Author Archives: TWD

beach weekend

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Coming to you live from sunny Waukegan, IL, it’s the newest entry into the soon-to-be world-famous Frowsy Noise!

Yes, it’s a dreary Sunday afternoon and I’m writing this from the Illinois Beach Resort in Zion, IL, which is actually about 10 minutes north of the aforementioned Waukegan.  I got here at about 6:30 Friday night and have spent the last couple of days walking around taking pictures of the snowy beach along the western shore of Lake Michigan, spending time with Amy (and, to a lesser extent, her folks), playing with her dog, and generally enjoying a few days away from work.

Went for a walk yesterday and found three deer looking for
food in the snow.

The weekend did not start we’ll for Amy’s mom, who fell sometime Friday afternoon and, after visiting a dentist to check the damage, learned that she’d broken her jaw.  The poor lady subsequently had her jaw wired shut and will be eating through straws for the next month and a half.

That didn’t keep her from attending church this morning, where Amy and I joined her, but it did rule out any choral performances.  I believe she did stay after the service for hand bell practice, however.

Amy and I went to see a movie, Oz, The Great and Powerful, last night.  I had high hopes for the flick, but it failed to live up to them.  Might have been fun for kids, but it totally failed to engage me; and the 3D effects, while occasionally very good, did not justify the time spent in the theatre fighting to stay awake.  Live and learn.

After church today, Amy and I had lunch at a diner near her house, and then went our separate ways – she to do some trumpet exercises and me to walk in the rain, maybe take some pictures, update this little blog, and see what’s going on with the NCAA basketball brackets.  We’ll get together later today for a movie or something and tomorrow morning, early, I’ll hit the road for home.

It’s been a great couple of days, overall.  I always like the time I spend with Amy and it’s also nice to see some actual snow on the ground! Makes me miss my life as a Yankee.

TWD

 

cars

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This will have to be a short entry because it’s a little after 8 o’clock and my alarm clock is set for 3:58 tomorrow morning.  Shortly after that time, I’ll hit the road for Waukegan.

Today at work was relatively hectic.  In addition to a training class that’s been going on for the last week – and will continue for three more – (I am constantly interrupted to open the doors for trainees because they don’t have badges and I am the gatekeeper), I was being slammed by the IT department to put together workstations for them, get others fixed for them, and discuss ways that I could keep them informed of workstation problems in the future.  I also had to complete a completely stupid “what did I do last month” spreadsheet for the finance department, which apparently hasn’t figured out what should be counted as a capital expense in our department and so has had us doing this STUPID busywork for the last couple of months (“On February 9th, I spent 3.2 hours reading email…”).  While doing all this stuff, I was also attempting to debug some code for a project I’ve been working on for the last 6 weeks or so, help technicians with installations, and keep one eye on a conversation going on with the rest of my group about next week’s launch of our 24×7 schedule in order to make sure that I don’t get stuck with an 8pm-7am shift of something (and that’s not a joke…15 freaking years in this business and now I’m trying to avoid getting a shit shift that should be worked by somebody 1/3 of my age with 1/10th of my experience).

But I made it through the day.  Got home and got packed for the trip, and am currently sitting in bed thinking about sleep.

So.  Cars that I’ve considered purchasing.  Top of the heap is still the Subaru Outback, but – mainly because I hate the idea of dropping 25 large for that car, I’m leaving the door open for other makes and models.  The Nissan XTerra looks good, and I’ve also eyed the Toyota 4Runner and Sequoia, various flavors of Jeep (Cherokee, Liberty, etc. – not the Wrangler, though that would be a great thing to have in the woods), and a couple of Hondas (Pilot, CRV).

Basically, what I want is a car lets me do all of the following: cruise around the city in relative comfort and quiet – not a lot of road noise, leather seats, decent stereo, Bluetooth, aux in for ipod or phone, etc.  However, I also need a machine that I can take into the woods several times a year.  By that I mean, while not technically off-roading, about as close as one can get.  The places that I go to camp are generally approachable only by hiking or by twisty, rocky, rugged, washed-out, narrow dirt roads.  Yes, I have taken most of my former cars on these roads, but I haven’t enjoyed it.  The Audi particularly makes me cringe every time I hit a washout or drive over a section of corduroy.  I want something that’s close enough to being a truck – and that has enough ground clearance – to make me comfortable on these mountain forays.  Next, I want something that I can sleep in in relative comfort.  I want the back seats to lay down flat, and I’d like the front passenger seat to do likewise.  This was one thing that I really liked about my PT Cruiser.  When the seats were laid flat, I had an 8-foot bed in the car, and I could pull into a campsite during a football weekend, string up a tarp, and not have to bother with a tent.  I also want a car with decent gas mileage – not spectacular, but 30+ – and without a massive cost of ownership (a la the Audi).  Last, it has to be a manual transmission.  I’ve done the automatic bit.  I’m over it.  I want a clutch and a stick shift (actually, I’d love to have a column shifter, but I don’t think anybody makes those anymore).

