Yes, indeedy.

It’s Memorial Day Weekend (capitalized because it’s an event – not just a weekend), and I’m doing what? Making lunch, doing laundry, washing dishes, and watching NFL Europa. I’m just a regular 21st-century bon vivant, huh?

I’d planned on going camping with some buddies this weekend. Was going to take yesterday off, head to the mountains, and get some much-needed nothingness for a few days. In preparation for this, I went out last Tuesday night to play video bowling with a couple of other friends. Okay, so it wasn’t actually a preparatory step, but that’s what I did. We invented a really cool wagering system for the game. Kind of a “skins game” for video bowling. I won $7. Thanks for asking.

When I left the bar, my “check engine” light came on. Not a big deal. It happens occassionally. This time, however, the engine didn’t want to run at over 2500 RPM. Started bucking and jerking and yada yada yada. So I drove the 6 miles home mainly with creative shifting: get that puppy in 5th gear as fast as possible and you never get up to 2500 RPM. Figured I’d take it to the shop on Wednesday morning and get the fuel filter changed or the plugs checked or something mundane like that.

On Wednesday morning, however, I was unable to start the car.

Crap.

So I called AAA and got a tow to my mechanic, who informed me that he’s no longer my mechanic – he only does brakes, tires, oil changes, etc. No tune-ups. No ability to read the check engine code. Nothing.

The AAA guy, who was an extrememly personable and helpful guy, towed me to a Chrysler dealership; where I was informed that, due to Memorial Day Weekend stuff, they wouldn’t be able to diagnose the problem before Thursday.

I borrowed Gramma’s old car from Herb and Andy.

On Thursday, I got a call from the dealership. Timing belt was shredded. Water pump was frozen. Possible valve damage, but they wouldn’t be able to check until after replacing the timing belt and water pump. For around $1,500. If there was valve damage (a 50/50 chance)? $3,000.

Double crap.

To make a very long story short, I got the car back last night. There was no valve damage, thankfully; but I’m out about $1,200 (the estimate was high) and camping is out for the weekend.

I did, however, reserve a campsite at Hueston Woods State Park in College Corner, Ohio, for the first week of July. It looks like a lovely and secluded area and I’m really looking forward to zoning there for a week before heading up to Lake Ahmic on July 7th. It was also quite a bit cheaper than my other two choices – Blueberry Pond in Maine (where I’ve stayed twice before) and a provincial park in the far north of Ontario (a couple hours north of North Bay), the name of which I cannot recall. Maybe I’ll try that next year, unless Hueston Woods is a great place.

For the rest of this weekend, I’m just going to putter around the house. Mow the lawns, chip up a tree that fell quite some time ago, maybe grill some dogs on the deck.

Hope everybody has a safe and happy weekend. I’ll go eat my lunch now.

TWD

Yes!

Another month of my life is gone, and one month closer to being out of a job.

We’ll start there, I guess. Ed Whitacre (CEO of AT&T) announced last week that he’ll be retiring next month. Along with Duane Ackerman (CEO of BellSouth). I think it’s wonderful that these two wizened gentlemen will both be able to hit the links and drink umbrella drinks on their verandas knowing that they were able to work together to forge a union between two of the largest companies on earth and screw 10K to 15K little people out of jobs. Good for them.

I’m not bitter.

Our affiliate’s president has been given his marching orders for the rest of the year. #1: Cut headcount by “double digits.” I don’t know why this has to be classified information. That just means it’s somewhere between 10 and 99, right? #2: Don’t spend any money.

Let’s go into a bit of detail here. One of the president’s direct reports is my boss’ boss. Due to a convoluted system of bureaucracy, she found herself in a position of working for two different bosses a few weeks ago – our president and a VP of a delivery (systems and apps – not packages) affiliate. She decided that this was too much for her and asked to choose just one boss. Logical enough, right? Certainly.

