Posts (page 2)

So, I just need to survive here until the end of July.  I made myself a reminder.

More Rope

I guess that's really what they want from me at work.  Not an employee.   A nanny.  Who never gets upset with the children, no matter how many times she tells them not to wipe their nose on the sofa.  Do we make the devs manage their own code merges?  No.  Let the build team do it.  Do we make the testing leads learn how to use the tools the company paid so much for?  No.  Let the build team hand them their updates on a silver platter.  Do we trust the team leads to come to some sort of consensus about when they'd like the next build?  No.  Let the build team just do whatever is asked of them, even if it makes no sense, or isn't possible, or simply wastes time.

Must be nice being able to rely on the build team to do everything, and take the blame for everything, and ignore them when they make suggestions to improve the process. 

And if one of them happens to lose their temper, well, let's not wonder why, or even try to fix the underlying situation.  Let's just scold him for being unprofessional.

Yes, that was me today.  I'm not a very good nanny, apparently.  Curse my desire to hold people to a higher standard.

So, our main family ride, our Dodge Magnum, is an accident machine.  5 times it's been hit since we purchased it.  Usually when we're going to California.  Well, today, I wasn't going to California, so I didn't actually get hit, but it's not for a lack of trying.

I've blogged around here a couple of times about the awards I've been getting lately both on the project and within the wider company setting.  Well, I've decided that, apart from the monetary gain, the awards are pretty worthless.  Why?  I've found out who else has gotten the same awards.  And, for the most part, it's developers that couldn't code their way out of a paper sack, and "leaders" who think getting everyone to jump off a building is setting a good example.  One of the Tiger Awards was given to a developer on the project whose list of achievements were mostly accomplished by getting someone else to think for him.  That someone else often being me.  And my Leadership Awards?  Another developer on this same project has one, and I know for a fact that his idea of leadership is to cause problems which he then fixes by getting someone else to do the work for him.  Seriously, if you're going to give out these awards to, basically, dead weight, don't bother giving them to me.

Inanimate carbon rod indeed.

Yes, it's been a long while since I've blogged, I know.  

Some minor things have been happening.  First among them is that Ladybug took ill and had to spend the entirety of last week on unpaid leave of absence.  That put a lot of work on my shoulders, let me tell you.  It mostly meant a lot less free time for me to do much of anything of a personal nature, and this blog absolutely falls under the auspices of "personal."

The kids have been waking up a lot at night lately.  Maybe it's the change in season, with the evenings getting longer, that is causing this restiveness.  Maybe it's the generalized illness circulating around the house (I was sick as well).  Growing pains perhaps.  They share a room now, so there's bound to be an adjustment period there as well.

Work has tailed off a bit.  I managed to submit a timesheet with no overtime at all, and last weekend, for the first time in a long time, I got no calls and no work requests.  I was sick, so in the end, it's a good thing no one called, but the general downturn in OT has meant that I've been studiously avoiding being on the computer if at all possible, devoting more time to the kids and family.  Lately, once I get home, the computer is just something providing ambient light near the kitchen.

But there is, by far, a larger item that it has taken me a while to come to grips with.

On the day after my last blog entry, I got a phone call from someone I hadn't heard from directly in some time.  An ex-coworker of mine, Erik, from back when I taught Java with GE.  This would have been 2001-2002.  So, 6 years or so, since I got more than an e-mail forwarded from him detailing some humorous vignette or call to action to save some legislation or kill it.  

We were a pretty close knit bunch.  Five instructors: myself, Danny, Dave, Crystal, and Blood Dragon.  Also, kat>>/dev/null, for a while, though she broke our hearts by moving to San Francisco.  Diane was our receptionist, Cindy was our marketdroid.  There were even some contract instructors that we worked with a lot, Erik being one of them.  We had a lot of fun, and spent a good deal of time outside of work together as well.  Since that time, I haven't worked with a closer-knit bunch of people, and, obviously, I still consider them all to be very good friends.  We're all still in touch, one way or another.

Well, Erik called to tell me that Dave had been killed in a motorcycle accident that morning.

