When I was a much younger Man Doll, SOBUMD and I ran a web-hosting company, because we\u2019re geeks like that.\u00a0 We had clients and everything.\u00a0 Now, after learning a lot about starting \u2013 and stopping \u2013 a business, we have one client left.\u00a0 Ironically, she was also our first client, and I continue to maintain her website because she\u2019s become a dear friend.\u00a0 (Also, she pays us regularly, which while nice is no longer the primary motivation.)<\/p>\n
Last night, I went to her house to review things she needed to review with me, which after more than 10 years has become something of a tradition:\u00a0 I come over 2-3 times a year, in the evening after work, and she makes Coffee.\u00a0 The capital letter there is required to convey the true meaning of the drink that she pours me, which is to the pansy-assed, weak-kneed, undercaffeinated bilgewater you can buy at Starbucks as the lightning, to steal from Twain, is to the lightning bug.<\/p>\n
Have you ever seen a ceramic coffee mug cringe in fear as you walk toward it?<\/p>\n
Last night was an even more rare treat.\u00a0 To put this in some further context, my client is in her late 70s \u2013 she can see 80 without getting on her tiptoes.\u00a0 So you can imagine the dual reactions of terror and horrified anticipation fighting in my sub-cortex when I heard her say, \u201cWell, the percolator I usually use seems to be broken \u2013 it was my mother\u2019s.\u00a0 So I have to use the Old One.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, you know<\/strong> the \u2018usual\u2019 one has to be from the 50s – all modern, with plugs and stuff.\u00a0\u00a0 It turns out the \u201cold one\u201d is a big ceramic sucker that goes on top of the stove \u2013 it\u2019s probably 80 years old, and it\u2019s gorgeous.\u00a0 It also percolates coffee until you take it off the stove.<\/p>\n Assuming you would want<\/span> to take it off the stove.\u00a0\u00a0 Someday.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, this is the Columbian coffee, from you-know-who.\u201d\u00a0 No, not Juan Valdez, but it took me a second, too.\u00a0\u00a0She was talking about the handyman she uses for all jobs big and small, and who tends to hand-carry coffee back from Columbia for his friends when he goes home on vacation.<\/p>\n So now we have really<\/strong> good, hard-core coffee, being percolated to within an inch of my life.\u00a0 Did I mention that it\u2019s around 7:30pm?\u00a0 Right.\u00a0\u00a0 (“Why no, I haven’t slept yet.\u00a0 Why do you ask?”)<\/p>\n The best part of the evening, though, was talking to her about password strength.\u00a0 You can probably imagine my concern at the words, \u201cWell, I heard that you should use long phrases as passwords, so I\u2019ve been changing a bunch of my passwords.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I mentioned that passwords were great things to strengthen, as long as they were memorable.\u00a0\u00a0 (For the record, I consider this\u00a0somewhere between \u2018concern\u2019 and \u2018self-defense\u2019 on my part.)<\/p>\n And here was highlighted for me one of the biggest differences in working with people of different generations.\u00a0\u00a0 What would you<\/span>, Gentle Reader, choose as a password phrase that you will remember, and cheerfully type into some widget several times a day?\u00a0 Some spit of doggerel?\u00a0 Some random quote or line of favorite poem, or cool concatenation of names of wives and kids and cats and kits?\u00a0 Yes?<\/p>\n How about the epitaph that you\u2019ve already had engraved on the headstone you\u2019ve already had commissioned for the cemetery plot you bought yourself last year?\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cNo, I guess that\u2019s probably not something you\u2019re going to just up and forget next week, is it?\u201d<\/p>\n Because that\u2019s<\/strong> what I want to be typing in all day.\u00a0 Talk about always looking on the bright side of life.\u00a0 Cheerfully whistling in the dark, that\u2019s her.\u00a0 And my hat\u2019s off to her, I\u2019ll tell you that.\u00a0\u00a0 Mind you, with that coffee, she\u2019s unlikely to need the plot anytime soon \u2013 I mean, she might pass into the Great Beyond, but I doubt it would slow her down any.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What would you choose as a password phrase that you will remember, and cheerfully type into some widget several times a day? How about the epitaph that you\u2019ve already had engraved on the headstone you\u2019ve already had commissioned for the cemetery plot you bought yourself last year? I guess that\u2019s probably not something you\u2019re going to just up and forget next week, is it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4233,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/4233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}