Computerjargon.com

Let me get you up to speed on our life, as it stands today:

Courtney and I went to Cancun in February with Chad and Tina. It was probably the single greatest time that we’ve had in a very long time. Here’s the proof that we were there, and here’s me swearing off booze and Mexico. When in downtown Cancun, I would highly recommend La Habichuela. We had quite an excursion trying to find our way to the restaurant but it proved well worth the adventure.

I have recently been rolled off my first consulting engagement and was quickly put on a “tweener” project, something to keep me busy while a more permanent engagement was arranged. In the beginning I was quite reluctant about the short-term project. I was told that I was supposed to be a hired gun for some legacy VBA work in Excel, both of which I have little to no experience with. I was told that I needed to put on a good show because if all went well, I would be a good “foot in the door” for other projects. Now, over the course of my career I’ve heard this excuse uttered hundreds of times but this was really my first experience with the “foot” working. I cranked out the project for the client quickly and successfully. They were so happy with the work that they promised future engagements. w00t!

Now, for Riley. As it stands today he’s just passed 17 months old. He has entered toddler mode fully, which means just about everything with him is a struggle. When he laughs, he laughs long and hard. When he’s frustrated he throws himself on the ground in a tantrum as only a Motylinski/Angerer offspring could. He’s more fun then I ever thought he would be. But he’s also mind-numbingly infuriating a the same time. He’s beginning to talk, so we can rationalize with him in a small way. He loves being outside. A few times we’ve caught him running out he side door, which he can open without trouble. We spend the majority of our time trying to keep him entertained. Sadly, he’s not one for spending lazy afternoons coloring. He’s more the type to go splash in a puddle or the dogs’ water bowl.

The weekend started out with a bang but ended in a 3 am Charlie Foxtrot Monday morning. Let me explain:

Feeling feisty and hungry Friday night, we checked Riley into the “Grandparents Motel” and headed out for the evening. In search of a good steak we decided to hit Red Stone in Minnetonka. We enjoyed a fine 3-course meal sprinkled with wine and vodka. The only thing better than the food was the impeccable service. At one point I called over the manager to give kudos to our waiter.

Still Riley-free Saturday morning, we did a little birthday shopping for him. I don’t want to ruin any surprises but lets just say he’ll really appreciate all the new clothes we got him. We were beat tired from the night before so we settled in for a quiet night at home. Court put Riley to bed and I began reading Into the Wild. We hit the sack early and called it a day.

An hour later we heard a barking seal from Riley’s room. We listened for awhile as the seal got angrier. Riley awoke from his slumber angry and frustrated. The coughing kept Riley up. We were concerned because his breathing was quite labored and he was gasping for breath. With my history of asthma we’re overly concerned when we hear things like this. We hopped in the car and headed to the emergency room. By 3am Riley had been diagnosed with croup, an inflammation of his throat, and we were heading home for a little sleep.

Sunday we spent over at the folks house watching football. None of the three of us had slept much the night before. We made it through the ‘rents on sugar and caffeine. We all crashed early. Called it a night before night began.

My work pager rang at 2:30am. It was an urgent issue that needed attention. 2:30am is no time to be thinking, especially about work. Some item wasn’t showing on the website and it needed to be active by 5am. When in the T.V. biz this stuff happens at all hours of the day. I spent the next 2 hours troubleshooting and waking up many other poor souls. At the end of the night it was someone else’s mess up that got me up in the middle of the night.

This morning I’m flying on little sleep and even less motivation. I’m waiting for today to come and go. The kicker is that I will get no more extra sleep tonight. I have a scheduled upgrade for work at 2am. I may just have to call in sick tomorrow.

“I’m supposed to give you this, ” he said with a thrust of an object.

“Oh, okay, is there anything I should know about it?”

“Yeah, i didn’t charge it last night so you’re gonna want to plug it in.” With those kinds of instructions, I knew I was in for trouble.

I managed to avoid “on-call” duty at work for my first 2 months of my new job. I knew I couldn’t avoid it much longer. My day had come.

My co-worker had handed me a Blackberry with no instructions on how to use it or how I go about answering support issues. I took the phone with little regard, nervous about what could happen with it in my possession. I checked to make sure I knew how to turn it on, check the contact list, and check out the Bricks game everyone was raving about. I put it on the charger as suggested and waited.

