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Mar. 23rd, 2009 @ 10:37 pm Curse of the Renaissance Man
And speaking of clutch-dumping...I funneled a bottle of octane booster into my car, and discovered the true meaning of "instant extra horsepower". Okay, granted, it's not a good thing to be doing all the time, but I can still see why Subaru gleefully donated 7 STIs to "The Fast and the Furious 4". Will it be a sucky movie? But of course. Need you even ask?

Someone must have seen me climbing these Frankfort hills. Because someone with the same car as mine found me at my desk and started chatting with me about it.

...and that's where the resemblance ends.

I went through this same thing with the Eagle Talon: I'd find someone who loves my car as much as I do, only to then hear, "You need a bigger intercooler. A bigger turbo dropdown exhaust pipe waste gate crushed-cap blow-off valve larger bore cat removal bigger intake pipe nitrous rocket spaceship penis!"

For god's sake...my last car was the only time I'd owned a vehicle that was being stalked. I can still remember him shouting, "You don't know what you have!"

Yeah, I do. I have a vehicle, and a penis. The two are quite enjoyable, yet oddly neither interchangeable nor directly inversely proportional. Can't I just be happy with lots o' [stock] horsepower? Or am I supposed to Go To Jail, Go Directly To Jail?

He's talking clubs and meets and races and dynamometers. I'm getting deja vu, all over again.

I'd love a chance to learn from him. But I'm afraid I'm going to find him circling my driveway.
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Mar. 19th, 2009 @ 11:21 pm (no subject)
So, what's it been? Why, almost 9 months. I tend to bitch too much in this place, and thus, I tend to stay away from it.

I also have reason to be cautious, given the employment debacle that was 2008. I made some enemies with my cheery attitude and my refusal to give up.

Thankfully, 2009 has been better. If there are two things I've learned, it's that:

1) Any job you don't want to lose, you'd better work your ass off and don't relax for one damn minute; and
2) Keep a positive attitude, no matter what.

The day before I left on my trip last summer, I got a pretty good job offer. It was several hours, my interview with the head of the company, talking plans and working out a Consultant-to-hire agreement that would be a fantastic move up for me. I would start the Monday after I got back.

That Friday, they e-mailed me. "Don't come in to work. Thanks, but...while you were gone, we decided to outsource that job." Restart the job search, call everybody back again for the 4th or 5th time, and...as luck would have it, an old lead that I thought had dried up fell in my lap. As if it were meant to be. A huge organization, nice modern new building, nice modern new toys. I'm working in some technologies that put my resume head and shoulders above most. Even better, I'm not only knee-deep in these technologies, but after having to stop studying for exams 2 and 3 to complete my certification, I'm finding a lot of great overlap learning from the other Microsoft stuff I've had to study. I've probably read about 1,000 pages of tech information and I'm still going strong. And now I'm back on track, studying for exam #2 of 3. It looks like exam #2 is going to be tough, and exam #3 will be pretty easy--it touches on a lot of what I've already been doing these last 8 months.

The rest of this time has been a whirlwind of stupidity: I understand now why depressed people can't just "fix" themselves because I'd have these emotions that would overwhelm me, a part of me would say, "Jesus! Why are you even thinking like this?" and yet still the feelings would hang around. Like an asshole neighbor who doesn't want to admit you just caught him fucking up your yard, so he follows you and keeps talking, louder and louder, taking your silence for agreement.

The male psyche is definitely explained by a love of fast cars. It's because we're like them: we can quickly dump the emotional clutch and switch gears, mashing the sadness to the floor and firing up the anger. That was the flipside to man-sadness: man-smash-ness. I've punched too many things in a professional capacity to be stupid enough to punch a wall (or a person), so it was all kept contained inside my rattly, hormone infused skull. The anger buzzed there like a leaky tank of nitrous, begging to dump into the system and blow through it, tearing everything in its path, but oh, what a rush.
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 08:28 am Wham Bam
Current Mood: bouncy
Surprise! I'm getting ready to go on a trip. I've been planning this for a long time. A good friend of mine is getting married, and I promised I'd be there for his wedding. As it turns out, he's moved to (and getting married in) Amsterdam.

I am looking forward to it. I'm going to spend 10 days there, because if I'm flying all that way, I'm not coming straight back.

