Error 1603: A fatal error occurred during installation.

Little problem = sleeping schedule. Bigger problem = read below.

I'm not sure what is better: knowing you have a character flaw and tabling the correction until it explodes or not knowing you have the flaw at all.

The scenario: my comfort level for travel in and around DFW has been limited to the major airports, North Oak Cliff and anything up US 75. It's not that I don't like travel and it's not the issue of traffic. My fatal error is that I can't be comfortable going anywhere around North Texas unless I know exactly where I'm going and know how to exit when I have to. I know it might sound silly for some folks that love to err on the side of whimsy, but I'm sorry. If my spacial intelligence is not satisfied, then I can not carry on with a right mind.

Forensically and historically, I'm not really sure how this came about. When I was younger, my family did have trips and we did travel to places that we didn't venture to every day. I didn't live some sheltered life where I had to follow the yellow brick road. I don't get it and I can't explain the origin.

The only thing I can relate it to is the simple example of a grocery store. Most times, people select the closest store for convenience. Say you go to the new store specializing in organics and other assorted goofy food bits that they have now. In the new store, you don't know where everything is, it takes you longer to find the needs, you end up buying a bunch of junk you don't need, you don't know the shortcuts and the nuances like with the local store.

Well, when I don't know the new store like I want or like I should, there is this hidden anxiety that shows up. It's the anxiety that shows up when you know you are out of time or you missed something important. I'm just one of those people that want to know where the fire exit is...the one person that actually reads the safety instructions before a flight...call me crazy.

The one big repair I need to do is to not freak out about it. I don't know why I get so annoyed when I don't know exactly (to the coordinate minute) where I am. But when I lose that sense of control, I lose my temper. I have no reason for it. I need to fix that. Where's the duct tape?

Technology helps. Granted, Garmin makes a good product, but it doesn't make up for my mental shortcomings. I do feel like I am ready for a GPS upgrade, but maybe my settings are off. Why does it want me to go headlong into interstate highways and toll roads? Yeah, it's probably the settings.

Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) Little and little, more by more, the Dallas Spurs fans are showing up...and I keep running into them.
2) The better the pizza, the worse it is on the reheat. Trust me.
3) I feel better about my training coming at the end of May.

So, with that catharsis out of the way, I need to prep mentally and physically. Two weeks out for Beach to Bay and this will probably be my worst run EVER. Maybe I can buck up and get ready...but I am cutting it close. Talk later.

The NFL Draft and other complete wastes of time and efforts.

Colt is getting some looks from some teams...hopefully not from this angle.

Oh, the draft...how a humble phone call from an owner and a commissioner of a pro sports enterprise has completely and unequivocally exploded into it's own monstrosity. Three full days of this stuff. Sometimes I ask how something so trivial in the past now gets the super-special treatment. Then I answer my own question...

It's merely a reflection of the cultural shift. It happened in Rome so it might as well happen within the American Empire. Start with the colony, build militarily, defend swiftly, have some internal conflict, grow from said conflict, have industry bloom, have technology flourish, brag about your roads and frontier territories, have a couple more nationalistic wars and then you have professional sports. That's how Rome got their coliseum and that's how we got professional sports (with coliseums in every major metropolitan area, not counting Foxbrough).

But football fans, both college and pro, enjoy this silly exercise. It's crazy that even the most casual of fans go back and forth with arguments, pontifications and soothsaying with athletes that beat up on the 107th defense for three to four years. Now it gets more ridiculous at Radio City Music Hall.

My quick hits (Ha! I am so pun-ny!):

• It starts with the Super Bowl and now it continues with the Draft. What the hell is up with the red carpet garbage? It's the draft, not Plush. It's bad enough these players haven't made a football dime and they have a suit ensemble more expensive than my truck.
• Three months ago, the 1-2 was Suh and G. McCoy. Now it's a broken quarterback that couldn't finish the Texas/OU game because he doesn't know how NOT to land on his throwing shoulder. Obviously, Bradford has never wrestled with his dad in the living room. Got to learn how to fall or Sam will be a bust.
• Why don't teams go for their most important need as opposed to try to fit in the best available? That never makes sense to me. Why am I going to by a Mercedes when I don't have a roof over my head? Why buy the steak if I can't afford ramen noodles.
• There is a reason why the first teams in the draft are where they are. Bad offensive line and bad front seven. One draft pick is not going to do it. I'm starting to buy the whole Colin Cowherd Top-down approach for sport franchise success. If your management stinks, there is no hope, no matter how many draft picks you have.
• Just to be honest, if I was any of these talented athletes, I would be a little bummed if I was shipped to Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland or Buffalo. C'mon, I don't want to play football in a football wasteland. It's difficult for me to filter out the bullshit from the genuine sentiment. At least the Oakland weather isn't THAT miserable.
• It's a damn shame that we can't have Todd McShay versus Mel Kiper all year long. I know it's not meant to be hilarious, but it is.
• Yeah, sure, I like to keep track of the Longhorns. But then it I get distracted and pay attention to the Cowboys and Patriots all over again. Thus, my attention span is torpedoed. So much easier to focus just on college football than to bounce around nine-eleven teams in the league.

