Moo! The Musings of a Plaid Cow

They said that I should keep doing schtick, but I decided to branch out.

According to their radio commercial: Brink’s Document Destruction can destroy in 15 minutes what it would take your employees days to shred. Could Enron have competed with them?

The hardest part is shredding the documents is actually deciding what to shred, not how to operate the machinery. What idiot couldn’t figure out how to operate one? And more important than that are the legal questiosn that Brinks needs to be able to answer: * Who owns the documents that have been deposited? (ie, when can the company consider them destroyed?) * Could the they be subpoenaed? Without shreeding first? * What happens to the waste? Is the final step to make the destruction total? * What if useful information is later extracted from the “destroyed” documents? Who is responsible?

I am sure that the answers to all of these questions are covered in the fine print. Somewhere. And probably not to the satisfaction of the small businesses purchasing their services.

I left a note on my white board outside my office today stating simply: “I sing out of tune.” And this statement is completely true. (I had Fraternity brothers ask me not to try and sing along with the offical song because I was so far out.) Below this was a query asking “what would you do?”.

Well, what would you do?

What’s the fun of posting opinion if all one does is post and no one ever fights back?

At work we have a shiny new time-card system based on SAP. One of the warnings we repeatedly got when this system was first installed was to not double click on the link to enter our time…or we may get locked out for an indeterminate amount of time.

And it is all true. If we accidentally double click a link in the web browser it will become interminably confused and lock up out for a few minutes. I want to be able to sell a software product for millions of dollars that can’t pass the most basic of human interface tests. And makes lots of money. And roll in it.

A month or so ago a local radio station interviewed a soldier stationed in Iraq from the local area who spoke of his family:

I keep them in my heart, but I keep them out of my mind, because I miss the hell out of them.

It is a very poignant statement. At least it was the first thirty times I heard. They turned it into a commerical which I usually hear at least once I day. I just hope that either his family doesn’t listen or they are sending them a check each time they put him on the radio.

One of the most interesting things that I note about the drivers in New England is that the speed at which they go is irrespective of the Speed Limit. There are many drivers who always go 70 mph on the highway. In the 65 mph zone. When it drops to 55 mph. Even through the 45 mph construction zone. Still the same speed.

On other roads the speed limit is just a suggestion. I was driving down Ruote 128/I-95 the other day in the second to right lane (out of four) and had to quickly merge right to avoid being obliterated. I think I was only traveling 65 mph in the 55 mph zone….I was by far the slowest person going down that road at 12:30pm.

All of this is in contrast to Kentucky where the opposite problem tends to occur. The last time I was there I was trying to drive close to the speed limit which required me to get in the far left passing lane. Everyone else on the highway insisted on driving a good bit under this suggested speed.

Not that any of this is surprising since there is much less of an emphasis on Highway Patrol in New England. Before leaving Kentucky I was on track with about one moving violation per year, invluding the last one which was 10-15 mph over the limit, on a deserted road, in the middle of the night. (Heading down Poplar Level, from 264 to Eastern, right after the speed limit drops to 30 for anyone that knows the area.) I have received no violations during 4 years in New Hampshire even though I drive quite a bit more. I passed two officers this morning who were looking for speeders, though my 40 mph in a 30 zone did not concern them. I don’t think I that much a better driver, so what gives?