EPT
Mistakes
It is the first really warm day in weeks. It's the kind of day that reminds you that you live in California, the kind of day that makes you grateful. California is where you see short skirts and long legs in January. It's a good day to be alive. Even better, the office is pretty quiet-- we're operating on a skeleton crew until everyone is back from the holidays. I have enough work to keep me busy, though, because we have a new hire coming today. After getting him set up and hooking up his new phone, I get started working on adding more security to our bare-bones pbx platform.
Andrew and I have noticed the occasional attack on our system. A hacker (or, much more likely, an infected computer controlled by a hacker) sends many login requests, trying to knock on our door in the obvious ways in an attempt to get in. If he got access, he'd be able to use our ip phones for his own nefarious purposes-- probably selling long-distance calls or dialling pay lines. It's clever because it's low-risk for him, and if it works, he gets to use our phone lines to make money. We manually block the IP, but this happens often enough it's worth looking into a better solution.
It's lunchtime, though, and Andrew has an idea. He and Tyler are going to Kirk's Steakburgers. Kirk's is a pretty nice burger place just across the street from Palo Alto High School-- where Andrew went. It's only a 15 minute walk from the office, and damn, it's a beautiful day for a walk. I tag along.
The burger is good. It tastes like meat, and it's not oversalted. Juicy enough and steak-ey enough to make you think that before it was ground up, this beef could have had another life as a steak. The garlic fries are exceptional. The sun beats down on us as we walk back and it's good to be alive. We talk about all kinds of things, but Andrew notes in particular how he's bothered by people's driving behavior.
"I can't stand it when people-- you know, when there's a triangle to show who's exiting and who's not-- I can't stand it when people cross that triangle," Andrew says, gesturing to illustrate the situation as best he can.
I know what he's talking about. It's really the pits, so I chime in, "the worst part is that they're crossing last minute over a double-white or a double-yellow and going across all that dirt and sand and stuff. Why not just get off on the next exit and drive back for a bit?"
"People just need to man up and admit their mistakes," says Andrew, "covering it up or trying to swerve at the last minute is never going to work."
Tyler laughs. "It's like that in life, too. Own your mistakes, or you'll just hurt yourself trying to get across the triangle at the last second."
Edit: wow this sounds totally corny written down. I guess we're just corny guys. rate 5 out of 5 stars for maximum cornitude