So, as I continue to wonder if I should or shouldn’t get a new vehicle, I’ll also continue to winnow down the list – or maybe expand it – of potential cars.  I’ve owned a lot of cars – but I want to get it completely right the next time around.

TWD

and again

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How do I keep forgetting to update this?  Huh? HUH?

I even REMINDED myself to write something here yesterday – and immediately forgot to do so.  See, I had to go into the office last night for a number of trivialities – a truly bogus conference call to go over various types of alarms and how to respond to them (uh…we’ve been doing this for the better part of a year, folks.  We know what to do), mapping the layout of the call center workstations (why this had to be done last night – or any night, for that matter – is beyond me), and four separate systems updates with which I had nothing to do.  So my plan was to sit at my desk and type an entry…and I completely forgot the plan.  I ended up asking a bunch of questions that everyone knew the answers to on the alarms call, had a great time turning workstations on, writing down their host names in my little notebook, and putting together a pretty decent floor plan in an excel spreadsheet.  I even tried to pay attention for about 5 minutes during the first systems call; but, as I usually do when I’m on a call that doesn’t involve me, I lost interest and eventually just left at around midnight.

YesterDAY at work wasn’t much more exciting than last night was.  I finally got my laptop reimaged yesterday afternoon and spent much of the day reinstalling programs on it – many of them not approved by the corporate software Nazis (things like Office 2013, Visual Studio 2012, and various other apps that I use on a daily basis).

Today was more of the same.  Installed a few more programs that I need, helped a technician who was having problems during an install at a customer’s house, helped the IT guy (who’s job I want) set up some command center workstations, paid some bills, wrote some code, drank some coffee, and left.

Then the fun began – or at least a little fun began.  Today was bonus day – that glorious one day a year when we get our obscenely-large bonus check.  Traditionally, I take the opportunity to pay off a credit card or a car – or make some other large and relatively responsiblee payment; and I also buy myself a toy that I otherwise wouldn’t.  Past toys have included a new refrigerator, a camera upgrade, a nice lens – one year I put a down payment on new windows; but this year I’m still waffling on whether or not I’m going to get a new car, so I didn’t really want to spend a great deal on my toy.  True, I’ve had my eye on the Canon D1x since I rented it several times last season – and I had indeed considered making it the 2013 bonus toy – but after much thought, I decided that I’ll just rent it a few more times this year rather than dropping $3000 on it.  I’d dearly love to have one of the things at my beck and call, but I’d also dearly love to be debt free and/or behind the wheel of a Subaru Outback (maybe I’ll talk about my car research in tomorrow’s post); so in the end I went with a much cheaper toy, but one that has also been catching my eye for the last couple of years: a GoPro sports camera.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that there is absolutely no way to consider this purchase to be anything other than a big boy’s toy.  It is highly unlikely that I’m going to be shooting any footage for National Geographic, Alpine Ski commercials, or the Survivorman television series – although the little camera that I got for myself is indeed capable of doing any of those things (as you’ll see if you go to the link I provided).  No, this is strictly for the type of filming that I’ve wanted to do for years, but the hardware to do it was always ridiculously expensive and/or crappy.  The GoPro Hero3 that I bought shoots high-definition video (or 12MP stills); is waterproof, shockproof, crushproof, and coldproof; weighs in at about 2 ounces; and can be mounted on virtually anything – a bicycle, a shoe, my wrist, chest or head, a car, a roller blade….or a tripod.  My camping buddy Brett and I have been experimenting with hiking videos since about 2000, and I now have the camera that will let me do some of those sequences that we’ve never been able to do.

First up, however, I’m going to see if I can do a time-lapse film of the trip from Atlanta to Chicago.  It’ll be a fun way for me to get used to the camera, and I do love time-lapse stuff.

So roll your eyes all you want to.  It’s my toy.

TWD

that was fast

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Yeah.  So I make it through two whole days of me “post a day” month before forgetting to update this stupid thing.  I guess that doesn’t portend great things for the rest of the month.

