Author Archives: jdtharp

Only one?

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I’m not sure I can fully embrace any religion that only endorses only one Good Friday per calendar year. As far as I’m concerned personally, there are 52 of them and they’re all equally Good. Blasphemy or not, that’s just the way it is.

Maybe it’s time to strike out and set up my own Church of the Good Fridays and enjoy all the tax advantages of being designated a religious organization. Then again, that sounds like it could involve more work than I’d really be willing to put into it. Good Fridays are most assuredly not about working hard, so it seems that would be the central conflict within the church. Before long, those who wanted to work hard on Fridays would splinter off and set up their own practices and then where would we be? I’m in no humor to deal with a Reformation over the weekend, so perhaps it’s best if we just observe our Good Fridays individually as the spirit moves us.

Personally, I’ll be observing my own weekly celebration of surviving 40 hours of salaried captivity by making dinner, possibly having several tasty adult beverages, and then promptly falling asleep on the couch. My church clearly wouldn’t be one that stands much on ceremony.

So from me to you, Happy Easter weekend… and try to keep all your Fridays good.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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What Annoys Jeff this Week?

1. Wi-Fi. If you’re going to go to the trouble of installing building-wide wi-fi connectivity, it might be a good idea to actually let people in the building know what the password is. Otherwise you’re just beaming radiation at us all day long for no apparent reason. Mmmkay?

2. Assumptions. Just because I’m sitting in class typing something on my laptop, doesn’t mean that I’m not paying attention to whatever you’re saying up there in the front of the room. You’re just going to have to trust me on that one. Calling on me to give an opinion on whatever topic you’re discussing isn’t really going to give me much trouble. That’s not a critique of your skills as an instructor so much as it is a function of having covered this material half a dozen times in other classes.

3. Laundry. How can one guy generate four full loads of laundry a week? And before anyone asks, no, that’s not “separated”. That’s four filled to the brim loads of whatever I can cram into the machine to avoid having a fifth load magically appear. There simply has to be a better way to spend your life than just wandering around picking up after yourself.

Detail orientation…

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I spend a lot of time around here calling out people for doing dumb shit. In the interests of full disclosure, I need to make this confession. As it turns out, I’m not always the most detail oriented person in the room. I was reminded of this last night when I went to the basement to install a few A/V components before the Comcast guy came by this weekend with my new cable box. As you might expect, there’s a back story here just waiting to be told.

I was very pleased with myself last weekend because I’d finally managed to rearranged everything in the basement and haul out a truckload of trash and sundry useless crap I’ve moved all over the country. After almost a year of trying to figure out exactly what to do with the 1/3 of the house that’s below grade, I’d managed to set up what would pass for a media room in most 1200 square foot rentals.

It seems I’ve neglected one small, but important detail about setting up a TV, DVR, blueray player, and Apple TV. As it turns out, they all require electricity. Sadly, the wall I’ve decided to build my home media center around is lacking in that one particular feature. Even though the coax is right there poking through the wall, the closest electrical outlet is about 12 feet away… and in another room. Clearly, I’d lost the trees for the forest.

I’m not about to cut into the wall and put in an outlet. This dump is a rental after all. Instead, I ordered the surge protector with the longest power cord I could find (Special thanks to Belkin for the 10 foot cord option). With that, and hopefully some slack in the individual component power cables, I might, just might, be able to rig something up without dragging the orange extension cord in from the shed.

This should be ghetto fabulous. Then again, this is Cecil County so there’s a fair chance no one will notice.

Primary colors…

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When I voted for the first time, I was so excited that I could hardly contain myself. Low, this decade and a half later, I’m beginning to notice a slightly disturbing trend. Not only do I get less enthused about every passing election, but for as long as I can remember, my Primary track record has been adorned exclusively by losers. That’s not a personal attack or a judgment statement. I’ve voted for an eventual loser of the Republican nomination in every primary election since 1996. Don’t try to figure out if that says more about me or the party. It says plenty about both of us.

Still, out of some misbegotten sense of having a voice in the process, I schlepped to the polling place today after work, stood in line for a few minutes, and then cast my vote for a guy who’s sure to be well out of the race by the end of the month. It’s my own little tradition… Like fireworks on the 4th of July or dreams of a white Christmas… If it’s primary day, I’m off to go vote for a guy who will probably never be on another ballot in either of our lifetimes. On the bright side, at least the ballot is full of people for state and local office that I’ve never heard of before. With me, anything below the POTUS nominee race is pretty much a role of the dice based on what information I can scavenge up a day or so before walking into the booth. It’s the only part of primary day that’s even remotely interesting (and I use “interesting” in a very general kind of way).

We’ve been doing this for more or less 226 years. You’d think by now we’d have come up with a better process. Quaint as it is, it’s probably time for our election system to wander out of the 18th century and in the general direction of the 21st. Seriously, why isn’t there an app for this?

Listening in…

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As a rule, if you’re sitting in a 700-seat auditorium, you probably shouldn’t think of your conversations as privileged in any way. In fact I was doing my best to ignore everyone around me, as is my way. Sadly, some things are just too stupid not to stick with you long after you’ve punched out at the end of the day.

