Zyzmog's Sixth Law of Motion

 I didn't think it would be possible, but I have to add another law to Zyzmog's Laws of Motion.

Zyzmog's Sixth Law of Motion, or the "Drive Friendly" Rule

Everybody on the road is just trying to get somewhere.

That's it. Just one sentence. I've reflected on this as I've dealt with traffic on interstate highways, two-lane county roads, and city streets. Everybody's just trying to get somewhere. It's not a competition or a battle. It's just people trying to get from Point A to Point B. 

Some of them are running late, some are about to have a baby and are racing to the hospital, some have a lot of other heavy stuff on their minds. 

Some are new drivers, some are nervous drivers, and yes, some are impatient drivers.

None of them drive the same way you drive. None of them want to drive the same speed as you, either. 

But they're all just trying to get from one place to another, and none of them deserve to be centered in the crosshairs of your Acme Mobile Flamethrower. Just give 'em a break. And give them an assist, if you can -- open up a spot for them to merge, for example.

You won't lose anything but your high blood pressure, and you will make the world a better place.

Lessons Learned in my Career as an Engineer

Technical stuff

It's easier to do something right the first time than it is to do it over.

When given a choice between creating something, evaluating someone else's creation, or fixing someone else's mistakes, always choose creating. This applies to any engineering discipline.

Saying "no" may harm your career, but it may save your sanity.

Saying "yes," if done wisely, will open unexpected doors for you in the future.

A problem that mysteriously goes away, will mysteriously come back.

Engineers don't have to know everything. They just have to know where to look things up.

When someone asks you for a time estimate, come up with your best estimate, then double it and add one unit. "An hour" becomes "three hours." "Two days" becomes "five days". "Three months" becomes "seven months". Engineers are notorious for underestimating the time budget for a project. This practice will help you avoid that pitfall.

Never trust an engineer who says, "Well, it works on my computer."

On the other hand, if nobody else is having the software or network problem that you're having, the problem is most likely not with the software or the network.

J.R.R. Tolkien understood engineers. He put these words into Bilbo Baggins' mouth: "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations." That relates to project planning and execution. The things that you overlook are the things that will bite you. Or burn you.

Bilbo and Smaug (copied without asking from https://movie-villains.fandom.com/wiki/Smaug)

Bilbo's "live dragons" maxim can be rendered as a haiku:

It does not do to

leave a live dragon out of

your calculations.

And J. K. Rowling understood both the lure and the dangers of technology. In 1999, she put these prophetic words into Arthur Weasley's mouth: "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain." As a computer professional, I am warning you: never trust computers, "smart" devices, artificial intelligence, or the Internet.

Manage your time carefully. 

Murphy's Law reigns supreme.

With extremely few exceptions, in an engineering organization, everybody's just trying to do things right. Don't waste time blaming, politicking, or fault-finding. Instead, invest the time in trying to help each other succeed.

When taking notes in a meeting, only take paper notes. Never take notes on a phone, tablet, or computer, because you will, without a doubt, be accused of "playing on your phone" during the meeting. 

Paper will never go obsolete.

Paper doesn't require batteries, spontaneously reboot in mid-sentence, or accidentally and instantly get erased. Some paper documents have lasted hundreds of years. Computers have been around for less than 100 years, and no computer-age storage medium has demonstrated the long-term viability of paper.

... Except for punch cards and punched tape, both of which are made of paper. :-)

Job and Career stuff

Your family is more important than your job. If you ever have to make a choice between the two, choose your family. There's always another job.

When looking for a job, who you know really is more important than what you know. 

The guy who says, "I want to be hired (or promoted) based on my merits," will never get hired (or promoted). Learn to play The Game. And learn to enjoy playing The Game.

Don't believe anything a sales professional says to you.

Never trust a sales professional.

Never work for a company run by a sales professional.

Never work for a narcissist. Learn how to smell out narcissists quickly.

No matter what the CEO, the HR department, and your manager may tell you, you are only an asset to the company. A resource. Raw material. They will use you until you break or wear out, and then they will discard you without thinking twice.