I actually have an excuse.  Not a good one, but an excuse just the same: I was being productive yesterday.

Pretty much all day, even.  As a result of that, I have a freshly-shampooed rug in the living room, lots and lots of clean laundry, a vacuumed bedroom floor, enough groceries to last a week or so, and my legs have carried me at least 5.5 miles further than they otherwise would have.

Granted, I still have a fallen flag pole in my front lawn and there’s still a tree attacking the side of my chimney, but there will be time to deal with those things, right?

Work today was certainly nothing to write about.  I’m still without the services of my laptop – this in spite of the fact that I called the helpless desk this morning and reminded them that I opened a ticket to have it reimaged on Friday.  They assured me that somebody would call me within 2 hours.  That was about 8 hours ago.  So I installed some development tools on the loaner workstation that I’m using, tweaked some code, and sat in on a team meeting wherein our upcoming schedule change was discussed while not being discussed.  By that, I mean that the incredibly managerial management staff decided to let us figure out how to provide 24/7 coverage.

We did this last August.  I’ve been waiting to pull the trigger since then.  Now that they’ve decided that we simply MUST have this round-the-clock coverage, it has been decided to think about it some more.  And in the meantime, the moronic “on call” schedule will continue.  Don’t know if I’ve talked about our “on call” schedule – which, to me, has always meant,  “When I am on call, you may call me if something goes wrong and I will try fix it.”  In THIS group, “on call” means, “I’ll check my email for any signs of trouble 24 hours a day for a week.”

Needless to say, when I’m on call, the email doesn’t get checked. If there’s a problem, somebody can call me – and I’ll try to take care of it at that time.  If the “on call” schedule is designed to provide 24/7 coverage, well…here’s an idea:  IMPLEMENT A 24/7 SCHEDULE!

Needless to say, I’ve been in a bad mood all day.  That may be due in part to the fact that Mom died on this day three years ago.  Yes, life has continued on.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t miss her and wish that I could talk to her about this cluster that is my job.

Eh bien.  As Ahab said to Starbuck, “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  Another day it will be.”

TWD

sleeping well

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Today was supposed to be one of yard work.  Heavy rains (and winds) over the last month finally did in my old flag pole – it’s currently lying next to the driveway – and I thought I’d start things off by hauling it back to my shed or maybe laying it next to the fence to help with erosion or something.  The thing weighs a ton, by the way.

I’d also planned to do some serious pruning on a tree that is encroaching rather aggressively on the side of the garage, maybe clean off the deck (the big T presented me with a new leaf blower for my 15 years of service last week – it’s a piece of junk, but it’s a power toy), and I even gave a few brief thoughts to cleaning out and organizing the shed, as I’m sure that more than one family of mice has probably taken up residence there during the winter.

I can’t remember the term used in photography for putting two
shots that tell a story side-by-side, but this is my tribute to that
process.  Sure to be a hit on paper plates for centuries to come,
this is “Seasons.”

None of these plans came to fruition, of course.  Instead, I went in to work this morning and put in a couple of hours updating some training machines for a class that’s coming in on Monday.  After that, I made my way to the Tires Plus store to get my oil changed in anticipation of driving up to Waukegan next Friday.  While waiting for the oil to be changed, I was informed by the friendly helpful Tires Plus man that I needed four new tires.

I know what you’re thinking, but he’s actually a really decent guy and he’s cut me some amazing deals over the last 8 years or so.  My tires really were pretty shot after nearly 30,000 miles, so I ended up spending about 2 hours at the tire store (and spending $700 instead of $60 – gotta love that Audi).  When I left, it was already 4:30.  Since I have been sneezing and blowing my nose for the last two days, I decided to stop at Target on my way home and pick up some Kleenex.   The Kleenex run naturally evolved into a dinner run (bought some ground beef, ketchup and mustard), a drink run (12 pack of seltzer water) and a cat litter run.  As I watched my basket getting more and more full, I thought to myself, “Aw, hell.  I’ve already dropped over $700 today, and I want some decent sheets.”

So I bought some decent sheets.  600 thread count.  I got some of these sheets many years ago and unfortunately they were on the bed in the guest room when Scott first moved in.  I’ve not seen them since.  I don’t know what it is about that particular thread count, but I love the way those sheets feel and I haven’t been sleeping all that well lately.  So I’ll see if the new sheets help.  I can say, since I’m sitting in my freshly-made bed as I type this, that my new sheets definitely feel a lot nicer than the ones I’ve been sleeping on for the last several years.

