hoshisabi

Getting out of your own way.

Sun, 10 May 2009 06:35:53 GMT

A few months ago I had a realization that "things are good." It's such a small realization, but it was one of those strange revelations.

"Money is not a problem, as long as I have a place to live, my family, and a steady job, everything is good."

My wife takes care of the money, and pretty much everything else in the house. I'm affording the luxury of just going to work and doing some light helping out around the house. Even then, most of the time my help involves me just hanging out and talking while she does the laundry or cooks.

My life has been rather blessed. That small little thought of "Things are good," has compounded and it's just made me a lot happier in general. I have my family, and no matter what else, I'll be fine.

So, I've discovered the happiest year of my life involved me just getting out of my own way and allowing myself to be happy has in turn caused me to talk more to my family, spend more time with them. In turn, that's made them more happy.

I could say "I wish I would have discovered this sooner" ... but you know what, I did discover it, and hey, things are great.

So, if my wife should read this: Happy Mother's day, my wonderful lady, and thank you for your patience and tolerance for the past few moody years.

And let's see if next year can even surpass this one.

[LJ2ME] What's up

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:25:32 GMT

I could do one long update about all that has happened in the past decade or so that I haven't posted.

I could also do one of my usual "this happened" hit and run posts and talk about, oh, maybe the hit and run that took out the car's back window.

But really, I am just avoiding work while in the U of M law library keeping my wife company and messing around on the blackberry with this LJ client I found.

I should really spend some time learning about the blackberry development environment. It's basically Java, which I think is cool. Honestly, though, I kind of miss entering text on the palm through graffiti. Maybe that is just lack of familiarity.

Well, I have this guy (the blackberry) for a while, so I should learn it better, and it is growing on me. The screen is nice and they pay attention to a lot of nice little things. But my hand does cramp on long text entry. Which it has now, so I will leave this at this.

Device: RIM Wireless Handheld

As an additional note:

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:19:10 GMT

If you have a facebook account, log in and check it out. A bunch of pictures were posted from my high school years, of the various drama geeks that I spent all my time with. Somewhat amusing to see these old pictures.

Strange week

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:17:28 GMT

Without going into a lot of detail.

Last few weeks have been rather stressful. Lots of family related worried, but everything is back to mostly normal. (There's still some things going on, but not quite as bad as we had feared.)

Today, the project that has been haunting me (and the other developers) just got canceled and replaced with another tactic. The new tactic should be a lot easier to support, but it's mostly back to the drawing board. That should be interesting.

Right now, reading boring documentation in preparation for that.

Perhaps I will update more frequently, but somehow I doubt that.

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 23:40:14 GMT

In the interests of updating with nothing to say, I post a meme which I've seen for a while. This is one of those "How Priveleged Were You" growing up sorts of things.

From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college (my dad didn't finish his bachelor's, but my mom coaxed him into applying to get his Associates with the credits that he had)
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home. (I'm not sure about this one, but I don't think so. We moved often enough that this would have been a pain to also move.)
9. Were read children's books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 (piano lessons, for about a year.)
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively (not sure what to put for this one, my actual mannerisms are pure "geek", but as a middle-classed white man, I should probably have bolded it.)
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs (most of my college was paid for by loans)
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp (my aunt paid for these, however)
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house (we lived in many houses as I grew up, we moved many times)
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home (I think that two of the houses we lived in, we had owned. That turned out to be a mistake, though, with our moving tendencies)
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school (I had a black and white TV in my room for a few years in elementary school until it died)
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 (my aunt also paid for this)
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

No updates implies pasting a meme

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:24:04 GMT

Yes, I know, a meme is a poor substitute for an actual update... but you knew what you were getting into when you got here.

Behind the cut is a meme I got from wickedthought (John Wick)'s blog about "Hobby Games" (card games and RPGs), where you pick which ones you own and have played.

