Psychotomy

ok. so yeah.

i’m bored. you’ve never heard me say that have you? eh? ok, excepting like every few minutes the last couple dozen years, i mean

i went to googleblogs and was just hitting the “random blog” link. and they all look so much better than this junker. kiir suggested i could redesign my blog. i pointed out that i could always just DESIGN my blog to begin with :o

other thing i noticed was i don’t really say anything. mostly just bitch about this and that and beat around the bush without saying anything. i don’t have any real topic or focus or anything. everything else i flipped through had some focus at least. “my vacation” “i’m a track runner” “i like cookies” yadda.

I wonder if i need a gimmik. everyone else had one :o

…

of course, they were all boring as fuck, and i couldn’t bring myself to read past, say, the first post title …

but that’s probably just my short att……

Posted in: general by attriel /
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last wednesday, k accidentally bit someone at camp (they were leaving, and failed the part where k has to be the first dog removed b/c he goes batshit bonkers otherwise).

so this wednesday the county came by and checked him, and put him on his 10-day quarantine. starting from last wednesday (at least it wasnt 10 days strting from when they managed to come out)

today, they came and checked, and said “yep, he’s cute and friendly and cute and doesn’t have rabies”, click quarantine over :o

so, i figure biting a person gives dogs 10-day rabies. It’s like a 24-hour flu, but longer. and rabies :o

Posted in: k-line by attriel /
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well, had my first new interview yesterday. c/c++ linux threading. sounded interesting. smal company (like, 18 people, and half a dozen of them are contract employees), theyd been in business 28 years or so …

“we’re funded by a trust, so there’s never an issue of running out of money or going under suddenly” “we’re like a startup, year to year”

don’t thnk i’d look on it like a permanent career option, but it was something i could see doing for a couple years. which i suppose they might have sensed, but i don’t think it showed. and they showed serious interest in some of my skills that aren’t necessarily directly related to what they wanted (my security training), which sounded like a bonus. oh, and they’re looking to hire two people, and i only saw 3 maybe 4 resumes on his desk.

when they asked salary, i told them. he pretty much choked on that and i kinda watched the op dry up and blow away ;o depends on how much they want my skills, and how much the other apps ask for, might come back to me thinking it wasn’t such an outrageous salary range.

—

On the current job, my manager (went to school with my dad in india, and was kinda the contact to get me in the door for my position) is apparently starting to siphon off his load, presumably in prep for retiring in a few years. and my job# is one of the ones being moved over. to someone i really don’t know.

so, while i was feeling kindof bad about bailing before … i don’t have the issue of bailing on an old family friend who got me in to begin with, at least, now.

now i just need an offer from someone at the prices i want ;)

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so went last wed to sell the car. b/c when i went in may i realized i didn’t have a copy of the title anywhere. so i got the title and went back to do it.

get through the initial process (offer is 500$ lower now :/) and go to proceed … and apparently my title still shows the lien from the carloan i paid off two years ago??? *sigh*

but the same day we got an offer for an equity loan. ignoring that, we went to the credit union and talked to them, filled out an app an’ stuff. now, for some reason, all the times i was looking at how to reduce our costs pay off bills etc (which led me to the idea of selling the car, to begin with) … i thought of refinancing the mortgage, but kept thinking that (a) the house hasn’t gone up THAT much to make it worthwhile, (b) the rates HAVE gone up to make it annoying (although switching to 30 from 20 would reduce payments, it would raise the rate by nearly a % i think, plus whatever increases from last year) …

it NEVER OCCURRED to me that mortgage is best up to 80%, but an equity loan is still clean to 90%. 10% is a lot :o so we applied for that, gonna pay off bills (reduce our monthly by half or more) … then we’re going to do what was suggested at t-day. freeze the cards. that way they’re there, if you NEED them, but they’re not there to randomly whip out everytime you wanna buy something new.

who knows. maybe consolidating will actually help this time.

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been reading brikwars rules all weekend.

and now i wanna pull out the legos!!!!

http://www.brikwars.com/rules/2005/contents.htm

Basically, it’s legos meets risk. Wargaming meets 7yr olds.

Minifigs (legomen) killing each other over a brik landscape :o

damn i wanna play now, it just seems so … fun!

