About damned time, eh?
The Past 20 Months
Well, I didn't quite think that after complaining about how damned hot it was one weekend here in Seattle back in the summer of 2006 that it'd be 20 months before I'd add another entry here. Obviously, I am not a very good blogger ... but then, I don't anticipate that there's a large audience reading this nonsense and pining away for a new entry. (If you were ... I guess I'm flattered; but it does seem patently obvious that you need to get out more :) ) I'll touch on the events since July of 2006 in a systematic way, as is my wont ...
Work
Work's been decent enough. When I last posted I was working at Real Networks, which wasn't a bad thing at all. I enjoyed my time there, liked the people with whom I was working, particularly the boss. I was working in QA; testing portal sites and video streamed out to cell phones via Cingular (they had yet to become the new AT&T). Like any job, it had its frustrations, but the biggest one had nothing at all to do with the work itself, but rather the location of the office. I had posted here before that I could almost hear my chair screaming at me when I was going up the ridiculous hills I had to traverse every day to get from Real Networks to the nearest bus stop. Turned out I was more right about that than I thought - around September of 2006, I finally burned out the motors on that chair. That started a 3 month period where I was unable to leave the house. Care Medical wasn't able to find me an appropriate loaner chair (the first one they gave me bored a hole in my left leg) - at least not until late December - 3 days before I got my new chair, which I'm using now.
This is a better chair with more power, mid- as opposed to rear-drive which makes turning it a LOT easier, and tilt mechanism so I can recline the chair if I want to. (I rarely, if ever, use it) Even with all these new bells and whistles - and a $15,000 price tag (thank goodness for insurance) - it still won't do hills. This one, if I try to go up too steep a hill, trips its circuit breaker. Care Medical moved the breaker switch to a spot where I can reach it - but I'm still not doing steep hills with this bad boy. No way ... not happening. Fortunately, I don't have to anymore.
In April of 2007 I went to work at The Cobalt Group, as a Configuration Management Tools Engineer. It was fun at the start. I was there to administer, and upgrade, their Bugzilla installation, and to write tools to maintain the source control server. It was out of QA, which is something at the time I wanted, but ... it just didn't turn out well at all.
First off, it was a 'contract to hire' job. Sounded good at the start - but it became pretty obvious to me REAL quick that the 'to hire' part of it would never happen. They also didn't tell me (and make no mistake, this is partially my fault for not asking) that their Bugzilla installation was a highly customized MESS with pages upon pages of customized code, which was (and probably still is) highly undocumented. This made the upgrade damned near impossible; it became a great big albatross around my neck. Couple that with the almost daily pressure on me - whether real or merely perceived - and I got sick as a dog. Ended up taking all of September off to try and 'recharge'; went back in October and it was no better. Long story short, when the end of the contract came up I had no interest in staying - so as of 1/1/08, I found myself unemployed again.
(I think it's important to note that I had/have absolutely no problem with anyone with whom I worked at Cobalt - nice people - but the situation just became quite toxic for me.)
So ... after taking the month of January and looking for something palatable, and turning down three offers that were, quite frankly, insulting, I went back to Real, to the same team I'd left less than a year before. Different this time, though - I only go in 40-50% of the time (telecommute the rest of the time), and when I do go in I take an accessible taxi, not the bus. When they bumped my rate up a couple of bucks to cover that, it was a no brainer for me. It's kinda like putting on an old, comfortable pair of shoes. This contract is 9 months at a minimum and will more than likely be extended ... so I'll be with Real again for awhile. Good deal!
Life
Life's pretty good. I still have physical problems - but then, everyone who has to live with this giant MS monkey on their back has health issues. Couple that with the fact that I'm now 38 years old and pushing 40 at an alarmingly fast rate, and I consider myself fairly fortunate that I'm not as bad off as I could be. There are an awful lot of people in the world who have things a lot worse than I do; my brain still works, and so do my hands for the most part, so that's all good. The rest of it - the difficult parts - is just stuff I have to deal with. This is my life and the way it's unfolded. I can't change a thing about it; no matter how smart I am supposed to be, I still don't have a cure for that which ails me.
That unpleasantness aside, I do manage to get out of the house every so often when it's not just to roll down to the grocery store, or to go to work. (Not ALL that often though - I'm pretty much a hermit. I just have so much to entertain myself at home; why leave?) In any case, though, my good friend Jeff & I have embarked on the great Aging Rock Stars tour ... we've seen a lot of live shows over the past few years, to wit:
As for the rest of life ... I'm still doing music, but I'm going to post all that in my music blog (see the link on the right side of this page). Still single, and entirely happy about it - I really have no interest in foisting myself on anyone. I'm a hard man to deal with; very set in my ways and stubborn. I've been shit on more times than I care to remember and am, as such, damaged goods with trust issues a mile wide. So there it is. I can at least trust myself, most of the time.
So that'll be it for today. I'd say that I promise to post more often but reader, we both know that may or may not happen. Just gonna continue to go with the flow ... not much else I can do at this point.
Well, I didn't quite think that after complaining about how damned hot it was one weekend here in Seattle back in the summer of 2006 that it'd be 20 months before I'd add another entry here. Obviously, I am not a very good blogger ... but then, I don't anticipate that there's a large audience reading this nonsense and pining away for a new entry. (If you were ... I guess I'm flattered; but it does seem patently obvious that you need to get out more :) ) I'll touch on the events since July of 2006 in a systematic way, as is my wont ...