I was heartbroken.  Dave was such a fantastic person, personable, a loving husband, a devoted son, and so funny I almost had to cancel class one day because of something he said over lunch that I just couldn't get out of my head.  He also managed to seriously annoy Crystal on a regular basis, but, well, that was pretty endearing to me as well.  I went to his wedding reception and saw him graciously accept six (that's one more than five but not quite seven) crock pots.  He later regifted one to me on the occasion of my wedding to Ladybug.  I had a good chuckle about that as well.  We use it to make chili.

Dave and I were the last employees in Phoenix when they closed the center.

I saw him a couple months after that at a lunch with the Old Gang.  He, Danny and Crystal had all moved to Sierra Vista.  He and Danny were working together at the army base, and tried to convince BloodDragon and I to join them.  Crystal also talked up the benefits of life in Sierra Vista, thus earning the trio the nickname of SV Rotary Club.  I really couldn't leave Phoenix, I like it here too much.  All my family is here.  They had carved out a very nice life in Sierra Vista, though.  I can't say I wasn't a little envious that they had managed to keep working together.  That was really the last contact I had with him.  I visited Crystal once, and she has been to Phoenix a couple of times, but I never managed to arrange getting the Old Gang together again.  News of Crystal's impending nuptials this summer might have been the impetus we'd need.

But Erik's call put a stop to all of that.  

I've been struggling with how I feel.  Oh, there's sadness and regret there.  Also happiness that I was, ever so briefly, walking in his circle.  Honestly, though, this is the first time that someone in my age group that I care about has died.  Sure, back in high school, a couple of popular kids were killed when they, in an alcohol induced stupor, drove their birthday present Mustang into a telephone pole.  As a teenage outsider, I didn't have much sympathy.  In fact, I had no sympathy.  Worse than that, I considered that if I had been standing in front of the telephone pole and was now just as dead, all the outpouring of grief would still be for the idiot underage drinkers with their silver spoon.  But I digress (and was 17).  All of my grandparents are dead, so it's not like I've never been to a funeral or anything.  And people I've cared deeply about have died, and I've reacted as most people do.  But this was mortality looking me smack in the face and saying, "Someday, I'm coming for you, buddy."  Old people die.  Young people die.  Everyone dies.  I know this, at a logically clinical level.  This was more like the personification of Death riding up on his skeletal steed, flaming sword in the scabbard, ethereal scythe in hand, and pointing at my face, the ultimate promise made.

It's not fear, exactly.  I don't fear death.  Most people who've driven with me for any length of time come to that conclusion.  It's just not something that I've really thought about.  And now I'm thinking about it.  But I'm not sure, yet, what I am thinking.

Anyway, now you know what would keep me off the blogosphere for over two weeks.  I don't plan on letting that happen again for a while.

Hey everyone, I know the posts have been few and far between around here lately.  What it comes down to is me working 6 days a week now, and that's only because I came to an understanding with the project.  Most of the rest of the team is working 7 days a week.  It's a nightmare, and, generally, I don't have the 20 minutes or so I need every day to come up with a post any more.

Hopefully, I will be able to come to grips with the project when we finally reach our (delayed twice already) release date.  I don't have high hopes.

Expect intermittent posts to continue.

Over the weekend, Ladybug and I stole a Sunday afternoon together.  Sister-in-law is in town, so she took the kids, and we went to a movie and dinner.  Saw The Bank Job which was actually a pretty darn good crime thriller, though I was beginning to despair of ever seeing Jason Statham kick anyone.  He does.  At the end.  But it's not a kicking people film.  So don't go expecting that.  Do go expecting to see rather a lot of tits and ass.  And, of course, loads of plot twists and some guy who looks superficially like John Lennon.  He plays John Lennon.  It's not high cinema, to be sure, but it's a departure work for Statham, and that makes it worth seeing.  If you like Statham.  Which I do.

After that, dinner, and talking without being interrupted every two minutes.  I think we had forgotten what that's like, because we both kept stopping mid-sentence, almost like we need interruptions now to line up our next thoughts.  The both of us are in mid-freak-out about the new baby, and the way things are going around the house (Ladybug was home late for the first part of the week, I was home late on Friday - suffice it to say, the house went to hell).  I think we need a vacation from the children.  Or a vacation with the children, but also with a nanny for the children.  We've both gotten very short with them.  I really hate that I am getting short with them, and that it's because of the state of affairs at work.  I need to find a way to refocus once I leave work.  Of course, it would help if I ever actually left work.  I'm basically on call all the time now.  Which makes things hard. 