Boldface if "I own this game."
Italics is "I have played this game."
Italic and Bold are "I both own and have played this game."

Bruce C. Shelley on Acquire
Nicole Lindroos on Amber Diceless
Ian Livingstone on Amun-Re
Stewart Wieck on Ars Magica
Thomas M. Reid on Axis & Allies
Tracy Hickman on Battle Cry
Philip Reed on BattleTech
Justin Achilli on Blood Bowl
Mike Selinker on Bohnanza
Tom Dalgliesh on Britannia
Greg Stolze on Button Men
Monte Cook on Call of Cthulhu
Steven E. Schend on Carcassonne
Jeff Tidball on Car Wars
Bill Bridges on Champions
Stan! on Circus Maximus
Tom Jolly on Citadels
Steven Savile on Civilization
Bruno Faidutti on Cosmic Encounter
Andrew Looney on Cosmic Wimpout
Skip Williams on Dawn Patrol
Alan R. Moon on Descent
Larry Harris on Diplomacy
Richard Garfield on Dungeons & Dragons
William W. Connors on Dynasty League Baseball
Christian T. Petersen on El Grande
Alessio Cavatore on Empires in Arms
Timothy Brown on Empires of the Middle Ages
Allen Varney on The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Phil Yates on Fire and Fury
William Jones on Flames of War
Rick Loomis on Fluxx
John Kovalic on Formula Dé
Anthony J. Gallela on The Fury of Dracula
Jesse Scoble on A Game of Thrones
Lou Zocchi on Gettysburg
James Wallis on Ghostbusters
James M. Ward on The Great Khan Game
Gav Thorpe on Hammer of the Scots
Uli Blennemann on Here I Stand
S. Craig Taylor, Jr. on A House Divided
Scott Haring on Illuminati
Dana Lombardy on Johnny Reb
Darren Watts on Junta
Greg Stafford on Kingmaker
Lester Smith on Kremlin
Wolfgang Baur on Legend of the Five Rings CCG
Marc W. Miller on Lensman
Ted S. Raicer on London's Burning
Teeuwynn Woodruff on Lord of the Rings (boardgame)
Mike Breault on Machiavelli
Jordan Weisman on Magic: The Gathering
Steve Kenson on Marvel Super Heroes (Jeff Grubb version)
Gary Gygax on Metamorphosis Alpha
Greg Costikyan on My Life with Master
John D. Rateliff on Mythos
Chris "Gerry" Klug on Napoleon's Last Battles
John Scott Tynes on Naval War
Erick Wujcik on Ogre
Marc Gascoigne on Once Upon a Time
Mike Bennighof on PanzerBlitz
Steve Jackson on Paranoia
Shannon Appelcline on Pendragon
JD Wiker on Pirate's Cove
Richard H. Berg on Plague!
Martin Wallace on Power Grid
Tom Wham on Puerto Rico
Joseph Miranda on Renaissance of Infantry
James Ernest on RoboRally
Paul Jaquays on RuneQuest
Richard Dansky on The Settlers of Catan
Ken St. Andre on Shadowfist
Steven S. Long on Shadowrun
Peter Corless on Shadows over Camelot
Dale Donovan on Silent Death: The Next Millennium
Matt Forbeck on Space Hulk
Ray Winninger on Squad Leader
Lewis Pulsipher on Stalingrad
Bruce Nesmith on Star Fleet Battles
Steve Winter on The Sword and the Flame
Jeff Grubb on Tales of the Arabian Nights
Shane Lacy Hensley on Talisman
Douglas Niles on Terrible Swift Sword
Ed Greenwood on Thurn and Taxis
Mike Fitzgerald on Ticket to Ride
Thomas Lehmann on Tigris & Euphrates
Warren Spector on Tikal
David "Zeb" Cook on Toon
Mike Pondsmith on Traveller
Zev Shlasinger on Twilight Struggle
Kenneth Hite on Unknown Armies
Sandy Petersen on Up Front
R. Hyrum Savage on Vampire: The Eternal Struggle
George Vasilakos on Vampire: The Masquerade
Kevin Wilson on Vinci
R.A. Salvatore on War and Peace
Jack Emmert on Warhammer 40,000
Chris Pramas on The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Steve Jackson on The Warlord
John Wick on Wiz-War

Adventures in Yesterday

Thu, 10 May 2007 16:41:57 GMT

So, today started out pretty oddly.

