Friends '09 - Composition - Assignment 1 - Personal Narrative Rough Draft

The meaning of ‘hero’ has many interpretations. When I think of the boldness of super heroes, their gravitas, their nobility, it is difficult to contrast these idols of everyday life against what being a hero can mean. Some acts of simple assistance can mean the world to some people, where one man’s illustrated hero can stop a speeding bullet, another person’s hero can simply take a moment to help someone who’s confidence is low. I want to tell you what it felt like to be a hero, but for a minute, in the eyes and heart of a woman I once and never knew.

I’ve single-handedly stopped a car from blowing up on the side of a highway (True story; just ask the firefighter who called me an idiot for my efforts). I’ve rescued a young distressed swimmer from a city pool. I’ve given someone a meal to eat when they had nothing. I’ve always tried to do what I could to make a major mark in someone else’s life; to be remembered for the good, the right. I would have to say, with an bit of honesty, I’ve always enjoyed helping others, to being needed, and the recognition I would receive for those efforts (even if it was negative reinforcement, e.g. the fireman) Those things and more, though, do not compare to a single moment I had at work a few months back.

I work in a call center for a local cable company. My job is, to me, a menial one. I am tasked to assist the unfamiliar with setup, configuration, and on-going support of their video, data, and telephone services through this provider. In any given day, I could speak to anywhere from thirty to seventy people on the phone. I assist each person with their bill, their inability to check their email, their inadvertent triple-x rated show they accidently ordered four nights in a row and want to have expunged from their account before their significant other sees the bill or they are going to sue our company. Essentially, the usual call center fare. My calls are quick; meaningless in the greater scheme of things. These personal connections I make with the customers are warm, touching, heart-felt, and fleeting. I’ve become your best friend, your good buddy, your charming and caring other man for the five to forty-five minutes I am on the line, and then I am gone as fast as I entered their lives and fixed their pay-per-view television. I have no misgivings to this; it is the nature of the job, and I understand these relationships are fleeting.

There are the few moments in time when an interaction occurs and your life is different forever because of it. While I cannot tell you the date or time, the moment is forever burned into my person. I can describe it with great detail because I was caught off-guard by it, torn away from my interpersonal professional distance I keep, and pulled into this woman’s world for a second. She helped reinvigorate my sense of worth and value to my job with a few simple words. This all began with a simple cable snowiness issue and turned into a story I try to tell my coworkers when they lose their sense of importance at work.

The woman called in and I answered, as per the usual process. I wish I could remember her name, or have written it down somewhere. Alas, her name is lost to the winds of time, but the memory of her is forever. She called about having a snowy picture on every channel above channel 26. I inspected her account, and the information about her area. Everything checked out; she had no outages to mention and her account was in good standing. I checked over the services she had, and found there to be nothing terribly complicated about her cable services. In my mind, I had decided already that this call was going to be quite simple.

After a few questions about the nature of her troubles, I asked her if she felt comfortable checking some connections behind her television. This is a standard practice when someone reports fuzziness on analog cable stations. Her reply was heavy with hesitation and apprehension:

“Well, I’m not sure. My husband passed away recently, and he usually does this type of stuff.”

I encouraged her, stating that this would be a very easy fix; either there was a loose cable in the back of her television, or we would need to send a technician to her home and investigate further. I could hear some apprehension in her voice as she said “Wait a minute,” and readjusted to get behind the television.

“Ok, what am I looking for?” she asked.

“What you are looking for is the coaxial cable that screws onto the television and then connects back to the wall.”

“I see it.”

“What I need you to do is remove this cable from both the wall and the television, then reconnect it back. We want to make sure we have a flush connection at both connectors.”

“Ok, let me put the telephone down and do this.” I heard some rustling about and movement on the other end. This went on for about a minute. She picked up the phone. “OK, did that.”

“All right, now let’s look at the television and see if that fixed it.”

And then something I’ll never forget happened. She acknowledged me, and I heard some movement, as though she was getting up off the floor. She presumably moved in front of the TV, and then… started crying.

“Oh my God, I fixed it…”

I was taken a bit back at the tears, but I was encouraged her with a simple “I take it it is working?”

Her crying was rising at a frenetic pace, to almost sobbing. “Was that really it? You didn’t do anything to it?”

I wasn’t sure where she was going with this. “No ma’am, it was all you. I just told you what to look at.”

“No one’s going to believe me. “

“Excuse me ma’am?”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m seventy eight years old. I haven’t been able to fix anything around here since my husband died.”

The tears she was crying were not those of sadness, but more the tears a player cries when they’ve scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl; those tears at graduation, those tears of celebration. She exclaimed that no one at her place of employment would believe her and to be sure to document this as proof she did it. I gladly did so, and was moved to tears myself. I had to hold back choking up myself while I documented her account and wrapped up the details.