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first, of puppies:

wednesday i was home (conference over, not working (a week of 13hr days, screw it !!!)) and got up ~8am. by 8:30am k had barked and whined enough to annoy me. so i dropped him at camp for the day. i wasn’t in the mood for puppy walks every couple hours (to wit, he’s been on 4 today in ~10 hours)

wednesday i go to pick him up, and i get called into the managers office. like being called to the principles office, but i’m the parent not the child :o “we had a little incident today, k-line bit someone” wtf? k ??? k never bites anyone! i mean, if he were defending himself ok, but just walked up and bit someone’s calf? no effing way! but they weren’t reporting it (“oh, so he didn’t break skin?” “he did” uh, then you policy dictates the hospital/dr’s, THEIR policy dictates reporting to the county … ?) Of course, I still havent’ gotten a call from the county, so i’m confused. but i’m counting thu-sun as 4 days for if they call on monday about the 10-day quarantine. anyway, further details come out slowly. apparently someone wasn’t following the procedures/rules. probably someone new, didn’t think it was important. See, K has this issue. he completely spazzes when somoene leaves the room. and if you take a dog with you? look out, he’s pissed now, you’re trying to run off and play with someone else!!!!

it seems like what happened was he was doing his barking nippingthing, and accidentally caught someone. small skin puncture. oh, did i mention the silver-dollar sized scab on my ankle or the 3″ scar on my wrist from leashes? and you’re flipped out b/c he accidentally nipped someone??? cmon!!!

of jobs: found a posting (well kiir did) on craigs that’s in columbia and C/C++ IPC/multiprocessing linux app (well, sounds like a device driver to me frankly; embedded raid controllers) so i’ve spent the last two days working out a cover letter and updating my resume a bit. not that the updates are really necessarily relevant to this company (my security training) but figure it can’t hurt to add them.

except i can’t get neooffice (os-x openoffice native) to play nice. actually i may have had this problem when i did the resume the first time. all i know, it royally sucks how much effort this is. i spend less time and attention writing whole chunks of VE/EO than i’m spending on this freakin’ resume. !

I also did a salary check on monster (monster.salary.com) and for a SWE V (which is approx what i am/would be) i’d be making 90k. that’s the bottom 25%, btw. 105 is median. this is in dc area. where i live, yeah. i’m grossly underpaid :o which is one reason i’m starting to look. i may not move, but having a competing offer, my company might (MIGHT) be willing to cough up some more :o

Posted in: k-line, work by attriel /
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oi

been at a security conference since last wednesday. 13 hour days (door to door), then having to work when i get home (somehtings been brok EVERY night!!!)

conference is nice. except the course i’m in? securing internet presence LAMP? yeah, apparently i already knew 90% of it, maybe more. so it’s a very expensive day without much learning, for me. getting some tips each day, but nothing earth shattering.

apparently i won an ipod yesterday. except i didn’t. so someone else got it :o (yesterday was php programming, and the instructor said that if we knew php we’d be bloody well bored :o so i didn’t go, so i didn’t know i won an ipod until i went today and like 4 people in my session (wtf? i wouldn’t've said i’d worn my nametag enough for anyone to freakin’ identify me!!!) told me that if i’d been there yesterday i won an ipod :o oh well)

tomorrow’s the last day, which i’m not sure i need either, but figure i’ll go anyway since the company paid for it an’ all.

‘course then i’m working from home/blowing off the rest of the week. b/c doing this is exhausting. and b/c i’ve been racking up bonus hours all over the place, so i feel vindicated :)

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spent yesterday at my parents. 60′ tree fell, clipped the house but luckily after it had lost a lot of momentum to the ground i guess. took them all day yesterday to get someone to come out and take it off the roof so the roofing people could come find out if there was a hole (there was)

so i sat around and chatted with them, we went to lunch at one point. only intended to stay for an hour or so, ended up staying flor closer to 8

been playing guildwars, but i seem to be running into content that gets harder to solo, which is a real PITA. having trouble focusing on anything lately too, which isn’t helping. managing to keep the “i’m bored” bits down, but tired all the time and well bored, tbh.