If you were to die on the job today, they would replace you tomorrow.

There's no such thing as "job security."

Your employer doesn't care.

Corporate loyalty is a myth, a relic of the 20th Century.

If you get a nice jacket with the company logo instead of an annual raise, enjoy the jacket, but start warming up your resume.

Sometimes it's better to quit and take your chances than to stay miserable.

Nobody pays you enough to make a miserable job worthwhile.

Nobody, but nobody, pays you enough to yell at you. (I'm looking at you, Brian!)

If you're in a job where someone yells at you, don't take it personally. But do quit. If you cannot quit on the spot, then immediately start a job search, and quit a week or two before you start your new job.

The "two weeks' notice" thing is a courtesy, not a legal requirement. It may or may not be in your contract. Reread your contract to find out. Remember, your employer would not give you two weeks' notice before dumping you.

The only way an employer has of showing how much they value you is money. It can be salary, commissions, or significant cash bonuses. Stock options are just a promise, and they mean nothing. Stock itself is of questionable value. Gift cards and T-shirts are cheap fluff. Promises are worthless -- even if they're on paper. And salary targets (as opposed to actual salary) are an easy way to make a promise and get away with not keeping it. (HP was notorious for that.)

An employer never pays you what you're worth. An employer only pays you what you're willing to settle for, and not a penny more.

But the jackets and gift cards and T-shirts are a nice gesture, and they should be acknowledged graciously.

If you find a better job, and you give your notice, and your employer makes a counteroffer to induce you to stay, don't take the counteroffer. NEVER take the counteroffer. They're two weeks too late -- maybe even six months or a year too late. If you were that valuable to them, they would have fixed things that long ago. Their counteroffer is not a sincere offer -- it's just damage control.

When should you get a new job?

1. When the great company that hired you gets sold, acquired, bought out, or spun off.
2. When the great company that hired you gets a brand-new management team.
3. When that great boss that you loved working for, quits or gets fired.
4. When you start noticing a high attrition rate (lots of people quitting or getting fired).
5. When pay is delayed, or paychecks start bouncing.
6. When you start noticing a pattern of dishonesty, broken promises, or shady dealing among the managers or in the C-suite.
7. When you can get an equivalent position or a promotion, for significantly better wages, benefits, working conditions, and future growth prospects, somewhere else.
8. When you realize that the money you're paid isn't worth the garbage you have to endure.
9. The instant you discover that the job you wanted, or the job you thought you were getting, is not the job you ended up with.
10. The instant you come to the realization that you are in a dead-end position.

Don't think that you owe "three to five years" to your current employer. They would not hesitate to dump you after a month, if they had a business reason.

Having said all that, if you do find an employer who:

• is loyal to you, 
• gives you good compensation and benefits and a good working environment,
• supports you and contributes to your personal development, and 
• truly watches out for you and your loved ones,

then give that employer your loyalty and your best efforts in return, and hold onto them for as long as you can. Employers like that are rare in today's world, and they need to be nurtured and protected.

Retirement stuff

It's never too early to start planning for your retirement.

Always spend less than you earn.

Always contribute to your 401(k). Start contributing to it as soon as you can. 

If you don't have a 401(k), then create and start contributing to an IRA as soon as you get your first job.

Even if you can only contribute a tiny bit, do it. Even $100 a month, through the magic of compound interest, will turn into a huge pile of money in 30 years.

Start contributing the maximum amount you're allowed into the 401(k), as soon as you can. Take advantage of the company matching.

Make sure that the 401(k) funds are not invested into your own employer's stock. That's always a losing bet. Instead, move your retirement funds outside of the company. 

Do not gamble with your retirement funds. Instead, invest in a combination of ETFs (for growth) and long-term bond funds (for stability).

Do not mess with your funds. Once a year, rebalance your investments according to your long-term plans and goals -- but other than that, keep your hands off your money. Let time work its magic.

Don't make your work your life. Don't tie your personal success exclusively to your professional career. Make sure you have hobbies, interests, and friends outside of work.

