This Sucks

I've now been messing around for over a week in order for Debbie's XP laptop to be able to write files to a Win7 share. I just doesn't work. I've done everything suggested by every tech site on the internet, and none of it works. I know Microsoft is desperate to get people off XP, but completely borking things up seems an extreme and counter-productive way to do it. There is an answer, but it costs $200 which we don't have at the moment. I must be getting too old or too stupid for this. In any case, I'm giving up.

After two tax classes, we have made it through chapter 2 in the textbook. We are supposed to be through chapter 6. At this rate, we should be done around January 2012. The upside is that the instructor gave me a job lead; it's far enough away we would have to buy a car for me to take the job and it doesn't sound like he is willing to pay enough to make that worthwhile, but we'll see where it goes. I also have a couple more prospects that I'll be checking on today. If nothing else, I gotta get off this couch before my butt grows right into it.

This weekend is the final push to get the apartment into shape; we're tired of walking around bins and piles. We'll probably have to make some hard choices about what we realistically have the space for in order to get the job done, but it is past time to do that anyway. Downsizing was easy when we started in 2006; we had soooo much crap we had no use for, we had no problem filling a 26' moving van for the auction plus giving away at least that much again. Several iterations later, we're getting to things we... well, use isn't the right word because a lot of it is dust collectors. Meaningful is probably the right word.

Debbie's job is still going well and her numbers are looking good. Not good enough for the bonus to kick in, but getting there. Once she gets a check for a full pay period, we can start re-figuring our budget. If we did the back-of-the-envelope calculations correctly, her check will cover all the routine bills so whatever I make can go straight into savings. We've put a serious dent in our funds over the last two years and we really need to get back on track. We plan to live like monks for at least the next year; two or three would be better yet. We've never gone on a material fast for that long before; we'll likely fall off the wagon a couple times.

All things come to an end: TV series, vacations, roller coasters, M&M Blizzards, societies:

What did your friend the musician tell you after his band, which was successful on album two but not so much by album five, broke up?

“We just drifted apart. Didn’t have much in common anymore, we were heading in different directions.”

That is also how societies die. When they start out, they have a clear mission, and through years of struggle and violence they prevail over their enemies, beat out their own inner demons, find a stable system of values they agree on (the “social consensus”), and then use that value system to blow off everything else and drive hard toward self-improvement.

Once they reach that, these societies are in trouble. They lack wars to unify themselves; they invent internal wars, and spend time chasing Communists, Racists, Satanists, Hackers or other Demons. When that behavior runs out on them, they spend time chasing nothing; the individual becomes more important than the society, and soon what you have is a giant pool of selfish people who barely tolerate each other because they have nothing in common except a desire to manipulate past each other so they can continue their selfish pursuits.

If you read the entire essay, you are sure to find quibbles, but the basic premise is sound: all things end. It's how things end that makes a difference.

Well, off to look for work.