The cats seem to enjoy them, too.

march madness

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So then.

After two months of blogging silence, I’ve decided to see if I can put something in here every day this month.  That’s right!  31 straight days of completely meaningless drivel, brought to you by the magic of my Microsoft Surface and the idiocy of my somewhat malformed mind. 

Some of you may recall that I managed to do this “post a day” thing successfully a few years ago.  At least I think I did.  I came close at any rate.  I’m not sure what I managed to write about for that month, just as I’m not sure what I’m going to write about this month, but I guess I can start with catching up.

Not too much to say on that front.  I’m still in the same stupid job and I still despise it.  There is a slight glimmer of hope in that area, however.  A month or two ago, I started discussing the idea of moving from operations (a mind-numbingly boring job with a complete lack of anything resembling a steady schedule) to analysis (which, although the title sounds even MORE mind-numbingly boring, involves working with databases, writing code, creating applications, and having a normal Monday-Friday gig).  This new gig would still be with the same company, working with the same data, maybe even doing some of the same things as I’m doing now – but I’d have a boss who “gets it” (insofar as creativity vs. stasis) and I could stop stressing out over my schedule.  Those are two pretty huge deals.   On the down side, I’d go from being a level 2 manager to a level 1B manager, which means nothing to anyone, I’m sure; what it boils down to is that, while my salary would remain the same, my bonus would be calculated at 2% less than it is now. 

Not really a huge deal to me, to be completely honest.  A bit of an ego slam, as I’ve been a level 2 for the last 10 years, but that’s about all really.

So when the job was finally posted a couple of weeks ago, I applied for it.  The application process itself was sort of cool, because I haven’t actually put a resume together in close to 25 years, and I have to pat myself on the back here and say that I’ve got a pretty damned impressive resume.

After submitting the application and telling my potential future boss about it, I decided it would only be right and proper to let my current boss in on the scoop.

He was less than thrilled.

Now, this is really sort of strange.  I started with this guy last May.  In late July, I had my mid-year review with him, at which time he said to me, “I get the idea that, had you known more about this job when I offered it to you, you wouldn’t have taken it.”  I agreed with him completely.  Told him that I was incredibly underwhelmed by the work, by the schedule, by the attitudes in the group, and by the management style of his team leads.  I stopped short of telling him that I didn’t like *his* management style only because, frankly, he doesn’t really manage anything.  He delegates it to his team leads.

One of my latest works d’art.  I call it “Orange Lake.”

After telling him all this, I received my typical “meets and may exceed expectations” rating…and was informed that no one else on his team rated any higher.  I’ve never really understood the whole concept of “may exceed” on these ratings, btw, but that’s beside the point.  What surprised me most was that I could sit there and tell him to his face that I think the job sucks and that the management team that he put together (and, one would assume, directs) is a large reason for that – and in response to this, he’d give me his highest rating.

By the time December rolled around and my year-end review was due, I held back even less.  Told him not only that the job and his team leads STILL sucked, but also that I really didn’t understand large pieces of things that I’m supposed to understand, that I don’t particularly care to understand those things, and that I’m frankly completely unimpressed with the product that we’re supposed to be supporting.  I should mention here that I was originally signed up to be in the “friendly” trial for this product; but, after seeing what a complete balls-up the whole thing is, I opted out of the trial.

Naturally, after completely ripping everything about his company for my year-end, I was awarded a “meets and may exceed” rating and given a 3.5% raise.

Two weeks later, I put in for the new job.

As of yesterday, when he and I had a little chat about things, I’m not going to be released to the new job.  We again discussed the fact that I really don’t want to do what I’m supposed to be doing, he again mentioned that he really wants me to stay on his team, and we’ve temporarily agreed that I will continue to keep the same title, sit in the same seat, and report to him (or his team leads) – but that the work I do will be whatever is needed in the position that I applied for (database reconciliation, writing programs, troubleshooting, etc.).  In a backroom discussion with the potential boss, I stressed that, in order for me to make this arrangement work for her, I have to have a schedule that meshes with hers – which is a normal Monday-Friday, 8-5 thing.  She’s agreed to bring that up with my current boss.

And if he doesn’t go for it?  Well….there’s another job about to come open in IT and I’ve already been doing a lot of things related to that job and have been sucking up to the IT director for the last 6 months,  And THAT job would be a promotion – which means that my current boss is not allowed to block me from taking it if it’s offered.

