Monthly Archives: January 2006

E-Mail Inefficiencies

Today was the straw the broke the camel’s back on the topic of e-mail. As a server administrator I deal with e-mail servers regularly and as any e-mail administrator knows, spammers are evil. Their tactics are such a pain, causing nothing but problems and stress on servers around the world. It’s also no secret that I’ve often wished “SpamAssassin” was actually an elite Ninja squad who specialized in removing the extremities of selfish good-for-nothing spammers.

That said, spam was not the issue today… it was actually a “legitimate message” that tipped the scale of sanity. The e-mail in question was several pages long and consisted of several people replying to messages, replying to CC’s and talking about something that some how I am involved with (because I was CC’d). Since I was CC’d on only the last few messages it’s now up to me to sort through the disgusting mess of in-line responses since the beginning and find out what the hell this has to do with me.

After about an hour of reading to figure out who-is-who and who-is-saying-what I find that right in the middle of the mess is my name as a contact (used as an incorrect reference to a project I had little to do with). So now I’ve just spent an hour of my life figuring out this whole twisted problem to find out I really don’t have anything to do with it.

The more I deal with e-mail, the less efficient I believe it is becoming. Not because of the technology itself of course, but because of how it’s being used and abused. HTML messages with colours and picutures, long correspondence, complex issues and the lack of security behind SMTP are all contributing factors to my continuing hatred of my e-mail account.

At present I do not know a solution to the problem… it seems to me like going back to usenet for business correspondence may be a solution worth investigating. What’s old is new again, isn’t that right? Perhaps with all the new social Internet concepts someone will develop something that becomes more useful and business oriented… who knows.

Until then… if you e-mail me and require any sort of response, your best bet is to keep it to the point and text-only. If you have a secret about how to efficiently handle 100 or so messages per day, for love of grey, tell me, I’m all ears.

Another Bump in the 2006 Track

On my continued report of 2006, I’ll say that the second week ended with a bit of a bump. I was sitting at home on Friday evening and around 8:20PM my telephone rings… It was my wife, stating she had just been in a car accident.

I jumped up off the couch, wrestled with trying to get a stubborn sock on my foot and sped off to the intersection she gave me to make sure everything was OK. Upon arrival a spectator filled me in on what she saw happen… my wife was in the middle of the road turning left and clearing the intersection on a yellow light, when another car tried to make it through the yellow / red light. It just so happens that the car that tried to beat the light was a female off-duty OPP officer, who we’re told is a sweet-heart.

This unfortunate accident resulted in both parties being charged. Karla got “Left turn – fail to afford reasonable opportunity to avoid collision” which is a $110 fine and 4 points. We’re still thinking about whether to fight this in court or not, because the fact is that Karla did nothing wrong, she did exactly what she was supposed to do.

All in all, Karla’s poor new Yellow Saturn is pretty much destroyed and we’re waiting to hear from the insurance company as to what the verdict is as to whether it is a write-off or not.

We’re just so lucky that both Karla and Tanya are OK and I’ll definitely be giving updates on this as they happen. I’m especially interested in blogging about dealing with an insurance company for the first time. We have all of our insurance through State Farm and have always been happy dealing with our local office, this should be a good test of their system.

Experience Log with State Farm:

[-] Small Issue:
My local office wasn’t open on the weekend so I had to wait until today to talk to them. We could have filed the claim with the 24 hour toll-free number, but I’d rather talk to my local people.

[+] Positive:
First thing Monday morning I was speaking with my local office and they got everything started for me right away. They asked a few questions and said I should expect a call shortly from a claims officer. I was called within an hour and the lady setup a rental car for my wife, and contacted the garage where the car was towed. Easy as pie thus far.

Rollercoaster First Week of 2006

After not blogging much over the Holidays this year I have a few important life-notes to blog about today. Two Thousand and Six has started out with a major up and down, and staying true to chronological order I’ll start with the bad before the good.

.: The Bad News :.
On January 2nd, 2006 my Grandmother passed away in the hospital after falling ill two weeks prior. I miss her already and wish I would have spent more time with her and called her on the telephone just a bit more often. Human nature I guess, to need something tragic to happen before realizing what you’re missing.

My wife and I left for Richmond, Quebec at the end of last week to attend my Grandmothers visitation, funeral and burial. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to be there and shake hands with the the few hundred people that showed up at the visitation. Many of them told a few stories of how they knew and will remember her and everyone paid their respects. The funeral service was short but powerful and finally the burial took place a top a snow covered cemetery in Ulverton, Quebec where she was laid to rest beside my Grandfather who passed away 12 years earlier.

I will always remember and cherish the times throughout my life I have spent with my Grandmother Simpson and I thank her for all my great memories. I would also like to thank my wife, Karla Simpson, for all of her incredible love and support during this difficult time. Karla; you are an amazing person and great to me and I love you with all my heart.

.: The Good News :.
On January 2nd, 2006 a long time friend (and ex-girlfriend actually) Cassie, asked me to be her “Man-of-honour” in her wedding this summer. She actually called me only a few hours after I had found out my grandmother had passed away, so I was sort of at a low-point, a bit confused at first, but delighted none-the-less. After I had a few minutes to let everything sink in I realized what an honour had been bestowed upon me… I don’t know any other weddings who have had a man standing up with the bride. I only had two small reservations before agreeing to the title.

  1. No matter how cute I’d look, I would not be wearing a dress / skirt of any sorts to the wedding.
  2. I will not be accompanying her to a male strip clubs at any time for her bachelorette party or any other event.

After both conditions where agreed to with a few laughs, I accepted and I am really looking forward to to accompanying her on her wedding day, August 5th, 2006.

A bit of history behind Cassie… she’s an army brat that moved around a lot when she was younger. I met her through another really good friend of mine, Kevin Hogan, while he was dating her during our first year of high-school. After Kev and her broke up, Cassie and I briefly dated for a few months and then called it quits before she moved away. After she moved, we always kept in touch, keeping each other up to date on our lives, friends, family, etc. I have always found it interesting to hear Cassie grow up over the past 10 years and see her settle down with her fiance John, who from what I know, is a really nice guy and perfect match for Cassie’ personality.

Thank-you Cassie and John for the opportunity, I’m looking forward to seeing you both again soon.