Work
Work's been decent enough. When I last posted I was working at Real Networks, which wasn't a bad thing at all. I enjoyed my time there, liked the people with whom I was working, particularly the boss. I was working in QA; testing portal sites and video streamed out to cell phones via Cingular (they had yet to become the new AT&T). Like any job, it had its frustrations, but the biggest one had nothing at all to do with the work itself, but rather the location of the office. I had posted here before that I could almost hear my chair screaming at me when I was going up the ridiculous hills I had to traverse every day to get from Real Networks to the nearest bus stop. Turned out I was more right about that than I thought - around September of 2006, I finally burned out the motors on that chair. That started a 3 month period where I was unable to leave the house. Care Medical wasn't able to find me an appropriate loaner chair (the first one they gave me bored a hole in my left leg) - at least not until late December - 3 days before I got my new chair, which I'm using now.
This is a better chair with more power, mid- as opposed to rear-drive which makes turning it a LOT easier, and tilt mechanism so I can recline the chair if I want to. (I rarely, if ever, use it) Even with all these new bells and whistles - and a $15,000 price tag (thank goodness for insurance) - it still won't do hills. This one, if I try to go up too steep a hill, trips its circuit breaker. Care Medical moved the breaker switch to a spot where I can reach it - but I'm still not doing steep hills with this bad boy. No way ... not happening. Fortunately, I don't have to anymore.
In April of 2007 I went to work at The Cobalt Group, as a Configuration Management Tools Engineer. It was fun at the start. I was there to administer, and upgrade, their Bugzilla installation, and to write tools to maintain the source control server. It was out of QA, which is something at the time I wanted, but ... it just didn't turn out well at all.
First off, it was a 'contract to hire' job. Sounded good at the start - but it became pretty obvious to me REAL quick that the 'to hire' part of it would never happen. They also didn't tell me (and make no mistake, this is partially my fault for not asking) that their Bugzilla installation was a highly customized MESS with pages upon pages of customized code, which was (and probably still is) highly undocumented. This made the upgrade damned near impossible; it became a great big albatross around my neck. Couple that with the almost daily pressure on me - whether real or merely perceived - and I got sick as a dog. Ended up taking all of September off to try and 'recharge'; went back in October and it was no better. Long story short, when the end of the contract came up I had no interest in staying - so as of 1/1/08, I found myself unemployed again.
(I think it's important to note that I had/have absolutely no problem with anyone with whom I worked at Cobalt - nice people - but the situation just became quite toxic for me.)
So ... after taking the month of January and looking for something palatable, and turning down three offers that were, quite frankly, insulting, I went back to Real, to the same team I'd left less than a year before. Different this time, though - I only go in 40-50% of the time (telecommute the rest of the time), and when I do go in I take an accessible taxi, not the bus. When they bumped my rate up a couple of bucks to cover that, it was a no brainer for me. It's kinda like putting on an old, comfortable pair of shoes. This contract is 9 months at a minimum and will more than likely be extended ... so I'll be with Real again for awhile. Good deal!
Life
Life's pretty good. I still have physical problems - but then, everyone who has to live with this giant MS monkey on their back has health issues. Couple that with the fact that I'm now 38 years old and pushing 40 at an alarmingly fast rate, and I consider myself fairly fortunate that I'm not as bad off as I could be. There are an awful lot of people in the world who have things a lot worse than I do; my brain still works, and so do my hands for the most part, so that's all good. The rest of it - the difficult parts - is just stuff I have to deal with. This is my life and the way it's unfolded. I can't change a thing about it; no matter how smart I am supposed to be, I still don't have a cure for that which ails me.
That unpleasantness aside, I do manage to get out of the house every so often when it's not just to roll down to the grocery store, or to go to work. (Not ALL that often though - I'm pretty much a hermit. I just have so much to entertain myself at home; why leave?) In any case, though, my good friend Jeff & I have embarked on the great Aging Rock Stars tour ... we've seen a lot of live shows over the past few years, to wit:
- Queen + Paul Rodgers
- Paul McCartney
- Elton John
- Rush (THE best show I have EVER seen!)
- Weird Al Yankovic (not really aging per se ... a wonderful show!)
- Tenacious D (not aging at all ... hilarious)
- Van Halen
- Ozzy Osbourne w/Rob Zombie
As for the rest of life ... I'm still doing music, but I'm going to post all that in my music blog (see the link on the right side of this page). Still single, and entirely happy about it - I really have no interest in foisting myself on anyone. I'm a hard man to deal with; very set in my ways and stubborn. I've been shit on more times than I care to remember and am, as such, damaged goods with trust issues a mile wide. So there it is. I can at least trust myself, most of the time.
So that'll be it for today. I'd say that I promise to post more often but reader, we both know that may or may not happen. Just gonna continue to go with the flow ... not much else I can do at this point.
posted by Scott Wedel at 11:17 AM
2 Comments:
That's surprising that Rush put on such a good show since they're so... I dunno... weak? in their recorded work. Hmm, was Jimmy Page playing for them? That could explain it.
(Figured your blood pressure needed some spontaneous adjustment... heh heh...)
Nah, no blood pressure issues here. I just consider the source; after having known you for going on 20 years I do understand that you are entirely clueless about some things. This is one. ;-)
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