put everything into it. I can see that I am making a difference, and there is no feeling better, even if I am doing it at a status that is only barely over volunteer. I love this job because my coworkers love me right back. But as has already been demonstraited to me once before here, it doesn't matter if I do a good job or am loved by my coworkers. Employment or unemployment is simply the whim of a higher power who has no interest in my contrabution whatsoever.

And to top it all off I had to start the day with Second String Underwear (click more)

And to top it all off I had to start the day with second string underwear. I don't know why this is really, especially since I had done all of the dirty laundry on Sunday. That being the case I ought to have 7 pairs of primary underwear and 12 pairs of second string underwear. You know second string underwear, so don't pretend you don't. Second string underwear is that drawer full of draw's that you won't throw away and you won't wear.

So I found myself this morning with three options, no underwear, dirty underwear, or second string underwear. As I teach fencing right after work today I had compelling reasons not to free ball or wear leftovers, which left the second stringers. And there I am making coffee, a slow rage building. Coffee making went flawlessly, and as has already been established I make good coffee. But nevertheless I am standing there getting more and more enraged, my skin taking on a greenish hue. And that's when I realized that my second string underwear (new briefs I had received at Christmas a year or two ago) are slowly choking the life out of my poor innocent testicles. My stomach began to ache as I made this realization. I gingerly lumbered to the bedroom, my wife could tell from the look on my face, there was a problem, and I was about to smash it. I kicked off my shoes, which hurt. I dropped trou which hurt as well. Using my thumbs as twin shoe horns I pealed off the garment of hate and fired it at the trashcan. The trashcan absorbing the impact was sent sprawling across the bathroom carpet. I was free. My first act as a free man was to grab my underwear drawer and dump it into the garbage.

I have made an observation which I would like to share with the men. Fellas, if you pull off your skivies and drop them in the floor and they look just like a scène from your college past- you know the one, cute girl, dorm room, you wake up in the morning and her panties are rolled up and laying on your floor. Well guys, if you realize that your underwear looks like that, its time to cut them from the team completely.

Stay out of the locker room tonight fellas, its gonna be ugly.

UPDATE: 11:18am
The CTO just dropped by and gave Kimi and I the news.
July 1 we begin working where we are supposed to be working, at the money we diserve. I think I am having a beer at lunch. Hey wait! I can HAVE lunch! WooWoo! And in July, I'm making Doctor's appointments.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

For ten years now I have worked in some capacity in this same organization. I started as a student employee learning tech support and troubleshooting. When I was hired on full time I spent five months totally focused on learning every aspect of my job so I could be the best technician I could be. Three completely bored years later? Well, let?s talk about those years. Those were the years where I had to expand my knowledge in secret. I learned as much as I could about every part of IT I could. I learned quickly that to have ideas and present new thoughts was strongly discouraged to my direct supervisor. Ok, that?s not completely true. I could have original and brilliant thoughts so long as my supervisor could understand it well enough to take credit for it. I could let that go though. Everything that got pushed up helped to make our organization better, even if I didn?t get credit for it. My peers and I kept each other in check and pretty much lived the life of ?Hogan?s Hero?s?. Make Cornel Klink look good and we could lay low and live pretty well. Three years later I was laid off in a budget crisis.
Two sleepless months later I was hired back on temporary and part time (10 hours a week) in a small fledgling experimental office by a boss who knew me my reputation only. We were given more than enough rope to hang ourselves and instead we built bridges. Over the course of a year and a half our tiny organization of castaways (there are still only three of us now), built a functional and successful project management office. Let?s look at that team for a second:
The director is classified as a tech support person. She does director level work, she has director level responsibilities. She has no director level power, and her pay and classification are still that of a tech support person. Our Web Designer, technical writer, and "Look what I just learned" badass is classified and paid to simply answer the phone and do some light filing. And then there is me, professional Jack of All Trades. Currently doing research and development on top of DBA work. My current classification is even below that of technician where I was before.
One of my goals here in this job is to work hard and earn a reputation good enough that I would be hired back permenant, full time with benifits at a level higher than I was when I was laid off. To that end, I have changed my look, by slowly phasing out my cargo pants and three button shirts and phasing in slacks, shirts, and jackets. I have also from the very beginning worked more hours than I get paid for. Sure, its a gamble, but I prefer to think of it as an investment. And today is the day I find out if my investment is going to pay off.
My boss went to the CTO to plead our cases. If she is going to work as a director she should be paid a director, our uber-web maven should not be classified and paid like a receptionist, and I should not be temporary, part time anymore. The CTO (whom I trust), has agreed to take this to the Vice Chancellor today to get an answer once and for all.

And here I sit...

If it is decited that I can be hired on permenant and full time, than it was worth the gamble and the investment has paid off. If nothing changes then now is the time for me to decide if it is time for me to move on and try my hand at something new. Lets face it. If I am shot down now after a year and a half of loyalty and free labor then I know that my loyalty is going to wane and the free labor days are over. If I am not picked up then I know that my value tomorrow is going to drop. How could it not?
Now until I hear back about that meeting this afternoon I have a full day ahead of me being a DBA, in the back of my mind though all I am going to be thinking about is what I will be doing for a living next week...

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My name is Woody, I work in IT. I forget that some people do not know what IT stands for (Information Technology). Like most IT shops, the one I work in does a great many things and has a great many highly specialized folks to do them. I often forget that just because they are making mad money in IT, doesn't mean that they know anything about computers in general. I assume that everyone in IT is as knowledgeable as I. I am a generalist. I know the first six inches of the ocean of IT. I forget that IT is made up of mostly specialist who might know several miles of the ocean of IT strait down, but only know it six inches wide. I forget these things.

So when a programmer that makes twice what I do asks what to me is a very basic question, I assume they are idiots. I think to myself, "What do you mean you don't know which web browser you are using??? You make twice more than me!!" I forget that they have no reason to know which web browser they are using. Their job is to create small programs which manipulate large amounts of data quickly and correctly. I can't do that. And I know I'm not an idiot.

It's funny. For my mother I had to spend upwards of an hour not three years ago teaching her that when I say "Double click to the icon with the mouse", I do not mean "Hold the mouse against the computer screen and tap twice." I recognized that she had no computer knowledge and worked slowly and fairly patiently if I do say so myself.

I forget that when I am dealing with IT people. In IT you can be a very high paid specialist and still have banzi buddy, comet cursor, and weather bug running on an unpatched computer with no firewall, and never updated virus protection, assuming that they have virus protection at all. I forget that it might not be obvious how bad that is to them. I was very patient with my mother. Of course, my mother would never consider doing any of that. I guess deep down inside she is a generalist too.

My wife reminds me of these things. She reminded me today in fact. She reminded me by letting me know that I am turning into one of the other groups in IT I hate. I am impatient and baffled by high paid specialist who would blindly click on every worm, virus, malware, spyware, and adware that they possible can. I absolutely despise those folks who are so uppity and set in their ways that they look down their noses at anyone who isn't computing with the same computer and software that they are. Often they are called _____-snobs behind their back. (Fill in the blank with your favorite operating system.) How could anyone be so closed minded that they can't eek up respect for someone just because they use IE, AOL, Windows, Mac, or MSN? And my wife had the courage, no the gall to compare me to them.

So my high horse has electron wheels. It's time for me to dismount it, take a big old deep breath and lead that horse off the pretentiousness turnpike for good; or at least until I am reminded again.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"There is no try. Do, or do not." We all heard Yoda say this in the movie the Empire Strikes Back. We took it at face value, after all, it was a movie, Yoda said it, and it was about The Force. We took this quote home with us as nothing more than a cool quote; we saw no real lesson in it. I now realize that it is a lesson. It came to me in fencing. Now I will attempt to explain it to you and hope you don't pat me on the head and roll your eyes behind my back. Luke didn?t get it the first time either.