First off, I went into my "zone" when driving to work and managed to drive to the wrong company nearly. I about 15 minutes out of my way before I was stopped. The rain had just started coming down in a torrent, so I must have missed my exit and not thought about it, just driving the same way I've driven for years upon years.

When the cars in front of me started to show brake lights, I started to slow down. I was a little worried that I might not be able to stop in time because they were really slowing down fast and there was a lot of water on the road up ahead. I was fine, though, I had left myself plenty of room. I also felt the comforting massage of anti-lock breaks and stopped with PLENTY of room as the car in front of me came to a complete stop before a small pond of water across the freeway.

The car behind me, however, did not stop. Well, it did after it hit me. It left a nice, deep gouge in the rear hatchback of my wife's prized Saturn Vue. I stopped, trying to decide "What do I do next? Do I call the police now?" I decided, "Let's try to get out of the car" but saw that the pond was across the shoulder too. The guy behind me shouted, "Let's go on the other side of the freeway," which seemed like a good idea so we did.

Once we got there, he got out of his car and looked at his damage. He didn't see much, so he came over and we looked at the damage on my wife's car together. The "dent" looks horrible, but I tried the door and it opened and shut without problems. The car drove across the freeway ok, so I am thinking "We're ok, this is just a matter for insurance companies to discuss."

It's at this point the guy starts telling me how he just got his car, how he hadn't transferred his plates yet, how he hadn't gotten insurance yet, and asked if we could please not report it. I respond, "No, I can't do that. My wife would kill me." I'm also thinking, "I have broad collision coverage, this is completely covered since it's all your fault buddy." He tries to persuade me, but I don't budge. So, he walks back to look at the damage again, says "this is not good" a few times. Then asks, "Can we pull off the exit up ahead?" I'm suspicious of him at this point, so I grab a pen and write down his license plate number and a vague vague description of the car as best as I can do. He's a little bit ahead of me because of this, but that's fine I think.

The exit was a few feet up, the rain was still coming down heavy, and it really was difficult to talk on the phone in the rain. So, I agree and we pull off the Michigan Road exit on 94W. Remember, by the way, I still am not aware that I'm driving the wrong way. So, for some reason, I think I'm on 275N which is where I was supposed to turn.

As I get to the stop light I don't see him. It's raining heavily, I think "maybe he had a car pull behind him" and so I look for him. I turn right, since I didn't see him in the left side. I don't find him along the road until the stoplight, so I turn around and turn around. I spend about 10-15 minutes looking for him. I also call agent00groovey to ask him to tell the others at work that I'm going to be late.

So, I pull over in a gas station and call my insurance company (USAA, they rock). I wasn't sure who to call first, but my insurance company has a "In case of an accident" phone number. I should have read the text above the number, which told me all the other things I should do, but the lady took my claim and told me I could call the police afterward.

Of course, they ask me where I had the accident and I tell them the wrong place, but I don't know the exit number. So, I go into the gas station to find out what city I am in. "Ypsilanti? Really?" So, at this point, I decide I need to drive back to the freeway to find out for sure.

Sure enough, it really is 94 and so I tell the lady that and a vague idea of what area. When she's done, she tells me that I should just call 911 to report the accident to the police. I do that and find out basically where I am, and the nice lady on the 911 line tells me how to go to the state police, which she tells me is where I need to go next.

