The month of July is named for Julius Caesar, the famous Roman general and emperor, who, despite his long list of accomplishments in war and literature, is best known as the poor sap in Shakespeare’s play that gets assassinated by his friends. Since that time, the “Ides of March” has been considered an unlucky time. However, it seems to me, that an entire month dedicated to the memory of Julius Caesar might have its own aura of bad luck. Well, at least it seems that way to me right now. This year, July has been no friend of mine.
First of all, the entire United States has been locked in a heat wave of record-breaking proportions. Some areas of the country are so hot and dry that farmers’ fields look like landscapes from a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel. In other parts of the world, excessive rain is causing flooding on a scale rarely seen. Scientists are debating whether this is global warming, natural climate change, or some combination of both. To my knowledge, I am the first person to realize the connection to Julius Caesar’s dark shadow over July.
Proving my theory by using global weather events may seem too broad and far reaching, so I am basing my conclusion on my own personal research. Research that consists of a close, analytical assessment of incidents, events and conditions that I have personally experienced this month.
First of all, this unrelenting heat wave is happening at the same time as I am enduring that rite of passage know as “Hot Flashes of Hell.” Record-breaking temperatures exacerbate my internal record-breaking temperatures, resulting in the ability to fry an egg on my own forehead, all the while sweating through every stitch of clothing I own. When I step out of the shower, I can barely dry off the water before becoming redrenched in my own perspiration. Doing my hair has become a race between the blow dryer drying my hair, and my scalp resoaking it. It is embarrassing to arrive at the office and be asked, “Is it raining out?”
The next set of unlucky incidents involves household plumbing. Both the kitchen sink and the toilet decided to fail this month. Attempts at repair in the kitchen created a hidden leak that was only discovered when the soaked-through cabinet began dripping water onto the floor. The toilet attempted to bankrupt me by continually running, but only flushing if it was taken apart and coaxed from the inside.
At this point, I still wasn’t getting July’s message. My house does seem to develop odd problems at strange times. Frozen water pipes on Christmas Eve, for example. I am actually accustomed to the fact that my television remote control also changes the settings on the air conditioner, and that the television volume can suddenly go way up by itself, right before it turns itself off.
None of that prepared me for the onslaught of escalating technical catastrophes at the office. The actual technical details would require many, many pages. The bottom line is, our once smooth-operating office computer network has descended in an oily morass of communications issues with computers stealing each other’s identities, refusing to cooperate with the server and blatantly exposing themselves on the Internet. Support staff from the Internet provider, the server computer maker and the network administrators from 3 separate building networks have been reduced to mumbling to themselves.
And again, in computer world, these things do happen sometimes. However, why would all office computers suddenly not be able to access the public Wi-Fi? Nothing short of a universal alignment of Murphy’s Law, the Summer Doldrums and the unrelenting bad luck of Julius Caesar could cause this much chaos in such a small area.
Thankfully, July is almost over. I almost have a solution for the computers, but I am tempted to not even try to implement it until August 1.
First of all, the entire United States has been locked in a heat wave of record-breaking proportions. Some areas of the country are so hot and dry that farmers’ fields look like landscapes from a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel. In other parts of the world, excessive rain is causing flooding on a scale rarely seen. Scientists are debating whether this is global warming, natural climate change, or some combination of both. To my knowledge, I am the first person to realize the connection to Julius Caesar’s dark shadow over July.
Proving my theory by using global weather events may seem too broad and far reaching, so I am basing my conclusion on my own personal research. Research that consists of a close, analytical assessment of incidents, events and conditions that I have personally experienced this month.
First of all, this unrelenting heat wave is happening at the same time as I am enduring that rite of passage know as “Hot Flashes of Hell.” Record-breaking temperatures exacerbate my internal record-breaking temperatures, resulting in the ability to fry an egg on my own forehead, all the while sweating through every stitch of clothing I own. When I step out of the shower, I can barely dry off the water before becoming redrenched in my own perspiration. Doing my hair has become a race between the blow dryer drying my hair, and my scalp resoaking it. It is embarrassing to arrive at the office and be asked, “Is it raining out?”
The next set of unlucky incidents involves household plumbing. Both the kitchen sink and the toilet decided to fail this month. Attempts at repair in the kitchen created a hidden leak that was only discovered when the soaked-through cabinet began dripping water onto the floor. The toilet attempted to bankrupt me by continually running, but only flushing if it was taken apart and coaxed from the inside.
At this point, I still wasn’t getting July’s message. My house does seem to develop odd problems at strange times. Frozen water pipes on Christmas Eve, for example. I am actually accustomed to the fact that my television remote control also changes the settings on the air conditioner, and that the television volume can suddenly go way up by itself, right before it turns itself off.
None of that prepared me for the onslaught of escalating technical catastrophes at the office. The actual technical details would require many, many pages. The bottom line is, our once smooth-operating office computer network has descended in an oily morass of communications issues with computers stealing each other’s identities, refusing to cooperate with the server and blatantly exposing themselves on the Internet. Support staff from the Internet provider, the server computer maker and the network administrators from 3 separate building networks have been reduced to mumbling to themselves.
And again, in computer world, these things do happen sometimes. However, why would all office computers suddenly not be able to access the public Wi-Fi? Nothing short of a universal alignment of Murphy’s Law, the Summer Doldrums and the unrelenting bad luck of Julius Caesar could cause this much chaos in such a small area.
Thankfully, July is almost over. I almost have a solution for the computers, but I am tempted to not even try to implement it until August 1.
