WangNet

I was a bit spooked by the crazy in depth questions the coworkers were saying about CSG. After having dinner and a few drinks with Pops at the Skyybox it hit me exactly why I am spooked - I don't operate that way. See it is similar to my debate adjudicating career... After the first few years I stopped remembering every round, what was said, and what was argued. I took a substantially longer view of the field. Sure if pressed with pulling out a chunk of flow from a round I could cobble together the RFD (reason for decision), or when discussed points explain this or that... but do I need to know the nuances of the round on recall? Not so much.

My career development as an software developer is about the same. Sure at one point it was cool to be able to recall each chunk of code I wrote, or apply some esoteric efficiency to it to increase the big-o notation, but why? It's the typical programming law - any code you wrote six months ago could be confused as being written by someone else.

I have a vast chunk of experience that doesn't need to be memorized. Keep that for the Bossman - he's good at that. No I take the view that I can write code but if there is a specific problem I came across given about half an hour searching the internet I can replicate my solution. Why keep it all on my wetware hard disk when I can offload it and remember the path to getting to it? The crucial piece is I can identify the problem, research a solution, and still see the forest amidst the trees.

If I keep that in mind the Tuesday phone interview should go well.. and hopefully the subsequent in person interview.

I am not a repository for crazed computer nuances.. I'm the complete package. Interfacing with customers, testers, analysts, and designers to form a working package of the cogs the hyper nuanced folks go. Now that my friends is what a senior developer is all about.

(do the hokey pokey now!)

Half day Tuesday for an hour long phone interview.. *sigh* hello extra minutes! Different person than one of the guys here told me. I guess I shall be briefing myself again on C# webservices!

Got a phone call back from CSG to schedule an interview.. I haven't called them back yet because other people were tagging around me and refused to move on. From what I heard the phone interview was a bit jank and so was the personal interview.

When you are asking questions about extreme efficiency in .NET (rewriting library defined functions to squeeze some fraction of a millesecond out) and manipulating the garbage collector you are probably too far into deep waters to be saved. Somewhat spooky.. but I shall trudge forward.

Stupid people telling me all these horror stories of broken femurs, wrists, heads, arms, ankles, and so forth. Stupid people telling me this crap to dissuade me from dinking around with a long board.

*sigh* Let's not forget this would be a fairly high gamble for the entry cost vs possible continued use.. Maybe I'll buy a deck on fleabay... yeah.. that might be good.

I was off to Oakview mall to check in at BC Surf shop over on the bottom/dillards side. Nice joint but the aging skater there running the joint seemed a little put off that I came in wanting to know about "this longboarding stuff". Yes.. a longboard over a regular skateboard. I am not that stupid to think I am going to be doing sweet jumps.. I just want to cruise around on a 'sidewalk surfboard'.

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I think I am going to go off and see about buying a skateboard. Yeah.. that would be fun.

iwl.me aka 'I write Like Me' has a text analyzer... I threw in some of my blog posts and got this dingus. Cory Doctorow. "[...] is a Canadian blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing". Ah.. yeah.. I don't know about that.

You know it's a good day when you wake up and hear rain water trickling through the gutters.. only to look outside and see it hazy but dry. A cursory glance at the gutters show a steady trickle of water and it tap-tap-tapping inside.. yeah.. it's that freaking humid out the gutters are condensing most of it. Ugh.

FYI that's a decent survival tip for the zombie apocalypse. Humid mornings you can get some water by having enclosed gutters collect the moisture.

From the stompy-guy-when-i-loose-at-modern-warfare-2 guy up stairs the Crime Scene Unit was there because during one of the storms last week people busted into the garage units at the southern most side of the complex. They didn't steal much, or anything, just trashed the joints.

SGWIL@MW2 guy indicated it was all the section-8 folk and threw some over tones about "those people". Greaaaaaaaaat.

I was getting home about 10ish this morning from letting the Pete dog out.. sack of tots, OJ, and a sausage croissant in hand when I spied the county's "crime scene van" over yonder dusting for prints on a garage. Odd.

I really thought Mark was going to punch people yesterday... specifically The Fox. Seriously - this was two or three different moves to production that were being tested for weeks but in the last twenty-four hours suddenly all these errors and busted code are shown. If I believe TheFox was a malicious individual I would say he was finding bugs while testing, not reporting them to us, and then in the last minute dump them on us to make him look good and us bad.... but I can't believe he would do that. I am at least happy they didn't move to production.

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Well.. legal lunch was a fun respite from the low level hell I left and catastrophe I came back to.

I leave all is peaceful and quiet.. I come back and hell broke loose since our 'tester' decided to find a bunch of crap.. again hours before we are going to put a bow on this damn patch and get ready for tonight. Seriously, how does he keep doing this? I thought Mark was going to whip around and shank him.

On other news Clompers wandered off with Falloutboy and I to chat. He'll be a good reference... and he says things are smelling like layoffs as well. Cest la vie. My apprehension about applying for a new job and that sort of life style change grows larger but I'll have to suck it up and get it done.

I might as well escape the comfort zone and go to a new company.. hello interview suit.

Another night.. another storm.. another uncomfortable sleep. I have to say - the last Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corp issues were... well lack luster. A bit light and bleh plot. Come on GL - get your act in gear. Though Atrocitus (leader of the Red Lanterns) added a new depth with hiring Lobo to attempt to bag and tag him just to get Hal (green lantern), Synestro (yellow), and Ferris (purple) on his side.