The word "try" means "to attempt" among other things. According to MS Word, its synonyms also include, "endeavor", "struggle", "strive", "aim", "seek", "undertake", "make an effort, "take a crack at", and "have a go". All of these words and phrases are uncertain. They are all gambles.

Someone who is very loyal to Coke, wouldn't try a Coke C2, if they truly love Coke they would be having a Coke C2 for the first time, there is no "try", they love Coke, it is Coke, therefore they already like it.

Me on the other hand, I am ambivalent towards Coke. I like Pepsi better than Coke, I like Vanilla Coke better than Vanilla Pepsi, I prefer Cheerwine over all carbonated beverages. So the other day in the grocery store, I saw a table with Coke C2 samples and the lady offered me one. I only have curiosity about Coke C2. Since I have no stake in it, I "try" it. It doesn't matter to me whether or not I like it, I am simply curious. As it turns out, I didn't like it, no big deal.

The life lesson here is intent. If you think you might want to play a musical instrument, you would "try? several of them and pick the one which you like the most. If, instead, you decided, "I am going to learn to play fiddle", it is a statement of fact, you are and you will, after all what exactly is stopping you? The thing is we were all brought up wrong.

All of our parents kept saying things like,"If at first you don't succeed, try try again". This phrase is fine if your parents were letting you try your hand at a bunch of sports. You don't know what sport you want to play, so you try them all. This is good. This is natural. But then you make a decision. "Mom, I really like fencing more than the other sports and I want to do that." The time for "Try" is over. Now you fence. You fence, you learn, and you improve. It is as natural as breathing.

Here's where "try" can get you in trouble. You have made the decision to fence. You go in, you learn the basics, and you have your first bout. There can be only one. Either you win or you lose, if you tie they flip a coin and you fence another minute. At the end of that minute, if no one scores, the person who won the coin toss won, the other lost. If with a minute to go and the score tied, you have three options, you can win, lose, or try. Winning and losing are definite; to try is to gamble on whether or not you can win. If you choose deep down in your heart to win, you will win. If you do not win even after setting your mind to the task of winning, it just means that the person across from you wanted to win more.

Now let?s say that this bout is a direct elimination match. You have already been through pools (or the "season" for you ball sport types). Everyone is rated best to worst and you set the top against the bottom. You are the bottom. You are 64th seed going against 1st. If you "do the best you can", you will. If you "try", you will attempt to do the best you can. If you are going to win, you will either win against all odds, or score more points than if you simply "tried". In fencing it is 15 points to win and each point is its own individual battle. You have either 15 times to score, or you can gamble on the possibility of scoring. In this case you can "do" and still not "win". That other guy is first for a reason after all.

The word ?try? is your way of saying, ?There is a chance I may not be successful?. That might sound like realism if you are 64th against 1st, but if you were 1st against 64th it would be ridiculous and an invitation to failure. ?Try? opens the door to failure. ?Do? does not.

Isn?t that why we hate lawyers and used car salesmen so much? They don?t ever ?try? to win a case, or ?attempt? to sell you a car. They give 100% towards the goal of succeeding. This can be a pain in the butt if you are ?trying" not to lose your shirt. They already have the advantage.

I will try to write more in my blog.
I will write more in my blog.

I will try to write a novel.
I will write a novel.

I will try to write a script.
I will write a script.

I will try to learn to play the fiddle.
I will learn to play the fiddle.

I will try to be successful.
I will be successful.

There is no try.
Do or do not.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I wonder what ever happened to all of the doctors, lawyers, presidents, firemen and astronauts I went to elementary school with? I distinctly remember being told that we could be anything we wanted. I distinctily remember we all said out loud what we wanted to be when we grew up. Someone may have been lying to us.