Do something that doesn't require batteries, an operating system, or a network connection.

Again, remember that your family is infinitely more important than your job.

Your job won't last forever. Start planning and preparing now (whatever age you are) for what you will do with your life when you retire.

Useful books

This is a short list of books that have served me well in my career. Admittedly, it is a rather eclectic list, but all of the books are relevant to an engineering career.

The Organization Guerilla: Playing the Game to Win, by Allen Weiss

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey

In Business as in Life - You Don't Get What You Deserve, Only What You Negotiate, by Chester Karrass

Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

Nudge, by Thaler and Sunstein

The Art of War, by Sun Tzu

The Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi

The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch

The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill

Professional Software Development, by Steve McConnell

The Goal, by Eliyahu Goldratt

The Phoenix Project, by Kim, Behr, and Spafford

The C Programming Language, by Kernighan and Ritchie

Who's Afraid of C++ (now part of Learning to Program in C++), by Steve Heller

Common Lisp: The Language, by Guy Steele

Windows 11: First Impressions

 I got a new PC two days ago. It runs Windows 11. My old PC ran Windows 10, and my work PC runs Windows 10. So what do I think about Windows 11?

First, the summary (tl;dr)

I was not disappointed; in fact, I've been pleased with Windows 11. The transition from Windows 10 was so smooth that it was practically seamless. There's been no loss in productivity, and if anything, there's been a small but significant gain in productivity.

Giving away the ending: my favorite part of Windows 11 is Linux! See the very end of this article.

Doing my homework

I'm not an early adopter. I was comfortable with Windows 10, I didn't see a reason to change, and I didn't have hardware with enough oomph to support Windows 11 anyway.

Then the hard disk died on my five-year-old Toshiba. The rest of the PC was in perfectly good shape, but it was five years old. That's a long time in computer years. Time to update everything.

So, knowing that the purchase was imminent, I went to the Web to read up on Windows 11. I read the Windows evangelists' breathless praise. I read the industry professionals' dispassionate analyses. And I read the critics' reviews. As a result, I knew what to expect.

Now, the details

This is what you really came for, right?

This is all subjective and non-quantitative, by the way. If you want a quantitative analysis, go to the web. If you want an objective review of Windows 11, dream on. There ain't no such thing. All evaluations of Windows 11 are subjective.

And there are no pictures, sorry. It's just words.

Look and feel (or "What about the 'Mac-like appearance' we were promised?")

The Windows 11 desktop and user interface do not look radically different from Windows 10. Even the most conservative, old-fashioned Windows users will feel instantly comfortable with Windows 11. The edges are rounded and the colors and tones are softer, which makes it, if not "Mac-like", then more modern. Updated. Contemporary.

The icons are also modern contemporary. Gone are the skeuomorphs — in Windows 11, all icons are 2D, stylized, usually two colors and simple symbols, instead of the multidimensional, multicolored, miniature masterpieces of yesteryear. Okay, I admit it, I liked the old-style icons better. But I can live with it.

Remember Windows XP? It was great for productivity, because it got out of the way of what you were working on, and it stayed out of the way. Subsequent Windows versions, and associated products like Office and Explorer, felt like they screamed "MICROSOFT!!!!!" at you all the time.

It may still be true of the Office suite. But Windows 11 is back to the XP paradigm of being unobtrusive, of letting you do your work, getting out of the way, and staying out of the way.

The Start menu

The biggest change is that the Start menu and the icons on the taskbar are centered on the bottom of the desktop. This is part of the "Mac-like" paradigm. Conservative users can put the Start menu and taskbar back on the left, if they want. But if  you leave it centered for a day or two, it will grow on you. Besides, it's no big deal. I have a Windows 10 PC and a Windows 11 PC side by side, and my brain doesn't freak out switching from one to the other. 

The Start menu tiles are gone. As many reviewers observed, "nobody used them anyway." Instead, the Start menu gives you a Search bar, a "Pinned" section, a "Recommended" section, and two small buttons labeled "All apps" and "More". 

