MISSED OPPORTUNITY: VETERANS DAY 2019

This past Veterans Day I had to go to work.  I usually do, the places I worked at don't observe the holiday so it's not that different this year.  What is slightly different is that as we had a meeting in a big conference room, someone asked if anyone present is a veteran.  There were some and we thanked them for their service to the nation.  I wanted to crack a joke but all I could come up was that I was a veteran of the Battle of the Sexes.  Not even a veteran of some war, lame.  Only days later that I came up with the following "Wars" to jokingly claim to be a veteran of:

• The Browsers War.  Remember that one, when the world wide web first came into being?  It was Netscape Navigator against Microsoft's Internet Explorer
• The Cola War.  Coke vs. Pepsi.  Even rock-n-roll got involved, I can't take it anymore.
• The War on Drugs.  I don't do drugs, nothing to add here.  Maybe too serious and not belongs here.
• The War on Poverty.  I lost that one, still not Rich, may even be heading to Poor.  Too serious, too, but a tad not as serious as Drugs.
• The Platform War.  Mac vs. PC.  Or should that be GUI War?  Finder vs. Windows 95?

What other not-so-serious Wars can be included?

TWIST TIES AND SHOUT

Part of my job the past few years involves opening boxes containing new computer equipment.  The pieces often come with cables that are held together with twist ties.  Said twist ties are thrown away by most, if not all, of my colleagues.  I am sure most people do that too.  I just cannot stand seeing something perfectly re-usable being thrown away.  Most of the time I save them but then I don't use them fast enough.  What to do with all these twist ties?  I try to find uses for them and just yesterday found an innovative way to.

I had a need to find out, among the many cables going down a grommet hole, if a particular cable goes to a particular computer.  The area where the cables go through is dark and tight.  Some of the cables are tightened with zip ties such that they cannot be pulled much.  I hate zip ties!  In my last job, I know a guy who tried to cut a zip tie with a knife and ended up putting a big gash on his forearm.  Zip ties should be banned!  Anyway, back to my cabling woe.  So I couldn't tug on the cable I was working with to see where it goes.  And it's dark back behind the desk.  I happened to have a twist tie attached to my ID lanyard.  I wrapped the twist tie around the cable and slowly push it down the grommet hole, along the suspect cable, until I was able to catch it.  Voila!  It indeed connected to the computer I suspected it would.