Two years later, degree vanishes...

Two years ago, Computer Engineering was at the top of the fields for lucrative degrees... Now it is not even on the list... Did the degree get lumped into Computer Science or did something else happen??? I think I'm doing OK for an entry level Computer Engineer but what does this say about the market? It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next decade and if CS degrees in general are a dying breed in the US because of all the outsourcing...

2004 Data - 2006 Data

Life is a game of chess...

Keeping as clear as mud as I usually do...

I honestly believe I'm a pawn in my chessboard of life. It sucks being on the bottom and being use, abused, and sacrificed. It almost seems common place now so much so that I expect it.

There is one huge bonus when you are a pawn though... When used properly, they can be put into great situations where a move they make can be critical to their life (IE: upgrade to rook, knight, bishop or queen) or detrimental to their opponents (IE: checkmate via a pawn).

I'm in a position to take check. I'm thinking this is pretty awesome. I have the chance to win the game but on top of that be one of the "little pieces" to actually do it. What's better is that I am also in the position to be sacrificed. This of a pawn making check on a King. Why can't the king just take the pawn? Because the pawn (me) is being backed by the queen... And a rook... And two knights... And a bishop... AND three pawn buddies. (Is this even possible in a real game of chess?)

So on my chessboard of life, I'm posed to make a major move.

A.) Do I risk losing the protection and support I have from all my fellow chess pieces to move into the spot that will let me upgrade my role in the chess game??? Obvious loss is all the outward protection I have earned while moving along the board.

OR

B.) Do I stay back knowing that the support and guidance is still there from all the senior chess pieces knowing that I can't advance my role immediately. Obvious loss is the ability to give back and support all the other pieces (including those dear to my heart).

Option B is where I think I am going to head. Option A was extremely tempting but after I announced my intention to make a move, all of the powerful chess pieces made it clear that they would support any move I make, but wanted to let me know that I still have a place of protection in my current spot.

Why the hell am I writing about this? If the queen, rook, knights, and bishop had not spoken to me, I would have made the move without a second thought. But since I told the rook of my intentions, who told a bishop, who told the knights, who notified the queen, and then they all progressively sat down with me to talk about my reasons for the move, one by one, made me realize that they do hold my position of a pawn as powerful and valuable to them, something I had not felt in the past. (Beat that run on sentence. =))

Lack of postings...

Everything that I normally do (gaming, posting, surfing) has taken a back seat while work type things have picked up. And for the first time in a long time, thats a good thing. My responsibilities have doubled here at work and people who know my job know that it is a good thing (IE: they like me enough to keep me here). Plus the side jobs are picking up too and, I say, the more the merrier. Since Alex is on his way, Totem and I want to be as ready as possible...

Back to work!!!

The next rant...

The past week has been really rough. Really high highs and some really low lows (read second last entry)... Work has stabalized back into a norm and thing are returning to as normal as they can. Buts thats enough about that...

On the upswing, side jobs are picking up. I've taken on two webmaster positions with companies in the area. I'm also now the DBA of a third company that I work for part time. They all look like a decent challenge but I'm looking forward to puling through for all of them. Plus, I get some practical experience in the workplace instead of personal experience which is a great advantage...

Three days ago I was followed home, literally. Totem and I were coming home from lisalou's house, Totem was taking an odd route, and well, I had a little case of road rage. ;) We approached an intersecion with a green light, turn into the left turn lane, stopped, and then verred into the right lane and continuted going straight. So I'm fuming, but I notice a car behind me turn on his blinker to turn with us, turn it off and then follow us back on the road. I'm like WTF and I tried to figure out what was going on... Left turn, followed. Right turn followed. OK, now my paranoia has got the best of me. I let Totem drive home while I keep driving (she does not know this is happening BTW)... She turns and the person keeps following me. Left turn, followed. I did a "S" drive up and down a couple of streets and I'm still being followed. Now I'm creeped out... I manage to get a block ahead and park my car in front of a house. He/She (I couldn't tell) pulled onto the street and waited. About two minutes later, they drove off. I never saw them again. I have a feeling a punk a$$ kid was just trying to see what would happen if he keep following me. Whoever it was, they had a souped up neon with fog lights, spoiler, and decals... I didn't get the lics though. I'm just glad I figured it out and didn't lead whoever it was to my house...

I also started playing Final Fantasy XI this week. The online one. I'm not that impressed. The game is huge and very detailed, I'm not putting that down. What got to me early on was the lack of info for newbies to the game... It took me a really long time to get used to the interface and when I did, there wasn't much for me to do. Again on the expansiveness, there are a tons of things to do, but for a newbie, many of those are in areas that I couldn't survive. So, for the time being, I'm limited to local areas with low end monsters. Needless to say, I'm only level 8 and things are very, very repetitive. I don't know if I am going to renew my subscription, maybe one month more, but I don't see me going beyond two months unfortunately.

When Totem and I buy a house, I want to it be one level. Now that the computer is up, I'm spending way to much time upstairs. Totem's even said I can go and disappear now. While being on the same floor won't eliminate me using my computer, we'd be essentially togther. IE: Me sitting on my laptop in the living while we watch TV is better than me going upstairs to play a game...