I'd been stressing mightily, given that I'm still looking for a job, but the ticket was paid and I really wanted to keep my promise. The only trick I have now is to not be so damned neurotic about everything. I think I might actually relax enough to enjoy it. :P

It's been funny, watching people's reactions: if I tell them I'm going to a wedding overseas, and then say it's in Amsterdam, they all say the same thing--either they've been and loved it, or they really always wanted to go..."to see the buildings". *cough* If I just tell them I'm going to Amsterdam, their eyes widen and they turn red, fumble a bit for something to say, and then maybe talk about wanting to go/having been there. Or ask me if I'm going for business or *blush* pleasure. They're relieved when I add the bit about the wedding.

I'll be back in a couple of weeks. With any luck, I'll have pictures, too. :)

Of the buildings. :P
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 08:13 am Wham Bam
Current Mood: complacent
I'm lucky, given how stupid and trusting I was:

My former employer had lied to a state Unemployment Investigator and managed to keep me from collecting Unemployment Insurance. I've been selling bits and pieces of my retirement fund to stay afloat, and I'd had to prepare a case against them and file an appeal.

Last week I got my appeal hearing. It was unbelievably stressful, but the fact that they had lied from the beginning made it work. The sad part is, these people really do believe there's nothing wrong with changing their story, because in their minds they've already convinced themselves that everything they've said about me is true: I imagine it helps them sleep at night. They're plenty angry at me, and what they had done is invoked "Misconduct" laws that are used for employees who abuse drugs or alcohol, harass others, steal, and do other criminal acts that escape criminal charges. Because I did none of those things, they then tried to say that not getting the project done fast enough was "Misconduct", and seemed to be baffled when the moderator didn't agree. They had also invoked laws used for employees who walk off the job and then claim they were fired, but when they had to admit that they fired me...well, that backfired.

Having to talk about this nonsense makes me feel like an ignorant reality-TV attendee: I'm embarrassed and annoyed at having to explain to people that my former employer is battling me Judge Judy style. But the more I've mentioned it, the more I'm coming across everyday people who have gone through exactly this. Exactly, right down to having the former employer lie to the government and attempt to prove all sorts of Trailer-Park Drama Theatre claims against that bad person whom they had to jettison. Apparently, any company, no matter how large or how small, will gleefully kick your ass and if you get back up again, start punching below the belt hoping your balls will come off.
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Jun. 26th, 2008 @ 04:17 pm Strange Nature
Wow, cool stuff posted all at once:

a Lungless Frog that breathes through its skin:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23996711/

A "Wolverine"-style frog that has claws that pierce its own skin to attack predators:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25346676/

A new mid-phase amphibian fossil found:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25371869/

Tons of bizarre creatures:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22784864/
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Jun. 25th, 2008 @ 10:08 pm Fast and Furious
And just like that, the offer's gone again.

I had a great day Monday. Got stuck on a problem Tuesday. While trying to fix the bugs Wednesday, the client called my company and said, "He's too slow, he's gotta go. Give 'im the ol' heave-ho."

At least I got 29 hours in 2 and a half days. My contracting company is baffled, and frankly so am I. Because I can't believe I expected a 5-day job to work. I should have realized sooner that no job will ever be perfect from day one, and you can't hit the ground running and instantly know how to do the work. Every IT shop does things differently, and sometimes you'll do something one way, and they'll tell you you have to undo it because it's not compliant with corporate standards--no one's fault, because they can't automagically know every rule I should be told, any more than I can think to ask them every last detail about what's acceptable.

It seems like the better I get at things (and I am getting better), the more I run across people who have a reason that I suck. It's kind of like Art School that way.
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Jun. 24th, 2008 @ 05:26 pm Hobo for Hire
Rover, Wanderer, Nomad, Vagabond, call me what you will...

I passed my Certification exam Friday...and got a call that I was desperately needed to help a place with an app. So desperate, in fact, that we filled in all my paperwork that same day, Monday morning I "interviewed" (really, it was, "Here's your desk"), and they filled out my background check while I was getting my hands on the code.

The good news is, I absolutely love it here. They're working in .NET 2.0 and I'm getting a chance to put my exam skills straight to work.

The bad news is, it's only for a week.

Yep, that's right--I had a part-time work-from-home job that lasted 2 weeks, I had a call that might lead to some part-time work, and now I get to spend one week building some code.

