BoomFlag

Back in the day, it was possible to completely trash any ‘nix system by running the recursive delete command in the root partition:

There are plenty of stories of system administrators who did something like this (with slight variations, and always by accident) and ended up with a mess.

Today I ran that command on four different servers, on purpose, so I could wipe out everything on them. Imagine my surprise when I ran into a safeguard!

Well, shoot, my operating system is warning me that I shouldn’t be deleting every file on my computer!

It’s funny that someone actually thought of that and added it to the delete command. Of course I forged ahead and added the flag so I could proceed with complete system destruction. Take that!

Today’s winning job applicant, in the category of Choppiest English in a Cover Letter, goes to…

Hoo boy. I count eight spelling and grammar errors… and that’s just one sentence of many. Indeed, there is an issue in this guy’s “aspect of communication”…

Today Zack headed over to Skyline High to get his class schedule and have his school photo taken. The photo is used on his student ID, and if we don’t have a professional picture to submit, it’s also used in the yearbook.

He brought his Super Afro Wig and wore it, but was stopped at the door by a woman who said he wasn’t allowed to wear it. He sweet-talked her somehow, and she relented. “Okay, if you can get past the other people, you can wear it.”

He waited in line, afro on, and eventually sat for his photo. Just as the photographer was about to snap the shot, some older guy popped over and said sternly, “You can’t wear that in your picture.” What a killjoy. Sadly, Zack had to lose the wig.

Man, that kid.

Last night we were watching Lost (long story) and Laralee asked where the term “booby trap” came from.

Without missing a beat, I said, “It’s from the days long ago when they would catch boobies, which are little birds.”

Both Laralee and Kyra were immediately skeptical. “You totally made that up.” They didn’t believe there was such a thing as a booby, and of course that my story about the etymology of the phrase was complete fiction.

Fortunately I had Zack on my side. He confirmed that boobies are little birds. The girls were adamant that there was no such thing. Laralee finally decided to end the debate by looking it up on her phone.

Kyra remarked, “You might want to be careful about searching for ‘boobies’ on the internet.” Ha ha, indeed you might!

Anyway, with some careful searching, Laralee was able to confirm that (1) there are indeed birds called boobies, and (2) there were indeed traps set for them back in the 17th Century. To be clear, a competing theory about the origin of “booby trap” states that it was intended for people who weren’t very bright, often referred to as “boobs”.

Vindication! Kyra still insisted I’d made it all up, and of course she was right, but it was nice that my more-or-less educated guess was correct.

My friend Sean wrote this:

First, a word of explanation. On the first floor of the office building where I work, there’s a chiropractor’s office. He sees patients well into the evening, so often when I’m leaving to go home, people are pulling up in the parking lot to visit him.

So yesterday I was walking out, heading down to Boulder to play some ultimate. As such, I was wearing athletic shorts, my team jersey, and of course no shoes. A little kid came up on the sidewalk and said loudly,

True, true.

I stumbled across another winner from the crying woman meme.

Well, Zack’s officially on the road.

“Not as good as Kyra” probably means all those hours Kyra and I played Mario Kart really paid off for her. Zack’s more into 2D side scroller video games, not driving ones…

Jason shared his photos from our Steamboat trip, and I found this one that just cracks me up:

I didn’t know he was taking a picture of me. I look like something out of an REI catalog. Or maybe a JC Penney model for Wrangler cargo shorts.

There was also this one, which I like:

Zack was hiking the Continental Divide on his birthday, as part of a Boy Scout High Adventure trip into the Indian Peaks wilderness. He had a great time, but was pretty happy to get back home and take a shower and eat “real food” after six days in the backcountry.

Once he was clean and fed, he wanted to open his birthday gifts. Instead of tearing off wrapping paper, he asked if he could wear a blindfold and guess what they were. Sure! So he cracked open the Amazon boxes and felt each gift:

He was pretty thrilled to get a “practice” butterfly knife, a set of arrows, an archery target, and a USB game controller. He joked that most of his presents were weapons. That’s probably how most teenage boys want it to be.

Happy birthday to the coolest, funniest, zaniest fifteen-year-old I know!