I figure I'll drive home to get my wife at this point. First of all because the insurance person told me that I should probably warn her to set her mind at ease, but also because I realized at some point that she had taken the folder out of the car which has all of the registration and insurance information. I had my own copy of the insurance, but I never kept the registration for her car in my wallet.

So, together we go to the police station and the world's nicest policeman runs me through all the questions, deals with my complete inability to identify cars beyond the writing on the back, general shape and color, and the license plate. He shows me the picture of the owner of the license plate, "No, that's not him. The guy I saw was thinner, and had scruffy facial hair, and was in his mid twenties or early thirties. My wife is snickering under her breath because she's thinking I'm horrible with age-guessing too. The next picture he shows me, of another licensed driver in the house, does look like a younger and clean shaven version of the guy I saw. The picture was apparently 3 years old, so that would make the guy 24. (If it was his 18 year old license picture, he would have had to have gotten his 21 year old picture. So, therefore, it had to have been his 21 year old picture, and thus 3 years later he's about 24.)

Anyhow, if that was all, the day would have been fine. I mean, the car is going to get fixed by the insurance. (We have broad collision, it's just paid for.) The wife gets me to work and I point at the damage to the guys I work with, who are leaving for lunch, and so on.

... but once I sit down, agent00groovey points out, "Did you know there's a hole in your pants?" "So THAT'S why I had these in the 'do not wear pile.' Shoot shoot shoot."

Some paper clips as thread in sewing the seam shut in the bathroom fixed it, but a great way to end that whole ordeal.

(Good news was, they got my IBM email working, so I finally got to submit my expense report for my Atlanta trip and also to sign up for health benefits, so it wasn't all bad yesterday.)

Bad camera phone pictures

Wed, 02 May 2007 15:24:37 GMT

These are some bad pictures from my camera phone while I was on my trip in Atlanta. I'm not much of a photographer and my camera phone is pretty bad, but every now and then I would snap a picture for later. These are the only ones which turned out worthwhile. (The ones of the skyline and a few buildings did not turn out well at all.)

Surprisingly, they turned out much better when uploaded to the computer than they do on my crappy little display. So, maybe some of the pictures I deleted would have been salvageable.

Anyhow, click on the photos for a larger view of them.

	Waterfall and Cafe Area This is the courtyard of the cafe of the ISS Building in Atlanta. There's a little waterfall from a stream that geos between the buildings.
	Trees in Courtyard These are some of the trees in the courtyard of the ISS building in atlanta.
	Mama Sani's Cab This is Mama Sani's cab. He was the cab driver who took me everywhere I went in Atlanta. Whenever he dropped me off, he was nice enough to ask me when he could come get me and scheduled it. Very nice guy from Cameroon. If you need a taxi in Atlanta, make sure to call Style Taxi and ask for Mama Sani.
	Altanta Underground While I was waiting for my plane, I took a walk through the Atlanta Underground area. I never actually went into the "underground" though because it was so nice, but I did get yet another picture of manmade fountains/waterfall.
	Dinosaur Skeleton and Atrium in Atlanta Airport This large dinosaur skeleton sits in the atrium of the Atlanta airport. I was stuck in a long, long line for the security check, so I stood in the middle of this atrium and was pretty impressed. This open area is about 3 stories tall.

Updates will come, eventually.

Tue, 01 May 2007 23:49:57 GMT

I'll have to post a bit of what happened to me last week at the ISS / IBM orientation. For now, though, I figured I should put up a picture of me in a suit, since this is a rather unusual thing to see.

My farewell letter

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 21:16:47 GMT

Yes, sorry for dumping that on you all without much introduction. That was my farewell letter for my current company. I'm leaving to go work for ISS/IBM with agent00groovey and specialagentm.

In all honesty, I had written it via google documents and hit the "publish to my blog" button to show a friend, but figured "Hey, this is not anything I should worry about sharing." It is also a bit of an update about what is going on here.

I'm pretty excited.