I took my new found nemesis home with me. I checked the call logs on the phone to glean any type of information I could about call frequency, duration, and especially time. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. In fact, over the course of the previous shift my co-worker had only one issue during work hours. I could handle that. I put the phone on my dresser and we went to bed.

Buzz, buzz, BEEP BEEP BEEP!

11pm, the cell rings. I literally fall out of bed running to answer the thing. “Oh great, just must luck,” I think. I grab the phone and run out of the bedroom so I don’t disturb Courtney. There’s a message on the phone. “I didn’t even hear it ring!” I mutter. I fall into the kitchen and turn on some lights to help me concentrate.

Scroll, scroll, push button, scroll, push…”What the hell?” From what I can tell the Blackberry had received an email, not a phone call. I read through the email and it’s a server check telling me that a server fell offline and came back online a minute later (for the uninitiated, that’s quite common). Whew, no major issue, no action required. I head back to bed.

Buzz, buzz, BEEP BEEP BEEP!

“JESUS!” 5 minutes later the phone starts humming again. I repeat the same process: grab phone, run out to kitchen, check messages. Again, it’s just more server checks. “Godammit…” I go back to bed.

Buzz, buzz, BEEP BEEP BEEP!

“For F’s SAKE!” I shout in my quiet voice. The phone marches across the dresser again at 2am. By this point I have already lost about an hours worth of sleep. I was just getting back into the swing of things when it started ringing. I quickly check. More server checks. I’m going to throw this thing across the room at any moment.

Buzz, buzz, BEEP BEEP BEEP!

“Oh, this is just plain ridiculous, ” I tell Court, who is also awake. “They’re just emails! Not even messages!”

“Can’t you turn off the message notifications?” She asks.

“NO!” I say and go back to bed. The real answer to her question is “Yes, just not at 2:30am when I’m drowsy and pissed off.”

I think it buzzed one last time at 4:30am. By that time I had been awake more than asleep that it didn’t really phase me. I compared my late night experience with the previous week on call. Sure enough it was my shift that received the most over night notifications.

When I got into work I asked my co-worker about the server checks. He said, “Well, if it’s REALLY important, someone will end up calling you anyway.” That’s what I thought.

Night 1 down, 6 more to go.

Saturday night I had a late night shift to cover at work. We have a big “All-Stars” event going on all week and being the new guy I drew the sweet shift of covering from 9pm to midnight on Saturday. Courtney was out on the town with Tina and Elizabeth for T’s bachelorette party. Seeing as the ladies better-halves had congregated around a fire as well I figured I would swing up to see what the crew was up to.

Just before the end of my shift I received a phone call from Courtney. She was cookin’ up a plan and needed my assistance. Since I had the luxury of working Saturday night while all my friends whooped it up, I was the soberest one of the bunch (My soberity was relative. I had drank 4 cups of coffee in 3 hours and was having a hard time keeping my eyes straight). She called for a ride home…just not yet. She wanted to wait until bar close.

So, after work I moseyed up to Aaron’s. About an hour later I received the “cabbie” call and I went to pick up my wife and Elizabeth. We played a game of clown car seeing as my passenger list had grown from 2 gals to 4 gals. Luckily for all of us, the Mazda had room in the hatch for the car seat. Trying to do the rider math at 1am with 4 drunk ladies was a challenge, but quite amusing. We got back to Aaron’s where we continued the fun.

Court and I strolled into the house at 3am. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the lighter half of 3am. My 3am’s have typically consisted of late night stumblings trying to soothe a crying child. It was so late that even our local Taco Bell was closed, much to our dismay. We crashed and tried not to think of having to get up in the morning.

3 1/2 Hours later I was wide awake and trying to figure out how to get back to sleep. I had nothing going for me so I just got up and headed for the kitchen. Crazily, we got our act together and were out the door to get our son by 11:30am.

I write this to let you know a few things:

1. Even given a crazed 20-somethings evening, we still are responsible parents and were quite excited to get to see our son in the morning

2. 3am is not a good time for me. I don’t like that time of day

3. 4 cups of coffee in the evening is a very bad idea

4. If you want me to haul you someplace, just let me know so I can remove the child seat. Preferably let me know before 1am.

I recently informed Courtney that I needed to start budgeting for a new item: coffee. I’ve never been too particular about the type of coffee I drink. Most places I’ve worked have had terrible coffee, but the new place takes the cake on “worst coffee ever”. Luckily Riles convenient daycare situation saves the day, it’s located near a Dunn Bros. coffee shop. Each morning I swing in for my $1.81 medium French roast to power up my morning. So I told Courtney that I will now officially budget 10 dollars a week for my coffee habit. It just can’t be any other way.