I also remember looking around in first grade one day and realizing that the person sitting next to me was different from me. I'm not talking national origion, I grew up in a town split evenly between locals and military brats. I was familiar with all skin colors, accents, and smells, but this wasn't that. I remember looking at the guy to my left who stunk of feces and thinking, "I don't think he's going to be a fireman." On my left was a little girl despretly clutching a naked Barbie doll and crying because she had been asked to put it in her desk or have it taken from her. Somehow I didn't think she was going to end up being a veternarian. To be fair, when I said I wanted to be an astronaut I knew it was unlikely, I was afraid of heights. Truth was I wasn't sure what I wanted to be, but we had to say something. Is it possible that everyone was in the same boat? That didn't seem likely. I remember talking to my friend Jim about it. He didn't know what he wanted to be either, but instead of making something up like I did, he just said he didn't know over and over again until they made him sit down. We both noticed that some of the kids in the class didn't seem to be as smart as the others. Some of them used paste to make art, some of them ate the paste. Some were better at coloring inside of the lines. I could use paste ok, but I was awful with crayons. I figured that made me average.

Some of the people I went to first grade with went their separate ways as their parents moved around. One girl was in class one day and not the next, they told us that she had to move. We knew they weren't telling us the truth, but I have no idea what actually happened to her. One girl down the street from me got a brain tumer and died she was two or three years older than me. But what of the rest of them? Surely one of them could've become a doctor, lawyer, fireman, policeman, president, or astronaut.

A few years ago I was at home on the coast visiting my friend Jim who was working at a convenience store. He finally knew what he wanted to do, he wanted to go to college and be a business man. While I was standing there visiting with him, one of the kids from my first grade class came in. He walked up to me and said, "I know you! You're Woody Woodpecker", and he laughed at me exactly the way he laughed at me in first grade. He still smelled like feces. I felt awkward until he left, it was weird. His uniform said, "Waste Industries". He was a garbage man. I guess that's kind of like fireman. They both wear uniforms and ride on big trucks. Jim said the guy hadn't gotten any smarter since first grade.

It wasn't all disillusionment though. Out of the whole first grade I am aware of two policemen and several volunteer firemen. I guess technically they did better than me, I lied when I said astronaut and to this day I have no idea what I really want to do when I grow up. There are too many terrific possibilities to limit myself to just one. Why would they want us to limit ourselves by making us pick just one thing which we would most likely not achieve?

Of course, these people were NC schoolteachers in the 1970's that had to be a disillusionment for them too.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the late Douglas Adams' book "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" there is a quote I do not have in front of me but it goes something like:

"If anyone ever actually found out the ultimate question to the ultimate answer of Life The Universe And Everything, it would be instantly destroyed and replaced by something even more bizare and inexplicable.

There are some who say this has already happened.

I am convinced this applies to relationships. That's why I am happy to remain ignorant as to the inner workings of my wife's mind. A sick and twisted part of me is always trying to figure things out. Like why when I ask a question I sometimes get answered with "Is that what you want?" A part of me thinks it could be a deep seeded desire to take a break from making decisions once in a while. A part of me thinks that it might be that occasionally she likes to see me off my game so she will try to throw me off on purpose. Part of me wonders if I have perhaps lost my mind and this is all some kind of beautiful and interesting dream. But me, I'm not buying into any of those possible interpretations.

Ignorance is bliss and sometimes everyone needs a little happiness in their lives.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 10:34 AM | Permalink

I am a bad person. I am willing to state it here and remove all doubt for all time. I have a perverse and guilty pleasure. I watch a little reality TV. Worse yet I watch what is perhaps the worst reality TV show imaginable. Worse yet, I love it and I can't give it up. The name of the show is The WB's Superstar USA. I know I will have to explain it to you, half of you have never heard of the show and the other half will lie and say they have never heard of the show.