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 19:56:12 GMT

I would like to let you know that I have decided to leave Medstat. My last day will be April 20th.

I have enjoyed the last eleven years that I've worked here, and I've learned a lot since I started back in my early twenties. I am excited about my new position, but I will miss working with all of the people that I've met over the years.

I will also miss the projects that I've worked on. One of the things that I've done on previous projects was gone through the header comments which have been made in all of the various source code I've worked on, from the fortran programs that I've worked on when I first started, then on Illumina and Modeler, and next on Panorama, and then Decision Analyst and NetEffect, finally in the Rules Engine project. So, it's kind of comforting to know that things that I've worked on will still be used in the years to come (and that people will look through the comments and say "That dec2221 guy was a weird one, wasn't he?").

I also know that I'll be a bit jealous of the new projects that will come out, "Oh, that sounds like it would have been a nifty thing to work on." The projects I'll be working on for the new company sound exciting, though, so I am definitely looking forward to them. It's going to be a stretch for me to live up to what they'll be expecting, as well as the challenge of meeting a whole new group of people, but I think I am up to it. So, wish me luck!

You'll still be able to contact me at my home email address of [my email here] , feel free to drop a line.

Do you have any other questions?

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:23:28 GMT

Yes, and no, I do have other questions for you, but the thing is, the answers to the questions wouldn't affect my decision either way.

Some of the questions I'm burning with curiosity to know, but the reason that you asked me if I had any questions in the first place was to learn more about me. And well, the ones that pop into my head, those reveal too much. Probably nothing harmful, but the goal of this session is to present an image.

So, I'm kind of stumped. What questions do I want to be seen asking? Of course, that creates a log jam of ideas in my head. It's just safer to say "Lots, but nothing specific."

Please, don't take this as an insult or anything, I'm just reasonably confident that I've gotten all the information that I need to make a decision, whatever else I want to know I am sure I can find out in good time.

This is a test

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 00:34:25 GMT

This is a test of the IM posting ability. Not sure why we need yet another way to post stuff, but I need to play with stuff like this.

Yet another meme

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:03:43 GMT

Yes, I haven't posted as I said I will.

Instead I present another meme. Because, memes are like that.

COMBAT CARDS 2.1

to fight hoshisabi
enter your username below

CREATE YOUR CARD

Standard meme junk: Accents

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 23:48:27 GMT

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
North Central
The South
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Lawn did not burn badly

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:46:38 GMT

The lawn was not burned permanently due to the jerkish boys who set it on fire.

Lawn set on fire

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:45:15 GMT

This entry is backdated, but I felt that I should post something about it.

I was setting off fireworks with my daughter and one of her friends and a bunch of rowdy teenage boys (about 8-12) were walking down the street and on the sidewalk. This was right before midnight, I was telling them to start finishing up because we were going to be done before midnight.

One of the boys walks right up to me, which made me nervous. I did a quick check and the girls were inside of the fence and it was just me on the sidewalk with them. One of them walked up to me and asked me for some fireworks, I ignored him. I was trying to think of how to say, "Sorry, no, I don't want to be responsible for anything that happens" or "They're cheap fireworks, you could buy them at the store" but figured it was just easier to not say anything.

So, he gets a little angry and says, "Oh, just go right on staring at us." Well, sorry sir, but you're on my lawn. I'm waiting to see what you are going to do. They make comments about race, but honestly even if they were all a bunch of white boys, it would be intimidating to be surrounded by rowdy kids. The fact that they were black was less alarming than the fact that they recognized that I was not.

So, when they cross the corner I had the kids go back to setting off the fireworks. They laugh about the relatively pathetic firework, but hey, the box was $20 and some were big and some were not.

... at which point they set my lawn waste on fire and yell "Black power." What idiots. I had to be an idiot too, and I took out my cell phone, held it over my head and said "I've got a phone here, I can call the cops" while running towards them. They had already ran away full speed, so it was pointless.

