Issues of the day.

It’s difficult to decide what to write about today.

~•~

There’s the case of the Mysterious Smoking Pan. The Professor wanted batter fried fish last night, which is something I know how to make on a theoretical level only. I grabbed the largest frying pan we had though, and set out to experiment, after warning him that the results could well turn out to be inedible.

I prepared the batter, floured the fish, then started to heat the oil in the pan while I refloured and then dipped the fish in the batter. I had the burner set to “medium”. Regardless, I started smelling a really bad, smokey odor. I lifted up the lid to the fry pan, and a plume of black smoke emerged. I slapped the lid back down on the frying pan and carried it out to the balcony to cool.

I finished making the meal using an old and far too small cast iron pan we had, and the fish actually turned out quite good. After dinner, when I was sure the first pan had cooled and was safe, I lifted the lid again. The oil in it was still a golden color, and there was no sign of anything burned or even amiss with the pan. I still have no idea what it was all about.

~•~

Then there’s my continuing problems with Outlook Express. I manage five email accounts with OE. OE has developed an annoying idiosyncrasy that I can’t for the life of me figure out. I open it, go to the Main Identity, and synchronize my files between my main Hotmail account and my PC. Then I go and switch to a second identity, also on Hotmail, and synchronize there. When I do that, there’s a 50/50 chance that instead of going to the second hotmail account (as is properly set up in my profile for this identity) it will go to my main identity and move the online information from THAT account to the second identity. This download wipes all the second identity’s information from my files and replaces it with the first identity’s. If I reboot, I then have a fifty/fifty chance of restoring the second identity when I try again.

It gets worse if I attempt a second synchronization on either account without a reboot. There is no guarantee that, when I switch identities in Outlook Express it will actually download that identity’s information. The main identity, the second identity, and of the five accounts I manage can get screwed up from this point forward. The chances of a foul-up increase with each additional synchronize I run.

I’ve attempted to reinstall Outlook Express from Microsoft’s site, thinking that the OE software has been somehow corrupted, but that doesn’t fix the problem. I’m ready at this point to simply chuck OE and go with another mail manager, except that I don’t know any other mail manager programs. Color me frustrated.

~•~

I could talk about yesterday’s excitement at work. Two employees had an argument inside the building yesterday, and when it got heated decided to take it out to the parking lot during their break. When they went out into the lot, one employee got a handgun out of his car and threatened the other employee with it. No shots were fired, and the police arrested the employee who had pulled the gun a short time later, just off of our company’s property.

I don’t know the full details, nor should I. The situation didn’t affect me directly, so it really isn’t my business. I do know that we now have two openings in that department now, though. And I now feel less secure at work than I used to.

~•~

I really don’t feel like talking about any of that today though. I’ve been spending my time this morning contemplating people, and my reactions to them. I’ve been thinking about trust issues. I’ve been musing on friendship, and at what point an acquaintance becomes a friend. I’ve considered what “hate” means to me, and how it seems to mean something different to other people, who use the term far more freely. I’ve been plumbing the depths of my frustrations, trying to decide what it’s worth getting bent out of shape over and what I need to learn to let go of. I’ve been trying to find the line between self-defense and spite.

Those are the things that I want to talk about. Those are the things that have been affecting my life, quite profoundly, in recent weeks. These issues touch my life at home, my experiences here at Dear Diary, my participation with another web group that has nothing to do with Dear Diary. And these issues take on different shades, depending on the situation I attempt to apply them to.

These are the things I think on, and haven’t yet found the proper words with which to express myself.

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