On a normal day at the office, there are 3 to 5 people in our department here. We all have plenty of job security.
Today, it’s just me. On Friday, it’s most often three people. However, the department head will be at a meeting out of the area all day, and the other guy took a vacation day. Furthermore, this morning I had a conference call with programmers from India. So, yeah, this was one of the worst possible days to schedule that.
It took 2 hours for me to solve the programming problem that should have taken 30 minutes, and I managed to look like a complete moron on the phone with a passenger because I couldn’t get information on when a flight left. Plus, we normally send a report in the morning which was obviously delayed, receiving an e-mail about when that was going to be finished. And I think it had some slightly inaccurate information (they will be bugging me pretty soon, methinks.)
Looking at this flight manifest (list of passengers), at the bottom it states that an asterisk by the passenger name “indicates babe in arms”. While there were no passengers denoted with an asterisk this time around, the whole concept should make all of us a little uneasy…
October 26th, 2007
3 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese, Patently Ineffective
This morning I woke up realizing that tonight would be my last night as a Miami resident. Friday night, trails will be blazed, anticipation will be increased, and rarely-eaten beef jerky may be bought at various convenience stores.
The worst thing is that there are 2 programs and 1 webpage I wanted to get finished before leaving, but is highly unlikely to happen (Hofstadter’s Law, anyone?) The webpage will be decently polished by tonight’s end, but not where I would like it to be, the one program for work is technically usable, but will be used by the public and is not properly polished, and the other program I’ve essentially been buying time for.
It’s not really such a final good-bye–I have to spend a few days per month in Miami anyway–but obviously life will be quite different.
For those of you who don’t click links:
Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s law.
A (somewhat joking) rule of thumb introduced by Hofstadter for calculating an approximate time is to double the number and step up to the next higher units. For example, a job estimated at 1 hour can be accomplished in 2 days, while a 3-month project will take you 6 years.
October 25th, 2007
2 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
Around 3:30, I was absolutely gassed at work today. Some for reason, I tried coffee as a stimulant, which never fails to fail to give any significant energy boost.
October 24th, 2007
no comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
Today reminded me why I will never ride a motorcycle. On the way back from lunch, a motorcyclist wiped out tumbling over the roadway. Due to the smoke and debris, it wasn’t clear exactly how he fell, but he was able to get up under his own power.
Fortunately, this wasn’t a situation where everyone just passed by ignoring the situation, even though the guy had a buddy with him. The old guy closest to them stuck around, a lady called up FHP, and I offered the use of towel and rubbing alcohol to address the wounds (which he declined).
Getting a close look at him, he primarily had some cuts and a large abrasion on his left shoulder, but seemed to be mostly in good shape.
To top it off, on the side road to get to work, a power line lost slack, sagging into the middle of the right-of-way. The turn to get into the work parking lot is before the power line, so it had no direct effect on me.
October 12th, 2007
6 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Burning Agony, Grilled Cheese
Oh, man. Tuesday morning I had a seizure for the first time in a long time, which took me out of work for about two days.
I wish my skill in manipulating English were sufficient to describe what happens to someone who hasn’t experienced it. (Not looking for a pity party; I’m doing fine, just think it might be interesting to try to describe.)
Many people who have seizures experience something called an “aura”, a signal that a seizure may shortly happen. This generally is a physical change or an altering of how the person perceives the world. Some people may experience déjà vu or get an unusual taste in their mouths. For me, the effect is having auditory hallucinations: I hear incomprehensible, speech-like sounds which start faintly and begin to crescendo. For the first minute or so, I’m generally in control of myself and can communicate with the outside world while the head voices are fainter than ambient noise. Then I lose the ability to talk clearly, and for some reason, never have the wherewithal to think of writing down what I’d like to have said. By the two minute mark, I’m ignoring input from the outside world even as I’m aware of what people are saying. The cacophany of pseudo-voices start to become torture, not because they’re loud, but they are preventing the brain from working at even marginal effectiveness, and I’m 100% aware of this. For 30 sec, I’m lying down, just asking for the seizure to happen…
After an hour or two, I’ll regain consciousness, but feel very physically tired, and have generally sustained some strains and bruises from the spasms. For the next few hours, food or drink has a metallic taste, but it’s especially strong with water, which makes it hard to drink. Thirst is prominent; hunger is almost non-existent. Rather than sleeping 7 hours a day, I can sleep up to 14 hours a day for the next couple days, and have little physical strength (yes, even less than usual).
The next few days are spent being extra sure that I didn’t miss a dose of medicine.
October 12th, 2007
9 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
Not that this affects most of you, but as things currently stand, October 26 will be my last day working in Miami. I will be sidling over to Houston to set up shop and maybe shell out $120/year to join the Houston Chess Club. (As a point of comparison, the national chess federation costs me $41/year. To be fair, the HCC looks to be VERY active, with events 5 days a week.)
