(no subject)

My manager thinks that I don't send enough tickets to our tech in our Chicago office because I'm intimidated by him. Please. Just because I think he doesn't know what he's talking about on occasion and don't bother calling him on it because I'll get involved in a half hour long discussion with an ex-military guy who couldn't possibly be wrong about something doesn't mean I'm intimidated. And the reason I have so many more ticket closures is that, as the first point of contact via email, I get to play wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am with all the piddly crap that isn't worth the time of logging and then sending on.

And my VPN server is once again not accepting external connections today, despite that fact that it works fine from within my own network. Gah.

(no subject)

How ironic is this? From an address by Winston Churchill in June of 1935:

It is only in the twentieth century that this hateful conception of inducing nations to surrender by terrorising the helpless civil population by massacring the women and children has gained acceptance and countenance among men.

How did that war end again? Something to do with inducing Japan to surrender with a couple of little bombs, wasn't it?

The Gathering Storm has actually been largely interesting so far. Occasionally I get bogged down in names, but I'm learning a lot more about the history leading up to World War II than I'd ever heard of before. I'm looking forward to going through the rest of the book, and maybe even the rest of the set. I'm not enthralled, but I'm definitely interested.