July 20, 2001

What a crazy workday. My phone must have rang about 30 times...there was a crisis with one of our data vendors that affected several of our customers, and our vendor called us a lot to keep up updated. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they kept us informed. Its just that I would be talking with a developer one one phone about the problem and then the vendor would call my phone, and since I have it set to forward to my cell phone, that would start ringing. After this happened two or three times, the developer had sympathy and told me "Go ahead, answer your phone."

I'm taking 1/2 day off tomorrow, the morning half, which I like the best because then I can sleep in. I would take the whole day off but I have to train people tomorrow. Hopefully they will remember and not be off doing other stuff.

Meanwhile, what is up with this winter weather here in the Boston area? I mean, for goodness sake, its mid-July! I can't even walk home without getting cold. The weather person on the news tonight said it would probably be this way this weekend, which is kinda a bummer in my book. Okay okay...I know I'll just have to get over it.

There is a little girl screaming outside, I have no idea why.

I am listening to an old Art Bell mp3 about area51.

A few hours ago I went over to some guy I know to fix his modem, I couldn't help much, I should stop trying to help other people out with their computer problems, it just makes them think less of me when I don't solve them. Funny how i always solve the problems I have at work.

I called the guy who has like all my best pictures from South America, he confessed to loosing them, but confessed he found them and he'd have them for me this week... see i gave him those pictures to take home for me when i was in Ecuador, and it's been almost a year now.

Anyways tonight I think i will do something diffrent!

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Wow, I just reread that and noticed how boring it is, well, I won't spice it up, because that's what's up this hot evening... I haven't got anything better to share at the moment.. so go read someone else's daylog!

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This news just in : Klaproth says I ate your writeup "What would aliens think of us if Everything was all they had?" because uhh, thank you for sharing. It will soon rest in Node Heaven.

And to think, all I said was "Aliens can't read English"

But, NOW YOU ALL KNOW THAT I WROTE IT, So i don't care if it was nuked, since everybody knows the truth!!

Mwhauhauhaua (That is an evil laugh typed up)

americans dont speak english & Aliens can NOT infact speak English either!

And any quality Sci-Fi show will prove it! But you, you people all watch Babylon 5 or StarTrek

Mwhauhauhaua (Another evil laugh)

Now you all know the truth! and nobody can stop me!

This morning felt like early fall (um, in the mid-atlantic, anyway), so I opened all of my windows. As I went to get my Wall Street Journal on the front sidewalk of my apartment building, I noticed that they had removed the butterfly plant. It was a large bush with pink flowers of some sort that attracted a lot of butterflies, as well as puffy bees of heretofore unimagined size. I am displeased and will be writing my congressman about this issue later today.

After reading the Journal and having breakfast, I spend about an hour playing Grim Fandango, stop to get mail, and get sidetracked reading about Grim Fandango, which led to my Tim Schafer node.

I plan on making more coffee, installing another NIC, and going back to the game, which I will be playing for most of the day. I also got a 128MB module for my laptop, so I'll put that in tonight.

Next week I'm going to start calling certain contracting firms, so I can work and continue to support my coffee addiction. A few days ago I registered for two Internet-based English classes for fall, so if I have to travel on occasion it won't be a travesty in terms of school. During my appointment with the advisor, I expressed interest in a class called Communication for Engineering and Technology. He said that he didn't think that would be in my area (something to that effect). I told him that I'm a network engineer, and he said "Oh." He was surprised. I was an English major before I got into the field, have a lot of credits towards the major, and just want to finish it. Frick.

Yesterday, I found out that my company had done three layoffs and they were reorganizing. Ok, fine. Whatever. It never affects development of the flagship product, that's where the money is!

Well, it did this time. My boss is being transferred to a legacy product, the the other member of my group is being transferred to product support. So, yesterday, I had everything in my mind about how being the only member of a department is going to mean I change what I do.

Well, today I find that I have the new boss but I get to do the same thing. It's odd. You get to this "No one is quite sure of what you do, but keep doing it" level of knowledge and you're never sure whether you're not appreciated and thus expendable or if everyone would be too afraid of losing you, and thus making you relatively safe.

I tried to leave the company at once. They all told me how sorry they were to see me go, but you could see a lot of people not too sorry about it actually. Honestly, people leave all the time, and "he's just a junior programmer, after all." (My title wasn't junior programmer, but I kind of felt like that on the totem pole.) Eventually, people realized what I did around here and they gave me a counter offer. And that flattered me enough that I felt compelled to stay. And suddenly, I'm given a lot more respect. (And a promotion. And a few raises. And lots of pats on the back -- which I enjoy, damnit.)

I just pray that things stay pretty much how they are. I get to node for a little while each day, read a little news, and type out some code while listening to MP3s. I don't really relish that changing.

I walked into a very busy open plan restaurant today to order a take out lunch. I sat at a bar overlooking the dining room. The disjointed chorus of conversation pulsed rather loudly throughout the place and I visualized a layered carpet of sound hovering over the crowd of people, who were all engaged in various restarurant type activities, most of which consisted of putting heated bits of erstwhile biomass into their mouths. Perhaps it was because I made out no words, only the unintelligible music of many people eating and emoting, perhaps it was just a random quirk of my hindbrain, but suddenly each table seemed a small tribe unto itself, and I suddenly pictured them all at each other's throats, hoarding food and water, dragging mates from table to table, shouting threats back and forth, etc. Did we ever really live like that? Do we still? Whether we did or not, something primal stirred within me. Voices from deep inside, perhaps the voice of some hidden god translated by the body, triggered by the large group of people fulfilling one of their basic survival requirements en masse like a flock of seagulls or school of fish, sang to me of silent strength, untapped potential, pure possibility...the strange spirits swimming inside.

I paid, walked out, went back to the office, and enjoyed a humble feast of garden salad, lentil soup, and foccacia.

Just got back from three weeks of Scandinavia today.

Our initial plan was to go to Sweden. All I knew about the country were some superficial stuff like ABBA, Vikings and Marcus Allbäck. Now I also know that every Swede knows English, that Økologisk Lantknäckebrød really exists, that it takes ages to get to the north by car and that Sweden is boredom itself.

The last circumstance took us to Norway. Fabulous nature, especially the fjords (Geiranger!), but the weather sucked.

You can't have it all in Scandinavia.