Weirdness

[altivo]

OK, it's Monday morning. And OK, I still haven't recovered from the stupid time change. But even so...

On my way to work this morning I passed or was passed by three ambulances and three fire trucks all headed in different directions. This is very unusual for a rural area, believe me. The road was blocked in one place and sheriff's deputies were directing traffic around a firetruck and two squad cars. No damaged vehicles or broken bits of same were in evidence. There was an ambulance parked in a nearby cross road. The firemen had a large red tarp on the roadway and were picking it up as if it contained liquid, but I couldn't see what was in it. Very weird situation that.

The raccoons seem to have had a very bad night of it too. I counted six dead ones on the road, all fresh kills or at least fresh enough that they weren't squashed all over the place but just lying there entire and looking pitiful. Unfortunately, we do have people around here who will deliberately try to hit wildlife that strays onto the road rather than avoiding it. There are a lot of raccoons, and for some reason they don't seem to fear vehicles at all. Bad mixture of conditions.

Then when I got to work the parking lot was nearly blocked by huge AT&T trucks and a lot of workers standing around. No idea what that was about. By the time I had parked, unlocked the door, and turned the lights on they were gone. I fully expected the phones or internet connection to be down, but they seem to be fine.

[EDIT] Added weirdness: the boss comes and says that the public connections for people to use their laptops on the internet aren't working. Someone she knows personally is here and insists her laptop worked fine last week but won't connect now. I say it's a problem with her laptop, but the boss insists that I check. This involves disconnecting one of our own machines, reconfiguring it to work through the proxy, dragging it out there and testing. Result: It works just fine, as I knew it would. Meanwhile two other users have come in, plugged in their laptops, and they are also working. The original user insists it can't be her machine, but after power off and reboot, hers works as well. Now I have to put our own machine back together. Pointless. And they wonder why my attitude about the computers is "the user is always wrong."

Comments

[scruff.livejournal.com]

Poor little raccoons! ;.;

[altivo.livejournal.com]

My feelings exactly. They can be a terrible nuisance, but they're also adorably cute. I think automobiles are probably their number one enemy around here. They are pretty good at avoiding dogs and coyotes.

[scruff.livejournal.com]

I suspect they evolved their cuteness to get away with being pesky.

And it works! :)

[silver-kiden.livejournal.com]

my answer to the poor raccoons, as to so many other things, is, if i saw somebody TRY to kill it, that person be a walking corpse! oh, and people are stupid. that is all.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, I sorta figure they are the kind who'll end up wrapped around a tree eventually. Or they'll hit a deer and do themselves in that way.

[atomicat.livejournal.com]

If we would only learn to live with our furry friends they wouldn't be considered a nuisance. It's all a matter of perspective. I consider everything on this planet to be a roommate. Some of them can be a pain in the ass but most of them are just nice folk.

Gods. How many times have you had a variation on... "Just try it again.... But I did it right the first time! Well, just try it again, just to make sure... Oh! Wow! It worked! *SIGH*" Fucking users.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The raccoon thing is a culture clash of some sort. The new yuppie types who moved out here from the inner suburbs mostly seem to hate the wildlife because they either believe it will kill their cats, dogs, and kids or else it will "mess up their lawn" somehow. The redneck who carries his hunting rifle in the back of the truck all the time also seems to hate wildlife just because, well, it's alive and everything he despises ought to be dead anyway just on general principles. The rest of us are considered "tree huggers" and "nut cases."

[atomicat.livejournal.com]

An all too common attitude that exists here too. I wince when I see these HUGE manicured rural farmyards. Riding mowers, fertilizer, pesticides, the works.

[cozycabbage.livejournal.com]

Oh, the user IS always wrong. That, and the program. Those things are often made by the shoddiest of people.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

90% of the time the user is wrong ;)

That's always the problem when someone the boss knows or their relatives come in. We had that problem where I worked last, I had imense satisfaction telling them their son was download a lot of port, most of it boderline illegal ;) *hehe*

I feel sorry for raccoons, most people here will avoid wildlife because kangaroos and things are too big to hit. But I have a few friends who rolled their cars avoiding wildlife on the road.