File System Check It

Last night I sat down to make another post here. I worked for the better part of an hour pouring my heart out on a really good, really raw journal entry. It was essentially a cathartic release of all the pent-up frustration and anger I’ve been feeling about things for the last month or so. I mean… I really let her rip on that one. It was funny… sarcastic… cynical… sad… meandering. All the things I pride myself on. I finished it up, polished it, hit submit and…. nothing.

Server timeout.

*clicks Back button on browser*

Server timeout. The page you are trying to load contains POST data…

*clicks Back button again… knowing in vain it won’t work*

One hour of some of the most real writing I’ve ever done up in smoke.

Fsck.

Your Post Here

I’m pondering taking the site down. It no longer gives me the creative thrill that it once did. It served at one time as an outlet for me. A bit of a catharsis. But now that I’ve done all that and been there I’ve lost the drive to continue making posts here.

I don’t even write creatively anymore. It’s not that I don’t think about it. I do. I just never sit down and bang things out like I used to.

I guess I managed my obsession and now it’s time to move on. *shrug*

If you wander back here in a few days or weeks’ time and find that the site is no longer here you know why.

Shirley, you can’t be Sirius.

Earlier this week I picked up Sirius Satellite Radio. I am most pleased with it. Last year one of my friends recommended XM, but another recommended Sirius. I did my comparisons, eventually settling on that. I’ve been angsting over it as I usually do with most of my major purchases. Our finances finally made it to a point where I can allow another monthly payment so I took the plunge and so far I am very happy. The radio itself is a small unit. Heavy for it’s weight and packed with features. I can set it to alert me when a favorite artist is about to come on. No more missed or overlooked Led Zeppelin or Rush tracks, ha!

The cost is rather reasonable: $15 a month after tax and such. This gives me access to about two hundred some-odd channels of commercial free music and talk radio. I’ve been listening a lot to the 80s, classic rock, and electronica. I’ve discovered that I like the Ramones and Crystal Method a lot too.

Anywho, it has given me some new joy-joy feelings. I can now listen to the same Sirius radio station anywhere in the country. It will be especially nice for those long hauls to Canada and back.

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Work has been extremely busy. I spend most of my days poring over issues and researching how our web sites work, then supplying sage-like wisdom to those that come calling on me. This has also led into some development, hence my schooling in the Kung Fu art of PERL. Currently I’m procrastinating working on a simple form that takes input from about five different text fields then wraps that info into an e-mail and shoots it off. It’s a rather simple application, but for someone who doesn’t know PERL it’s taking me some time to adjust.I really have been enjoying the work that I’ve been doing though. I am starting to get accustomed to things, and I can more confidently answer questions when they are posed to me. It’s good to feel useful.

Land of the Free?

Be afraid America. Be afraid.

Hello World!

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

print "Hello, World!\n" while (1);

First comes SQL, then PERL. I’m on fire this month!

Autumn Emma

Cheryl has proven with this set of photos that she is more of a photographer than I will ever be. Every photo taken has a certain degree of love, vision, clarity, and purpose that I have yet to add to mine. This batch of thirty-odd photos covers a sunny fall day with Emma playing outside in the leaves and on her playground. It also offers up some excellent views of fall color and the countryside that surrounds our little patch of Earth. We hope you enjoy!

+3 to Intelligence, -1 to Sanity

SELECT c.sanity, c.peace_of_mind, cc.love, cc.compassion,
e.joy, e.love
FROM chris c, cheryl cc, emma e
WHERE c.sanity = cc.love AND cc.compassion = e.joy AND c.sanity IS NOT NULL;

>0 rows returned

I’ve been busy.

The new job is going well, and I’m constantly being exposed to new things. My grasp of SQL has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few days. The reports I’m generating are being used to make important strategic decisions. This past Friday night / Saturday morning I watchdogged the new web site as it went into production and helped to test it. So far, so good. As I’ve told my boss, "I love my new job."

Must go collapse now.