• The Search bar will search for literally anything: a filename on your computer, an installed program or app, a program or app that can be installed from the Microsoft Store, or anything on the Internet. In true Microsoft style, it's so thorough that it's almost too helpful.
• The "Pinned" section starts with a collection of applications that Microsoft thinks will interest you. It adds other applications as you install them. You can add and remove applications in this section, and you should do so immediately, keeping only your most used or most important applications. You can also right-click to move applications to the top of the list or pin them to the taskbar.
• Do you miss that alphabetical program listing that was the main part of the Windows 10 Start menu? Click on the "All apps" button to the right of the "Pinned" heading. There you go.
• The "Recommended" section is like the "Recently Used" menus in previous versions of Windows, but now it can include both applications and files. That's a nice touch. As with the "Pinned" section, you can right-click to pin or remove items.
• The "More" button expands the "Recommended" list to include older selections and a bunch of totally useless stuff that Windows adds to the list during installations and updates.

Right-clicking the Start button gives you the same useful system-management menu as in Windows 10.

Microsoft's insistence on Microsoft products

Like every other company in the world, Microsoft exists to make money. And like every other company, they want to upsell you. 

Windows 11 is very insistent on pushing Microsoft applications on you. They got into trouble for this with past editions of Windows, and they're not-so-subtly trying to do it again.

Along with shilling Microsoft products, Windows 11 is very insistent on upselling you to the paid versions of their free-to-start products. It's the drug pusher business model: "First one's free."

The web browser: Edge

Windows 11 comes with the Microsoft Edge web browser. You may want to install your preferred browser, be it Firefox or Google Chrome. Your browsing habits are money in the pocket of the company whose browser you use, and Microsoft doesn't want to let go of that money. Windows 11 makes it more difficult than in previous versions to switch your default browser from Edge to the preferred browser, because, of course, they don't want you to switch. But you can still do it.

However, this time, technology may convince you to stay with Edge anyway. Several head-to-head comparisons put Edge on a par with, or slightly better than, the market leader (65% market share), Google Chrome in every way. My experience with Edge has been good so far. It is very fast, and it follows Windows 11's lead in being unobtrusive. It gets the job done, and stays out of your way.

Cloud storage: OneDrive

Microsoft's cloud storage solution, OneDrive, gives you 5 GB of free storage. Once you hit 5 GB, OneDrive starts demanding money from you. Like an insistent salesman, the only way to get OneDrive to leave you alone is to stop using it. You have to go into the OneDrive settings and select "Unlink your PC". And again, like an insistent salesman, OneDrive will threaten you with dire consequences if you Unlink, and it will immediately offer to sign you up again after you Unlink.

Other options, such as Dropbox, work just as well as OneDrive. I'm just saying.

The Office Suite

I think that the revenue from MS Office sales and subscriptions pays the salaries of thousands of Microsoft employees. Windows 11 starts you with a free trial, and then pushes you into an array of paid subscriptions, or into paid, cloud-based Office 365 as an alternative.

MS Office is the default office suite for the entire world. You may think you cannot live without it. But there are two free alternatives, LibreOffice and OpenOffice. From a technical and practical standpoint, LO and OO are identical, and both are almost 100 percent compatible with MS Office. In fact, they can read and write MS Office files.

I prefer LO for various reasons, but either one will work for you. I suggest you start with LO or OO, and don't buy MS Office until you find that you need it.

Worthless widgets

Windows 11 includes widgets, tiny apps that clutter your PC and your screen. I don't have any use for them at all. Your mileage may vary.

Cellphone connection

Windows 11 is supposed to connect seamlessly and wirelessly to your iPhone or Android cellphone. I'll just say that the Android connection doesn't work yet, and leave it at that.

However, I can still connect my PC to my phone via a USB cable.

UPDATED INFO, APRIL 30, 2025: It works now. In Windows 11 is an app called "Phone Link," which allows the PC to connect nicely with your iPhone or Andoid cellphone. It's not "seamless," but it's getting tantalizingly close. It allows you to run phone apps from your PC, which is as wonderful as it sounds. It also allows you to transfer photos and files more easily between the two.