It works like this. They went out to several big cities auditioning singers for a chance to be named "The WB's Superstar USA", win a hundred thousand dollars and a recording contract. Lots of people auditioned, some people were just not what they were looking for, others were moved to the next stage of the competition. The good singers were sent packing, and the bad were moved forward. Noone tells the people that they are being advanced because they are so awful. No infact, they are told how great they sound and look. To make sure that they don't catch on, no competitor ever gets to hear the other competitor sing. They are moved to LA, put up in nice hotels, given celebrity makeovers, shown exotic cars, given the limo treatment, dance lessons, and voice lessons. (The lessons are secretly making sure that they remain bad.)

When it comes down to the four worst performers in the group they go before a live studio audience in a pretty big concert type venue. They are judged by Briggs a TV producer (more likely an actor), Vitamin C, and ToneLoc. The worse the performer is they more they are praised. If they start to show some sort of promise the judges attempt to make them sound worse, and if this doesn't work the performer is eliminated.

This is where stage two of the lie begins. The audience is handed signs cheering one singer or another, and is informed that the four are dying of some incurable disease and their last wish is to sing like a superstar. The audience is told to cheer like there is no tomorrow so these people can die with their wish fufilled. The audience does a terrific job.

When there are only two singers left they will perform a duo and for the first time they will hear how the other sings. In the end the worse performer will be chosen as a winner, awarded their prizes, and then infront of the audience and everyone is told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

And I can't stop watching it.

Sara and I saw the ads, we both complained about how horrible and mean it was. One day it was on and we both said we couldn't watch it because it was so wrong. We started to flip to it during the commercials of what we were watching. That's how it started. Just a snipit here and there, next thing we know we watch an episode with our mouths open shocked about how completely wrong and mean it was. Than we watched another episode, and now we are completely hooked and won't miss an episode. Its like a drug addiction, you know its bad, you know it will ruin you, but you do it anyway because you can't stop.

Don't watch this show.
That is, unless you like guilty pleasures...
You know you want to, what do you have to lose...my precious...

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 8:08 AM | Permalink

In 1994 a fencing club was started at UNCG and I was on the ground floor of that. Mark and Noah are truly the founders, but in the history of the club four of us, myself included were given credit.

Since the dawning of that fencing club I was certified a coach, made treasurer, made vice president, learned to armor, made president, started "The Trolls Den" taught others to armor, learned to hate fencing, and learned to cut my losses and leave fencing what I thought was for good.

A year or two later, my old fencing coach Dr. Sarah Robinson, tricked me into comming into her club at the YWCA under the premise of being a technical person to take pictures with her digital camera and download them to her laptop to be printed on sight on her printer.
Since then I have been completely committed to fencing again and wondering why I left fencing to begin with.

This weekend I was reminded why I left fencing. It isn't the organization. It was the people. In highschool students begin to think they know everything. By college they know they know everything and will stop at nothing to do things their own way. If they are in college and interested in fencing they probably have some major personality flaws magnified to the nth degree. I know I did, at one point I was quite proud of it too.
At any rate I didn't leave fencing so much as I was forced out. I held with traditional club values which places the club above the individual. We believed that a club full of happy beginners was much better than a couple of competive fencers. As you can see a couple of competitive fencers are enough to run off anyone interested in fencing and me to boot.
One of my last acts with the club was to make sure that we had two new working boxes, enough working reels to do the job and a good supply of working weapons and tools to keep everything working with. This weekend a bag was brought before me at the armoring table. I recognized everything in it as stuff that had been purchased for the club on my watch, including the bag. 90% of it didn't work, and some of it will never work again. It seems that the club remains a small group of individuals whose greatest joy comes out of beating the stuffing out of the equipment and any beginners that might show up.
I spoke to their coach, actually I may have yelled at their coach, but I don't think I left any bruises on her neck. If so I didn't mean too, I know it isn't her fault. She was as exasperated as I, and was on the verge of giving up too. Her latest issue is having to deal with an SCA loser who wanted to beat up on beginners with a weapon in each hand. Before anyone starts to grouse about how unfair I am for refering to this guy who I have never met as a loser, I will just put it this way. I may not have first hand experience with him personally, but I do have first hand knowledge of his kind. Mocking them is actually slightly more fun than fighting with them, and it certainly smells better.