Take the Blue Pill

To say that I’ve been power-leveling the last few days is a grave understatement. I’ve been thrown headlong into the world of project management, issue prioritization, and databases. I’m scrambling to keep up, even with the experiences that I’ve had at college. College was nothing compared to this. Trying to figure out the big picture, let alone my place in it has nearly driven me mad. I have thought that my situation is akin to standing on top of a giant jigsaw puzzle with blank pieces, and I am forced to try and piece together the six-foot by six-foot tiles one at a time.

While it may sound like I don’t like my job, you couldn’t be more wrong. Yes I do come home exasperated and frustrated and strung out. But I have learned so much in the past week. I mean… I’m dreaming of SQL code in my head at night… projects… snippets of conversations… it’s crazy. But deep down I feel like a runner starting out his marathon training. Sore muscles… weary bones… but deep down is a strength that is growing.

The experience is shaping me and making me better. I’m being forced to be more thorough and more decisive. The help desk forced me to have the quick and ready answer. This job is forcing me to look beyond that to the systems that lie beneath the surface. Where before I would have tried one or two things that I thought were thorough troubleshooting steps now require me to do those steps, then check whats going on in the database, or to see what projects have been implemented recently that may have broken said functionality, or one of a thousand other things.

My predecessor has ten years of experience doing this job. He knows the answer at the drop of a hat, just like I used to know the answers on the help desk.

God, I know jack squat. I hate being this way, but I know it’s going to improve soon. I just need some context. Doesn’t it suck when you move into a new job and then you have to totally change your worldview? You knew everything, now you know nothing. You were the big fish, always having the answer. Now you are standing there slack-jawed and wet behind the ears again.

Heh. It’s insane. I am out of my comfort zone, but I think I’m holding my own well enough.

On a different note, I have discovered that along with this job comes the ever-present game of political maneuvering. It’s my first real experience with the cliched "corporate ladder" and I must say it’s left a bitter taste in my mouth. One of the individuals I need to work with on a daily basis is… to say the least… a horse’s ass. He’s already gone behind my back once on an issue and he has pretty much made it clear he has no patience for stupidity, let alone my laid-back demeanor. He’s pretty much made it clear he doesn’t care for me and to be honest, I don’t particularly care for him all that much either. We do have to work together though so I do my best to be civil and help him as best I can. He’s the type of individual that has career goals and ambitions above mine so realistically he’ll move along in the next year or so. At that point I will have someone else new to contend with.

It just irks me when people don’t have the professionalism to extend mutual courtesy and respect to one another. The air of superiority about him pretty much reeks with a foul stench. At least that’s my impression. *sigh*

Welcome to the real world, eh?

Foggy Mornings

My waking consciousness is a sea of early mornings, structured query language, and HTML peppered with half-remembered to-do lists, things to learn, and meetings to schedule and/or take part in. Needless to say I have started "learning the ropes" in my new job. It’s not all bad. Using SQL is getting easier. Friday I am going to be learning some PERL in a more practical and day-to-day sense.

So far, there is much more busy work than I am accustomed to. The past five years have been a phone call followed by lots of downtime. That downtime was usually spent doing homework or other mundane tasks. Heck, even some leisure activities like reading occupied that time.

Today has been a mix of running back and forth between two different floors, looking over web content, and reading up on current projects. It’s been a nice change of pace. I still don’t feel completely settled in yet as I am waiting on my predecessor to vacate his office so I can relocate over there. My phone also needs to be changed over as well.

Things have been busy, busy, busy and I am semi-enjoying the change of pace. Most of my discomfort involves settling into a new routine which I will grow accustomed to soon enough. The other part is the regular office hours. I used to work 10 to 6:30 on Mondays, 9 to 5:30 on Tuesdays, and 8:30 to 5 the rest of the week. Now I work a straight schedule of 7AM to 3:30 PM which gets me home at a reasonable hour for dinner. It also lets me have a somewhat more normal life. Cheryl loves it, and I can say it isn’t that bad avoiding rush hour both ways. I hate getting up early, but getting home early is so worth it.

