General

Peace & Quiet

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I just changed my phone number. Since I moved here, I’ve been getting several misdirected fax calls a day for whoever had this number before me. It seems that my number was someone’s fax machine and it was listed in every mass fax distribution list. Many of the calls would arrive after midnight.

In particular, I would get calls from 305-521-156x every few days. I don’t have my fax machine set to auto-answer because I don’t have a separate fax line, but I’ve never been able to get it to manually connect and successfully receive a fax from that number so I could tell them to stop faxing me. Even though my caller ID shows the number and identifies it as “Jefferson Pilot”, my call block feature won’t allow me to block those calls.

In the last week, I’ve also started receiving daily fax calls identified as 025-000-0001 on my caller ID. I also haven’t been able to block that one or get it to connect.

Since the fax situation just seemed to be getting worse, I finally decided to go ahead and change my number even though the old number was on all of my stationery & business cards.

Unauthorized Coffee

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This is an actual memo from a company I used to work for:


Memo To: All Employees

From: [president of the company]

Subject: Policies on Coffee Breaks and Food/Drinks

For over 15 years [company name omitted] has had a formal policy on 1)
coffee breaks and 2) locations where food and drinks may not be consumed. These policies are as follows:

-- There are two scheduled coffee breaks each day. The morning break
is from 10:15 to 10:30 A.M. and the afternoon break is from 3:15
to 3:30 P.M.

-- The company provides free coffee or tea to employees during the
scheduled coffee breaks and at lunchtime.

-- Food or drinks (with the exception of water which must be in a
closed container) are not allowed in company offices or warehouses
at any time. Food or drinks may only be consumed in lunchrooms or
patio/outside areas.

These policies were established for good reasons. They were for cleanliness,
electronic equipment concerns, work scheduling and efficiency. The company
decided to pay for coffee and tea to offset any inconvenience employees
might feel.

Many employees are not following these policies. As a result, food and
drinks are being consumed at any hour of the working day, employees are
using extra company-paid time to obtain unauthorized coffee, and
coffee is being consumed in places where food and drinks should not be consumed.
In spite of the fact that our employee numbers have not increased in
the past year, company expenses on coffee and related supplies have almost
doubled in the past year.

Effective immediately, I expect all employees to adhere to [company name
omitted] formal policies as stated above. Supervisors and managers will be expected to enforce and monitor these policies in their respective departments.

Southern trees bear strange fruit

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From the Sun-Sentinel:

Belle Glade … The stark image conjures up a bleak chapter in American history: a black man’s body dangling from a tree.

That’s what Bernice Golden found on May 28, her son’s body hanging from a schefflera tree just outside his grandmother’s Belle Glade home.

She can’t believe Feraris Golden’s death was a suicide as police suspect. Just hours earlier, he had been joking with friends at a nearby mom-and-pop convenience store.

Are we living in the 1930s? How did he kill himself with his hands tied behind his back?

Midnight is back

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Midnight returned this afternoon. When I went out to look for him, he came running, meowed loudly, rubbed against my leg, and followed me home. This time I won’t let him out until I secure the patio. I made an appointment to take him to the vet tomorrow.

He's gone

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This morning Midnight started meowing & making such a fuss that I let the cats out on the patio. I went back to bed & when I got up about an hour later I saw Cody sitting inside and Midnight outside. He made a hole in the patio screen and got out, and he’s been coming and going as he pleases all morning. Right now he’s gone, but I’m sure he’ll come back tonight.

It looks like he won’t be happy as an indoor only cat, so I’ll probably have to put in some kind of cat door. Cody, on the other hand, needs to be an indoor only cat since he’s declawed, so I’ll have to somehow keep Cody inside and let Midnight go out.

This was SO perfect

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Before Midnight came into my apartment, he used my neighbor’s plants as a litterbox, and it seems to be one of his favorite spots. I’m sure my neighbor just loves it 🙂

Midnight

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The black stray, which some of the neighbors named Midnight, is now in my apartment. He seems to be getting along OK with Cody and seems to like being indoors. If he stays, I’ll take him to the vet tomorrow to get him checked out & neutered.

Back from WWDC

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I got back at 1:30AM. My flight from San Francisco to Detroit was 45 minutes late, but thankfully my flight from Detroit was also an hour late, or I would have missed it.

I have a pretty bad cold & I feel miserable now. My ears are killing me from flying.

I’m now installing Panther on my G4 minitower.