I'm still looking for a decent home, but in the meantime I'm surprised how many people want a warm body with no committment. IT sure is a loooonely field...
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Jun. 16th, 2008 @ 11:18 pm Repurposing
My job search has required some weird shit. Since so many people are unemployed, and my own position is senior-level enough to require careful consideration, companies can pick and choose, taking their time. I have to go through a lot to get an offer. For example, I not only take online programming tests, but I have to take IQ tests, "Programmer IQ tests" (ahaha), personality tests, and even psych profiles.

I just took a "Personal Interests, Attitudes, and Values" test Friday that said all sorts of interesting things about me. It made me sound like I created the Heavens and you should all now serve me, for I am mighty.

And yet.

My Achilles Heel was given as thus:

"...It may be hard to manipulate [him] because he has not yet defined a philosophy or system that can provide immediate answers to every situation..."

Did you catch that? It's saying that I am not easily led because I am not religious--but it is saying it in a backhanded way. This test asked me a lot about my church habits, civic duties, and the degree to which I exhibit both the warms and the fuzzies for my government.

I guess it doesn't necessarily matter if the 'immediate' answers are wrong, so long as I have a system that embraces them.

The upshot of this is that these tests are going to help me deal with my former employer. Of all the people I've worked for, I've never had one who pursued me through legal channels and lies, trying to criminalize me. I have to do a legal thing with them now, and when they bleat about how stupid I am and how poor and lacking is my skillset, and all the awful things I've done to their company, all I have to do is hand out copies of my VB.NET test: "applicant scored better than 93% of test takers for this exam".

I'm going to remember that the next time I'm asked to log into somebody's website and answer questions about the .NET Framework.
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Jun. 16th, 2008 @ 08:04 pm Tide Comes In....Tide Goes Out
Current Mood: frustrated
I feel like I've gone from fighting for success to struggling against failure.

I expect this to change. Soon.

I have no basis for this expectation, but just the same I will be damned fine at managing it.
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Jun. 14th, 2008 @ 10:40 am Writer's Block: Gender Bender
Tags:

Do you ever want to be of the opposite sex? If so, what attracts you to the idea? If not, what repels you?


View 500 Answers

I'm too used to this sex, and too attracted to the other one. Besides, who has the time to relearn everything?
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Jun. 12th, 2008 @ 11:51 pm Hyuck Hyuck Huck
http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/06/12/huckabee-joins-fox-as-contributor/

Please try to feign surprise--it helps to stifle the laughter and makes people think you're sincere. Or that you have indigestion.

"I have signed on to be a part of the Fox News Channel family. I hope to bring the unique perspective from "inside the dragon’s belly"..."


^(note the artfully-feigned surprise)
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Jun. 12th, 2008 @ 08:48 pm Toon-Tao
Current Location: dim dark hot-box
Current Music: two box fans and a shitty room air conditioner
I've been studying my ass off for my first Microsoft Certification Exam while interviewing for the next job.  Had to take a Brainbench this morning and scored damned good, beating 93% of prior examinees.  Followed that up with a rock-solid technical phone screen, then took a practice test for my Exam and scored 98 out of 101.  So I figured I deserved a break.  Daughter's been patient with me all month while I interview, study, and do other ridiculous grown-up stuff, so I took her with me to see Kung-Fu Panda.

What a great film, much better than I'd expected.  Not just the joy of the Martial-Arts messages, but the fun serendipity that comes from Tao-driven plot-twists.  You know what I'm talking about:  bizarre unlikely coincidence turns into abject belief, and we all have wacky fun while the sloppy goof becomes the mighty warrior because the universe has deemed it so.

My wits were sharp, and I resonated a bit with the message:  it's not about getting what you want because you want it bad enough, or feeling you deserve it because you put in the effort.  It's about believing you can.  About getting what you want by first accepting who you are and playing to your strengths.  When you master yourself, you stop chasing your goals because they will instead come to you.

Skidoosh, baby.
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Jun. 11th, 2008 @ 10:13 pm People-Ness
Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: Propellerheads: Dive!

this  little gem got me to thinking about basic human nature.

You see, I've been back & forth with people over the years about the following two arguments:

1) When left to their own devices and free of consequence, people will do whatever they want, regardless of who gets hurt

or

2) If shown that being good to others can be rewarding, people will at least try to do good.