My other discomfort is going from a job where I feel totally in control and at ease to a job where I only see certain pieces of the puzzle. Some I know very well, some I only have half-formed concepts of.  I know it’s going to only benefit me to learn how the business operations function as a whole, but it’s getting to that point that is frustrating. This position is a centralized point of knowledge for a large number of people. I feel backward and inadequate when I need to go ask for help, but it’s all part of the learning process. I know that people understand I am transitioning into this new role, but still it’s hard not knowing the answer when they come to see me.

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Hmf. I graduated 79th out of three-hundred-some-odd people, and still managed to graduate Summa Cum Laude.
*scratches head*

I’m still trying to figure that one out. Oh well, never look a gift horse in the mouth.

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Emma (otherwise known as Version 2.0) is just over two years old now and is a bubbly, bouncing, laughing, ball of pure unadulterated kid. The energy that this child has surely did not come from me. I am a blob of lethargy, rising only to go to the bathroom, fetch a meal, and walk up to two miles a day. The rest of my time is spent slowly grafting silicon components into my body in an attempt to mentally connect via broadband to the Internet. It hasn’t worked thus far.

As she has grown, she has developed this tendency to repeat things. And when I say repeat, perhaps it’s too shallow a word. It doesn’t convey the pure essence of meaning that I am intending to relate. Perhaps I should render it in the ancient Koine Greek, whose subtle variations of meaning, depth, and intent are more relevant to share my message.

Not only does she repeat things, she constantly talks. We’ll be going down the road and whatever she sees, she says. It’s almost comical for a short time.

Please understand that I am not complaining at all.

When you get to be a parent (and parents, you know what I’m talking about) your kids put you in these situations where they are driving you blinking mad. It’s only later after you have separated yourself from the circumstances do you and your spouse / significant other / life mate / etc sit back and howl with laughter over the situation. Even when you are in the situation you have a double-edged sword of emotion where you alternate between *ARGH* and *LOL*.

Just had to share.
 

Sheesh, again? It’s been like what… six months?

A week ago Monday I met with my manager for one of our biweekly 1-on-1 "how’s things going" sessions. It was during this session that she asked me if I would consider moving into a new position on our team.

This was the second such opportunity that had come along in as many weeks. Shortly after I received my degree, my manager sent out an announcement to the systems department (as is tradition) informing everyone of my new educational high watermark. One of the benefits of this is you get asked to take new jobs when they come around.

The first opportunity that was brought to me by my manager was in database and user interface development, and I politely declined. My skills (nor my interests) lead me down that path so I passed on it, never expecting a new opportunity to come along as quickly as it did. The second opportunity arose as a result of one of my teammates taking a position as a senior developer on the corporate website (the actual corporationname.com site… woo hoo!). With his impending departure, my boss felt I was the next logical choice to fill his shoes.

This position is… pretty high profile… to say the least. I would be the go-to guy for a lot of hot button technical issues related to our specific pensions-related web sites. Not only that, but I would be acting as a subject matter expert providing feedback on various web-development related projects. Ultimately I would be helping to shape the functionality and usability of our customer-facing web applications.

I took several days to think about it and discussed it with Cheryl. We both agreed it would be a good move and could have positive benefits down the road, ultimately opening even more doors for me. I told my boss that I would take the job, and I start it effective October the 10th. With it does come a bit of a pay raise and the benefits of having regular job hours. My predecessor came in at 7AM and worked until 3:30. I may do the same thing as I would avoid rush hour traffic both ways. I even can take the occasional work from home day if needed. This has its benefits. I get off the help desk too… no more phone calls from external users!

I’ll be picking up lots of new skills… Perl, HTML, SQL, navigating databases (as opposed to creating and maintaining them) and ultimately learning more about the Pensions business. It would not be my first choice for a career path, but the chance to diversify my skillset and get better pay were too good to pass up. I can always jump back to system and network administration later if I need to, or take a different position within Pensions if need be.

So, all in all it’s been a busy month. Graduation… new job… new perks. I’m looking forward to the changes and can’t wait to see what happens.