I told the girls to go inside and call 911 and handed them my phone, but J wanted to use the home phone. I told her, "Whatever, just call" since I was nervous. I didn't want a big grass fire to spread and the fire had already gotten to the size of a large bonfire. Then I told my daughter's friend to go inside, get my keys, and then go into the garage and get one of the blankets that was on the shelf in there. We keep a bunch of dirty old blankets there, and that might help with the fire. They aren't able to get into the garage, so I just tell them to clean up the fireworks in the back of the house since we're done for the night.

In the mean time, I looked to see if we had a faucet in the front, then I went out back and unhooked the hose, then I went into the back and tried to get enough water pressure to be of any use. I eventually managed to get the fire out with a pathetic stream of water, which luckily just made everything wet enough that the fire did not spread, and then put it out when I got a bit more pressure. (I had the hose in the back since I was keeping it ready in case the grass caught fire in the back due to the fireworks, little did I know that I would need it in the front.)

Eventually, I heard a firetruck coming around. I got a bit nervous and asked the kid, "What did you tell them?" She said, "I just said some kids set our leaves on fire." Apparently, she didn't tell them anything outrageous, but I was still nervous about it all. What happens when you call the fire department but you manage to put the fire out yourself?

They first stopped down the street at another house that was setting fireworks, since there was no obvious fire on our street. When they came down the street to us, a guy in a car asked if I had reported a fire. I'm telling him, "Oh, I am really sorry, I got the fire out but I just wanted to make sure" and I pointed at the charred husks of three bags of leaves, with two or three other bags still there.

Well, the fire department nodded, smiled, told me "That's why you pay taxes" and "We were already out for all the fireworks" as I'm apologizing. I thank them for coming.

I go back inside, still a little irritated with how racist that makes me sound "A bunch of black teenage boys set my lawn on fire, but I couldn't identify any of them, because I didn't get a look at them." But, honestly, I couldn't identify a gang of white boys either. I can generally tell you hair color, approximate height, skin color, clothing. When it's a group of 8-12 teenagers with all of those characteristics matching, well, not much I can do to tell you "Him, but not him."

Dream that amused the kid

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:30:36 GMT

Ok, so I had this dream and it amused the family greatly, so I will share it. It didn't strike me as particularly out of place, but it did cause the kid to break into hysterical laughter.

I was on my way to work, running a bit tight on time when I realized that I had left the car at home. At this point, I was a bit worried since it takes quite a bit more time to get to work when walking than by driving, but I was close enough that I wouldn't be more than half an hour late or so, since I was just off the exit to work.

As I started to walk up the exit ramp, a guy stopped to give me a ride when I realized that I was still wearing jeans and a t-shirt, which is what I usually toss on when I drop the kid off at school. So, I asked the guy to drop me off at the mall. When we get near the mall, he drops me off outside of some houses. I go to jump on the fence to walk to the mall and the guy says I should get some new shoes, my current ones are pretty ragged and have holes. I tell him that it's ok, my pants have holes in them too, so he starts laughing.

I jump onto the fence, walk across it and come upon a back yard that has two stuffed and talking ravens in it that I ask to borrow a change of pants and shoes from but I must do it in the form of a song, like some children's show. I wake up in the midst of that song.

So, yes. a.) I was driving to work and suddenly no longer was driving a car. b.) there are no houses outside of the mall whose yards that I can walk across. and c.) Nothing in the dream struck me as odd during the dream. Honestly, that dream isn't that out of place with others.

Online Social Networks

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 15:36:27 GMT

View Poll: Online Social Networks

Decent Day

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 00:32:16 GMT

Today was a pretty decent day. Had an all day meeting with a vendor we're considering purchasing some software from, in order to incorporate it with a new product.