Fortunately I don't have to relive either experience and can even put it behind me somewhat. After all, this workshop was the third anniversary of my returning to fencing, and each day has been better than the last. Our workshop was also another great success. That alone makes all the nights and weekends worthwhile.

I still hate ben and bob though...

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 2:21 PM | Permalink

I just got an urge for a cup of coffee. I took my trusty cup off of my shelf. It has been weeks since I have had coffee at work, so I intended to rinse the dust and dried coffee dregs out of the cup. As I start to take the top off of the cup I heard a faint sound. At first I think nothing of it, I have a window office so noises come in from outside all the time. Added to this a coworker is using the vacant office next door to me as a pumping station for breastmilk. Three times a day she comes in for a milking.

When I popped the top the noise got loud. I smelled smoke from cooking fires, and the noise was clearly some war chant. I peaked inside carefully not knowing what to expect. There floating on a quarter cup of coffee was a lush floating island and its inhabitants had a list of demands for their god.

I listened to their demands, a placid look on my face as I slowly made my way to the water fountain. They wanted sun, they wanted suntan lotion, they wanted a Sports Illistrated Swimsuit edition photo shoot on their island. (They claimed it was for economic reasons.) Economic reasons my ass. When they finished their long list they sacrificed a small spider in my name, said a prayer and waited for my reply.

I cleared my throat and prepaired to speak.
"Whiney little bitches ain't ya?" And I dumped the coffee, island and all into the water fountain.

When I last looked they were taking stock of their landlocked situation and were beginning the construction of what looked like seige engines.

This pleases me.
Perhaps I will have to reconsider that request for sunblock.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 2:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Its been a day. This day has been a really bad day. If it could go wrong it has and my mood had slipped down into the debts of murderous. I wasn't alone either, Sara had had the same sort of horrible luck and at one point she looked at me and I knew she was sizing me up for real. For my own part it was a minor mirrical that I didn't pound holes in my walls before lunch.

So after the worst possible morning, one small thing goes right for each of us and we begin to try to rein it all in and prepare to have a better afternoon, it was an uphill fight for both of us, and we were struggling with it.

We are sitting at the corner of Tate and Market street. The light is red. I am sipping a sweet tea hoping I don't damage the cup. Sara is white knuckled on the steering wheel and we are both trying to talk each other down like we were a pair of jumpers.

Market street is four lanes one way. In the number 2 lane (two from the left) a woman in a nissan econo box decides to make a left turn thinking she was in lane number 1. Her path was blocked by a new Ford SUV. The SUV wasn't swayed to terribly much by her sudden lane change. *SMASH*

"My day hasn't been all that bad. How about yours."
"I'm having a great day."

In the end, the nissan was smashed from driver's door to rear quarter pannel. The SUV took minor cosmetic damage to the front quarter pannel. No one was hurt. Since we were two of three witnesses we stuck around to talk to the police officer.

The officer arrived and together we attempted to pull the driver door open so the lady could get out of the car. *RIPPPPPPP* goes my pants, from halfway up the zipper south to the inseam, I didn't even bat an eye. I am just glad I had the forethought to put on underwear this morning.

I am also greatful for the box I keep in my office labeled "Emergency Pants".

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ok, yesterday I spoke about the bands I heard and how good the music was, but what is a concert experience without talking about the other people there, and some of the other interesting happenings.

"Of Cheeting Ho's, Bluegrass Ho's, Air Banjo Man, and cute little girls"
Listening to the Larry King band, I can't remember the song, suddenly Sara leans over to me with a shocked expression on her face,
"Did that man just sing 'You Cheeting Ho'?"
"No, absolutely not." I replied wondering where she got such a crazy idea.
"Are you sure, I mean listen!" She said.
So I listened as he sang about an unfaithful woman and her cheeting heart.
"He said, 'Your Cheeting Heart".
"Yeah, but 'You Cheeting Ho' fits!" and she laughed out loud.