So I’ve got that on the back burner.

If everything falls through?  Well, it might be painful and it might take some serious planning and I might have to live on beans and rice for a while; but quitting is ALWAYS an option.  Been there, done that, got plenty of t-shirts.

And on that happy note, we’ll call this entry done.

TWD

home for the holidays

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It has been quite a few winters since I’ve attempted to put together any sort of year-end review, but I’ve got some time this morning, the house is empty (Scott’s gone home to MN for the next week or so), and I can only play so many Arban exercises on my tenor horn before growing weary of my mediocrity.

2012 has been a year of newness, both pleasant and un.  I began a new walking regimen in January, met a new lady in March, started a new job in May.  I visited new places in June and July, tried new camera equipment during October, got a new computer in November, and saw a new symphony in December.  Throughout the year, I worked a variety of new schedules, found new places to play, tamed some new cats, and dreamed about a new car.  So let’s take a look back and see what I can recall.

For about the first three quarters of the year, I took walks nearly every morning ranging from 2 – 12 miles.  I began doing this mainly because I wanted to play with a new exercise application on my phone that drew my walking paths all over a map.  So caught up in the maps and the statistics was I that I almost didn’t realize that I was walking further and faster over time – and losing weight and lowering my blood pressure.  The walks became more sporadic beginning in about August when my work schedules started getting flaky during the week and football season began to monopolize the weekends; but I’m still getting out there when I have the time, the light, and the lack of rain required.  Today, by the way, does not fit into those three categories – it has been raining for two days now.

Long strings of windmills along I-65 in central Indiana became a regular sight
during 2012 as I drove to and from Waukegan, IL

In April, I attended the 30th annual North American Brass Band Championships (in Cincinnati), and almost literally stumbled into the woman of my dreams after coming down a flight of stairs where I’d been photographing the events.  Amy and I are still getting to know each other nearly 10 months later with no immediate plans to cease doing so, and she’s played a huge part in many of the other events of the last year.

On the first of May, I started a new job – leaving the one that I’d held for the previous 4 years in the face of looming outsourcing (though the company still refuses to call it that).  To say that I’m less than thrilled with the new gig would be the understatement of my life; but if you’ve read any of this blog since May, you’re probably quite aware of my feelings for the current gig.  I say in all modesty that it is a tribute to me that I have neither quit nor flown completely off the handle at my management – though I’ve come frighteningly close to doing both on several occasions.

Over the summer, I did quite a bit of travelling.  There was a trip Vermont to visit with Cy and “T” and participate, with the Georgia Brass Band, in Middlebury’s annual summer benefit concert for the Sheldon Museum.  I also attended a brass festival in Gettysburg – mainly to catch the performance of an all-female brass band in which Amy was playing.  I returned to the hallowed shores of Ahmic Lake in Magnetawan, Ontario, this year after having to miss that luxury in 2011.  After about a week of tennis, swimming, card games and food with family and friends, I headed west through Ontario, brushed around the top of Lake Michigan and ended up in Waukegan, Il, to spend another week with Amy in her hometown.  I camped on the lake’s western shore, took in a renaissance fair on the Illinois/Wisconsin border, sampled the food at a couple of local diners, and took pictures of all of the above.  It was the longest of three trips that I took to Waukegan during the summer, and Amy visited Atlanta a couple of times as well.

Football season was both a disappointment and a joy.  As my team struggled to a wretched 2-9 record, I vastly improved my photography with the aid of some rented lenses and a top-notch camera body, and I closed out the season as a “real” professional photog by shooting two games for the Greenville News.  I still haven’t been paid for those games, incidentally.  Maybe I’ll spend some time today making up invoices.  The trips during the season were enjoyable as always, though somewhat tiring.  In addition to the regular drives to Greenville, I had a couple of long days on the road (to Burlington and Boone, NC).  With the exception of one early game, however, the weather was fantastic on each Saturday and the drives were pleasant.  That one exception, though….wow.  Tornados, downpours, game delayed by nearly an hour….and we lost in triple overtime, which portended the season to come.

Near the end of the season, I found a watering hole quite near my house that boasts both dart boards and (holy of holies) a pinball machine.  Scott (my renter) and I have amused ourselves over the last few months by regularly playing in weekly “blind draw” darts tournaments – quite often placing in the money – and by seeing just how hard we can shake that pinball machine without tilting it.