The morning started at 8:30, which for me is miserably early. I know there are those of you for whom this is a late start, but for me that's an hour early. I managed to skate in about 2-3 minutes late due to traffic, but no eyebrows were raised. (And only accomplished this by skipping the shower, which I avoided feeling like a stinkdog by luckily having showered the previous day in the evening.)

Did introductions, I said something which I felt was suitably "What I do and who I am" but my boss added a bit about "Dan is a guy we like to have on new projects because he's able to come up to speed real quick, even if he doesn't know the subject or if he doesn't even know the language." That's rather high praise from a boss that I've had a poor review from in the past. (Add to that a previous comment, where he was giving me my review and fighting for the promotion. I tried to thank him, and he kept telling me, "No, thank you. You've done an amazing job." And so on.) Definitely feeling a lot better about the work situation in regards to the boss.

The new project sounds exciting. I never know how much I can or cannot talk about concerning our products, but I imagine I can tell you that it's an application to rate and score providers of medical treatments on how well they follow a set of guidelines from health care agencies. That's something we've always done in the past, the new bit is the rules logic will now be in a third party vendor's software engine, which will allow people with clinical experience to make the rules instead of us geeky programmers.

It does actually sound pretty exciting, and I think I have a good handle on it. Feeling very "on top of things" in that entire meeting. Amusingly, since I was adding details about how it would all fit together, everyone started to refer to the software that Medstat would write by my name. "And then Dan will take the data here." Eventually I had to make a comment about that, but I imagine that's how it will be referred to during this brainstorm/vendor/meeting/thing.

Definitely are going to be some difficult parts of this process, seems like everyone involved recognizes them, and it does seem like we can conquer them. I feel rather confident. Just one of those days where I enjoy my job immensely.

On a side note: Not done one bit of studying for my MCAD or thought about taking it recently. Heh. Drats! Gotta do that soon before my brain leaks all that info out. Amusingly, this new bit of code will be all Java code. We have to write it on UNIX and Windows, so .NET would not be a good fit. (And we've tried using MONO and it was wayyyy too slow to use for our production code.)

Hey, Rennie. If you've actually managed to read this far down, how hard are the Java certification programs? It never hurts to get another piece of paper to PROVE you know the language, but ... My java is shakier than it should be. And I still have not yet discovered the joys of Eclipse. We're still on JBuilder 7.0, but it might be time to move to Eclipse since so few of us are Java programmers, so it's a bit more difficult to get the company to commit to upgrading our IDE whenever Borland decides it would like a little more money.

Review results

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 04:11:56 GMT

Well, the results from my review are in: It was a very good review. My manager recommended me for a promotion, her manager also did, so I need to wait until April to see if it happens. I imagine it would.

I have worked my butt off over the past few months, especially. So, I think this year I may be able to say I went even further than I did for last year, for my review. So, if I can keep this up I should be in good for next year's review too. Of course, I may also explode from the pressure. One or the other.

Training over

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 18:39:28 GMT

Well, I had said that I would post during the training how things had gone. I didn't. Every time I would come back to my desk, I tried to catch up a bit more with my normal work. Add on to that the fact that often I got picked up by K rather soon after the class and well... I am updating now.

It was rapidly apparent as I went on that the notes I was taking were becoming less and less useful. The final count was 1742 lines. They're rather densely packed, and some of the lines are actually several lines each. I started to convert it into an HTML on the developer's Wiki page and that seems to be a decent way to review the notes. In addition, when I'm done it might be useful to someone else. Maybe. And it will definitely be easier to re-review. I might be able to post it somewhere more on line. I'll have to send a note to the instructor to see what he thinks.

One of the developers in our class has already taken all three tests and the word is that he aced them all. That both makes me a bit more nervous and a bit more confident. Nervous because well, the bar is now set high. But, it can hopefully be done with just the materials gone over in the class.

I made the instructor stay a bit extra on the last day and covered the stuff that I didn't know. I managed to pretty much monopolize his time for an hour or so, and made him cover some of the obscure security and PInvoke/interoperability stuff.