Multimedia, or "Can it run Netflix?"

The short and sweet answer is yes. In fact, all of your favorite streaming services are now available as apps in the Microsoft Store. You don't need to open a browser to run Spotify, Netflix, Prime Video, DisneyPlus, or any of a host of streaming services.

Windows 11 also casts to your large-screen TV using either Google Chromecast or Amazon FireTV.

When it comes to multimedia, your hardware will be the limiting factor, not your software.

Virus protection: McAfee? Why???

The Windows 11 on my new PC came with McAfee bundled as the antivirus and network security application. It's a free one-year subscription. I left it there until it got obnoxious (it took less than a day), and then I got rid of it.

I know I've badmouthed Microsoft for pushing their products over competing products, but Windows 11 very quietly ships with an excellent antivirus and network security system. In Windows 10 it was called "Defender"; in Windows 11 it's called "Windows Security".  It doesn't cost anything extra. It's free inside every box of corn flakes. And it really is excellent.

I don't understand why someone felt the need to bundle McAfee with Windows 11. Was it Dell, or was it MS? I don't care. As soon as I uninstalled McAfee, Windows Security automatically stepped in and took over the security duties.

Linux!

If Microsoft sends Windows 11 users a questionnaire, and asks what users' favorite Windows 11 feature is, I'm going to say, "Linux!"

Microsoft has fully embraced Linux. They have been working for years on their Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), a complex project that lets Linux run as if it were the native operating system (OS), or a co-existing OS, on Windows machines. 

Until now, if you wanted near-native Linux performance on a Windows machine, you had to install a virtual-machine engine, such as VMWare or VirtualBox, and create a Linux virtual machine inside that engine. It works great, nobody's complaining, but it can take a lot of work to get the Linux VM set up properly and interacting happily with Windows.

With Windows 11, Microsoft has put a VM engine called Hyper-V into the OS, and WSL runs smoothly and seamlessly on Hyper-V. Microsoft has been testing a graphical version of WSL for a few years now, and that is the version of WSL running inside Windows 11. With WSLg (g for graphical), you can start your favorite Linux distro, and then run any Linux graphical application on the Windows desktop.

In fact, Linux applications will appear in, and run directly from, the Start menu's "Recommended" section.

Here's a really good YouTube video that shows you how to set up WSL on Windows 11 and how easy it is to use.

Summary (wait, didn't I already do this at the top?)

I was not disappointed; in fact, I've been pleased with Windows 11. The transition from Windows 10 was so smooth that it was practically seamless. There's been no loss in productivity, and if anything, there's been a small but significant gain in productivity.

And it's still true, my favorite part of Windows 11 is Linux.

About Jerry Garcia ties

 

A Jerry Garcia Christmas tie

Jerry Garcia was a talented musician. He made his mark in the world as the lead guitarist and a vocalist for the rock group The Grateful Dead, until he died of a heart attack in 1995.

Everyone knows about his musical career, but few people know about his graphic arts career.

And many people who wear J. Garcia neckties don't realize that it's that "J. Garcia". 

Jerry Garcia was an artist?!

My abridged version of the story is this.

Garcia was both a talented musician and a talented artist. His plan, a laid-back and casual plan, was to make a living with his art, and to sing, write music, and play guitar on the side. In 1961, he survived a horrific car accident that killed one person and seriously injured Garcia and two friends. The accident was a turning point in his life, and he decided he needed to take something seriously. So he set his drawing and painting aside and devoted himself  to the guitar. After four years of playing with various groups, he and some friends formed the band that became The Grateful Dead.

In 1980, after the band became successful, Garcia returned to the graphic arts. He exhibited his work at the Weir Gallery in Berkeley, California. He monetized his craft by creating beautiful silk scarves and neckties and selling them under the "J. Garcia" brand.  Garcia's silk-screened tie designs were unlike the traditional geometric designs. They were attractive and eye-catching, without being crazy or obnoxious. While I wouldn't say they took the world by storm, they definitely attracted a following. They were sold worldwide in department stores, men's apparel stores, and online.

