parenting,school violence,common sense

I thought this bore repeating. See the original context within Bill’s site waxing techcomm:

First, teach your children how to mind their own business.

Second, teach your children not to spread rumors.

Third, teach your children to listen to authority.

I’ve got to say that this common sense is sorely missing in a lot of kids / young adults that I know. Bill had mentioned this in reference to a ‘gun rumor’ that had affected one of his kids attending a middle school dance.

His summary is simple and bears repeating:

You can’t expect teachers to keep order among the kids when it’s the kids (in bulk) themselves who are causing the disorder. This problem needs to be fixed at home and fortified at school, not vice versa. But by blaming the school for what happened, I know you don’t feel the same, and that itself is a pity since you’re just continuing to contribute to the problem.

Shame on you, parents.

solano county,green building,SIP Construction,structural insulated panel,construction,green homebuilding,energystar,energy star

Rain, rain, and more rain

The construction for the third phase of the 21st Century Project is running into a few delays with the monsoon season hitting NorCal.

No worries but it has kept me busy jumping through hoops since the traditional building materials we’re using for the conventional framing are composite and need to be covered against saturation by rain.

While the SIP panels are also composite, they’re treated for outdoor exposure while the glulam materials have to be gently tucked in nightly with a tarp covering, then awakened just as gently by removing the tarp so the ground moisture doesn’t evaporate and condense like a solar still and drip onto those composites.

That’s to explain this week’s delay in posting…

I haven’t worked this hard since…

I’ve been pulling 14 to 18 hour days to hammer this project into the ground. We are three weeks past our initial September scheduled start and the weather is becoming a factor.

I’ve lost two and a half inches off my waist and put on three pounds of muscle. I haven’t worked this hard in twenty years since I was 17 going through Naval Aircrew training. Here’s that aircrew comparison framed properly thanks to this site:

Aircrew graduates leave knowing drown-proofing techniques like treading water, floating and making it to that life raft, even if it’s a mile swim away while wearing between 45 and 50 lbs. of flight gear.

…The air crew warfare designation is one of the toughest pins to earn. The Navy plans to keep it that way because of the reputation that the air crew wings have earned in the aviation community.

“The air crew training program’s reputation has allowed pilots to trust air crews without question,” said Ellenburg. “The pilots never second guess the enlisted air crew’s decisions.”…

The marines (and Jamie Foxx) aren’t the only ones who say… Ooh-rah…

The hard part was Friday when I decided to do a full day and then come back to overnight since the surprise rainstorm had interrupted us prior to locking everything up. Driving back to the site I was very tired, and two lane roads are no joke when there is fog and so forth.

Not so jovial section

This morning there was a serious reminder to me about driving tired I passed by a fatal single-car accident about a mile away from the project site.

The guy departed the highway into a field and evidently wasn’t wearing his seatbelt as he was ejected from the car, a red SUV that was obviously traveling a high rate of speed as it flipped and was airborne (no mud marks) for about fifty feet. The coroner’s van was just pulling up. From what I could see as I passed by (recounting my Private Investigation background) lividity hadn’t set in yet, therefore it was recent. And very very unfortunate.

It was a reminder to me to put safety once again first. No more driving tired, crew rest is back on the books for me.

My thoughts and prayers were, and still are, with the man’s family. Up until today I would have easily said I’m going to finish this project by the end of the month unless I’m dead. Not after seeing that. I’ve got far too much to live for.

Saturday two of my workers left early because of a death in their family. Sunday morning I see a guy stretched out in the middle of a field. There’s always that old superstition about bad news / deaths occurring in threes.

I’m not looking forward to Monday all that much. I think I’ll fly home to San Diego rather than drive.

online collaboration,workflow collaboration,madcap feedback,madcap flare,web 2.0,technical support,technical writing,technical communication

First impressions: MadCap Feedback Service

Continuing with the Web 2.0 MadCap Feedback review, I opened up the small, 17meg download for the Feedback Server today and scanned through the help file and the Getting Started Guide (PDF). Seemed pretty simple so I decided to jump right into it.

Simple workflow diagram which explains how it works conceptually. What really grabbed my attention was the External and Internal Feedback models. I’m going to have to check out how this works in detail… The Getting Started Guide has a matrix / section I’ll analyze later.

Where’s the Web 2.0?

How about how to moderate comments? How easy is this for say… the Technical Writer to use? Well, if you’re used to the original Flare interface, it’s pretty intuitive.

A link from within the Feedback Explorer from File | Help | Comments (Recent or Topic) brings up the Comments Explorer (my term).

Still pretty intuitive. I like how it was underneath Help - as I was hitting the high spots of the software it jumped at me.

Next we’ll look into how to link this into an existing project. I’m working on a real world review of a client’s file (confidential of course) but I’m going to try and plan on implementing Feedback Service to help me in my Workflow Collaboration for the review process and see how this works.

** Note: This is if it will work in my specific limited case of Apache Server with root level password access. I’m not sure the security layer will allow Feedback Service to work with it in this version. OF course if this is true it will give me a chance to put in a request with MadCap to add accessibility as a feature.

By the way, according to the Forums there are several people using the Feedback Service rather than the Server for supporting Apache.

Additionally, there is a firewall mod for those using it through a corporate firewall.

Update: As I was looking through the Feedback Service user to user support forums I found this icon, giving me a valuable clue to the KB skinner’s identity.

Seems like the mystery of who reskinned the Knowledge Base is well afoot! Or solved.