The Big Update

So, I guess you’ve noticed that I haven’t updated in a while. I had last week off, and just didn’t feel like touching the computer for anything more than checking my mail for emergencies. Here’s an update of what’s been going on:

  • Monday and Tuesday: Sick. I’m still trying to kick my fantastic sinus infection.
  • Wednesday, 11/23: Jen, Mom, Steve and I took Max to see Monsters, Inc.. It was his first movie theater experience and Jen wanted to do it right. We got him a hot dog, popcorn and he shared our sodas. I was nervous about the whole thing, bringing a wild two-year-old into a dark theater just sounded like trouble to me. Boy, was I wrong! Max ate it up! He got so into the movie that he barely touched his food unless we put it in his hands. He was GREAT! He sat in his little booster seat wearing the sunglasses he stole from Steve, and just taking it all in. He got a little squirmy towards the end, but he just moved to Mom’s lap, then Jen’s, then back to the booster seat, and that was the end of the squirming. He was so adorable, I wish I had pictures.After the movie, I went over to Mom’s to do some baking. We made shoo-fly pie that didn’t turn out so hot (you know, there’s a direction component to recipes, and NOT just the ingredients? Good goin’, Kev). Then, we made an Annie/Kevin original. It was basically an Apple Brown Betty, but we made super-Crumblies for the top (the real win of the whole experience) and added cranberries (too many… tart city!! It was much better the second day after the apples had a chance to fight the tartness).
  • Thanksgiving: You know how I was going to help cook and all that jazz? Didn’t happen. I was still a little under-the-weather. I did manage to make the world’s best batch of mashed potatoes though.
  • The Weekend: We got TiVo!! (we actually got it Wednesday, but spent the weekend playing with it). It’s not as cool as I thought it would be, but it’s very very nice. I can now record Letterman and Conan every night, the Daily Show, Cowboy Bebop – you know, the shows you’d stay up and watch if you were still in school and could sleep in?. Lots of fun.

There you have it… my fantastic week away from work. Now, it’s back to the grindstone…

Less Than Lucid Musings

I’m fighting a wicked sinus infection. Jen and Max are at church, and I’m sitting here with the laptop, wrapped up in my blanket, watching Meet the Press and reading my favorite blogs.

I’ve been thinking recently about why personal journals and blogs fascinate me. For me, it’s the chance to get a glimpse into lives of people I’d never meet otherwise. Whether it’s a freelance translator in France, a college librarian in Texas, a single web designer in Minneapolis or any of the other dozen and a half blogs I check out on a mostly daily basis, I enjoy seeing the pieces of their lives they share through their sites. Most of them are much better writers than I am, and have no problem sharing their feelings on the topics they discuss.

These people are strangers. They’re strangers who in a lot of cases I consider friends, even though we’ve never met or done more than exchange a couple e-mails. It’s another strange witness to the power and mystery of interpersonal interaction on the internet.

I’m going to go make some hot chocolate and lay down. I can’t stop coughing, and I think my face is going to pop.

Freedom!!

Nine days. I have nine days off in a row. I don’t believe it. It’s too good to be true. I have a terrible feeling that I won’t get to take all nine off because something will break at work, someone will need me to rescue them from either their own incompetance or implement somethin that will make somebody a whole lot of money.

Every time I’ve tried to take a vacation this year, I’ve had to move something around. I have to go back to work, do something and mess up our plans. Please, not this week.

I like what I do. I’m good at it. Whenever I look at where I am, I think back to my interview for this job over two years ago. The guy interviewing me asked what I wanted to be doing in six months. I said I wanted to be the go-to guy. I want to be the guy people come to when something needs doing. I’m that guy. Then he asked what I wanted to be doing in 5 years. I said I wanted to be running a big site like Amazon (yeah, shoot for the moon). Well, it’s almost three years later and I’m the only production guy on one of the most-used search engines on the web. There’s a whole team for the backend. A whole team that keeps it up and running. I am the only guy who works on the frontend and middleware pieces. And now, I’ve got a dozen other search projects that I’m the only frontend guy on. I guess I’m running a collection of sites that gets (I think) more hits than Amazon on any given day. How crazy is that? How messed up is the world that I’m the only guy for these projects?

You know, this stuff is bad for my ego. It’s made me arrogant. I’m trying not to be, I swear I am. I know I’m in the position I’m in because my group has made some really bad decisions over the years, letting the wrong people get away, while replacing them with people with little-to-no talent or imagination. That means that they make up for the lack of talent in most by overworking those that have some. That’s also the way they lose good people. It’s a vicious cycle, and now the economics of everything mean we’re not hiring. So, it will be this way for the foreseeable future. What a downer…

I give up. David Byrne

I give up. David Byrne will always be cooler than me.

Vacation, Vacation, Vacation!

I’m off all next week and then two days the week after. It’s one of the perks (I guess) of being overworked: lots of unused vacation time. I had 160 hours of time I had to use before the end of the year, so I’m doing my best to use it. Updates will be lighter (maybe) next week, as I gear up for TurkeyDay!

I’m going to try to be involved in most of the cooking this year, just to get comfortable working with a turkey. I helped last year, but I wasn’t real comfortable. This year is the year to get into it and really make it work. Yeah! Turkey!!

Can you tell Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday? It’s better than Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Arbor Day – all of ’em. I’m not even sure why. I just love it.

Funny angry ladies make me

Funny angry ladies make me giggle: dooce.com. Anyone who titles a blog entry “Drunk Underpants Remodeling Again” deserves all the traffic they can handle.

I love Salon’s comics. Today’s

I love Salon’s comics. Today’s is excellent.

And on a completely unrelated topic, there’s nothing greater than coming downstairs to see your wife and toddler son boogying down to the Propellerheads (in the new iPod commercial – me likey).

I only got a 36

I only got a 36 on the Blogaholic quiz. Maybe that’s why no one comes here (well, other than the gigantic black hole where the content should be).

It’s pictures like this that

It’s pictures like this that make me want a dog.

Rapidly Developing

A few bits of news from the home front:

  1. My brother and dad got back from Battlebots a couple days ago and regaled us with lots of cool stories about geeks and their remote-controlled mayhem machines. I think I’ll enter a lightweight next time or the time after it. I’m still working on names (which really is the most important part of the whole process). My brother’s bot has a great name: Hazardous Waste of Time. You’d be able to see it on TV, but his battery cable snapped in his first fight, so he’ll only ever show up in crowd shots. Next time!!
  2. My super-cool project at work is going really well. I’m almost done with what I can do at the moment, and so far it all works beautifully. I love feeling smart!
  3. I still hate Virginia state government. I’ll go into the whole sad, sordid tale when I get it resolved.
  4. I brokered a deal so I can carry over all my leftover vacation time. This means I’ll have beaucoup vacation time to use up next year. I’m thinking a month in Hawaii.
  5. My right wrist hurts from writing miles of Tcl and documentation. I need a nap.
  6. Can you tell that I like HTML lists?