After the call was over, I was so taken aback by that call I had to step out on a personal unscheduled break and take a breather. To say I was choked up didn’t adequately capture the welling tears in my eyes. I can only assume, in that revelatory moment that I may never fully grasp, she was enlightened. She was newly capable. She found a power she didn’t know she had. Her world changed pivotally and I was witness to the moment. All because of some loose RG-6 Coaxial cable.

That moment may live on in her mind, it may have been forgotten a week later, I do not know. I do know, however, that even though the call ended, I was changed. My view of the world was just that much kinder because of her. I had a renewed sense of purpose that day that still lingers when I am frustrated with my employment. Everyone should be so lucky.

This is My Blackberry

This is my Blackberry.

There are many like it, but this one is MINE.

My Blackberry is my best friend. It is my life.

I must master it as I must master my life.

My Blackberry without me is useless. Without my Blackberry, I am useless.

Windows 7 Install List

Document Version 1.1.2.4.3 Last Modified 8/14/09

Just installed Windows 7 cleanly onto a new hard drive. Going to catalog the initial installation of apps and why I chose to install them.

• Commercial Software

Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit - Why not? That, and the current activator only supports Ultimate at this time, so the reasoning should be fairly obvious. I'm using 32-bit as I only have 3GB RAM, and I anticipate I'll replace this machine before I spend the money and add another Gig for no reason. You'll need Hazar's 7 Activator: Run as Administrator, let reboot the computer. Comes up activated. We'll see in a few days. edit: Few days later, all is well.

Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise - While your version may vary, is there any reason NOT to go with Enterprise?

Adobe CS4 Master Collection - The one, the only. Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver. Those are my main tools.

Roxio Creator 2009 - An all encompassing DVD burning suite. Some prefer Nero; I've come back to the old Adaptec product.

Techsmith Snaggit - For screen shots and other tutorial handiness.

Symantec Endpoint Protection - The Cox Security Suite that is provided by the ISP is not yet compatible with Windows 7. This is, and I've always personally had good luck with Symantec products.

Windows Home Server Connector - I currently have a Windows Home Server for my file server and torrenting machine, and this software gives me console access to it.

MagicISO - Used to open .iso images and add files. Namely condensing serials onto disks. Recently compatible with Windows 7.

• Free (as in beer) Software

Mozilla Firefox - 3.5 is current as of writing; quite fast and a nice alternative to Internet Explorer

Google Chrome - Just the other day released another update that made it skinnable. And ridiculously fast.

Applekeys 2 - I have an Apply Keyboard and need this to get 'Print Screen' mapped correctly to my keyboard.

Apple Safari - 4.0.2 is current as of this writing and add another browsing option.

Virtual Clonedrive - This is use for mounting .ISO files when I don't want to have to burn the CD/DVD

VLC - 1.0 as of this time. The one, the only. It's the Swiss Army Knife of multimedia players.

7-Zip - Has nothing to do with Windows 7 per se, this is the Swiss Army Knife of file openers.

Tweetdeck - Yeah, I know.

iTunes - Not really a question.

Blackberry Desktop 5.0 - Used to sync the Blackberry(ies). Had to install USB drivers with this suite.

• Games - Free or Otherwise
  

Fallout 3 - Seriously one of my all time favorites.
America's Army - Going to try 3.0. It's been a while.

• Incidentals - Unexpected but required installations

Adobe Flash - Had to update to 10.0

Adobe Air - Necessary for Tweetdeck

Apple Software Update - Necessary for Apple Software on Windows computers.

Quicktime - An incidental of iTunes
Apple Bluetooth Keyboard - Install wireless keyboard from Apple in Windows.
Windows Live - Newest free software out of Microsoft to compete with iLife.
Windows Live Games - Part of Windows Live.
Roxio Media Manager & Blackberry Media Sync - Part of Blackberry Desktop 5.0.

• Still Looking For:
  

A proper video transcoder for both my X-Box 360 and my Storm.
An all-in-one codec set for Windows Media Player 11 I trust to install
The new Batman demo.

Installing Windows 7

This was asked of me, so I thought I'd go world-wide with it.

1. Acquire the ISO
Considering it was only released to manufacturers, this is technically impossible unless your last name is Dell. But I digress.

2. Burn and Boot the ISO.
Forgive the remark, but this isn't Aaaaar! 101. Burning an ISO is not covered here. (Hint: Nero)

3. Beginning Install
I took the route, personally, of upgrading a Vista installation. I started the process from within Vista, then followed the oh-so-simple prompts. The most important being what edition I wanted to install. I suspect a clean install will tell us the same. I chose Ultimate, because at Ultimate Computers (the wholesale computer company I run that allowed me to get this copy. *ahem*), every computer we sell comes with Ultimate. Who do you think we are, some two-bit operation?

Carrying on...

4. Setting Up
Windows Vista and Windows 7 are sisters. Vista is the older, uglier of the two. But Ugs is experienced, and her experience is beneficial for us when it comes to cracking Microsoft's... activating your copy correctly. The same scheme used to activate Windows Vista works on her completely unexpectant little sis. I'm going to Hell for that. The process you're looking for is by Orbit30. You know where to look.