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

The feral cats have come and gone over the last year at their whims.  At one time, I think there were as many as 5 scrambling up the steps of my deck each morning to dive into the food that I put out for them; but their number has dropped to just two in recent weeks.  Both of those little guys were born last summer and both are about as tame as feral cats can be.  Free food, a warm and dry place to sleep, a nice guy who’ll scratch their heads and coo at them.  They know when they’ve got it good.

In November, I made the last payment on my Audi and immediately began sniffing around for a Subaru Outback.  As of this writing, however, I haven’t found one that I’m willing to drop $25,000 on; so – for now at least – I’ll just keep driving my car as hard as I can and using that non-existent car payment to cleave through other debts.  Maybe in a few months, I’ll take the plunge; I’m not quite ready to do that yet.

Also in November, I got to meet Amy’s family and have Thanksgiving dinner with them; and just two days ago I returned from yet another trip to Waukegan during which Amy and I attended the Midwest Music Conference (my first time) and also caught a performance of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (also a first for me).  Both of these events were things that I’ve heard about for decades – and both lived up to the hype.

And that brings us pretty much up to date; though I’m certain that, as soon as I click the “publish” button up there, I’ll remember amazing things that happened during the year and will immediately berate myself for not including them in this rambling epistle.  Suffice it to say that, on average, 2012 has been a decent year, with only that minor annoyance – the job – scratching the otherwise shiny brass and silver coating.  So, as I begin the last week of the year – the last week before I’m 47! – I’ll look forward to figuring out how to deal with the employment situation and will wish all of you reading this a most delightful and rewarding 2013.  And, though I don’t have her permission to do so, I’ll finish this up by quoting from the end of Cy’s annual letter, wherein she (or, perhaps, “T”) beautifully advises us that

“…we are, indeed, blessed.  We have what we need and more, and it is incumbent upon us to share.  No one of us will ever be able to eliminate all sorrow or alleviate all pain or worry.  But we can do our part, every day, to make some portion of our world a little better.  It is the gift we can always give, in any season and in any place.”

Think about that. 

TWD

 

year’s end…world’s end?

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So two weeks has passed and I am once again in bed and have once again spent the last 20 minutes playing with my paint program working on “The Cypress Swamp,” which is sure to garner world-wide interest among artistic circles.  The lines, the colors, the…swampiness of it simply cannot be understated.

It is a Saturday morning, but the cats didn’t really care about that and rousted me from a most delightful slumber at 5:45 this morning.  Little bastards have really got to figure out the whole “day of rest” thing at some point, but I’m not holding my breath.  So, after feeding them and the outdoor critters (Buddy and Brooks are still regulars, though I haven’t seen Daphne in quite some time), I put on some shorts and a jacket and set out for a walk.  Got about 8.5 miles in and came up with a new path that has potential – though I was certain that I was going to be road kill during one mile-long stretch with neither sidewalks nor shoulders.

That took a couple of hours and I got back to the house and back in bed by about 9:00 (for those of you doing the math, yes – I killed an hour watching television between the cat feeding and the walk); and I’ve spend the intervening 3 hours catching up on email, booking a hotel in Waukegan for next week, reading my messageboards, and – of course – painting “The Cypress Swamp.”

The last couple of weeks at work haven’t been half bad, actually.  I finished up with my year-end review stuff (didn’t have the actual review, but wrote down all the stuff that I think I accomplished in the last 12 months and sent it to my boss) and spent most of my time working on my automation projects – one of which will be used by me tonight when I go in (at midnight) for yet another upgrade procedure.  The last time I did this, I didn’t get out of the office until 9 in the morning.  Here’s hoping that tonight is not a repeat of that fiasco.

A lot of my effort for the automation stuff has been focused on trying to connect to and get information from a number of UNIX servers.  So far, I’ve managed to connect to the things and send a few simple commands; but I’m still having trouble with more advanced stuff that, while extremely simple to type at a terminal, is proving to be a real bugger to program.  I have a few ideas about the problems, though, and will no doubt spend most of tonight’s upgrade session trying them out.  I think I mentioned in my blog post on the night of the last upgrade that, no matter how long the whole thing takes, my part – thanks largely to my automation – lasts all of about 5 minutes.  The rest of the time, I’m just sitting there on the phone, amusing myself in whatever way possible, and waiting to see if I’m going to have to roll back my five minutes worth of changes because the people taking 9 hours have screwed something up.