It's ironic that his two worlds didn't overlap very much. Many of his necktie fans don't know that he was a rock'n'roll superstar; likewise, many of his music fans don't know that he made neckties. 

And many people who bought his ties didn't realize that the "J. Garcia" on the necktie label was the same J. Garcia that played for the Dead.

Beautiful designs, lousy workmanship

Garcia's tie designs are beautiful and eye-catching. The designs are organized into themes. In addition to everyday business designs, he has special themes for occasions like weddings, and for holidays like Independence Day, Halloween, and Christmas. Although most of his ties are pure silk, he also has some designs in cotton. I don't know whether he ever worked in wool.

There's only one problem with J. Garcia ties: The workmanship is really bad. No, the workmanship is crap. The ties wear out too quickly. 

For the first few wearings, they're okay. But then the thread on the main seam starts coming out. Or else, because the fabric is cut too close to the seam, the fabric starts raveling even if the seam remains intact. Both of these defects can be corrected with fray-check or super glue, if you catch them quickly enough. But then the interfacing starts getting twisted and bunched up inside the tie, so your knot looks ugly, and there's no way to fix that. And eventually, the fabric where the tie is knotted simply falls apart, and that can't be fixed either.

So, what to do? Your choice. 

Some of you may say that that's normal, that all ties wear out, especially silk ties. Not so.

I have some Italian ties ranging in age from 3 to 40 years, and they are still in excellent shape after hundreds of wearings. The workmanship on these Italian ties is exquisite. J. Garcia ties are all made in China, not Italy. J. Garcia ties reinforce everything I've ever said on the subject of Chinese workmanship.

So, don't buy them, because they're crappily built, and because they're made in China?

No. I say, buy them anyway. Plan on them wearing out every couple of years, and on buying replacements for the ones that wear out. Or buy several of them, and cycle through them so that they last longer. They're worth it.

Story: The Christmas Ornaments Robin Hood

 SHORT INTRODUCTION: I ran across this story on Reddit. It's a different kind of Christmas story. I hope it touches you as deeply as it touched me. Written by u/selectivelycrazy, and reprinted here with her permission.

It is 2020, unfortunately. It’s the day after my two younger sisters and I flew out to Pennsylvania to see my dad, who lives there after getting divorced by my mom for fifteen years of not being a good husband or dad. He lives with his mom, Cranky Grandma, and her devil cat, as well as my amazing aunt and her angel kitten.

Dad gets home from work. “Where’s Emi?” he asks my Cranky Grandma.

“She’s in the basement,” Cranky Grandma says, probably throwing in a snide comment or two about the newly-dyed purple hair adorning my head or the leather fingerless gloves that have joined my black wardrobe. “Lookin’ for some Christmas ornaments.”

Dad goes down the basement stairs and finds me rummaging through cardboard boxes. “What are you looking for?” he says.

“Hi, Dad,” I say. “Well, I noticed that you decorated for Christmas, but you’re missing a few things! Where are The Mooses?”

The Mooses are a pair of stuffed mooses that have been put up every Christmas since I can remember. They’re brown, about two feet tall, and soft as a marshmallow. There’s Mama Moose, who is named Merry, holding Baby Moose, who is named Christmas and is in a red velvet sack reading “Merry Christmas” on it in gold embroidery. The Mooses always go on the couch to watch over the living room and all the decorations and presents in it while we’re asleep.

The problem with The Mooses is that when my mom divorced Dad, she was so scared of him that she let him have almost everything. This included The Mooses and quite a few more of her treasured ornaments. And since I’ve always been the one to set The Mooses on the couch, that first Christmas with a divorced dad just didn’t feel right without them.

Dad helps me look for The Mooses for awhile. “Sorry, sweetie, they must have gotten lost in the move,” he says.

I smile and don’t tell him that I hate being called sweetie. “It’s okay,” I say, and pull out a cardboard box. “Hey, look! It’s your What God Wants For Christmas box! I love that tradition!”

We go set up What God Wants For Christmas in the living room. I say, “I think I’m going to go take a nap.”

