You can't help all the time

I make a pot of tea every morning when I first get to work. While I wait for the tea kettle to boil, I either strike up a conversation with anyone else in the kitchen or read the paper. But I always check the state of the coffee. There are a few people who take coffee but don't make a new pot if it's needed. So, if one of the three coffee pots is low, I start a new one - trying to be a nice guy.

One particular morning, it was busy in the kitchen and I was talking to some people and just as I noticed that the decaffeinated coffee pot was low, my tea kettle began to boil. I thought I'd quickly make a new pot of coffee and then pour the boiling water into my tea pot. But I hadn't gotten the tea bags ready. So, it was a big rush. I decided to make the coffee first. I dumped out the old grounds, put a new filter in the basket, opened a package of coffee and poured it in the strainer basket and fit it back into the coffee maker. Just as I hit the switch to start the brewing, I realized I had used regular coffee (not decaffeinated) in the coffee maker. There were going to be a lot of people flying around the office without realizing what was going on!

I had to wait around (I finished brewing my tea) until the coffee cycle finished (with a little "hurry up" encouragement from me). Then I topped off the two pots of regular coffee with what I'd just brewed and dumped the rest out. Then, I carefully selected a bag of decaffeinated coffee and made another pot (in the orange marked pot). I finally got back to my desk after about 20 minutes. I'm paid to write programs and solve engineering problems - not to make coffee. There are times to help and there are times when you just have to walk away. It wasn't like anyone was in danger or someone's work was being held up. I've got to try to remember that helping involves some responsibility. Just the fact that you are helping isn't enough. You've got to do the job right, too. You knew that and I'm just reacquainting myself with it.

More competing sayings

No worm for this guy

About six years ago, I wrote about how old sayings can be contradictory but people will quote them as if there is no other option. I wrote about this in my post titled "Look before you leap" or "He who hesitates is lost"?. As I said then, you can't run your life by these sayings but it's fun to tie them in with what you've just done. Somehow, it makes taking the action you just took seem as if it is the action people have preferred for hundreds of years. In the case of contradicting sayings, you can't go wrong!

I just ran into another saying that puts these two ideas into one sentence:

The early bird may get the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.

This is poignant and funny at the same time. I hate the image of one mouse lying dead in a mouse trap while another mouse takes the bait. But it makes you think. Would the early bird start so early if he thought he was heading into a a trap?

I ran into this myself at work. The programming language we use for our products was recently updated. Now, normally, I'm the slow, deliberate guy who waits for a while to see how things are trending before I take action. But this time, I decided to be the early bird. I wasn't going to hesitate and lose. I updated the tools we use to create the programs we sell. I'm in charge of doing the daily builds of our product (that means, I compile everyone's work into a working program, create installers for the various platforms and make it available on the network for all the developers and testers - every day for testing). So, the decisions I make affect everyone in the software group.

Not two days after I made this decision and did the updating, I found out that there is a problem with printing introduced with this version of the programming language! I should have looked before I leapt. I found myself in the trap with the cheese out of reach. The sad part is that it was an uncharacteristic action for me. It's time to trot out another old saying, "Live and learn." Now I know it is better to procrastinate.

"Protect your identity" Right!

We are told that we should never give out our Social Security Number. Have you ever tried to fill out any form without it having a place for that number? Every time I go to a new doctor. Every time I apply for a credit card. Whenever you fill out anything for a state government or the Federal Government. Try applying for a job without having to give out your number!

I'm not stupid about it like the CEO of LifeLock who published his Social Security Number in their ads - and has had his identity stolen a number of times. But if I have to show my Social Security Number to get something I need, I do it. It reminds me of the time I was going to be traveling in foreign countries for work. I was warned to never let anyone take my passport. Then, every hotel I stayed in wanted to keep it the first night. They'd give it back to me in the morning.  I wonder if my passport was copied or used by the wrong people? I suppose I'll never know.

It just makes you wonder about other things we were told to never do. Maybe it's OK to not look before you leap. Maybe we don't really have to lather, rinse and repeat.  Good grief - maybe we can even end a sentence with a preposition!

Titmouse pictures

My back is still giving me trouble and I find it hard to concentrate. When I do have time to write in this blog, my mind is worn out. So, this post is simply some old pictures. Seeing the young Tufted Titmouse in our bird banding visit made me think of these old pictures.

I took these pictures a few years ago (2007 and 2008). The top one was taken in June, 2007. I was able to take these pictures when the woods were closer to the path. I was able to sneak up on the birds and get closer pictures back then. But in 2009, the path was widened by a machine that was hired by the town to clear a fire break through the forest. The posts about that are "Disappearing forest", "Disappearing forest mystery solved" and "The return of the Tree Muncher". Now, the tall trees are much further from the path and it is harder to get close pictures of birds.