This comes from the "People only obey because they don't want to be punished" argument--which is also used to justify the existence of religion:  "It's good, because it makes people obedient."

Went to the public pool yesterday.  My daugher had a water cannon and was playing with it.  A little girl dog-paddled over to her and said, "Can I try that?"  K said, "You cannot point it at anyone's face."  "Okay!" said the little cutie (about 7), and she paddled over to the nearest kid, raised, and fired full-on into his eyes.  She continuted saturating his head (and the spooky part is she wasn't giggling playfully).  K shouts, "Stop it!  No!  Give it back--that is exactly what I told you NOT to do." and snatched it out of her hand.  Cutie gave her a "whatever" look and paddled off.

Later another little boy saw me reloading the squirtgun for my daughter.  "Can I try that?" he said.  I looked at him sideways, but said, "Alright.  But you cannot point it at anyone's face."  He played with it for a moment, firing it up in the air and laughing as it rained down.  Hitting the wall.  Then he looked right at me and fired it into my eyes, laughing his ass off.

I yanked it out of his hand (and lowered my fist) and said, "No!  Exactly what I said NOT to do!", turned my back, walked away.

People are amazed that I'm really nice.  Or they think I'm really stupid.  They're even more baffled when they find out I'm not religious.

I don't get people.

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Jun. 10th, 2008 @ 11:37 pm Insert Appropriate Type of Laughter Here
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/06/bush-tells-brit.html

On the leadup to the Iraq War:

"Bush told the paper, "I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric." Bush also admitted that some of his strong phrases like "bring them on" or in general his "Cowboy Talk" -- as he once referred to it in an ABC News' interview with George Stephanopoulos -- affected the perception of the U.S. around the world. Those phrases, Bush said, according to the paper," indicated to people that I was, you know not a man of peace.""
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Jun. 9th, 2008 @ 11:35 pm Pfeh.
And Pfui.

I think being given the Mercedes was the beginning of my stretch o' bad luck. That rattle-trap car spends so much time in the shop I'm thinking of swapping out all the badging for Jaguar logos.

I'm a good boy: I remember to be thankful. I spend time with my family. And I go out of my way to glean every last bit of happiness and enjoyment out of life. I'm a Gleaner. Capital G, 110% Happiness Quotient achieved, thank you very much.

Still, these last two years seem to be completely and utterly on my nuts. Workplaces love me...then leave me. The whorelike nature of contracting, and I can't seem to find anything else. They love your resume until they realize you actually Know Too Damn Much.

Wah. Whining over. But I think it's humanity's pessimistic nature: they can believe you're the most talented person they've seen, they just can't imagine you'd stay for long at a place like theirs.

Frankly? If I didn't have to spend 4 hours behind the wheel, I'd whistle a merry tune! Shitty job, but close to home? You go ahead and do all those nas-tay things you wanna do to me, cause ain't none of it gonna get through to me. :) I went to Hell, and I took inventory.
Even saw the empty spots with all our names on them: marked "Reserved Seating."
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Nov. 18th, 2006 @ 09:38 am The Finest in German Engineering
Earlier this year, my grandmother gave me her car. It was one of her favorite possessions, but she gave it to me: a 1985 Mercedes 380SL Sports Coupe. Literally driven only once a week to the beauty shop, it's 21 years old and had 37,000 miles on it. My grandparents decided that she had to give it up when it almost killed them both: it tore off across a parking lot at high speed and slammed into a concrete barrier.

They had it fixed before they gave it to me--or at least, they thought they did. Mechanic after mechanic looked at the car and swore there was nothing wrong with it. When I got it, I could see that the Mercedes still needed work--it had a rather scary tendency to gun the motor at random. You can imagine what the word "Mercedes" does to a repair estimate--it's been a painful year.

So early one Monday morning, I got in the car to take it to a mechanic in another town. I had to go straight to work after that, so I was dressed in a suit. Sitting behind the wheel on a winding country road, I got a little surprise: I went to climb a hill, and the next thing I know, the vehicle takes off. I went from 60 to 80 in about 8 seconds, and it was climbing even faster as the tach needle pushed the redline.

I was oddly calm: in my mind I realized that a) this car could go a lot faster before I'd be in trouble, b) there were a couple of things I could try to see if I could "unstick" the throttle, and c) I'd already moved one hand to the ignition key.

