Monthly Archives: January 2018

Year 1

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No featured photo today.  Not because I don’t have any, but because I’m sitting in bed and typing on my old Surface Pro and screen space is limited.

Yesterday, I quietly passed a year of working at the X-Company.  I’d forgotten all about it until of the leads sent me a Skype wishing me a happy workaversary.  He was one of the ones who declared that I had a bad attitude 8 or 9 months ago, but now seems to like me a little bit.  Strange.  As for the rest of the day, I continued to try to dig out from under a pile of tickets.  More of that today.  I’ve finally started to get the feeling that I might be able to get back on top of things, though.  So there’s that.

It hasn’t been as cold for the last several days as it was for the weeks before that, but it has still been chilly enough for a jacket and the occasional shiver when I’m walking around our building.  Hate to say it, but I wish it’d get up into the 50s or 60s for a few days and let me thaw out.  The best part of my day at this point is the 5 minutes I spend in the shower under hot water.

The GBB had our first NABBA rehearsal last night and learned just how difficult the pieces we’re playing are.  Lots of notes.  For everyone.  Lots of accidentals and awkward fingerings and fast tempos.  We’ve got an all-day rehearsal (with sectionals) this Saturday.  Should be fun.  I have no idea, however, if we’ll be able to pull this stuff together.  It’s, as a friend of mine used to say, “Stupid hard.”

And that’s enough for now.  As I said, I’m sitting in bed.  And I’m tired.  And I think I’m going to sleep now.

The Big Game

Aside

It’s the night of The Big Game.  Starts in 11 minutes, I think.  I don’t have ESPN anymore, so if I do watch it, I’ll be doing so through the free portion of the ESPN app, which follows all of the action using only those overhead cameras that zoom up and down the field for the whole game.  No commentary at all.  Believe it or not, I prefer to watch the games that way, so it works out for me.

Should you not know, The Big Game is the championship game of the joke of a college football playoff known as “The College Football Playoffs.”  The actual college football playoffs, which has 24 teams and determines the actual Division I college football champion, ended last Saturday, with North Dakota State eking out a win over James Madison University.  I watched it.  It was a good game.  I might, as I said, watch a bit of the game tonight between Georgia and Alabama, but it’s not something about which I’m overly-excited.

I had a decent day at work today.  Knocked out a couple of problems that had been bothering me for the last week and continued to slice into my mountain of open tickets.  I was not helped by the fact that – yet again – one of the Level 2 people ran updates on numerous firms yesterday and didn’t bother to fully test said updates; so that, when we arrived at work this morning, there were already more than 25 of said firms who couldn’t use one of their most vital applications until we, the Level 1 team, manually patched all of their servers.

I don’t understand this trend – and it is a trend.  It happens all the time.  Somebody who has the job of updating applications does so, but doesn’t take the simple step of launching the applications after they’ve been updated.  I know that they don’t take this step because many applications will give a pretty obvious hint (i.e., they won’t launch) if you haven’t completed the update successfully.  Rule #1 for all application updates, going back to the dawn of the computer age: have a rollback plan.  The X-Company just doesn’t seem to grasp that concept; and, frankly, it really pisses me off.  It’s tough to guess just how many man-hours are lost – by us and by the clients – every time they do this, and they do it at least twice a month.

Enough about that.   Today’s featured photo is of my boy Joshua.  The tiny little runt of a Maine Coon who I chose – with no close second – out of a little of 11 when he was two days old.  He and his brother, Chamberlain, are coming up on (I think) their fourth birthday next month.  Both tilt the scales at around 15 pounds and, while both are incredibly sweet and loving, Joshua is still the daddy’s boy that he was on the day I brought them home.  The photo up there shows Josh lounging on my Kelti 20-degree sleeping bag on a Sunday morning a few weeks back.  He was there because…well….because I was there.  Joshua wants to be with me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  He wakes me up every morning, he follows me around the house until I leave, he sleeps on my pillow.  If I’m in a room, there’s a 95% chance that he’s in the same room.  At the moment, I’m at my desk and he’s on his little cat tree about three feet to my left.  A few minutes ago, I went downstairs to get a drink, and he followed me down.  When I came back up to my office after all of 5 seconds in the kitchen, he came back up with me.  There is no dog more loyal to his master than Joshua is to me.

He also plays fetch as well as any dog, and it is a constant source of amusement and, in a way, solace for me when I come home and find one of his favorite toys (he has three that he prefers far more than the 200 or so others in the cats’ toy box) at the top of the stairs or on my bed – evidence that he’s been entertaining himself while I’ve been away, by playing a game of solitaire fetch.  Every night before bed, he begs me to throw just a few tosses down the stairs.  He is a remarkable little animal.

So is Chamberlain, and Chamberlain will get his own write-up one of these days.

