Silence is Golden
This was actually written on the 6th, but I don't want to give my loyal
readers (all 8 or so of them) too much content at one time. Like one of
the local radio stations (X101.5, Motto: "Life is an awful, sucking morass
of angst and pain... just like X101.5!") says, "And now, it's time for
another one in a row (We don't want to give 'em too much... how about we
just give 'em one in a row...)"
Anyway, Graduation Weekend has come and gone. One of my co-workers now
has his degree, and is no still no smarter than the rest of us. He is,
however, being hijacked by another division of our chronically under
staffed company, the database guys. Which means we now have someone to
dump on with all our database problems who isn't high enough ranked to
just blow us off. Heh heh heh... It also means we have one fewer
programmer to support our painfully baffled code base. Erk.
Anyway, Tallahassee is much emptier (which I'm quite happy with, frankly,
whenever I need to drive anywhere in a hurry) with all the students gone.
There's no bi-weekly anime club meetings, though, which is the only down
side. And I do mean the only down side. Now those of us who actually
live in this little burg have all the resources and services of a three
college plus state government town to ourselves (well, to ourselves if you
don't count various beaurocrats and summer studentia). I consider this a
good thing.
Some people like the big city atmosphere and lots of people. Quite frankly,
I think these people are insane. I like quiet, I like not having zillions
of people around. I'm not severely crowd-phobic, but I'm definitely one of
those people who likes to spend large amounts of time not being bothered
by the masses of mundanes. Give me a quiet library with a maze-like
labyrinth of rooms, halls and stacks with dusty corners that may or may not
have been explored since the fifties, and I'd happily waste vast amounts of
time there, without any contact with another human being unless I'm waiting
in line at the checkout desk. I'm not anti-social, it's just that ninety
nine percent of humanity has nothing to offer me, and the other one percent
I prefer to encounter exclusively on my own terms.
Which is actually closer to being sociopathic, now that I think about it.
Hurm. Oh well. Perhaps it's the atmosphere of the South (the Florida
Panhandle aka the Redneck Riviera still counts as The South, whereas much
of Florida actually counts as part of Mexico). I have more meaningful
conversations with total strangers while waiting in line or passing in
the halls than I do with most people I actually know. I suppose part of the
reason I'm perfectly happy to spend my free time blissfully ignoring the
rest of the world is that I have a low quota of interaction that needs to
be fulfilled, and it's completed quite nicely in conversations at work and
during friendly chatter with the locals during the various things that
regrettably require me to leave home to accomplish (groceries, etc).
Regardless, Tallahassee is now much emptier. More social oriented types
might bemoan the loss of people who've fled back to their distant homes,
but I'm not one of those types. Let those who retreat from this fair town
do so, those that remain will be all the better for it...
I know I will, at least... no more razzer-frazzin students clogging
up the street I need to pull out into in the mornings to go in to work,
reducing it to near-zero visibility. Mutter, mutter, cretins, mumble.
Time to sneak out some night and paint more sections of curb in "Don't park
here, dammit!" yellow. My tax dollars pay for the parking enforcement
system, I might as well get some benefit from it.
Rant 'o the day contains no additives, preservatives or
small woodland creatures of any kind. Use only as directed. Do not expose to
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Handle with care. Contains less than 3% milk fat by weight, not by volume.
Squeeze the lemon.
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