I played the last of three Red Kettle gigs last night and was extremely disappointed in the other 4 people who were playing with me.  I’m not a world class musician or anything, but I find it hard to believe that any supposedly talented person can get lost – and stay lost – while reading Christmas carols that, on average, last for about 45 seconds.  Time after time last night, however, one or more of the people in the quintet missed repeats and became hopelessly confused.  Not to toot my own horn (both because I’m not that good at tooting it and because it’s kind of like bragging for not falling over when taking a step), but I was the only one of the 5 who didn’t get lost….and even had I done so, I wouldn’t have wasted the rest of the tune floundering around trying to “fit in” to a carol that any 4-year-old can recognize.

The RK gigs, at any rate, are over for another year.

The Cypress Swamp

Did I mention that my work schedule is changing again as of tomorrow?  Yeah.  It is.  I’ll be going M-F, 8-5 now. This won’t last long.  Word is that the schedule will change AGAIN in mid-late January.  For the record, yes, I *did* bitch on my year-end stuff about the complete lack of a standard (or even non-standard, but at least long-lasting) schedule over the last year…and I don’t particularly care if my boss takes offense at the fact that I blamed the lack of such on his leadership skills.  The year-end stuff is supposed to be when you let your boss know if you have any problems with him.  I’ve never had any before, but this schedule thing is really chapping my ass.

Waukegan next week?  Yes indeedy.  I still had a couple of vacation days to take, so I burned next Thursday and Friday (Friday being 12/21/12) and am planning on driving up Thursday morning and spending a few days with Amy.  Still not sure if I’m working on Christmas or New Year’s day, but the early word is that the call center will be closed – which means that I won’t be.

Not that it matters, of course; because, according to the ancient Mayans, the world will end on 12/21/12.  So at least I’ll get to die in a northern state.

That’s a good thing, right?

TWD

nothing planned

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Well this is a strange feeling.

No games to shoot, no work scheduled, not taking a trip anywhere…it’s just a lazy Saturday morning during which I can sit in bed and do nothing other than yell at my cat to get his feet out of the water dish.  I’m not entirely sure how to deal with this, although I’ll probably go for a walk at some point.

I spent twenty minutes working on my latest masterpiece (“Big Tree”) while watching the news in bed.  It was a relaxing 20 minutes and I enjoyed it.  Not sure that it will command the same price as “Night Lake,” but I’m certain that it’ll bring in a couple hundred thousand at auction.

Played the first of three red kettle gigs for the Salvation Army last night.  We had a pretty good showing (two cornets, two flugels, trombone, tuba) and did okay for the S.A. I think.  Probably netted them somewhere around $300 over a three-hour period.  Doing all that good work was, of course, exhausting – so I went out afterwards and played pinball for a few hours with Scott.

Big Tree

Work wasn’t too terrible yesterday.  I came up with a new automation idea and convinced my boss that it’d be worth my time to work on it, so I’ve got that going for me for a few weeks anyway.  Basically, I’ve watched as my team has done 20-25 installs every morning. It’s an extremely manual process – and it’s also like a feeding frenzy because everyone on the team is desperate to do something other than simple monitoring.  IT-type people like to push buttons.

So I thought about a system to not only automate the installation a bit, but also to track who’s doing what, how long it’s taking, etc.  Then pitched the idea to my boss, in spite of the fact that these manual installs are supposed to be ceasing in the near future.  I didn’t figure he’d sign off on it, but maybe he knows just how bored I’m getting.

Next week, I’ve got to put together all the garbage for my year-end review.  That’s always a complete waste of time, but big corporations just love doing the reviews.

I was also informed that my group’s office space in Atlanta is being moved from our current location (2 miles from my house) to a different building near Midtown (20 miles from my house).  I wasn’t overly thrilled with that until it was revealed that call center people really like having me with them – so I’ll be staying where I am and the rest of my team will have to deal with the hideous commute that is Midtown,

Sweet.

Must get out of bed and do something.  The aforementioned walk and, perhaps, a hair cut.  Happy day, all!

TWD

still not rich

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So the Powerball lottery jackpot went up to $555,000,000 this week and I, along with millions of other people, spent $10 on five tickets.  I didn’t win.  I didn’t expect to win.  For my $10, though, I got to spend about three days dreaming of what I’d do if I had.