It has been outlandishly chilly in Atlanta for an extended time, and I’m almost ashamed to admit that.  I generally like to be a bit chilly.  I hate being hot.  I’ve got no problem with camping in the mountains in the winter or driving to the Upper Peninsula in October.  This month, though, has been different.  It’s just been cold. It reminds me of one of our last winters in Shoreham, when Dad commented to me something along the lines of, “It hasn’t gotten really cold – like 20 below – this winter, but this month-long stretch of 5-degree days really takes it out of you.”  Well…this month-long stretch of 30-degrees has really taken it out me, too.  To that end, I broke down last week and bought two pairs of flannel-lined pants from Duluth Trading company.

Naturally, they make me sweat.  But they’ll be good for winter camping.

Well, I must go watch a bit of this Big Game and fall asleep.  Joshua will be waking me up in just under 9 hours.

Two in a Row!

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I made a pact with myself the other day to try to keep this thing updated more often more this year and maybe improve my writing a tad.  So here’s post number two for 2018.  The featured image for this is one of the Georgia Brass Band at last month’s Christmas concert, which I couldn’t play because of the amount of rehearsals I missed for the Memphis & Chattanooga trips.  The band sounded good!  It was the first time since it formed in 1999 that I actually got to hear what it sounded like, and I came away pretty impressed.

Should you be wondering, the shot was taken during a kids’ participation song – which may explain why our solo euphonium player has a toddler in his lap.

Tonight was the first rehearsal of that group since the concert, and also the first time that I’ve put a horn to my lips since mid-November.  I was, to say the least, a bit wobbly – and my lack of practice was not helped by the fact that it’s been quite cold in Atlanta for the last week and I’ve got some seriously chapped chops.  Overall, though, I wasn’t too embarrassed by my playing, and I’m looking forward to digging into the repertoire that we’ve got selected for our next concert (Brass Blast at Kennesaw) and to some extra rehearsals that we’ll be putting in over the next few months as we prepare to once again storm the beaches of the North American Brass Band Championships in Ft. Wayne in April.

Work today was a bit of a downer, thanks to one of my problem clients.  They’ve been complaining about pretty much everything since they came on board at the start of last year.  First they didn’t like their primary consultant….so I became their new primary consultant.  Then they didn’t like their CSM (Customer Success Manager), so they stopped talking to him and started trying to put me into that role – something that I flatly refuse to have happen.  A couple of months ago, they started complaining to me about one of their applications, which is running slowly because their single SQL server is overloaded.  I told them that, not being a CSM, I couldn’t really suggest anything, but that – if it were my call – I’d get another SQL server.  I also told their CSM that they needed another server.  The CSM, however, doesn’t like them any more than they like him, so basically nothing was done….and they just keep complaining to me, no matter how many times I tell them that I can’t work with them about anything involving money.

So they had their lawyer draft a document to the X-Company president, listing 10 areas that they felt we were in breach of contract.  The president got together with the CSM and told him to prepare a response for each of the 10 areas, and I got sucked into helping him do that, in spite of the facts that 1}I know absolutely nothing about many of them (problems preceded me), 2}I’ve given the CSM my recommendations several times on the areas that I do know about, and 3}the whole letter was just them bitching and moaning more about the same stuff that I’m tired of hearing about.  I tried to be their advocate for several months.  Now, they’re just pissing me off.

I did get a number of things done for other clients, however, which was nice.  And I just finished doing an update (on their lone SQL server) for the problem children, so maybe they’ll leave me alone tomorrow.

Actually, they’ll probably bombard me with questions and complaints about the update – which they insisted be done tonight even though most updates generally take several days and are done by Level 2 consultants  –  of which I am not one.

So it’s now 10:45 and I’ve had a full day.  It’s still rather chilly, but there are three cats and a space heater in my bedroom, and I think I’ll sleep pretty well.

Also mean to start walking in the mornings again – haven’t done that in several months.  I just haven’t felt like rolling out of bed and going out into the pitch-black cold.  But maybe…just maybe….I’ll do it in the morning.

That’s a Wrap

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Today’s featured photo is one of Boo, who never gets enough computer time.  I took it a month or so ago while she was looking cute.  And she’s got a remote control next to her, which is a good place to kick things off.

Televisions have gotten cheap while I wasn’t paying attention.  I think I mentioned a while back that I was considering getting a new TV after Mary moved out to put downstairs in the living room.  I had just about convinced myself not to do that when Mary finally did move a couple of weeks ago, but when I got my television back from her (I’d let her keep it in her room while she was here because her much bigger one was downstairs), I discovered that the remote control didn’t work with it.  Changed the batteries, tried one of my old universal remotes on it, bought a new universal to try…nothing.  Apparently, the television’s remote receiver gave up the ghost at some point.

Now I know what you’re thinking.  “Back in my day, we got up and changed the channels by ourselves, and we watched whatever was playing, and we were happy.”  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.  I did exactly that for about a week before deciding to put the thing back upstairs in my office and use it as a large monitor – which is what I’m currently looking at as I type this.  Then I went out in search of a new television.  And ended up getting a 50″ monster from LG with a built-in internet connection (for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Tablo, etc.).  For less than $300.  I paid more than that for the little thing that is now my monitor!  Wow.   The new one also does a better job of picking up over-the-air channels, so in addition to the three streaming channels that I use most often, I also get 200 internet channels and 88 over-the-air.  That amazes me.  Anyway, that was my Christmas present to myself and I like it.

