WangNet

I have to say today was a substantially better day. Maybe I just needed to bitch and put things in perspective. Either way - neutral to chipper mood.. a bit behind in my work, but not overly worked up over it... got a ton of interesting work done, and hopefully tomorrow I can hit the digital pixels. In other amusing news - I was goaded into updating my linked in profile by Microsoft Careers. They think the carrot a free Surface Pro was the only motivator, but secretly it was being asked to tell them my dream job with them. Heh. Score.

I snagged my issue 20 of the Green Lantern - the $8 giant episode where Geoff Johns wraps up his hundred-ish issue of the series.. Yeah the ending sucked.. it seemed too.. pat. To simple. To much of the happy endings or something. I don't know. The whole 'First Guardian' was destroyed by stripping him of various emotional powers and letting Necron chop him in half? Er, what?

The original Guardians were destroyed, the only good one survived, and Sinestro is some ancient librarian of the Green Lantern Corps? Say, huh?

Well enough of that series. I think I will fill it with Constantine and Justice League: Dark.

I am not sure what's been up this last month, but it just seems to be one ever spiraling larger foul mood. Like; serially.

Pissy.. irritated.. closed up.. testie. No idea what the fuck's up in my craw, but I need to seriously get it fixed.

Sure, some can be attributed to Mother's Day, and more can be dumped on this last 'Versoin 2.4' upgrade of our alert system at work, but where the rest of of it came from I can't tell you. I know part is due to this damn Minneapolis wedding and the swirling shit fest of trying to just arrange a cadre of folks to get there, and this nebulous 'South Dakota' trip.. but errr..ugh.

Yesterday my car started acting up, but today it seems okay. So I assume that's coming down the pipe to fuck me when I least expect it. So no Surface Pro for the time being.. greaaaaaaat.

Then I saw a Microsoft technical evangelist job cropped up in the area. I looked at it, and figured I had the experience on my side for it, but after reading what other tech evangelists do I started to get super duper down on myself. I am guessing I'll be laughed out the door for not having a smart phone due to The Plan 2.1 that I put into effect a few years ago. Sure I am clawing my way debt free, but it seems a bit behind the trends to be an evangelist.

Then there's the lack of a coherent tech blog, twitter following, Microsoft MVP status, etc. I mean sure I spend an awful lot of time on dreamincode moderating, answering questions, tutorial writing, etc, but will that be enough to translate to this? I have the love of education on the tech sectors, but is that enough?

Of course there's the apprehension how much of my life will be consumed by keeping on the 'bleeding edge' of Mircrosoft's tech. Writing APIs, code plex projects, speaking engagements, etc. Honestly that all sounds like a stupid fun time - I mean shit a third of my work day is solely reading new shit going on, and testing things out all the while slogging through my actual work-work. Is someone who likes to talk tech, educate folks, and do public speaking enough to jump over the hurdle of old-man-no-smartphone?

Though the tech-evangel blogs for other companies talk about it being some sort of all consuming Orange-Lantern sort of thing. I mean way, way off the deep end.

I guess having questions like that probably 'nix me from the running, right? Who knows.. it would be nice to hit that echelon of being part of the big ol' Microsofts, but it seems my life has taken a path far off the desired track to do that.

I hope I am not selling myself short and missing this job.

Fuck this noise.

QUICK PITCH: No matter how agile your process may be, the key metrics that management wishes to see will suffer if agility is not built into the codebase directly. The book teaches .NET programmers how to give their code the agility to adapt to changing requirements and customer demands by applying cutting-edge techniques, including SOLID principles, design patterns, and other industry best-practices.

I'll be subcontracted out for the review..

The process is:
- author gets chapter written and reviewed,
- said chapter is sent to me.
- I have a few days to get through the reading and work through the examples and send it back.
- Once the book is going through the author takes what I said and investigates incorporating it.
- then it's once more back through the book
- then it's done... they are shooting to have the book in the presses by Feb 2014.