For those out there:
Green = will
Red = rage
Yellow = fear
Purple = love

Indigo = compassion
blue = hope.

Yeah.. totally a freaking care bear fest.

A bit ill last night as well.. I don't know what's up with that. Dk and Falloutboy's illness passing around?

Regardless I think I have turned a corner and will be doing something about a new job. Jimbo's position was labeled as "do not fill" by his boss. Hmm... snap.

Last night was quiet but freaking hot. Damn couch is on the warm side.. that and Pete loves to get up and start bouncing around in the middle the night. The wings and alcohol weren't doing well for a morning sans indigestion, let alone the 6.15am wake up to get Pete taken care of and head home to shower and go to work.

Sadly I watched Saved by the Bell and ended up only being 20 minutes earlier than my normal show up time at work.

Oh and after heading to the gym yesterday I went online and picked up Candlebox's 'Alive in Seattle' cd on the one-click-amazon-download. That is just spooky on how fast I can hand over 8.99 for a cd. On the plus side it's a freaking stellar live cd.. It, like, tots reminds me of their concert last summer. I believe I *heart* Candlebox to place them in the top five. I was amused to a one of the two-star reviews pissing on the Cd because the word fuck was used multiple times in their live show and subsequently on this CD. Prude.

Today was annoying. Jimbo.. aka Clompers.. put his two weeks in. Remember he is my quasi boss currently. I then heard that my name was offered up, by him, as his replacement. Well my name and this other guy's. Jimbo's superior said "No, neither of them". Damn.. I can understand the other guy, but me?! I really hope they are not "saving me" for some other freaking work and put Falloutboy or BJ in that role. Ugh. So now I need to play some crude covert games to figure out why I was dismissed and what to do about getting back on the list.

I survived the heat and humidity of yesterday to find a some what cooler day but still as humid. Crashed on pop's couch after reading the grip of comics to Pete - as I am now dog sitting and it would be cruel to leave him for hours on end by himself.

It turns out the crash I saw yesterday afternoon, at 108th and Maple (red trucked on its side.. clearly rolled a few times... silver car shaped like a wedge and crushed on multiple sides), the lady in the silver car died. Something about alcohol related. That's suckie.

Gym time shortly after I get some concept drawings down for this guy on one of my forums... then back to kicking it with Pete and the Green Lantern comics I have left... to probably the 'box for wings and then home to shell out.

It's been too long for updates here. Let's rewind a few weeks ago.

Whilst my July 4th looked dismal and boring as of that Sunday the next day was stellar. House party at D's (nobody understands the D). Nick and his woman were in tow and I was mildly concerned people would be large assholes in some petty fight. Nope.. all was good and fun like the parties of yore. Nick's woman Jen-nay I think surprised him on her knowledge of relevant pop music, dance moves, and enjoyment of such a diverse group of folk... and fireworks being shot from square holes in the deck three feet away from the house. All and all great end point for that weekend. On further review if Jen-nay can handle that and not balk *cough* unlike some folks wives I know */cough* then more power to her. She appeared to enjoy the tours of Omaha and meshed well with the group. Plus she's short and that appears to be qualifications for most of the women that orbit our group.

The next week shall be annoying. The sisters decided to leave me high and dry watching Pete because I apparently don't have a life and will grudgingly curb my existence to keep the dog alive and maintained while Pops is out of town. Typical fun.

It has also been known that my project of three and a half plus years is official on life support. No new projects (outside of the 40 already in the system) will be convert. While everyone else more or less gave up on their CMSWEB projects in terms of maintenance and support the little ol' CB team has chugged through... shouldering the burden Jefe and DK left us with to overcome such adversities (stupidity, lack of planning, lack of direction, shifting goals and ideas, and no communication) to build a stable and functionally usable project.

Fuck.. we have two more patch cycles and we are going to hand it off to maintenance... now.. well now I just fill ill. I heard the heavily vetted rumor Tuesday night at 7pm and almost threw up. After so much time invested in this project.. the late nights.. the crazy solutions.. the realization that if left to our own devices (and kicking jefe and dk out) we can salvage what is done and people will enjoy it. To care that fucking much and to finally see that there are so many who gave up and now are actively trying to kill CMSWEB it is fucking wrong. I have too much emotional and historical investment to have this die an ignoble death I am angry.

Let me clarify my anger. I am angry and Jefe and DK for such shitty foundations. I am angry at them for making us program a shifting target in the dark. I am angry that no one seems to give a crap that with that moving target we hit 80% and now are about 98% done. I hate other teams' lack of conviction in their product thus dragging us all down. I hate how much time I spent. I hate the long nights put into this project because no one else cared. Ugh.. I hate that I care this much. If someone would have told me this would have been the end game I probably wouldn't have bothered.. like falloutboy. Screw that man.

Motivation is lacking hard core.

Two days of nothing going on... uncertain plans and half hearted attempts... coming off a stellar Friday evening I think I want to throw up... or sleep... Is this what happens when I am away from work? Get the dt shakes? Bleh.

"You're not a missing person until someone misses you."
- BenignDesign

My motherboard's "out for delivery"! I wonder if I will have time to snag that, install it, breathe a sigh of relief as my videocard and SATA drive start working again, and have time to kick it with the Fed-couple.... Are my l33t sk1llz that good?