Amazingly, she decided that she wanted to work for our president – meaning that everyone under her also went to that side of things. When I was told this at a lunch by my boss, I asked, “Wouldn’t it be better for US if we went with delivery? Everyone knows that our affiliate won’t exist in a year, but delivery WILL.”

I got a straight answer from my boss. “Yes.”

Last week, when we were told about the headcount reductions, etc., my first response to my boss was, “So why don’t we get realigned with delivery and just “contract” back to BEI until it goes away – at which point, we’ll hopefully still have jobs somewhere else.” It took a few minutes for this to sink in, but once my boss got the idea, she took it to HER boss – who was somehow taken aback by it and asked, “Why would they want to do that? Where’s the loyalty?”

Loyalty? Are you JOKING?

My two directs are both contractors and both have expressed a desire to find work elsewhere. And my boss’ boss can’t understand why.

Am I really that dense? Am I missing something here?

On a related note, in spite of the headcount issue, we still have to keep a product going out the door for the next 6 or 7 months – meaning that more and more work is going to get dumped on a very small handful of people – and those people will probably NOT be allowed to transfer to another division of AT&T.

Let me rephrase that so everybody gets the picture here. We currently have two UNIX administrators and one Windows administrator. Take a guess at which three people are not going to be fired until the business is dead – and which three people are not going to be allowed to find work (within AT&T) elsewhere.

Loyalty? Are you freaking kidding me??

And don’t think that I’m over-reacting. I know of one programmer in my company who was ALREADY denied the right to leave after he found a great job in another affiliate.

I have no loyalty to this company. I haven’t for the last 5 years. What I have no is closer to emnity.

Enough ranting. I think I’ve gotten most of it out.

The GBB received the tapes with the judges’ comments from NABBA last week. Overall, they were all very complimentary; pointing out obvious mistakes but throwing in a large number of very positive comments. One in particular, made by Sheona White (without question the best tenor horn player in the world), made my day:

“Really some stunning tuba sound coming from this band.”

It is very immodest to say so, but we (the tuba section) know that we’re good. It’s just really nice to hear it from a person of Sheona’s stature.

I’ve got a rehearsal with the GBB tonight (the last before our concert next week), a rehearsal with a quartet tomorrow night, and a performance at the Atlanta Symphony Showhouse (with the quartet) on Thursday. Also had a rehearsal with the church “orchestra” this past Sunday (still an awful experience), so my chops are getting a workout this week. In the quartet, by the way, I’ll be playing euphonium. THAT will be an adventure. I haven’t played a Bb horn reading bass clef (other than bone) in about 6 years.

I think we’ve got two more gigs at the ASO Showhouse in the next few weeks, but I’ll be playing tuba on the rest of them.

Last Saturday, I finally learned how to read music on my electric bass. I’ve had the thing for about 5 years, but have always amused myself by just doodling on it and jamming with various CDs by ear. Last Easter, I played a really cool cantata at the church and I asked the librarian to pleeeeaaasssse give me copies of the percussion parts so that I could try to play the bass along with the practice recording (we get those from the church. I don’t actually use them to practice – I just listen to them).

So I got the scores last weekend and immediately took out the bass and spent a few hours actually playing. I know that most of you will not understand this, but it was SO DAMNED EXCITING to learn how to read music. Now, instead of thinking, “Play this note here on the 1st fret of the second string and it’ll sound neato,” I get to think, “Play a Bb – that’s what’s written.”

Just way cool to me. Cool enough, in fact, that I actually DID play the thing until my fingers were in a great deal of pain. And I wasn’t bad!

Keith and Dennis are now both moved in, and we’ve redecorated my piano room. It is now a music/playstation/futon room – complete with a lava lamp. Actually a pretty cool room, and it’s nice to be using all that space that was heretofore pretty empty.

Wow. I’ve typed a lot here. I guess I should go take a shower and get to work.

Loyalty and all that.

TWD