Dad says, “Okay.”

I go upstairs and into my room and shut the door. I walk over to the window seat/storage chest under the window. I open it.

“Hello, Mooses,” I say.

The Mooses lay on top of my stuffed animal collection, looking dusty. Several other ornaments I recognize as Mom’s are keeping them company. I grin and shut the chest.

It is the day we fly back to my home state. I have The Mooses packed away in my suitcase, and the other ornaments tucked beside them, wrapped in my fluffiest (but still black) hoodie to protect them.

I roll my suitcase out to the hallway. Dad is weighing Youngest Sister’s bag to make sure it’s under fifty pounds. “Okay, now I need to check it to make sure you’re not stealing any of my stuff!” he tells her.

My mind says, Oh no.

My brain gives me uncomfortable memories of how Dad raged when he thought one of us had stolen his coffee mug.

My voice says, “Privacy invaded in three...two…” in a joking tone. Dad and Youngest Sister laugh. Dad does not check anyone’s suitcase.

We are at the airport. Younger Sister’s suitcase is somehow three pounds over the weight limit.

Dad says, “Emi, grab one of the suitcases that already went through and open it up. We’ll put some of Younger Sister’s stuff in there.” He gestures to my suitcase.

My mind makes an earsplitting screeching noise that sounds like someone slammed their brakes to avoid hitting a pterodactyl and hit the pterodactyl anyway.

My brain imagines Dad opening the suitcase and going into a rage at the sight of The Mooses.

My voice says, “Sure, Dad.” My hands grab Youngest Sister’s suitcase instead of mine and pass it over. Dad opens it. Her suitcase contains no smuggled goods. We transfer the stuff and the very nice airport lady sends all the bags down the conveyor belt. Dad asks me why I wave to mine. I shrug. “Just being weird,” I say. Good luck, Mooses, my mind says.

We are back home. My family- my Older Sister, who didn’t go with us, Mom, my other grandma, who we call Maga, and my Boppa, or grandpa, are all sitting in the living room catching up.

I say, “I’m disappointed you took the tree down already.”

Older Sister laughs. “It’s past New Year’s!”

“I know,” I say, “but I brought some stuff to put on it.”

I open my suitcase. I show around the ornaments I smuggled back- three tiny stuffed snowmen, our cat’s catnip-stuffed cat ornament, a white clay angel, a wooden rocking horse, a wooden mouse king, a clay snowman, my older sister’s stuffed dog. When I unveil the rocking horse, Maga gasps. “I bought that for your mother when she was little!” she exclaims. “How did your dad get it?”

“That’s not everything,” I say. I unzip the flap hiding The Mooses from view.

I pull out The Mooses.

Older Sister and Boppa clap. “How did you get those back here right under Dad’s nose?” Older Sister asks. Maga laughs so hard she has tears in her eyes.

The tears in Mom’s eyes are not from laughter.

Slowly, she reaches out and takes The Mooses, hugging them to her chest. Over their antlers, she mouths “Thank you.”

And then, she gets up, and she sets The Mooses down. On the couch.

Right where they belong.

A gratuitous picture of a Christmas moose, from an online store

How Malicious Compliance Saved a Company

I once worked at a place that built electronic gadgets — water leak detection equipment, to be exact. Black boxes with a lot of connectors. Each gadget had a built-in webserver: you type in the gadget's IP address, and the user interface appears. This was in the stone-knives-and-bearskins days, and the entire webserver was hard-coded. You know, HTML strings in the C source.

So the CEO and the VP of marketing decided that they didn't like the UI (user interface, essentially the look and feel of the webpages) in our biggest moneymaking product. It wasn't our flagship product, but it had the biggest slice of the revenue pie chart and a delicious profit margin.

Yeah, so anyway, CEO and VP locked themselves in a conference room for a couple of days and came out with a new UI design. They had designed the whole thing in PowerPoint. They told the firmware engineer (not me, but a co-worker that I admire the heck out of) to reprogram the UI and make it exactly like the PowerPoint slides.

