I have been very busy lately. I had to rebuild a server last week and then last weekend we had an extended power outage that caused even more problems. Monday our gateway lost it’s anti-spam settings so users were getting hammered with all the SPAM we normally stop. The users were a little vocal about it. Nevermind that usually they are “protected” from this stuff. I finally got it all working at about 2 and the SPAM stopped. I had one person actually bothering to say thanks for fixing it. After our crash last week I had a lot of loose ends and file restore to perform. I was here almost solidly for 2 days, I did go home and sleep. As busy as everyone knew I was they never ceased complaining. “When are you going to….”

Not all my users are like that but sometimes this can be a thankless job for sure. I guess it beats working for a living though. Luckily I have this webcomic to vent myself through. Otherwise I’d probably brink my 45 pistol in and clean it all day at my desk. Hmmm, that may be a good idea. It sure would cut down on drop-bys to my office and I imagine complaints would go down as well.

  This toon may be too soon. It is not meant to be in bad taste. My oldest daughter was confused in a conversation with my wife. There was only a short disagreement, but she took some convincing that Michael was really white. It was funny but really from her perspective she never saw the old Michael Jackson before the plastic surgeries or skin color change. I saw some pictures of him from back then and it was hard to believe it was the same person. While not a big fan of MJ, he clearly had his impact on pop culture.

Almost a week ago we had a major failure of our Email server/file share server. We got it back up after a couple of days and were able to restore it mostly. The files we did not restore were on a tape backup, or at least I hoped they were there. We have been doing backups for years at work and never had to do restores on this scale. You can hope and assume not only has your backup been working, that you backed up everything you need, and the data is good. Until you actually do the restore you never know for sure. Thanks to a merciful God we were able to restore what we need. Even better the tape drive I had to talk my old boss into buying did better than I could have ever expected. I was restoring huge chunks of files in a very short time. This is the best and worst part of a job like mine. I still have a few little things to do but compared to where we were, we are way ahead of the game.

   On a side note the other person is my ‘Obi Wan’, Bill. He is our consultant on things like this. He helped make this a 2 day job rather than multiple days. Bill and I moved the image of our old server to a new server saving vast amounts of bit by bit restoring. You’ll notice that Bill is basically the same height as me and he is sitting down! I’m not short, Bill is 6′ 8″, but don’t ask him “how’s the weather up there”. I happen to know he doesn’t like that.

Thanks for everything Bill!

   This is based loosely on an actual incident. Grace my youngest was over at a friends house and they had some new corn snakes. The dad told my wife later how he was amazed that she had no fear of the snakes but was terrified of the puppy. She is not afraid of dogs as such. Hyper dogs scare her, calm dogs she is fine with. We had some friends that had 2 dogs. One dog was the size of a small pony and the other was a wiener dog. She loved the big one but would climb straight up my arms if the little one came near her at all.

  I had a lot of technical difficulty tonight so the toon was not “cleaned up” much because I just am worn out. It figures I’d have PC issues tonight after fight a major server outage for the last few days. We were able to get the server back very late Saturday night but now we still have some issues to work out. So I worked non-stop today and late. I never even got lunch. I still wanted to do a toon anyways.

   I needed to get this out before it got too late. So this one was rushed a bit but I think it is OK. The sad thing is I was half way done and realized that my internet buddy Krishna over at www.uncubedthecomic.comdid a cartoon on Wednesday about correcting his daughter. I don’t know if it was subconsciously to do a toon where I’m yelling at my daughter but I did nt copy him on purpose. After I was done I even noticed some of the same glances at the end. It’s not the same joke but it is a similar initial setup.

    This toon is not based on an actual event but rather came from joking around with my kids tonight when we saw a show with a stunt. It is the sort of “letter of the law” thing my youngest would pull. A few years back when we caught her jumping off her dresser I yelled that she shouldn’t do that. Later I found her jumping of  her bed. Her answer… “you said to not jump off the dresser”. So we usually have to be very specific with her. I hope you like today’s cartoon. If you have not checked out Krishna’s page you really should. www.uncubedthecomic.com If I were to rip off a cartoon intentionally it would be from him.

  My oldest has been looking at ways to earn money. So this year I decided to let her start helping me mow the yard. I bought an electric battery powered mower so it would be easier to operate for her. What I did not really count on is how heavy it is. The heavy weight coupled with this Texas heat really makes this a big  job.  We take turns mowing. In truth it would be easier, faster, and cheaper just doing it myself like always. However, it is a good thing for her to learn to do and she earns cash for it. The thing I think she enjoys as much as anything is looking at the final outcome with pride. She is like me that way. There is nothing prettier than a freshly cut yard.

   Now this brings me to my other daughter is too young to mow but wants to help and make money. Mostly she really just complains and talks about working and does very little to actually help. Of course that does not stop her from needing water just like her sister and I do. Listening to her you’d think she is doing all the work. She does get me tickled, but it’s funny as much as she talks the talk she disappears before we need her help cleaning up. I sometimes wonder if I teach the girls or they teach me.

   My Dad has had some health issues despite being in great shape. He was told to take it easy and I suppose for him he is taking it easy. However, he is still staying very busy. He has been retired for many years now and has many things going on. That boy is just busy. After his hearts stint a few months ago he said he was going to cut back on the garden this year. I talked to my Mom last night and she said he tilled the garden and it was smaller this year, about 4 inches! His garden is about an acre, while I appreciate all the great food that comes out of it I also know how much work that goes in to it. I was really hoping he would have about half the size of previous years, oh well. Incidentally, I put some gray in his hair only to show his age, in real life he has very little gray for a man of 77. I have more gray in my beard than he has on his head.

  Today’s toon is late because I was going to work on it last night but we lost power during last night’s storm. My girls did not handle the storm or loss of power very well. So needless to say we had little sleep last night. About 4am we got power back and had several things going on today. So this was the soonest I could get it drawn and published.

   I usually post on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Last week I did not post at all for the first time all year. I was as sick as I ever remember being. Even now I don’t feel 100%. This week My wife and oldest daughter at a church camp so my youngest, Grace, and I are hanging out and I have taken the week off. We have had several busy days and we are both tired but I was determined to post on my regular schedule. I’m not even worried about the funny, but hope I hit it anyway. This toon was imagined a while back and I meant to post it last Tuesday. So even though I’m on vacation I will be posting this week regardless.

On a side note Grace and I went to the Fort Worth Zoo and we both took our sketch pads. It has been a long while since I did any non-digital drawing it felt good. I’m planning on keeping it up as a drawing  journal. I even had a guy at the zoo stop and tell me how good he thought my drawings were and asked how long I’d been an artist. He also asked if I sold a lot of my work. It was then I knew he was just a nice guy but I still take the compliment and it made my day. Tomorrow we may hit a few museums and both of us will be bringing our sketch pads.

  Just over 2 years ago a 9cm brain tumor was found in my brother big old pumpkin of a head. I can joke about it now, because he is OK now. The funny thing is ever since his operation he does not get brain freezes any longer when he drinks Slurpees or Icees. I argue that it is indeed a super power he says it isn’t.

   Let’s say some madman or super villain challenges my brother to a Slurpee drinking contest for the fate of the world. Then it would be considered a super power. Or let’s say that he is locked in a room with a bomb and the key to turn off the bomb is at the bottom of an Icee cup that is bolted down and the only way to get it to drink the whole thing in less than a minute. Again, super power!

  We are under a hiring freeze. When it is lifted I would love to hire a couple of henchmen.