Christmas itself was pretty laid back.  Spent the day doing a bit of housecleaning, watching football, called Dad, went out for Chinese with Jenny and Herb.  Had a short week at work – culminating last Friday with a marathon of a day that began at 7:30 and ended at 7:00.  What a way to end the year.  At least I think I fixed the problem that I was working on for the last four hours of the day.

So…it’s the first day of 2018, and I figured I’d take a quick look back at 2017.

At this time last year, I’d just lost my job and didn’t have another one lined up.  I did take care of that, accepting a job with the X-Company the second week of January and starting work on the 23rd.  The salary was just under half of what I’d been making, so I lined up a renter, Mary, who moved in in March.  While I figured that I’d be able to live on the new salary, I wanted a buffer just in case.  As it turned out, it took me a couple of months to curb my spending, but I never actually went overdrawn, and I’ve settled into the new lifestyle fairly easily.

In April, the Georgia Brass Band went on a miniature tour through Alabama (Jacksonville and Huntsville) and Tennessee (Chattanooga).  This was shortly after Easter.  I know this because I worked on Good Friday.  Apparently, that’s normally a company holiday, but since I worked I got a comp day, which I used to leave for the tour.  I hadn’t built up much vacation time by then and didn’t want to use is, so the comp day was nice.

When I asked for time off in July to go to Canada, however, my request was denied.  I think it was also around that time that I put my name in the hat to be a data specialist and pretty much got blindsided by my two bosses, who told the guy with my resume that I had a bad attitude and ruined any chance I had at the job.  I went a few rounds with the bosses over that and got things straightened out, but it took a while for the hard feelings to pass.  Truth be told, I can’t say that I’m not still holding a small grudge.

In August, my buddy Brett and I drove up to the mountains of North Carolina, near a place called Big Fat Gap, to watch the eclipse – and we ended up finding an old hunting camp, at the end of a horrible road, which is one of the nicest places that we’ve ever found.  The bugs were a little bad, and the stream could be bigger; but the solitude is fantastic.  The eclipse was also pretty cool, and I took a few pictures of it after hiking up a mountain to get a good view of it.

At some point – I don’t recall if it was before or after the eclipse – I went on a project to Maryland to set up a new client.  It was on that trip that I learned how completely disorganized such projects are, but apparently made a name for myself, because after coming back, I was given a few new clients – including one known for being tough to work with – and taken out of the phone queue.  I didn’t complain.  At about the same time, people that I’d been working with since January – most of whom had been at the X-Company for longer than I – started asking me for help.  That has continued to this day, and I’ve somehow gotten a reputation as the guy who knows systems (imagine that…after 20 years administering systems, somebody finally noticed that I might understand them).  After the more recent project in Memphis and Chattanooga, the questions have been coming with greater frequency and I’ve found myself helping other people out, sometimes at the expense of my own numbers.  More on that in a bit.

In October, I finally got some real time off and spent it visiting with Dad, Diane, and Dianne in Myrtle Beach and then heading north to Cheboygan, MI, where I spent a week in a campsite and a cottage and realized that I wanted to retire.  To that end, I visited a friend of mine who bought some land in SC last year and, together with another friend, has put up a couple of very small cottages (sheds, really), drilled a well, brought in electricity and internet, and has plans to build a small house sometime this year (to comply with some sort of county rule).  I visited her last week, too (Christmas Eve), and we talked about me buying an acre or so from her and putting my own little shed on it in a few years.  Since she and her friend will have built an actual house on the property (about 5 acres) by then, I won’t have to.  Also won’t have to dig a well or put in electricity or internet.  Pretty sweet.

Also went to a Furman game in October.  Furman did surprisingly well this year, nearly winning the conference and gaining a spot – and a single win – in the FCS playoffs.  Good for them.  Hope then can continue to improve and get back to the dominance that they enjoyed in the 80s.

The end of November and much of December were taken up with the Memphis/Chattanooga project, which – as I’ve pointed out previously – was a complete disaster and ended up with me buried in tickets.  I also gained a measure of respect, however, by handling the client during and after the on-site visits.  My boss asked me if I wanted to do more projects (I said not really), then told me that, because there isn’t a Level 2 position open right now, he’s put my name in to be a Level 1 lead.  Might be a little more money, which will be nice, but the real upside to such a move is that I won’t have primary clients anymore.  I’ll be in more of mentor/clean-up position, which is fine with me.  Hopefully, I’ll also be in a better spot to move to Level 2 at some point, which will give me yet more cash and – most importantly – more interesting problems, as well as the rights necessary to actually solve them.

So I’m waiting to hear about the L1 lead spot.  Will hopefully know something this month.

And that, in a nutshell, was 2017.  It was not my finest nor my favorite year – I’d put it pretty far down the list…let’s call it #45 out of 51, as I’m sure I must’ve had 6 worse years – but I can’t recall them at the moment.

Am very much looking forward to a better 2018 – and the countdown to retirement has begun!  I just have to figure out how I’m going to do it.