I tried a few adjustments with the controls, and the pedals--nothing. The Mercedes was starting to push 90 now--I had to kill it.

I reached for the key. As I looked down at the inside of a European sports car, and saw my expensive suit, a nasty little voice chuckled in my head:

"Goodbye, Mister Bond."

I killed the car. It rolled along in Neutral, but...I had nowhere to pull over to. I was now sitting at a dead stop just over another hill, and at any moment someone was going to come over it at 65 and slam into me. The one place I could go was a field with a gravel drive--about 100 yards away, and no way could I get out and push.

I got my second crazy moment of the day--I had to restart the thing. I turned it over, threw it into gear, and killed it again. The engine shot to the redline, poured smoke from the tires, and threw itself at the field--which was exactly what I'd hoped for. I figured that if my options were: rock wall, open field, concrete bridge stuck in rock wall...well, open field sounded just nice. Paramedics can generally extract you from the crumpled wreckage if you give them an open field to work in: it's much easer than trying to peel you from a solid wall of stone.

I called my friend G, and he came with a toolset. We took off the air filter, looked over the intake, and...wow. The throttle in a Mercedes is a series of metal rods that are ball-and-socketed to levers and springs. The rod that opens and closes the throttle was attached to a metal lever that had bent itself down and shoved itself under a lip of steel on the engine block (the kind of "seam" that sticks out along the edge of molded steel). What a mess. We got it bent back into shape and tested it, then I took it the rest of the way, at a slow speed, with him following me.
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Sep. 8th, 2006 @ 11:59 am Well, whadaya know?
Current Location: Not that nasty awful office I used to work in
Current Mood: content
Current Music: PC Case fan with bad bearings
I had a phone interview Wednesday with a huge company that's only getting larger--they're about to merge with another large company.

It went really well; so well, in fact, that I got myself a face-to-face with them.

Get up early, drive over an hour, head down there, and...20 minutes later, "Okay, we're done. Thanks for coming by." It all happened so abruptly that behind my smile my mind was going, "Okay, what just happened?"

"Did they ask you when you could start?" My rep asked me. Typically, that's your cue that they want you. "Err, no," I reply. And spend some time speculating about whether things really were going as well as they seemed. Then I realized, I could spend a lot of time second-guessing myself and trying to figure out what went wrong, and it would all be conjecture anyway.

Later that afternoon, I get the call: they want me. I'm hired already! Damn, but that was quick. I'm still trying to finish up the paperwork so we can get me in the door, but in the door is what I definitely am.
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Jul. 19th, 2006 @ 10:55 am What's so Civil about Liberty?
Current Location: The nasty pit of OSHA denial
http://blog.eweek.com/blogs/rip_and_read/archive/2006/05/31/10437.aspx

If you think you have nothing to hide, it's only because you don't know what they're looking for...
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Jun. 7th, 2006 @ 11:38 am Inside the Secret Bunker
Current Location: Hell--with New & Improved Aroma!!!
Current Music: Manu Chao, "Me Gustas Tu"
Brainstorming Session at work:

Z: I want to make a flavor of ice cream that's destructive. Something awful. Like "Anthrax" flavor.

G: That'd be bad. It needs to hurt people.

Me: You can't do that.

G: People won't buy it--

Me: No, it's not that. It's that "Anthrax" is a trademarked name of a band. They might sue you for mis-promoting them. You need a good, catchy name.

G: Something with the name in it, though

Z: Something catchy.

Me: "Bovine Surprise!" I can see it!

Z: Yes!

Me: It's like a Ben & Jerry flavor--I can see Ben & Jerry's trying to sell "Bovine Surprise"

Z: That'd work.

Me: No, wait: that's more a Godiva kind of name. Ben & Jerry's is more punchy--they like to use puns and be cute. Like "Cherry Garcia": that's pop culture and it sticks in your head.

Z: Yeah...we need something better. Like Bovine....

Me: A-ha! I've got it! It'll be Anthrax ice cream, with big wads of fudge mixed in:

SPONGIFORM SQUARECHUNKS!!!

(I swear, I need to be on the phone with the ice-cream people right this minute)
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May. 31st, 2006 @ 02:23 pm But it's Okay When We Do It
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1967902,00.asp

A ground-breaking counter-attack in the war to protect the rights of all Netizens to grainy camcorder versions of the new X-Men movie...
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