The Past

As I’ve been running through all my old posts from 2000 tagging I realized that I used to post about 2 things:

1. Lots and lots of nerd talk about computerjargon.com

2. Lots of lyrics

My attention for blogging has shortened over the years. I still do enjoy keeping friends and family in tune with my life. But I’ve come to realize that not even I care to remember in 4 years what I ate for lunch today (BTW – It was animal crackers and Diet Coke).

The Present

I recently started a new job. I left the company I’d been with for the last 5 years or so. Over the 5 years I saw many changes. The changes over the last year, though, were the final straw. It’s bitter sweet for me. I would have loved to have felt there was a place for me in the future, but realistically the company wanted nothing to do with IT.

So I’ve started a new job. The new place has gone through the same type of transformations that my old company has gone through, which came as a surprise to me.  I didn’t expect to see the same type of issues here as I did there. Luckily, though, my new job is much more technology focused. I’m excited to dig my teeth into something good.

I had a very “Office Space” moment at work today regarding where and how I park my truck. For reference, I typically park as close as I can to the side door nearest to my cube and my truck is a Chevy Silverado 2500.

Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Dan – “Hey Jason.”

Jason – “Hey Dan, how’s it going?”

Dan – “Good. Say, I’ve been meaning to tell you this.”

Jason – “Okay”

Dan – “Someone once said something to Jerry about his truck, because, you know, some people come flying through the parking lot.”

Jason – “Okay”

Dan – “They said it was hard to see around his truck. You know, if you park next to one of those trucks it’s hard to see around them when you’re backing out.”

Jason – “Right”

Dan – “So, you know, that’s why I back my truck in now. So, you know, that the back of my truck doesn’t impede people when they’re backing out.”

Jason – “Okay”

Dan – “So, you know, I thought you might want to know that. Nothing big, just something to think about.”

Jason – “Yep”

Some people are unbelievable.

I have a mirror attached to the corner of my monitor. It helps me notice people walking up to me while I have my headphones on. One of the side affects of it is seeing all the foot traffic that passes by my cube every day. And also, the over abundance of people that stare into my cube while I work. I can’t blame them, I have the same horrible habit.

I had my first code review at the new job last week. It’s always a little intimidating the first time around. I’ve spent the first 3 weeks trying to feel out standards, best practices, etc… It was also the first code review in a long while where I was not the one making the critiquing. All in all, it went very well. I was quite happy with the process and the constructive critism given. Most comments were simple styling preferences, the logic of the code was correct.

The first question I was asked during the review was, “What’s the byte size of the object?” I was stumped. I have never had to worry about bytes and bits before. Call me new school, call me ignorant, but in a managed environment one just doesn’t worry about the size of objects created. The first project I’ve worked on is in C++, which I haven’t done in nearly 8 years, and is an unmanaged language (no garbage collection, memory management, etc..). Hence the question about byte size is quite important. I thoroughly enjoyed discussing the nauances of an int versus short when utilizing precious memory space.

When I switched jobs I knew I was getting into a different position than I had been doing for the past couple of years. I changed from being a lead developer to a code jockey again. It was a tough decision for me to make. I enjoy being a leader. I like to design solutions. But I growing tired of working with the same systems day in and day out. I spent 4 years struggling to solve the same problem. I decided to throw in the towel for a new adventure.

I don’t regret my decision to take a new job. I am in a more technically structured company. I am more comfortable than I have been in a long time. Stress has melted away. But it has been an adjustment that is taking some time to grasp.

One of the changes I’ve had to deal with when I migrated to Minneapolis is management of security cards. Yes, I have received no less than 3 security cards which get me in to and out of places I need to be. I have the following:

The waver – This little blue card gets me into the parking ramp. I wave it in front of a black metal pad and the gate goes up for me.

The swiper – This speckled blue card gets me into the office building and up to the appropriate floor. To my surprise, not only do I need this card to enter the building but the elevator won’t even budge unless I swipe the card through the reader. This card gets swiped through a red/green lighted reader.

The magentic wallet – This card gets me actually into the office after I exit the elevator that required “the swiper”. I’m not sure the color or current location of this card but it must be somewhere in my wallet because all I do is hold my billfold up to an unmarked black pad and the door unlocks.