When I Became a Man

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

I Corinthians 13:11

Winter garden

Something I Learned in Tech Support

"Man, that lady sounded mad about it."
"Yeah, well she wouldn't be calling if she didn't have a problem."

There it is. I learned something in that interaction with one of my coworkers. Much of my customer service experience comes from Restaurant Land and it's given me a tremendous amount of experience with people who are mad about something or another. The big difference is that people generally don't go to a restaurant because there's a problem. They go to a restaurant to eat, drink, and be merry. When someone's calling tech support it's because there's a problem. They're not calling to have a good time. That's not to say that most people who call are really mad. Most people are cool and just want a solution to their problem. Nevertheless, underlying even the kindest person's call is something negative that needs to be resolved. They'd rather not ever talk to you.

Yeah, you could say that hunger is a problem that a restaurant is looking to solve but most people aren't frustratingly hungry and mad about it. Yes, again, you can argue against that, too, but I'm speaking in generalities. Most people who go to a restaurant are there for positive reasons. Most people who call tech support are there for negative reasons.

Either way, the duty of the employee is to ameliorate the customer's woes and make sure they leave happy and satisfied. As a server or a retail clerk or a help desk technician or a car salesman, your duty is the same: make sure the customer leaves happy.

Lift Weight, Lift Spirit

Happy April!

Today was bicep and tricep day. Felt strong with the weights I normally do but couldn't jump it up a notch. Next week. Strike that...I did go to a higher weight on the tricep pulldowns. Apparently I have pretty strong triceps. I mean, relative to my other muscles. Shoulders are probably my strongest. Weakest...um...of all the days I probably feel weakest...guess I'll say legs. I don't feel like my squats and leg presses are where they should be. But what does "should" mean anyway? I want to lift more on everything.

I'm 35 and never lifted regularly in my life. I played around a few times in high school but that was minimal, a handful of times at the most. I was athletic my whole life until after high school when I turned to pretty much just sitting around all the time. Never got fat because of my fortunate metabolism but couldn't say I was fit. Somewhere around my mid-20s I read that book, Body for Life, and started running a lot. That lasted maybe 6 months or so. Last January I started running regularly because I wanted to get fit for my wedding. I maintained a good routine for 6 months or so. I ran 3 or 4 times a week during that stretch. Also did lots of Wii Fit, which is no joke, so don't hate. I got down to about 150 for my June wedding and was in the best shape I'd been in since being a teenager. After the wedding my running routine fell away.

In February one of my friends, who's been lifting regularly for a while now encouraged me to join him at the gym. I went along and loved it. I joined Anytime Fitness on Valentine's Day and I've been there 5 days a week since then, except for a few slack days. I can see and feel the difference and it makes me happy. I really enjoy working out. It clears my head, strengthens my body, and makes me feel better overall. I'm happier and more energetic. I feel stronger at the end of a long shift and I sleep like a rock at night.

Life is good.

Leg Day

Just returned from Anytime Fitness. Today is leg day. Felt good. Got good and low on my squats. I focused on getting low and maintaining form and didn't worry about doing as much weight as I could. Had 25s on each side and that was just right. 3 sets of 8. I also threw in some abdominal work today. Haven't been working them at all in the 1.5 months I've been going to the gym.

My quadriceps are humming. My abs are giving me a slightly nauseated feeling. Nice.

Chugged my protein shake and now it's into the shower and off to work. Training a new server today. Been doing that a lot lately. We're really piling on the staff this year. It's going to be a busy one.

Cheers.

Valentine's gush

Spent yesterday in supernaturally beautiful Seaside, FL.

We had a few beers and some kick-ass crab cakes and the best fried green tomatoes at The Great Southern Cafe.


I could only dream of being half as good of a writer as would be required to write admirably about that stretch of Unknown Coast along Highway 30-A. When they have a Most Beautiful Places on Earth contest, south Walton County could confidently submit its application. Seriously. Whenever I drive through those pristine perfectly planned communities my mind periodically explodes through the dome of my head at how PRETTY everything is. Damn it...I am a man and I'm forced to admit that something is indisputably pretty. But it is. It is not only pretty but it's beautiful and amazing and it's where you wish you could live.

I think back on yesterday's drive along the Gulf and I think of sunshine and blinding white sand and my wife's gleaming eyes. We were on our Valentine's Day Eve holiday, a DAYCATION. Yeah, daycation. We drove down the coast on a daycation celebrating Valentine's Day Eve. A holiday featuring love and romance is one we should all feel good about. Don't hate. Don't let the mass marketing ruin it for you. It's about love. Valentine's Day is about Love. I don't care about the Catholic origins, the pagan origins, the origins on picture disks from our ancient alien overlords. Valentine's Day is about love and I was out on a sunny afternoon with eyes watering in the brightness and a sniffle from not-quite-spring breezes and all that's running through my head is love, love, love, and maybe some other stuff, too, but I couldn't stop feeling lucky and blessed. I have the best wife and I love my life.

Speaking of life. Other than weeping over the beauty of the landscape and the beauty of my wife,  I've been studying this stuff:

Looks like a good time, doesn't it? Blows my mind on a regular basis. The circuitry driving the blinking LEDs on your Bluray player kicks my ass. Don't even get me started on the stuff that actually reads and translates those Bluray discs. Hooray for electronics!

crusty ol laptops vs Droid

My Apple iBook G4 is dead tech. It has almost always functioned perfectly and continues to do so. However, I ask less and less of it as time goes on. It has a PowerPC processor which cuts it off from being able to play a lot of streaming media (such as Netflix) and OS X is no longer being updated for it. It's a dead platform. It's no longer being supported and its weak graphical capabilities are beginning to flag under the weight of today's graphics-rich computing experience. It's done its job admirably for around 6 years and I'm thankful for that. But there's part of me that desires to smash it to pieces on the ground. I'm done with it. I wants a sweet new computer.

Speaking of dead tech, I'm typing this on my trusty old Toshiba Satellite. This tank is even older than my iBook. It has better stickers on it, though. Plus, it's able to stream Netflix. It also has Office, which the iBook lacks. The more time I spend in my electronics classes the more I feel that I'm much better off with a Microsoft-based computer. I also took a Cisco class and its online curriculum was much better suited and tailored for Windows.

The iBook is my music center. Almost all of our music is on there and I often use it for Last.fm, MySpace music, and Pandora. The Toshiba is where I get things done.

Battling the laptops for computer time is my Droid. I use it more than I use the laptops. It does everything they do and almost always does it just as well. Sometimes the system lags a little and sometimes there's network lag but such occurrences are not often and the Droid is ridiculously convenient. It does everything I need a computer to do except that I wouldn't use it to compose anything longer than a text message or short email, but even that's changing. I recently downloaded Swype and it's been great.

To sum up: iBook is a jukebox, Toshiba is for typing and Electronics Workbench, and Droid is for everything else.

Happy New Year