She was right. For the rest of the song, all I could hear was "You Cheeting Ho". I guess we hear a little too much hiphop for our own good.

Speaking of ho's, before that song even ended two couples strolled past us. The men were in new blue jeans, button up shirts and shiny cowboy boots. One of the ladies was wearing heals, iridescent hose, a miniskirt, and a white pullover shirt so tight it looked painted on. No bra to speak of. It was just as good as seeing her topless in that shirt. Her friend was wearing heals, black daisy dukes and a black button up shirt that she had tied under her breast like she was hoping it would pull double duty as a bra. Both of them had extremely styled hair. And honestly, appart from being very out of place they looked pretty hot for a couple of 50+ year olds...

I think our favorite individual in the crowd was the man we came to know as "Air Banjo Man", this was a guy who indicated that he was at his first bluegrass concert. We think he was perhaps planning for a Lynyrd Skynyrd style experience. He was probably the most drunk person at the show. Alcohol was prohibited in the stage area but we saw a few folks quietly drinking beer from plastic cups. We know it was beer because they were reaching into their coolers, pulling out cans of beer and pouring it into cups. Most folks used a single cup all day. Air Banjo Man used a fresh cup for each beer. It looked like someone dumped a bag of solo cups under this guy's chair. What made him most funny was the way that he would do the most inappropriate things at the oddest times. Folks at concerts will hoop and hollar when a band is playing, but this guy would hoop and hollar when the stage was completely empty. He was wearing overalls, tennis shoes and apparently nothing else. Every time he staggard past us presumably on his way to the bathroom we all felt like we were on the verge of a close encounter of the drunk kind. I couldn't figure out of the tilt of the hill forced him to stagger in Sara's direction or if he wanted to talk to her but self preservation, in the form of two large males to either side of her, kept him at bay. I don't know what we laughed about the most, his hooting at the wrong times, or his wild air banjo playing. He was a memory for sure!

The next thing that we were all entertained by is going to garner a comment or two from you gentle readers I feel sure. Directly in front of us on a blanket was a father and a little girl who may or may not have been not quite two years old. Children come in four sizes, baby, too young to fence, old enough to fence, and legal in some states. Next to this pair on their left was two couples. One of the couples had one and a half babies; (a little girl just walking good, and her pregnet mom), the other couple were childless but really enjoying the presence of the one year old. About twenty feet to their right was a group, no kids, but they had an old golden retriever. Well, you know what they say about kids and dogs. They were a constant source of entertainment. The dog was extremely patient as the one little girl lead the other girl over to the dog, they would touch the dog on its back and run back to their parents only to walk back and touch the dog again. This went on for about an hour I think.

"The Confederacy Lives"
Many of the bands who played reminded us of the sacrifice our friends and neighbors are making overseas right now and to keep them in our thoughts. Little Roy of The Lewis Family went one step further to lament Georgia and South Carolina stripping all references of the confederate flag from their flags and facilities. Something I am bummed about as well. The best way possible to make the same mistake twice is to not acknowledge the last time you made the mistake. I feel the push to bury the past of the south is just such a mistake. Then Little Roy asked the sound mixer to tune his banjo's microphone so it would give as natural sound as possible. He than played a banjo solo of dixie. 98% of the audience stood at attention (although few removed their hats). This really caught my group off guard and we did not stand. As I see it, I am a Cavenaugh first, an American second, and a Southerner third. So the next time I check the "other box" on the "race or national origion" question I will fill in the blank, "Irish American Southerner", or "Celtic American Southerner", I guess it depends on how ornery I am feeling at the time.

Posted by Woody Cavenaugh at 9:30 AM | Permalink