Mail Protocol

I have just returned from fetching the mail. You'd think my Hillbilly
Husband could have stopped on his two trips to and from town
for boys' bowling, and picking up #1 at a friend's house. But no.
That would have been logical.

It had just gotten dark when I ventured the mile to the mailbox.
As I got out of the large SUV and closed the door with it running,
I had an attack of the creeps. Not actual creeps, those guys with
greased back hair and rotten teeth who leer at you at flea markets.
The feeling of creepiness. It was a frog's hair from being completely
dark down by the creek. I could hear the water squeezing through
the two pipes that were 90 percent blocked by rocks washed into
them in the big rain a while back. I had a fleeting thought of what
if the door locks itself while I am getting the mail? Because
that happens to my large SUV. Every now and then it has a mind
of its own. Or a short in the electrical system. When I went out to
the garage, it was locked. Go figure. That would have given me
a mile-long walk in the dark. What if Fitty is lurking in the
woods? What if I hear stray kittens and puppies? I don't know
which prospect was most frightening. But everything came out OK.

It's getting late. I know my teaching buddy, Mabel, is expecting
this blog to be ready before her bedtime of 8:00. Hey! Mabel!
It's the weekend. Live a little. I squandered my afternoon time
watching a DVD: A History of Violence. It's good. How could
you go wrong with Viggo Mortenson, Maria Bello, Ed Harris,
and William Hurt?

I also spent some time responding to an old friend's email that
I had been meaning to do all week. Life gets in the way of my
free time. Have you ever hit that 'send' button and thought, Hey!
What if I sent that to the wrong person? Because I think that
sometimes. Not that I'm sending government secrets or have
discovered the new uranium or anything...But info meant for
one party could be deadly or just downright embarrassing if
sent to another party. Oh. I'm the only one who ever thinks
that? Never mind.

The other day at work, some pranking people moved a teacher's
vehicle from the parking lot to the street. That teacher sent out
an email about exacting revenge...on the building-wide email
thingy. An administrator sent one about the true purpose of that
thingy. Which brought up a discussion of using the work email.
I never send anything I wouldn't care if an administrator read
over my shoulder on the work email. Because I do not trust
people. I think they can view those things at will. Others play
around with the emails. Not me. What if someone hit 'reply'
and sent it out to the whole school? Then they could all read
my embarrassing faux pas. Nope. Work email is not for me.

Somebody at work who shall remain nameless discovered a
program listed in the 'All Programs' list on our computers. We
did not recognize it as anything any of us used. I had never
noticed it before, and I use that 'All Programs' once or twice
a week to load particular games for my DoNots as rewards.
I don't know how long it's been there. My guess is only a
couple weeks. The somebody thinks it might have been there
longer. The somebody uninstalled it. So did some other some-
bodies. I didn't. They think it is a way of tracking what websites
our computers are on.

It's not that they are secretive, or abuse the internet. Let's face
it. The tech people have all our passwords on a list that is
probably left lying out on a desk several days a week. They
could look up our history any time they wanted. There is a
blocker thingy that won't let us access pr0n sites, if that is what
any of you are thinking. We even get the big yellow school bus
for sites with bad words on them. The somebody's point is that
the outside company who contracts some of our tech work has
no business looking up what sites we've been on, and the some-
body thinks this program might allow this.

I did not uninstall mine. I figure that might be a red flag that I am
secretive and trying to hide something. Which I guess is kind of
the definition of secretive. Anyhoo, since the only things I look
up are my blog and Internet Movie Data Base, and them only
before school or on my lunch/prep time, I don't much care who
knows it. Now watch me get in trouble, and the secretives go
scott free. Stranger things have happened.

But I can't mention them here. In case somebody from school
should access my blog.