One of the distinctive features of the room we happened to be in this afternoon is a display of all 50 state flags. The guy sitting directly behind me casually mentioned to his friend that he didn’t understand the display as it must have “every flag every flown.”

“No dumbass, it’s the state flags of the country we’re, you know, sitting in right now,” I mumbled under my breath.

“That one must be UNC,” he said, I assume gesturing towards the powder blue flag of the State of South Dakota. By this point, I’m tempted to bash my head against the seat back in front of me. I’m pretty sure at some point, he was trying to figure out why Maryland’s flag included a “checkers board” motif.

Thank God for prompt start times, because the last thing I heard was a question about why we had the Australian flag in stage.

“And that would be Hawaii,” I muttered with enough oomph to make sure he heard me.

I know there’s now law about being utterly ignorant about the country you call home, but that doesn’t mean you should open your mouth and confirm to the world that you’ve been wasting oxygen for all these years.

Finally…

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It’s probably not a surprise to anyone who knows me that March Madness doesn’t garner much more from me than the occasional “uh huh” when someone tries to bring it up in conversation. I know approximately as much about basketball as I know about partial physics. Actually that’s not true, I read a book about noteable physicists once, which I can’t say for basketball players. So it’s possible there is no topic I know less about than the fine points of college basketball. But still here I sit with the semi-finals playing in the living room.

Sigh. The trials and tribulations of being a semi-good son.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Team Building Activities. It’s pretty rare that I run into a topic on which I can’t speak with at least some degree of confidence. I discovered this week while developing and delivering a group presentation titled “How to Change a Diaper” that almost anything related to the care and maintenance of a human baby is apparently one of those topical areas with which I am completely unacquainted. I’m happy to give the presentation, but ecstatic to leave the details and task execution to others. In this case, ignorance truly is bliss.

2. Sleep. Yes, I know this is one that crops up from time to time, but it’s been worse this week than most. In your standard day, you only get 24 hours and to be frank, I’m not willing to give up any more than 1/4 of it on just laying around essentially unconscious. It’s not that I’m exceptionally busy or feel that anything I’m doing is especially important, just that I think there are better ways to spend the day that being quietly tucked into a warm bed. Lately, though, the standard six hours hasn’t really felt like enough. I probably just need to find a way to crank more caffeine into the system to overcome the increased coefficient of drag.

3. The media. Again. For the last week or so, they’ve been filling the television set with the story of an overzealous and potentially crazy neighborhood watch captain gunning down an innocent kid on his way home from the corner store. Other outlets are screaming that the kid wasn’t as innocent as we’re being lead to believe. Either way, it makes a good story and a nifty bit of narrative for the media to run with. What none of the stories do, though, is tell me exactly what happened. Personally, I’m reserving judgement until more than speculation is known. We were once a nation of laws rather than a media drive lynch mob. It’s a pity that’s not still the case.

A modest proposal…

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Friends,

I realize that some of you do not to purchase lottery tickets or engage in gambling activities because of your religious convictions. I absolutely respect and support your decision. In light of tomorrow’s $540 million Mega Millions jackpot, I have come up with an idea that will help all of us. I’ve already bought my tickets for the drawing so don’t worry, that sin is all on me. I’ll do my best to account for it when my turn comes to meet my maker. In the meantime, what I need from you, my friends, is just a little prayer that my numbers match up with the drawing on Friday night. No fuss, no muss, just a kind word from your lips to God’s ear.

If I can count on your help in bringing this bounty home and sharing it with your favorite charities, just mention me and the Jeffrey D. Tharp Charitable Trust to the deity of your choice tonight… and maybe again in the morning… and possibly for a third time after dinner tomorrow night. When my six numbers match and just as soon as I can get the Jeffrey D. Tharp Charitable Trust up and running, I’ll be happy to make out a sizable check in your name to the charity of your choice just as my little way of saying thank you for keeping me in your prayers tonight.

Don’t forget to click “like” so I know I have your support (and I can figure out where to send the checks!).

Warm Regards,

Jeff

Is this you?

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I find it hard to believe that a global news organization could only round up eight things that make for an annoying coworker. I mean I could rattle off a couple of dozen off the top of my head.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Style and comfort…

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In the few brief decades I’ve considered myself a traveler, I’ve come to loath almost everything associated with getting from Point A to Point B. The one grand exception is when I get to drive to wherever I’m going. I still love going, but I really, really wish there were better options when it comes to getting there from here.

Since age 18, my ire is almost exclusively reserved for airlines and the whole air travel experience in general. Today, though I’m reminded that there is one mode even more evil than your standard issue economy flight… That would be the bus. If airlines have become the busses of the air, I suppose busses have become, well, nothing really. They’re still loud, slow, uncomfortable, and leave you feeling vaguely grimy at the end of the trip. At least that part has stayed consistent down through the years.

Whoever it was that said “getting there is half the fun” must have been functionally retarded. Being there can absolutely be both fun and educational. Getting there, on the other hand, has all the style and comfort of dead moose. Let’s just say for the record that I’m happy to be in the last 90 minutes of this trip. I’m looking forward to unfolding myself from this seat, getting back in the truck, and then backtracking 40 minutes to get to the house.