I get paid by the page and there's about five hundred pages in said book.

I had to bust out my Alice crip-walk dance moves!




It's nice to see things work out - especially after my skimming of Microsoft jobs.. so sure.. I might not be in the corporate hive, but hopefully this leads to more contract work or something with them! Sure it may seem like I am some sort of lackey to a big star with the sole job of fetching the morning cheese danish, but from my end it's great!

I mean how cool would it be if I got more work, and/or was able to find a tech evangelist position?!

8 Tips To Become a Microsoft Technical Evangelist

Hell - I've been dragging ass since getting home from the baptism yesterday! I don't know if it was the suit (which I think I may need to expand to a charcoal colored one), an overdose of the prayer/church thing, or the lack of sleep the previous nights but I've been one sad lumpy sack since 5pm yesterday. ugh.

I was poking around the MS Research blog seeing what's up and keeping up to date some news when I spied the 'career' button. Hmmm.. why not take a peak?! So a few clicks and I am trolling through job after job. Ugh. It makes me feel so.. undirected and worthless. Sure I've been using the MS tech stack for what - going on ten years, but I don't own an XBOX (though I wouldn't mind to, but it was never part of The Plan(tm) for my finances)... or getting all up in the azure cloud.. or working deep, deep in video games.

It's disheartening to know that I know so much damn shit, have booty loads of experience, but it seems like an unfocused blur when trying to play the odd-shaped peg in the square hole.

Bah.. maybe I'll never get close to that mecca, but just visit one day?

More likely I'll regroup, refocus, and get on board with some appropriately evaluated skills. Rewards do not favor the wishy washy..

Arg.. I just wish there was more time in the day!

In other news some old lady told me "Thank you very much. You are too kind. I should put you in my will." for holding the door open for her at Barnes and Noble over lunch. I hope she got my information down right. :D

I drew a line in the sand and just bought up pop's domain and hosting for him... and now I am a person that has two.. *insert The Count laugh* TWO domains!

Aren't I just hip and trendy.

It seems my sinuses, cranium, and nasal passages have moved into the 'chunky-goo jelly' phase. This is super annoying.

In other news I opted to drive home the Boss yesterday (car troubles). He lives super scary close to me (as in a three minute drive), and had the predictable disdain for my path home. Heh. Fun fun.

I had an inkling, last night, that I may be getting ill. After having a pleasant chat with my Lawyer, Doctor, and.. er.. Doctor#2(?) (Lawyer McDoctor?).. it seems my illness vector is matching up with the Doctor's sickish sounding wheeze. Through an application Occam's Razor I am guessing it was his munchkin that poxed me. Ugh.. thankfully the joy of a baseball game wasn't ruined by this war upon my immune system.

Mostly it's a sore throat, wheeze breathing, a bit of light headedness, and a really gravelly voice. I think I will survive.

The new grill is ordered and I think I should be ready to put it on this next weekend ( when it shows up). Hopefully O-town gets all the rocks and grit swept up so I can not have this SOB crack again from a direct hit.

After four days of tinkering with getting this damn data mining tools setup from Microsoft I got it to work! Well, work as in worked for their 'AdventureWorks' demo database, but work none the less.

Sure, part of the time was burned when I decided to try and use MSSQL Express 2012.. it turns out the express edition won't let you create data cubes.. so I had to pull out of that (as much as possible), jacked up my local DB instance so install a new one.. found out I didn't install the 'Analysis Services', installed that, and bet my head on how to get my SQL Server Data Tools 2012 to talk to my local db...

After trying permutations of who the 'SQL Server Analysis Services' was setup under as (Local System Account), and the impersonation for the dataset ('use the service account'), shit clicked, the cube installed, and data over flowth my cup.

Seriously some real gnarly set of rad ass models, visuals, and insightful relationships.

It blew my freak'n mind man!