Eric Kraus' space

There’s an urban myth out there that these words were once given by Bill Gates to a bunch of high school students some years ago.  While the myth is confirmed (not true), still some insightful thoughts for today’s youth (and adults as they apply).

Rule 1: Life is not fair -- get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping -- they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the farm,
not an error was reported, no warning or alarm.
The servers were all deployed, in the DMZ with care,
safe from hackers, they should be there.

The Features were now active, through-out the new site,
while the indexer crawled away, with all of its might.
On my way home, for our Christmas Eve bash,
I had just assured executives, the site would not crash.

When out from the logger, there appeared such a clue,
naturally the helpdesk, had no idea to do.
Away from my home, I flew like a flash,
to recover the site, and save my own ass.

Where on the site, should I look to begin,
site settings or galleries, the GAC or the bin.
When, what to my wondering eyes I should see,
but a missing webpart file, and no assembly.

Shame on those developers, I should have known,
"Unable to display this web part" the message it shown
Curse words I shouted, no one was around,
as I looked for their code, nowhere to be found.

Finally the project, I located at last,
as I checked over the methods, variables and casts.
I built the solution, and re-deployed their code,
whew! I almost forgot, the <SafeControl> node.

The page loaded successfully, a wondrous sight,
for a silly little error, this was one stressful night.
After all of this mess, there's one thing that's clear,
I'm quitting consulting, after the New Year.

Very interesting read.  I think the best audiences for this are top execs (or baby-boomers general) AND the generation just entering college or the workforce.  Some good level setting for where we are now with how the workforce is trending…

http://www.time.com/time/reports/gatesbook/index.html

I’ve needed to get this off of my chest for awhile now.  For 20+ years of my life, I’ve been traumatized by Christmas.  Most boys and girls are excited for snow, presents, family, and Santa Claus.  Not me.  When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I first heard a Christmas song that describes in rather vivid detail, an affair between Santa Claus and a little boy’s mother.

Now I know some of you will claim that Santa Claus is really the little boy’s father.  I’ve heard this myth too.  See, the thing is…I’ve listened to this song about a dozen or so times this week alone.  Each time more carefully than the last.  There is no mention or suggestion that Santa Claus is the boy’s father. 

I have gathered some facts together to support my own conclusion:

Mommy tickled Santa under his beard
-now I’m sure if the little boy’s father had a white beard, we could have all drawn some earlier conclusions

The boy states ‘what a laugh it would have been' if his dad would have seen
-this leads me to believe this wasn’t the first time she had been fooling around

The boy had to creep down the stairs
-probably so to not wake up his father who was sleeping just down the hall

As you can see, the evidence here is stacked against the mother.  She clearly needs to seek professional help to salvage her marriage. 

Now that I have that off of my chest, I feel better.  I am still writing letters to all of the major radio broadcasting companies demanding that the song be removed from the playlists.  Until then, I hope everyone has a safe holiday and practices fidelity in their own lives.