Hope you’re not looking for anything exciting here, as I’m completely convinced that sudden overwhelming wealth would have very little effect on  me.  Obviously, my lifestyle would change a bit.  For starters, I sure as hell wouldn’t be working at AT&T.  More than likely, I’d look for a part-time gig doing something that I really enjoy – photography, working at a library, mowing lawns…I don’t know.  After paying off all of my debts, I’m pretty sure I’d go shopping for a new vehicle.  Not sure if I’d go the RV route or not, though it would be tempting.  It’d be nice to be able to live out of an RV for the next 10 years or so, but I’m not convinced that I’d like driving something that big very often.  Maybe something like a Hummer would be more to my liking.

The brass band would certainly receive a sizable donation, if the board could give me a good reason for needing it; and the new stadium that’s being built at Furman would have my name on it.

Prominently.

I think there’d also be a new endowed scholarship at that school with my website’s name on it.

After spending on those little things, I’d be left with around $335,000,000 (remember, I had to pay taxes on the original half-billion), so the fun could really begin.  I figured to give about $2,000,000 each to my siblings and Dad (if he wanted it – he certainly wouldn’t have to worry about money at any time, at any rate).  The way I figure it, a gift of $2,000,000 is perfect – you use about half of it to pay the taxes on the gift, and you put the other half into an account that pays 4% interest.  If you’re not a complete goob, you could live off the interest for the rest of your life.  Not in high style, mind you, but not in poverty, either.

So I’m down to $325,000,000 now.

There’s a decent possibility that I’d buy some land in Vermont, but not a lot.  After all, I’d have to pay property taxes on it.  One idea would be to buy the land and put a certain amount – we’ll call it a million bucks – into some sort of vehicle that would automatically pay the taxes out of the interest earned in perpetuity.  Not sure exactly how that’d work, but I’m sure that there are accountants who’d know how to do it.  I wouldn’t mind paying the taxes.  I just wouldn’t want to deal with the hassle if it could be avoided.

So let’s say that I’ve dumped two million on the Vermont deal.  I still have $323,000,000 left.   My renter would get about $500,000, Jenny would get a few million, a very small handful of friends would get one or two million each, and I’d find a cause or two that I think should get some money – a zoo or two, the humane society, maybe a youth sports organization (though I’d have to think REALLY carefully about that one).

And that’d leave me with around three hundred million….with which I’d have absolutely no idea what to do.  Some of it would have to be used to screw people or organizations that I don’t like, but I’m  not entirely sure who or what (or how).  The rest?  I guess I’d open up a few hundred savings accounts or something.  I mean, I’d never be able to spend that much, but I’d want it to be FDIC insured anyway.  When it gets right down to it, I figure that I could live an incredibly full life on about $5,000,000 (face it- that’s 50 years worth of a pretty good salary).  After paying off debt, there’s no reason to have any more than that, and why anyone – ANYONE – wants to have more than that is honestly beyond me.

But, at least for now, I don’t need to think about it anymore; because, as previously noted, I didn’t win the lottery.

Night Lake

I mentioned in my last post that I spent several days in Waukegan last week and had a good time.  There was one slight downside to the trip, and I’m still not entirely sure how it happened.  I got two voice mails on Tuesday afternoon.  The first was from a photography store in Calumet, IL, and the second was from the fraud department at Discover Card.  Apparently, someone managed to steal my Discover Card information during the 20 minutes that I spent paying bills (online) from my hotel room last Wednesday afternoon, and they used the information to buy a $17 e-card (online postcard, I guess) and to attempt to buy $2,500 worth of something at the photography store.  Since I’ve – literally – never charged anything to my Discover card, their fraud department was all over it; and my card was cancelled (and all charges were dismissed) by 8:30 Tuesday night.  On Wednesday, I talked to the photography store, let them know that it was a bogus charge, and learned that whoever stole the card information also learned my correct mailing address, though they were having whatever they tried to buy shipped to Maryland – in my name, apparently.

I’m not thrilled that my mailing address is apparently obtainable from the act of spying on my online bill-paying, but it appears that no harm was done.  While paying the bills, I also paid my mortgage and two other credit cards, and I’m not sure if it would’ve been possible to grab my bank account information from those transactions or not, so I’ve been keeping a close eye on all of those accounts – so far, all seems to be normal.  I’ll continue to watch.

Lesson learned, at any rate.  I will never again pay my bills from a hotel room.  I can do most of the bill paying from my phone, anyway.  I just like to keep a spreadsheet, which is why I normally use the laptop.

Today’s picture is one that I drew with my little paint program (Fresh Paint) on my surface, and I call it something catchy: “Night Lake.”  I’m certain that, at some future date, it will be worth that $5,000,000 that I need.

TWD