What a BuzzKill

Today I went to an 82 year old client’s retirement community to help him with some issues he’s been having on his computer. He was very happy to learn that he no longer needed to use AOL’s ridiculously slow software to check his email and stock portfolio (he’s loaded, btw).

On my way out, I glanced at their daily events board and had to grin …

So I guess it is true that the Nintendo Wii is enjoyed by people of all ages. That’s cool.

This entry wants to play shuffleboard on its Wii!

I just installed AOL on a client’s computer. Deliberately.

Dear God, what have I done?

This entry just threw up in its mouth … just a little.

I’ve kept this quiet for a variety of reasons, but I ended up getting laid off at the new job I found. 2 weeks after I started, they lost a major contract and the loss of it caused the owner to let 3 people go 2 weeks following the incident. Being the lowest on the totem pole, I was obviously one of them.

Luckily my friend Christine is an amazing job placement professional, so she went right to work in finding me opportunities to apply for. Less than 2 days after I was unemployed, I had a phone interview, and a day later I had an in-person interview with the same company. They put me through a test, which turned out to be ridiculously simple. I got an offer the following Tuesday, countered on Wednesday and got the job. So I was out of work for 9 days … not too shabby!

Today is my second day with this new company and I’m already contributing. We went to 3 client locations yesterday (Monday) and I ended up finding the solution to every problem we encountered. It felt good.

So now the cat is out of the bag, as they say. Moving right along …

Client quote of the week: “Norton didn’t seem to like it, so he dropped the Google!”

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A friend of mine recently purchased herself a new camera. She’s really enjoying it and decided that her old camera needed a good home, so she emailed me and offered to let me have it. I couldn’t pass it up.It isn’t a major upgrade, since it’s the same resolution (3.2 MP), but it has a much better lens and a 10x optical zoom, plus a macro mode. I’ve only snapped a few pictures so far and they’ve turned out pretty good. We’ll see how much I can get out of it as time goes by.

This entry just keeps plodding along.

Friday was my last day at Orange County United Way. In lieu of a mushy goodbye email, I decided to send out something a little more my style. Here’s what I sent to staff:

Well as it turns out, the Simian Protection Society caught on to our recent monkey problems and have decided to press charges against us for the attempted starvation of an Internet monkey. Seeing how it was my idea in the first place, I took full responsibility. They decided that this was fair and I will now serve as their scapegoat to further their anti-broccoli (with cheese sauce) propaganda. Of course this means that I can no longer remain here with you without putting you all in risk of great peril. I do this for the benefit of all those at OCUW and their respective family and pets. Cry not for me and continue carrying the flag of honor high in my stead! For you all are the chosen ones. The elite masters of the nonprofit world. Higher you shall climb until you all reach a level of greatness usually reserved for biblical figures and polka music. Remember the wise words of the great amnesiac as he said, “I did what?” and toss back a couple pints of your finest ale!

This is not a “goodbye” … it is merely a “what were you drinking?” combined with a little “go get ‘em and break-dance”.

I have to say, that’s pretty odd, even for me.

This entry is too strange for words.

Well it’s official: I’m changing jobs.

After working at the same place for 9 years (and always making below the low-end for my position) I finally decided to start looking for another job. My friend Christine has some mad skillz in this arena and helped me out more than I can say. After a few months of no-pressure searching, I found myself on a couple of interviews with some companies. One of them went very well.

In two weeks I’ll be starting with a computer consulting company that provides IT solutions. It’s a nice bump in position/title, with a decent increase in pay to make it worth all the hard work I’m expecting to be doing. My official title will be Network Engineer and it’s looking to be a position that will challenge me and help me grow in experience. The folks at the new place all seem to be good people and I got along with them from the start. I’m glad they could see my potential and found me to be a good fit for what they were looking for. I’m really looking forward to this!

I must admit that I’ve got mixed feelings: I’ll miss the people I’ve worked with for so long. It’ll feel strange going to a different place in the morning than I have been for the past 9+ years. It’s also very exciting and full of interesting challenges!

