Murphy's Law

To my son Tommy,

There is one law of the universe that constantly boomerangs back to hit me in the face.  This concept is expressed as Murphy's Law and can be summed up as "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."  Though the history of this adage is up for multiple debates, and there have been many spin offs expressing how Murphy's Law works in specific areas, this is one of the truest natural laws I have found.

Take for example this morning.  Your mother was headed off crabbing with PopPop and I had responsibility for you.  While at work the day before, I had made a couple changes to our custom program to make sure a few recurring problems would not recur anymore, especially while I am on vacation.  These changes were great and I thought to myself, "one less thing that can go wrong."  You might be thinking that my changes failed but that is not the case.  Instead, the third party server for the service I am using up and fails at 5:30 in the morning.  I at first thought my changes were to blame but again not the case and the downtime was purely coincidental, if you believe in coincidence.  I personally imagine some Irish being named Murphy looking down on me and saying in a thick brogue, "Ah you did a good job there with that programming technical ballyhoo!  That should stop that problem from happening.  But what happens if I send this your way.  Didn't plan on a server outage here, did ya Mr. Cocky?  And to top it off I will send it your way when you have to take care of the wee little lad all by your lonesome.  By the way, that third party Canadian company starts work at 8 and not a minute earlier."

I took things in stride and somehow managed to get you dressed and fed and finally out the door to Bwam's house all as I was working on the problem.  By 8:30 the servers were back up and work life continued as normal.  I have been once again humbled by ye old Murphy for probably the 5th time in the past month.  They say the people who pick on you just really love you.  If that is the case, Mr. Murphy thinks quite fondly of me.  Here is my favorite saying inspired by Murphy's Law is..."The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of an oncoming train."

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo