I Should Have Been a Firefighter

Quick Note

On the whole, MoodleMoot 2008 was pretty good and I’m glad I went. There were good panels, many of which, like any self respecting panel in any event where you have a bunch of nerds gathered, went over their time limit.
I focused on the panels that seemed most appropriate to my situation. There were a [...]

Time Sinks

Current Mood: Busy…Being evidence that my blog can indeed consist of more than just Twitter updates.
It’s November, which is always a month full of time sinks for me.  I mean, everyone’s busy during November what with the holidays and Thanksgiving (well, everyone in America who celebrates Thanksgiving at least).   But for about 100,000 people around [...]

360 Degrees

It’s that time of year in our office again: where we are all supposed to do our “360-degree feedback evaluations” of each person in our office.  And the buzzword for this year is “opportunity area”.  If you have an ongoing problem with tardiness, it’s not a weakness; it’s an “opportunity area”.  If you have a [...]

This will matter to no one

In which our hero makes an annoying discovery…

Braiding the Monkey

On Monday, a bunch of us piled into our office manager’s van for the fifteen mile drive from our office to the main division office where the Halloween party was. Climbing into the passenger seat behind the office manager’s, I noticed that she has a stuffed monkey attached to the headrest on her seat. [...]

Move Along Now…

I’m beginning to wonder if, instead of promising one entry per week, I should just promise one entry a month, since that’s the rate I usually post at these days. It’s not only that I don’t have nearly as much time to update this journal as I’d like (between work and school, I’m pretty darn [...]

Walkin’ The Line (or something)

This actually happened last Friday. Our department decided that we wanted to have a group costume theme, but we couldn’t decide on anything. For two weeks we pondered, and finally settled on “Arnold’s Transition Team” because we couldn’t think of anything better. The plan was to have someone dressed up like Arnie, then have the [...]

Perl and Me

Prologue: Yesterday, in my Live Journal, giddy with excitement over having finished a major project, I wrote, “Perl is my bitch.” I should have known better.

Me: Okay, Perl, let’s get busy. Yesterday we figured out how to move files from one server to another one file at a time. Today let’s work out how [...]

Dirt in the Conversation Pit

I remember through many of my jobs with UC Davis, with Little Engine and with Benthic Creatures, fantasizing about having some sort of management position. Not that I really ever wanted one. I’ve always known that it would be way too much responsibility, and a level of technical and people skills that I don’t really [...]

Whoops

I’m a grownup now. It’s something I wanted to be when I was a kid, hating the fact that I had to go to bed at a prescribed time, that I had to eat certain foods for dinner and for breakfast and so on. I waited for it for years (even, at one point, cleverly [...]

Lies and Deceit

I wanted to write about these issues months ago, but I always felt it was unfair to do so while I was still working for the company in question, and when I quit the issues were still too raw. Now, time has passed, and some of the outrage has cooled.

It’s no secret at all [...]

Reboot!

I left Benthic Creatures with very few regrets (well, I’ll miss my co-workers; no one can quote The Simpsons in casual conversation like N. can), then took a couple of days off and then I rejoined that growing group of former IT workers who have gone to temporary employment as a way to earn some [...]

I’ll Always Have Perris

This week, after a quick trip back home to do my laundry and visit with my wife, I went back to Riverside. There was some brief confusion over where I was supposed to work for the first couple of days this week: was it going to be in downtown Riverside again? Or would it be [...]

Windmills on the Sonny Bono Memorial Freeway

Last night I got the call.

“Richard, I need you to go to Indio tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said, trying my best to convey a positive attitude.

“It’s about 75 miles from the hotel, and about 100 miles from the airport.”

“Okay,” I repeated, still trying to be positive. And I think I was succeeding.
[...]

How sick am I?

I am so sick I couldn’t even finish a cup of coffee yesterday! No, it’s true!

For the next three weeks (well, 2.5 at this point — yes, I am counting the minutes, why?) I am here in Riverside County. I got in late Monday night, felt just fine, rented my car and drove [...]