FW Engr had a lot of credibility in the company and wasn't afraid of getting fired, so he proceeded to tell them all the reasons that it was a bad idea and wouldn't work and the customers wouldn't like it. They yelled at him and gave him the "We're the CEO and VPMktg and we know what the customers want" and the "just do your job" speeches.

So, knowing that it was doomed to fail, but since they had demanded it, and knowing that he would get paid no matter what he did, he set aside his current project and went to work. He totally rewrote the HTML so that the UI looked and performed exactly the way the PowerPoint slides said it should. CEO and VP loved it, and gave him the "see? that wasn't so hard, was it?" speech. FW Engr went back to what he was really supposed to be doing.

Just as he had predicted, customers hated the new UI. Existing customers who upgraded their firmware couldn't find things anymore. New customers who had just bought the box couldn't navigate it without a GPS and a Ouija board. Tech support got multiple calls a day complaining about the UI and asking for help.

And on top of everything, it was ugly. It looked like a PowerPoint presentation, not a leak-detection system.

Our tech support guy went to the FW Engr and told him about the dozens of complaint calls. FW Engr told him to have the customers enter a slightly different URL: instead of "ip.address", type in "ip.address/classic" , and the old UI would magically appear. He hadn't deleted the old UI code; he had just hidden it deep inside the gadget's memory, because he knew that this was exactly what would happen.

Tech support went away happy. Customers were happy. The firmware engineer had saved the company's cash-cow-golden-goose, and probably saved the company. I don't think anybody ever told CEO or VP Mktg. They were totally oblivious to what the firmware engineer had pulled off, right under their noses. 

Word Peeve: entitled boomer Karens

Can we talk a little about language? 

Not profanity. Those horses left the barn years ago. I blame it on the 2016 presidential election, the ensuing four years, and the press's newfound eagerness to quote everybody without censoring their language.

No, I want to talk about the words Karen, entitled, and boomer.

First, Karen. 

It's a label for a stereotype. But it doesn't fit any of the women that I know named Karen. (Or Karyn.) All of the Karens that I know are real sweethearts. But the name, as a label, gets bandied about more and more. 

Please stop using Karen. Find another label.

Second, entitled.

We used to say that a person was rude, presumptious, high-and-mighty, pushy, bossy, selfish, grabby, dishonest, a cheater, nosy, a know-it-all, snobbish, curmdgeonly, overbearing, lazy, creepy, a jerk, a bully, arrogant, judgmental, just plain mean, and so many other really useful adjectives. Now we just call them all entitled. The word "entitled" has become totally meaningless.

I can imagine an argument between two people, shouting "You're so entitled!" "No, you're entitled!" They're both using the same word, but they mean entirely different things.

I do hope this is just a fad, but "awesome" and "cool" started as fads, and they haven't died out yet. So ... next time you feel like saying "entitled", can you stop for a moment and substitute another, more precise word?

Finally, boomer.

We've finally reached the age where the Baby Boomers are marching into the grave. They have become the old people that they used to make fun of. It will take a few decades before they're all gone. Now that they're the old people, they're doing old-people things and, let's be honest, some of them range from pretty funny to damned annoying. When people tell stories about them, they label them boomers.

"Okay, boomer" has become a fun (to the younger crowd) way to blow them off, to marginalize them — especially if they're being Karens and acting entitled. (See what I did there?) 

Boomer is a derogatory term. It's always meant as an insult, or to make someone feel bad. I've never heard it used in a friendly or respectful way. How about we all stop saying it? 

Now, before you react ...

Somebody's going to read this and say, "How dare you tell me how I should talk!" and "It's a free country, I can say what I want!" and "Wow, you're so entitled, trying to tell me how to speak," and my own personal favorite, "Okay, boomer."

Relax. They're just suggestions. You can talk however you want to talk. Bear in mind, however, that every time I hear or read you using one of those words, it's the verbal equivalent of you speaking with a giant hunk of spinach stuck between your front teeth or a booger hanging out of your nose.

Maybe other people feel the same way. Is that a chance you want to take?