The second picture was taken in April, 2008. This bird was more stealthy but you can see that I was able to get a little closer. That bright, shining eye just can;t be hidden. So, even though I was closer than he would like, I was able to creep up on him because the forest was more dense. I liked it better back then. It felt more like you were out in the wild then. But nothing can stay the same can it?

As with all of my pictures, just click on these images and you'll see a larger version.

A short note about back pain

Sometimes I think my back is feeling better. Then other times, I think my back feels as bad as it did when I first pulled it. Now I think I've figured it out.

Since I hurt my back two weeks ago, I've just been learning how to keep my body in a position so that my back doesn't hurt. When I forget to do that, the pain returns. That's why my back hurts more in the morning - I've been sleeping and couldn't keep my body in the non-pain position. It just takes me a while to position myself the right way so that it doesn't hurt.

I have a physical coming up next week. They are going to hear all about my theories.

"Oh, my back"

I'm finally feeling a little better after hurting my back five days ago. I was walking our dog Charlie and I simply bent down and turned slightly and that's all it took. I felt a sharp pain and quickly straightened up. I probably moved too fast in reacting but I don't know if that made it worse or not. Fortunately, I was almost home but with every step I took, it got worse. I had a hard time getting into the house and taking my shoes off. I knew I wouldn't be going to work that day (it was Monday) so I sent an email to work letting them know. I figured I'd work from home but that turned out to be wrong.

I was able to get a doctor's appointment that afternoon and they ruled out anything serious because my legs were fine and I could feel my toes and fingers and felt no tingling. They prescribed a few drugs: 1) a steroid to speed up healing, 2) a muscle relaxant to stop muscle spasms from making things worse and 3) a pain pill for the big baby who isn't used to this sort of thing. The pills helped but so did an ice pack. I had mistakenly used a heating pad but I was told that was a mistake. "Ice, ice, ice," said the nurse practitioner who treated me, "A heating pad just draws blood to the region and makes it worse."

Well, I ended up being out of work for three days and the two days I went in (Thursday and Friday) were not the highlights of my life. I had hoped to get some work done at home but I couldn't concentrate (partly from the discomfort in my back and partly from the drugs) so I was falling behind. As I've mentioned before, one of those sad facts of life is that you can never really take time off from work. You just borrow time from work. That goes for vacation time or sick time. When you're not working, the job isn't getting done by someone else. It just sits there and it gets later and later. So, when you finally do get back to the work, you have to work extra hard to finish it and get caught up. I was able to get a lot done in the two days I worked but I'm still behind.

I finally took Charlie for a walk this morning but did no bending when I needed to clean up after him. I gently lowered myself by kneeling, scooped up what needed scooping, put it in the bag and gently extended my legs again. I was sore when I got home but things are improving. I'm praying that I'll feel better on Monday when I try to finally get caught up on the project we're working on. Even though I borrowed three days of time from the project, I'm trusting it won't charge interest.

[Update - I didn't mean to imply that using heat on an aching body was bad. The nurse practitioner that I saw just said to not put heat on it for the first two days. She said, "Ice, ice, ice," for the first two days. Then heat is helpful after that. Anyway, this is not a medical blog and I am not a doctor. I'm just repeating the instructions that was given to me for my specific situation.]

Band(ing) of Birds - part 2a

Yes, I'm getting a little ridiculous in naming this "part 2a". But this is a much smaller post and it is related to my previous post about the behind-the-scenes look at our trip to photograph the activities of the bird banding program at the Manomet Center for Conservation Studies. I mentioned their catching birds in mist nest but didn't show much about that.

These mist nets (there is a good article about mist nets in Wikipedia) are strung along paths in the forest. They are very delicate and almost invisible under many conditions. I lost count of how many we passed on our hike to collect birds but it seemed like the total length we passed must have been hundreds of feet These must be inspected every hour so the birds don't lie in them for too long. They are vulnerable to other birds and animals and, if left too long, could injure themselves trying to get loose. The nets are removed on rainy days and at night. That must take a long time as well as putting them up again.

The picture here shows the mist nets a little better in that you can see how it runs along the path. This is just one section of the many we passed on our walk. The young staff worker is specially trained to disentangle the bird without injuring it. The bird flies into the upper part of the net and then just falls into the lower part with is turned up to make a pouch. It's like a trapeze artist falling into a net. You can see that the staffer is holding something in her mouth as she works. That's the identification button for this particular net and she attached it to the bag that holds the bird. As soon as she put a bird in its individual bag, it quieted right down. Just as when you put a cover over a bird cage at night, this caused the bird to think it was time for sleep.

That's it for posts about the Manomet Center. I hope you've enjoyed them and learned a little. I sure did.