out of milk again :/ my conference starts downtown tomorrow. and it looks like it’s supposed to start storming any minute now, and last for days. that’ll make walking more fun obviously

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talking to folks at the game day we had yesterday, i was reminded that i’m starting to near that line in my job. i had all that teaching experience and couldn’t get a job b/c i had the ivory-tower taint.

now, it’s been a little over 4 years at this job. government. after 5 there’s a government taint that’s hard to overcome, and i end up moving gov job to gov job as a contractor until (unless?) i get the break and snag a civi position. or i get the axe when my company loses a contract and has to toss people overboard.

so, if i’m gonna look for another job, i need to start now. but i LIKE my job (i just can’t stand the people i usually work with; but AFAIK that’s called “work”), good benefits and i’m working from home mon/fri now part days, so plenty of relaxation. but i’m at the top of my payscale, next step up is management, i think, and i have no one to manage nor any interest in managing. so i may kindof be stuck. and last years review discussion edged on the concept of raises, and my manager basically suggested that i go out, start doing extra work for other people/groups to get my foot in the door, so maybe they’ll ask for me. except, in the meantime, i’m supposed to do this extra work free. basically off the clock. and with my schedule, wtf do i do that?

may need to talk to him this summer about it so that i can start looking in september if i know i’m gonna bail. rather than waiting until i get my raise letter in mid january or something to find out “hey, anotehr 3%! that doesn’t even cover gas increases last year!” and start looking THEN.

i’m also starting to check craigs and guru for contractual gigs that i can like hammer out something and get paid in small chunks. everyone keeps telling me there’s all these great contracts “do this script for me” on craigs, bu all i ever find is “hey, i need someone to rebuild my whole site, looking to pay 15-20$ for the site” which if it’s /hr or /pg or something is one thing, but 20$ for a whole site? no

found a posting on craigs that looks interesting, php dev in columbia. payrate is DOE. I hate that nothing ever shows a payrate/range b/c if they’re offering 50k i’m not going, but if it’s 90, sure. but as i recall, pay never enters into it until late in the interview process, so i have to waste a lot of everyone’s time before i find out that they’re max is less than i’m making now, ok, later!

i hate looking for a job. i hate being broke. and i don’t think i much like getting pigeonholed and stuck in a specific track. but if i can get some good contract stuff that i can do on the side, that’d be great.

this has been another daily babbling

Posted in: work by attriel /
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well, ok, so it’s not really monsoon scale

but it’s b een raining since like thursday, pretty heavily, lotsa thunder & lightning. quite impressive really. apparently last night the dc area got more rain in like 3 hours than in may. all of may. combined :o

K’s been at the camp and overnight since friday. put him in initially b/c i had to go to the fofice to turn off the servers friday, which was annoying, and it was going to rain so figured he could run around all day. then i was going to have to come in on the weekend to turn the servers back on b/c OMG! NO! WE CANT BE OUT FOR A WHOLE WEEKEND!!!! (they’re probably annoyed that i turned off the servers 12 hours before the power was set to go out; but i wasn’t coming in at 5am to turn the damned things off)

in the end, another of the admins was going in saturday b/c he was going to be in the area and had foolishly volunteered to go in. said he’d flip mine back on for me too, yay. left K in though :) finished up the spare room (quarter-round along the edges; still ened to do the putty/patching bits but they’re not strictly necessary) yesterday, played a bunch of guildwars over the weekend.

the new dsl, while vastly cheaper, is a bit flaky. every time it thunders, it blinks. just long enough for guildwars to drop me like a bad habit. been doing it some from the rain this weekend, but that’s probably scale rather than anything else.

two weeks and i’m at my conference. in the beautiful scenic city of downtown … DC. oh, so i’m gonna be taking metro down and coming home every night :o

come to think of it, k’s been at camp for the weekend 3 times in the last month. and is going again in two weeks when i’m at my conference, since i won’t be ableto/interestedin taking him for his long walks to keep him entertained and run down. that gets expensive though. I’ve been talking about doing it once a month for a while, just so i have time for things around puppies.

but i feel guilty when i keep putting him in, b/c it feels like i’m trying to get rid of him. i love my puppy, but it’s nice to not have to work around him occasionally.

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