This is seriously the most useless exercise in the creation of Western civilization. All of these predictions and wild guesses mean absolutely nothing. These men haven't played a down. Yet there is so much stock and time burned with analysis that may or may not translate. We don't do with with the NBA (unless we are paying attention to the Draft Lottery...embedded hilarity). We don't do this with baseball (because we have a hard enough time keeping up with 378 games...or something like that). We definitely don't do this with hockey (some 17 year-old Canadian went somewhere...okay). Who knows if any of these men will work out, especially with millions of dollars and on the good side of their twenties.

Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) Seriously, this night shift is really messing with me. I have had the worst running times in my life with strange sleeping and eating patterns. I would be lucky to go sub 9/mile.
2) I can waste my money of plenty of things, but it will not be a 3D HDTV.
3) Beer in growlers are only good for 48 hours. I wish they would have told me that at NXNW a month ago.

Okay, I need to waste more time tweeting about the 239th pick. Talk later.

Taking one for the team...not in that way.

The graveyard shift is doing a number on "family time".

It was a rewarding trip to Waltham...I'm delineating Waltham from Boston not only because of distance, but because I was in Waltham ninety percent of the time and just happened to fly into Boston. Anyway, it was a rewarding trip to Waltham. I got to meet the bosses, we did some non-technical training and partook in lots of team building (accidental and purposefully). Plus, my healthy disdain for GPS devices was reinforced on the old and somewhat-unsafe roads of Eastern and Coastal Massachusetts.

Then, we had to get back to work.

It's no secret that our operations are now 24/7 (or 24x7 if you are writing code). When service is extended with such a time frame, certain concessions have to be made to perform all tasks and objectives set within the mission. So, I took one for the team. No, no, not in that way (get your mind out of the gutter).

How did I take one for the team, you ask? I had to cover the graveyard shift. Initially, I thought it would be no big deal. I would just have to flip-flop my daily routine to accommodate the change. Well, it's easy in theory, but in practice it's a whole 'nother story...especially if you were programmed for 0700-1600 shift for most of your professional life. Sure, you think it will be the easy switch, but who knew I was such a fan of daylight?

It's little things when it comes to such a change. Of course the commute will take less time getting there because not a lot of folks are on the roads...unless it's a Friday night. Trying to wind down when the Today Show is still on is a difficult mental trick as well. But keeping the mind active when more than half of the electronic world you are monitoring is asleep...that's been the real kicker.

But people take one for the team all the time. Whether in social situations or professionally, we "take the graveyard shift" at some point. Our motivations change and our reasons vary, but when we know we have taken that sacrifice for a good reason (not merely to satisfy some self-centered goal), we know we have the capacity of other wholehearted endeavors. If there is a greater good involved, then we know why we do it. We understand why dad had to work weekends and nights. We understand why mom has to travel. We see that absence but we know why it's there.

Therefore, I hope everyone understands why I haven't called or written in the last couple of weeks. Sure, I can give you the short version that my sleep patterns are a bit off. But the big picture is what matters. And that's how you know you have grown up...just a bit more.

Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) I do not understand golf or golf fans...and I never will. They will continue to cheer an amoral Tiger Woods while scoff and cheer for the demise of a golfer in Phil Mickelson that has two(!) members of his family CURRENTLY and simultaneously suffering from breast cancer. Pardon the language, but what the fuck, golf "fans"?
2) Therapeutic optometrists can also write prescriptions. I did not know that.
3) There sure are a lot of new people moving to Dallas. The last stat I heard was every day, 300 people move to DFW.

Hopefully this mea culpa explains some things (especially the photo). Got some fun things coming around the bend (despite the poor scheduling issues) including my triumphant return to Corpus. But that's in about five weeks. I will scrounge some things up meanwhile. Until then, talk later.