The whole process has been a series of new experiences for me. Most of all, I feel a lot more confident about my future — and most of all, about myself. We’ll see how it goes!

This entry is moving on to bigger things.

4 weeks and counting, and I haven’t gone a day at work without some mention or discussion or troubleshooting something to do with one of those infernal hand-held devices. Sure they’re about as handy as a rubber glove in a sex shop, but by golly I’d love it if I could just not have to deal with them for ONE STINKING DAY. I swear, it’s been enough to put me into another “Eggs with flippers” mood.

Segue into the sickness … I flew up to Sacramento on Monday to attend a course on Blackberry Enterprise Server Administration on Tuesday. I could tell that I was getting sick, but since the class, flight, and hotel had already been paid for, I started taking Airborne and hoped for the best. Well the best isn’t what happened and I found myself spending Monday waking up every 2 hours in a fevered sweat. It was fortunate that I had hopped into bed about 9 pm, otherwise I would have been a complete zombie for the training class.

After enjoying a lovely buffet breakfast Tuesday morning, I caught a taxi to the facility hosting the training. The course was definitely worth the time, and I learned quite a bit that I should have known BEFORE I was told to install the blasted platform and rolled it out to the CEO. It did become rather difficult to concentrate later in the afternoon as I could feel myself begin to come down with another fever.

The class eventually ended, I got my certificate of completion and I was off to catch a taxi to the airport. This turned out to be unnecessary, since one of the guys attending the class had a rental and was also headed there. Dexter turned out to be a real cool guy and we spent the time waiting for our respective flights talking shop over crappy Chinese food at the airport food court. The flight home was uneventful (as one would hope), but I was unable to sleep on the plane, as usual.

Christine, who had been gracious enough to watch Rece while I was away, came to pick me up at the airport. She was nice enough to tolerate my whining and got me back to my car, which I had left at work before my trip. That night’s sleep was good, thanks to a double shot of Nyquil.

I ended up calling in sick for the next couple of days (Wednesday & Thursday). To be honest, I almost wish I had done so today as well. On my way back from lunch I ran into the CEO in the parking structure and she brought up the Blackberry again. Damn it.

This entry used to like blackberries.

We received an email at the office from the CFO with a subject line of “Atari”. I about fell out of my chair upon reading it and felt it deserved to be shared…

“Atari is Japanese for “prepared to be attacked”I would like to forewarn you that while you may not hear it, there is something whispering “Atari“ from inside the refrigerator: I know, because I nearly lost my right arm just a moment ago.

Can we please work together to ensure that the items in the community refrigerator remain fresh and limited in their stay here. Right now, I am expecting DreamWorks’ next horror film to be about what is growing in the white box in the copier room.

Thank you”

This entry was pleasantly surprised.

Today I spent my lunch in the office break room. Usually it’s pretty quiet and I just read the paper. Today was a little more entertaining…

I was cleaning the inside of the microwave, as my food had splattered around the inside, when one of the ladies stopped in and gawked at me in amazement. She commented on how she’d like to get a pictures of a man cleaning out a microwave. She gave me a high-five on the way out.

As I sat eating my delicious re-heated lasagna leftovers (thanks Christine!) I picked up a conversation around the corner by the refrigerators. Three gals were standing around and staring into one of them, commenting in rather obvious awe of how clean they were. Then they opened the freezer to a chorus of “Ooooo….” and “Aaaah…”. One came around the corner and noticed my grin and giggled, realizing how strange the conversation must have sounded like from where I was sitting.

Something tells me that some of the folks in the office could use a little time off.

This entry cleans up after his messes!

My inbox is where I keep all pending work requests, unanswered emails, etc. For the first time in probably 6 months, I’ve managed to get it down to this…

This is a sight for sore eyes!This entry likes to celebrate the simple things in life.

As promised, I’ve posted some Halloween Pictures on my Flickr account. I’ll post at least one more as soon as Christine sends me the one we took before I went trick or treating with Rece, Sam, & Anna.

This entry still craves sporkfuls of blood!