In the mean time, I've been looking on line for some study guides and quizzing myself at night. I'm not entirely happy with how well I'm doing. The study guides do cover the really weird interoperability and security stuff, as well as some other things that I'm not 100% clear on.

In the mean time, I came back to 11 different product incidents to examine. I should return to that, now that I finished re-installing the software. (Add to that the fact that my review is in about 20 minutes.)

MCAD Training

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 23:15:50 GMT

Today is the first day of my MCAD training (Microsoft Certified Application Developer). The trainer was Al Alper. The first day did not seem too overwhelming. The class started out slow as the instructor gave his tips on how to take a test and other such topics. Then once we got past that slow part, the class picked up.

I'm not sure if the class will be overwhelming later at this pace, but it runs a very good risk of it. A lot of the cause of this is due to the fact that we're compressing the timeline of the course. (The instructor remarked that we've taken a four week class and compressed it down to two weeks of material by removing the labs, and then we're doing that in one week.)

In the mean time, my hand is hurting a tad. The roommate's cat has been acting like he's starving lately, so he's been scrounging for food where he can get it. He went into my room, where he's not allowed, and was eating my cat's food. I understand that, but when I went to shoo him away he started growling, swatted at me, my cat retaliated, then I had my hand in the middle of a cat fight. The roommate's cat managed to break a claw off in my hand and left a deep deep gash along with a few more minor cuts. ( I finally managed to stop the cat fight by chasing them around the house and then had to resort to kicking the cat, which I did as gently as I could so as to not hurt them but still manage to get their attention. No one seemed to be very injured amongst the cats.)

Despite getting the least injury, my thumb is healing the worst which makes it tough to type. The rest of my fingers were cut nowhere near where I type, so that shouldn't be a problem. That's enough whining about that, however.

I'll update tomorrow, since the class gives me an excuse to talk about something.

Work update

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:30:03 GMT

Well, last week my manager told me that she had recommended me for a promotion to Sr. Programmer/Analyst. She also told me that her manager (whom I have had difficulties with) had agreed with it. So, it does sound like I've managed to really make up for a poor first year review with her manager (who for some time was my direct manager).

Also, I got a really nice note from a coworker who is the lead of the projects that I am working on. I mean, at one time this lady and I had WORDS. I've managed to impress her enough that she's written a nice letter to my manager at the perfect time for it to show up in my review.

To top it off, I keep getting "thank you" emails and "Good work" emails from the people I'm working for.

Now ... I want to know, "What am I doing differently?" I'll tell you, I don't think that there's anything different. Last year, I worked my butt off and got a decent review with a "Need to work on arrival time." This year, I am working my butt off and still not entirely great with arriving at 9:30am. (yes, I know, most of you get to work an hour or more before that).

And it's not that I'm doing a better job or am more on top of things. I have found that I'm still losing track of things left and right. I still feel like I'm constantly teetering on the edge of being prepared.

The only thing that I can put my finger on is that now I am determined to not let anything hold me back. This promotion is mine, I worked for it, and if my manager is an obstacle then we can resolve that obstacle. If my job is the obstacle, then we can work on that.

This March, I will be getting my MCAD. I should say, "I will be taking the classes to prepare for the test." Yet, the truth is... I will pass. And I'll be a Sr. Programmer/Analyst. Only thing I cannot say with any guarantee is that I will be paid enough to make me happy. I'll be paid more, though. More is good. I can survive on what I make now with my wife working, but more money would rock.

Note to those planning on leaving the country.

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 20:57:21 GMT

If you've ever decided to go visit another country, make sure that you do not have too much to hide. The United States government has decided that 4k is enough secrets for us, so if you have more then you might just not be allowed to leave.

We discover this because if you encrypt more than 4096 files on any NT-class operating system in the exported version, you may end up with a http://www.moniware.com/en/events/details.php?details_id=1773. Just a bit of helpful advice.