5. Enjoy the fruit of someone else's labor.
That's right you damn slackers. That's all I have to say on the matter.

Facebook (or how I came to love Little Brother)

In the last couple of days, you'll have found my Facebook account livening back up. Given my previous feelings regarding the service, I can't help but have torn feelings. One side of me can' t let go of the fact that some of the venture capital getting Facebook off the ground came from a former CIA agent's firm, or that a member of the directors for the company is former NSA.

It seems all crazy conspiracy theory, I know. But regardless of conspiracy loonyness or something more, I think it speaks to an age where we are willing to put everything we are out to the world without any regard for who may be able to utilize it. The ability, for example, to lock away your more... specious photos for only friends to see. You're only a computer hack, password compromise, or over-the-should social engineer away from having your salacious images available to people you don't know for whatever their reasonings. My guess is those people don't have your best interests at heart. And you may never know until it's too late. Fancy a run for a local office, and that less than complimentary photo shows up during the primaries. And that's without using my imagination.

Then, you may ask, why are you using it again if you've got such an aversion to Facebook? My answer is two-fold.

Recently it became apparent to me that there's no stopping the juggernaut of information that Facebook and other sites will imbibe. And sadly, we're not hesitant for one moment to give it, personal liberties be damned. I never knew volunteering all the reading behaviors, friends and associates, how you know them, religious and political affiliations, and personal contact information over the last 5 years could be so fun! The CIA couldn't do a better job profiling you if they tried.

I've decided to embrace that system, doing so knowing where the dangers lie. I'm best suited to operate in murky water knowing what to expect. There are several things I've done to protect my information. But let's face it: regardless of how well you drive, you still have a possibility if accident, if not caused by you, but another driver on the road. You take those calculated risks every time you get behind the wheel. Or post something to Facebook.

Blogger to Twitter Module

I'm curious about a module or web app that would allow me to post the titles of my Blogger entries to my Twitter account as I post. Wonder how difficult that would be to implement?

On a completely different note, this was posted entirely from my Blackberry Storm.

Plasma Televisions: RF Interference and Other Oddities

Trouble: Your remote is not able to change channels on your digital box, bring up the guide, or anything else pertaining to controls of the digital box. You've swapped batteries, you've changed boxes, you've changed remotes.

Culprit: Your plasma TV is emitting enough radiation to cause prostate cancer. The EMF (Electromagnetic Field) being put off that TV is making your microwave jealous. Your remote IR beam that sends signals to your box is hitting a wall of electrical interference like a waterhose trying to push upstream through a river.

The Fix(TM): This is a two-fer. Do both of these. First, move the digital box/Tivo/Dish reciever, etc as far away as possible from the offending television. Secondly, somewhere in the menu of the TV should be the controls for the backlight. You'll want to turn that down as low as possible without suffering picture quality loss. Once the backlight is cooled a bit, you'll find your remote to be operational again.

Caveats: The only thing to be aware of (short of having to wear a lead vest at TV time) is that your batteries will burn out faster than the average user. Your batteries are strong right now, but as they weaken, the IR will weaken. When that reaches a certain point, you'll be back to these same problems. This will take less time, as the radiation from the TV may force that issue faster than if there was no TV pushing back.

Twitter

Twitter.

http://twitter.com/grioghar

Strangest part was I found r_houghton's acct there. And it's locked. Presumably Forever.

This is a test from my Blackberry. This is fantastic; I can SMS all my thoughts right from here.

Neat.

Rorschach

Makes notes. Short sentences. Expresses his ideas in a pattern that doesn't take a lot of purple prose. No predicates.

Dangling participles. If I could remember what a dangling participle is. Working for a company that deals in visual media has

Ouch

Carl came
And it was the same thing
A night of fun
A morning of pain
Nothing learned
All the same
Changed our age
But not our ways
Once a year
A retrograde

Easter (or the Spring Harvest)

Whatever your preference. Judeo-Christian history says Christ died today for your sins. Pagans believe this is the spring harvest and should be thankful to, I believe without cracking open Google, Gaia. That could be wrong.

Meh. Colored some eggs for the sake of fun with the kiddo, but my inner theologist was screaming at the hypocrisy. To quote Lewis Black: "Jesus died for our sins... Quick, hide all the eggs!"

Opus

I have to start writing again. I have to start working out the mental muscles, the dialogue patterns; the non-descript desire to have run-on sentences. I've been listening to dialogue patterns people are using to determine rhythms in writing. I need to pick up another book and really knock the dust off my pen and penmanship. I can catalogue digitally, but I can't find myself using a word processor to write my opus.

The very problem is pretty easy to describe but most unfortunate to figure out: What is my opus? Which story? Genesis? Experimental 7? Juggle? Teeth?

Quandry.

Mainly, A Test

Mearly to see if this works.