Love ‘em or hate ‘em - here’s my lolcat to try to win the I Can Has Cheezburger online Poker Cats Contest.

More on the online Poker Cats Contest

Won’t you please go vote for me?

If you use technology at work, chances are high you will hear something quite often from your IT staff. Something that sounds vaguely like, “…make sure you backup your important work…”

IT people - of which I am one - like to say things like this. It’s because it indemnifies us when we have to tell you that it’s not normal for your computer’s hard drive to sound like it’s grinding coffee beans. It’s not normal at all! It’s likely the sound of your data being scrubbed into oblivion by the spinning electronic bits inside.

We like to lecture, “If you had backed up your data this would be no big deal.” And we cluck our tongues at the idea that backing up is “just too difficult” to do on a regular basis. “That’s no excuse,” we retort, “It’s a necessary responsibility of using technology!”

And the dirty, dirty secret that almost 99.6% of all IT people have is this; they seldom backup their own important files. And by seldom I mean never.

And do you know why? Because backing up files is difficult, boring and generally - to borrow a non technical term - not “sexy”. Who wants to stay home and make sure their backup runs successfully? No one, that’s who!

And that brings me to the point of this message. After an almost three months long hiatus - caused by a hard drive failure and no recent backup - my web site is once again functional. I’m finally back on-line and can once again write about what’s on my mind. I’m hoping my audience (of perhaps 7 people) will at this point rejoice.

I can say with some experience now; if you don’t backup your data on a regular basis you’re just begging for trouble. I wasn’t and trouble certainly had no problem finding my server.

So please make sure you actually heed your local IT professional’s advice to “backup often” and you have my permission to feel smug and superior on the inside with the knowledge that he probably doesn’t follow his own advice!

Everyone has language pet peeves. It drives me nuts when people pronounce the “T” in often and the “noise” in Illinois. Sure, these are minor grievances and I can usually look the other way (in the verbal sense).

I have, however, noticed a creeping trend of adding “or whatever” as a verbal crutch. I first noticed it in a person I work with, then I caught myself doing it. Now my reticular activator swings wildly around, spotting instances of “or whatever” everywhere it turns!

It’s a weak way to express an idea and it makes the speaker sound dumb, dumb, dumb. For example, “So I was talking to Carl, or whatever…” Well, either you were or you were not speaking to Carl. There is no need whatsoever to add “or whatever.”

And woe, the worst part is I’ve caught myself saying it! My brain consciously notices it about the moment the “..ver” slips out of my mouth. Inwardly I cringe, hating that I’ve let slip this most useless of verbal tripe. I’ve been working hard to banish it from my vocabulary, but I cannot seem to escape it in my life. All around me people reinforce the meme by saying it over and over.

We all must work to banish this saying from our lives! It does nothing to enhance the conversation. It does nothing to clarify the subject. It simply makes the speaker appear simple.

Stop saying it! Stop saying it! Stop saying it! This is the battle cry to myself and a league of people who feel their skin crawl when those two words are uttered.

It was getting a little crowded in Heaven, so God decided to change the admittance policy. The new law was that in order to get into Heaven, you had to have a really bummer day on the day that you died.

The policy would go into effect at noon the next day.

So, the next day at 12:01 the first person came to the gates of Heaven.

The Angel at the gate, remembering the new policy, promptly asked the man, “Before I let you in, I need you to tell me how your day was going when you died.”

“No problem,” the man said. I came home to my 25th-floor apartment on my lunch hour and caught my wife having an affair. But her lover was nowhere in sight. I immediately began searching for him. My wife was half naked and yelling at me as I searched the entire apartment.

Just as I was about to give up, I happened to glance out onto the balcony and noticed that there was a man hanging off the edge by his fingertips! The nerve of that guy!

Well, I ran out onto the balcony and stomped on his fingers until he fell to the ground. But wouldn’t you know it, he landed in some trees and bushes that broke his fall and he didn’t die.

This ticked me off even more.

In a rage, I went back inside to get the first thing I could get my hands on to throw at him. Oddly enough, the first thing I thought of was the refrigerator. I unplugged it, pushed it out onto the balcony, and tipped it over the side.

It plummeted 25 stories and crushed him! The excitement of the moment was so great that I had a heart attack and died almost instantly.”

The Angel sat back and thought a moment. Technically, the guy did have a bad day. It was a crime of passion. So, the Angel announced, “OK sir. Welcome to the Kingdom of Heaven,” and let him in.

A few seconds later the next guy came up. To the Angel’s surprise, it was Donald Trump. “Mr. … Trump, before I can let you in, I need to hear about what your day was like when you died.”

Trump said, “No problem. But you’re not going to believe this. I was on the balcony of my 26th floor apartment doing my daily exercises. I had been under a lot of pressure so I was really pushing hard to relieve my stress. I guess I got a little carried away, slipped, and accidentally fell over the side!

Luckily, I was able to catch myself by the fingertips on the balcony below mine. But all of a sudden this crazy man comes running out of his apartment, starts cussing, and stomps on my fingers. Well, of course I fell. I hit some trees and bushes at the bottom, which broke my fall, so I didn’t die right away.

As I’m laying there face up on the ground, unable to move and in excruciating pain, I see this guy push his refrigerator of all things off the balcony. It falls the 25 floors and lands on top of me, killing me instantly.”

The Angel is quietly laughing to himself as Trump finishes his story. “I could get used to this new policy,” he thinks to himself. “Very well,” the Angel announces, “welcome to the Kingdom of Heaven,” and he lets Trump enter.

A few seconds later, Bill Clinton comes up to the gate. The Angel is almost too shocked to speak. Thoughts of assassination and war pour through the Angel’s head. Finally he says “Mr. President, please tell me what it was like the day you died.”

Clinton says, “OK, picture this. I’m naked inside a refrigerator…

Our next door neighbors are odd. Sure, most next door neighbors are a little odd it seems, but ours are really odd. Let me give you a few examples of the oddness of our neighbors:

They always watch goings-on through the drapes. They know everything about the neighborhood.

So what I saw Saturday afternoon shouldn’t really surpise me at all, but it did. I was going through the house closing windows when I heard an odd “whirring” sound. I looked through the front window and I saw the neighbor vacuuming the yard to pick up their grass clippings.

Just an hour earlier I had seen them raking the yard and bagging the clippings, but apparently that wasn’t enough. They were actually vacuuming the yard.

So about the time you think you live next to the oddest neighbors in the world, just remember they could be vacuuming their yard.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “yes.”

The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things–your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favorite passions–things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

“The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car.

The sand is everything else–the small stuff.

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal.

“Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented.

The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of beers.”

Knowledge is like 4WD; you still get stuck, but in much more difficult places.