Before then, I need to take care of 4 major things:
- Finish a webpage (which will hopefully look better than this one)
- Finish a program
- Pack
- Get a place to live
Which will leave little time for diversion, in theory.
Fortunately, being single and having relatively few possessions will make the move easy. In fact, I should be light enough to try to fit everything in my car. I’ve been throwing out a lot of junk, so far on my 10th Aldi bag. While cognizant of the value of big black bags, I get to use those grocery store-type bags saved up all this time, and now they come into their full glory. (I’ve never been to an Aldi store, by the way; bonus points to the person who knows what I’m referencing when mentioning their bags–yes, it’s obscure.)
By the way: Charlie Crist is the governor of Florida, and dubs himself “The People’s Governor”. It’s really sad that he had to rip off the Rock for his political slogan.
October 5th, 2007
7 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Chess, Grilled Cheese
My skills at not procrastinating have improved. Instead of starting the defensive driving course the day before it’s due, I’ve decided to start the week before. Boy, do they ever want to make sure you’re paying attention:
Yes, sir, Picture of Random Guy Yelling and Pointing in the middle of the chapter text. I completely understand that according the Florida Law no one has the right-of-way. No, sir, I’m not doing other stuff while waiting for the 50 min timer for Chapter 1 to finish, even though it took only 15 minutes to read, and I don’t need to memorize it because the exam is open notes.
September 27th, 2007
no comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
The e-mail spam filter is slowly learning. All the pharmaceutical e-mails are getting sent straight away; now it’s mostly the “Busty Asian [etc, etc.]” mails that the filter has to figure out…
Speaking of Asian chicks…I learned an important lesson today.
Today my friend and I went to a Chinese buffet, and my friend reminded me that there was the potential for a pretty waitress to, er, introduce myself to. After determining that the women there were out of my league (ie, 40-50 years old and likely married), I set my primary focus to eating and trying the few new foods that this buffet had.
After getting seconds, we were chatting a bit, and a voice behind me indicated a desire to pick up the used dishes. Without thinking I brought the dishes towards the purple-clad arms near my right shoulder. 15 seconds later, my friend said, “What about her?”
Instantly, I realized none of the out-of-my-league employees had worn purple. Whipping my head around, I tried to catch a glimpse of the alleged potential target, but by then it was too late. So my next trip to an Asian restaurant, I will be sure to sit with the back to the wall, so as to not miss any potential opportunities.
(DISCLAIMER: I don’t really go around to restaurants trying to meet women. But the occasional waitress or cashier will be, er, especially friendly and attentive. You never know.)
September 22nd, 2007
3 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese, Science/Technology
At work, normally I have milk and one or two types of juices stocked in our mini-refrigerator (everyone else favors soda, or maybe Gatorade). Unfortunately, I was already running late this morning, so couldn’t stop by the grocery store before work to pick up any drinks.
For lunch, I had a Kerrybane (ie, Philly cheesesteak–not a usual choice for me) and water, and really felt like a drink with taste, which would normally be covered by the juice supply. Of course, there was none left. Rummaging through the refrigerator presented the possible drinks:
- Water (as if I didn’t have plenty of my own)
- Coke
- Diet Coke
- Sprite
- Sprite Zero
- Diet Dr. Pepper
- Someone else’s Gatorade
- Ginger Ale
- Root Beer
Ah! Root beer! I didn’t feel like soda, but root beer is one of my preferred carbonated beverages if there’s nothing else. The sound of the can opening, the liquid hitting the bottom of the glass, and the fizzy bubbles bumping against each other only increased the anticipation of consuming the rarely drunken carbonated beverage. As the rich brown liquid hit my taste buds, I realized something…
It didn’t taste that good. Even five years ago, it would have absolutely hit the spot. I’ve heard that taste buds change as you age…just another sign that I’m getting old.
September 22nd, 2007
3 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Grilled Cheese
I’m supposed to have what’s essentially stage 2 of a program finished for tomorrow morning. But my brain’s stuck in neutral, so I’ll try typing mindlessly until it gets going again.
Although this week hasn’t been a great week timewise to do so, I’m going to try to be on FICS next week; those of you who were interested in getting some games in, my handle is LiquidEggProduct (makes sense)
Thanks to Derek for rekindling my interest in blog stats. It’s interesting to see the variance in the types of regulars and semi-regulars. Person A visits practically everyday. Person B visits twice a month, and tries to catch up on a bunch of posts all at once. Trackbacks get target blogger’s attention.
Two days in the past week, this site has had a record number of unique visitors. Thanks in part to the guy from India who did a Google search for “C# interview questions” (who says stereotypes aren’t based in fact?) And the Lithuanian who wanted the secret code for Super Chick Sisters. And the South African who did an image search for “uckg”.
The most visited post of all time is the first Manuel Uribe post, by a very heavy margin. It’s received more hits than the second, third, and fourth most popular posts combined.
September 13th, 2007
4 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Chess, Grilled Cheese