Very hard. 

So, there it is, I've circled back to where I started.  Work is taking up too much of my life these days, and there is no clear end in sight.  We'll see when the next post happens.

Well, at last, it looks like the TSA got something right.  They managed to catch a guy smuggling explosives-making materials to Jamaica.  And they managed to do it without a lot of hoo-haa.  They just caught him, and incarcerated him.  They didn't shut down the airport, or make everyone play freeze tag for 40 minutes.  This makes me cautiously hopeful.

One item of clear note though, they noticed this guy because of behavioral profiling, not because they made him take off his shoes and unpack his carry-on (where the stuff wasn't). 

So, yes, this is a backhanded compliment: Good job, TSA, can I leave my shoes on now?

So, the neighbors on both sides of me have tween boys.  When they're not out playing baseball, they're playing football, or basketball.  Since we're between seasons, somewhat, right now, they're out riding bikes.  All good, healthy activities for a young lad which don't bother me in the slightest.

I really don't worry too much about these boys.  They generally do their thing, and it's no skin off my back.  A few months back, they were playing basketball on my hoop (or, rather, the previous owner's hoop) and knocked out one of my floodlights.  Apparently, one of the parents caught them at it, because they showed up the next day with a replacement for me.

Why do I say one of the parents caught them at it?  Because since then, they've been running amok.  They live on either side of my house, so, it started simply enough with them tramping across my lawn to get back and forth.  I don't mind that.  It's a lawn, not a Picasso.  Then it was bikes across my lawn.  Less happy about that, because it resulted in a couple of broken sprinkler heads.  The skid marks in my driveway didn't impress me much either.  The various balls and trash in my lawn?  I just threw that back on to their lawns and left it at that.

One day, I came home to see them hanging from my basketball hoop.  The last thing I need is some sort of lawsuit because one of them falls from my hoop, so I took the hoop down.  I don't use it, so it really didn't matter to me.  Frankly, I was happy enough to let them use it, until they started using it irresponsibly.  In the end, they both have their own hoops, but they're not embedded in concrete like mine, so they tend to blow over regularly.

Evidently, though, this state of affairs didn't meet with the approval of these kids, so, on Saturday, they decided that a little game of "ring and run" would be fun.  The sad part is that they're not bright enough to plan their escape properly, so they'd run past my front window where I could see them.  Morons.  At least when I'd do it, I'd do it with a proper escape planned.  How to deal with this?  Ignore it until they get bored?  Not really an option.  I don't want to have one of my own kids napping when one of these pests decides to ring my doorbell.

Pests.

Ah, there's the key.  So, I did what I'd do when any other unwanted pests were fornicating around in my yard: I went out and turned the hose on them.  Then I told them that running past my front window was stupid.  And that the next time my doorbell rang and no one was there, I'd take it to their parents, even if it wasn't them.  Did I mention I was still in my karate clothes?  That my hair was all up on end?  That I looked, to put it mildly, like a psychotic chainsaw killer?

In any case, I later saw them pass my house on the other side of the street, so I think I got my point across, and also put it into their heads that they were dealing with a crazy adult.  So, I might have solved all my problems in one insane rant.  Certainly, their parents didn't come round asking why I turned the hose on their kids, so I imagine the kids are pretty clear where the line is drawn now.

Some of you tech savvy folks out there may have heard, a while back, about Google's entry into the mobile phone market, Android.  Think of it, the notion goes, as a unified operating system which can be run on any compatible mobile phone hardware.

Not sure if this trucker is pro-fat-cat or anti-all-cats (he was next to me at a stop light).

Cat Food

Anyway, we got the Magnum back from the body shop.  Looks fine.  Of course, as I was driving in, I saw yet another person trying to kill me.  She was using an eyelash curler while driving.  Seriously, can I not just shoot these people in self defense?