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.