It finally hits home...
I just learned that while I’ll be doing the technical design for the new version of my GDS update program, coding work will be handed off to four coders in India.
Either I’m defining the role I’ll have within the IT organization (strictly design, which is actually the fun part), or I’m training my replacements. Until I know which, I’ll be polishing my resume.
Read more...Behind the power curve...
Since suddenly acquiring a family at home and being shoved into the bureaucratic dogpile at work, I feel like my life is always on fast forward. I’m praised for my work in meetings and thanked for my efforts at home, and I know I can do what’s being asked of me, but I don’t feel in control of the situation anymore. All I can do is dive in and give my best effort.
Well, I suppose this is what everyone goes through. I never even kept a calendar before, so of course there will be a period of adjustment for me.
Read more...One for you Orwell fans...
Heh… We have this application that watches our various servers to make sure they’re still running. It’s called “Big Brother”.
I was amused to learn that all communications with it are done via port 1984. Guess even network administrators have a sense of humor.
Read more...If you weren’t watching the Five Days to Midnight miniseries this past week, they’ll be rerunning it on SciFi Channel ad infinitum, so be sure to catch it. The hero’s nemesis is truly wicked, so other bad-guys-in-training (Mooph) should take notes.
In completely unrelated news: iTunes’s Party Shuffle just went from playing The Prodigy (hardcore jungle) to Sal Severe’s How to Behave So Your Children Will, Too. I think I’m gonna have to take my audio books out of there. :P
Read more...I just went through one of our documents and marked up a set of “exclusions from the tactical phase” of this project. We may be only be updating a hotel database, but I feel like we’re building a missile or something.
Read more...Lessons learned...
When you’re driving through Texas, if you see that everyone around you is strictly obeying the speed limit, make damn sure you’re doing the same yourself! I couldn’t resist speeding, because we had a 16-hour drive ahead of us, but now I’m out over 100 bucks for the ticket I got. :P
Add to it the fact that Diana and I both caught Lenny’s cold during the drive down and still had it on the way back, and you have the makings of one miserable trek. I don’t care how much it costs; we are so flying next time.
At least we had fun while we were in Dallas. Diana and Lenny got to meet the rest of my family, and vice versa. (They all adore Lenny, and he got lots of presents.) We all visited the aquarium. (Interestingly, its setup was a lot like the Kaiyukan in Osaka.) Out of the blue, I was given an Omnifi MP3 streaming unit as a belated birthday present. (Sometimes it’s nice to have a rich uncle. He also gave my brother a (real) gun from his collection. :P ) We swam in my Gram’s pool, which had a miniature waterfall and gorgeous Japanese maples next to it. And throughout, we ate. A lot.
Come to think of it, the ticket and the long drive and the illness don’t seem so bad in the end…
Read more...What the kcuf?!
Last night I had a dream that I was Brad Pitt starring in a remake of Fight Club along with John Cleese. After defeating the giant demon that was controlling the entire city, we were suspended over a 100-foot drop while Cleese’s character tried to figure out a MacGyver-like contraption with some fishing wire to get us down.
Read more...More IT follies...
There’s this screen saver that IT has installed on all desktops here (except mine :) that reminds us of our new corporate values. (Apparently, we didn’t have any before.) Everyone hates it, because they can’t disable it, it slows background processes to a crawl, and it looks butt-ugly. And now, there’s a new problem.
From a company-wide e-mail I just received:
> You may have experienced some issues with your screen saver > giving an error that the “15 Day trial period of the > software has expired”. We are aware of this issue and will > have it resolved shortly and a new screen saver deployed to > all systems by end of business tomorrow. In the interim, > simply clicking OK will activate the screen saver. > > To assure that you receive the new screen saver, please log > out of your system at the end of business today and > tomorrow so the update can be loaded onto your system > during the next reboot. > > We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have > caused you, If you have any questions or concerns please > contact the IT Help Desk @ extension [XXXX].
Yes, that’s right, we use unregistered shareware to communicate our corporate values. :)
Read more...Yay!
The new version of Automatic GDS Update with Apollo support begins it first production run in 30 minutes! Ah, my baby… I’m so proud… (sniff!)
Read more...Man, I didn't realize how dependent I was on e-mail...
The server’s down here at work, and it’s basically brought the office to a screeching halt.
Read more...