Onward and upward. New project, I'm redoing my Linux box with a new kernel. It's a biggie redo b/c I tried to upgrade from 2.4 to 2.6 and was not too successful... Plus the box needs to be rebooted every couple of days to make sure it still works... I think it's because I did a hardware swap without a new install (pulled all hardware out of old 350mhz box and put it into 700mhz box with no OS reinstall). Should be fun...

When you thought it had passed...

...it was just hiding in the shadows. Outsourcing.

News here...

UPDATE: The axe missed me... Barely...

It pays to fight back...

Literally. =) I signed up for the GMAT with the impression that my work would cover the cost (we have some nice benefits here). I got an email saying it was denied. So now I'm thinking I'm not only out $250 but if I cancel, I'll only get $80 back...

I was kind of bummed. I hadn't really commited to the "going back to college" thing yet and $250 is a lot of money for something I might end up doing... So I fought back. I wanted an exact definition of what they meant by "application fees". Since this test is required in order to apply, I considered and was told it would be covered. The request went through the local HR and made it all the way to Corporate HR and to the Vice President of the company. And guess what?

I won. =)

Approved and I will be reimbursed. [pimp] Niiiiice. [/pimp]

Changes... Here and everywhere...

Things have been happening over the last couple of weeks that have made me take a step back and look around... I've been very frustrated at the economy ever since I left college. I set myself up for failure and hit a brick wall before I realized it was coming. Now, with a baby on the way, with the first christmas as my own family, and with the very first tight, and I mean do we want gifts or to pay the bills, holiday season, things have taken on different meanings. And I mean everything.

For the first time, I can honestly say I do not know what I want to do with my life, job wise. The jobs that I want I know are just not available anymore because they are either taken or are non-existent. I even tossed up the possiblity of starting my own business, but the risk is too great and I don't believe in gambling a job in exchange for a family. So, with the help of Totem, I've settled on what we have (having a job) versus what we want (a job I don't have) and I am going to change my outlook. Pending I still have this job next fall, I will be going back to school of my MBA (one of the benefit os this job is they will pay for secondary education). Plus, the Management school has what they called a PMBA program that will let me keep my job full time, attend classes at night, and get my MBA after three years. Should I finish it, not only would I actually have a Masters degree, the MBA would open the door to a completely different market of job opportunities for me that can help me move on in life and better support my family.

Totem is on the up and up as well. She got a new job recently and already the management and owners are impressed with her. So much so that they are going to help her get back into school to get her teaching lics. Something that is NOT a company benefit. Whats even better is that her job (which is at a day care) has a benefit of free child care for the first child and they have no problem at all that she is pregnant. Big plus for us not only b/c it will help out trememdously in about 6 months, but b/c she has the backing of the day care. Yeah, I know it is against the law to descriminate, but you can't tell me that when someone sees a new applicant who is pregnant, that they do everything to avoid hiring them. It happens. I've seen it.

In terms of coding, designing, website, geek type world... Dad (or Pops - what he wants to be called by his grandchildren ;))and I are trying to get a web design business off of the ground. We've got a couple of low end jobs lined up that will hopefully just get our name out there, I can only hope this balloons into a good thing. I've slowed down on doing my usual computer stuff. I'm going to let a couple of the "wishful thinking" domains that I have expire because I never got them off of the ground, even after a year has gone by... Others are just waiting to be finished (I've got a PHP site coded and almost ready for release, I just don't have time to finish it). Other sites, like this one, I think I'm leaning towards a revamp. Spam has gotten so much out of control here that I'm just going to take down all of the public tracking tools and blocks and just let everyone and anyone do what they please. Well kind of, I'll still be in the background but it will be much more transparent to the user... Basically my goal on this website is at least to trim the fat. Get rid of some of the things that are (literally) slowing down the response time. Images that aren't needed. Public stats that, while useful to me, are just being filled with spam sites. Inactive links. Stuff like that... Hopefully I'll have that done soon enough...

On the homefront, the computer situation is getting slightly better. Parts have not come in yet, but planning stages have been changes. I've got a better handle on how I'm going to get my Linux box back to the way I want it, instead of just being back. My laptop has become my production machine and it is holding up pretty well. Ever since I've picked up the browser based online web gaming, the lack of video power hasn't really been an issue. Totems laptop is out on loan while her mother goes into and recovers from surgery. When we get it back, if I've got some extra cash, I plan on getting a wireless network going in the house so Totem does not have to go upstairs to get to her computer. I think she'll use her computer that much more if she can just connect to the Internet anywhere in the house...

And me. Well, I kind of liked venting a little bit so maybe I'll try to get back into the swing of things. It helps me relax a little bit... And its nice to keep track of things. Enough from me...

Good, in a bad creepy way...

It feels good an all to be done, but now that everyone I know is going back to school, and I'm not, it feels kinda creepy... :\ Everyone's getting busy and stressed out already, even before school's started. And (not like I available 24/7) everyone seems to be busy.

I still can't figure out if its because I'm not going to school or because I will have been working full time for more than 3 months straight...

Meh...

Ouch...

Strike 2.

I did double the average workload and availability over everyone on my team on Friday. One more slap on the wrist for working too hard... :\

This is SO kewl... :p

Who woulda thunk it...

I've raised a couple of red flags at my new job... It seems my work pattern is showing some signs tat trigger more monitoring and job assessment. I've even been proactive at trying to work things out and change the way I do things.

You want to know why I'm being watched? I'm doing too good of a job. Go figure... ;)

My supers are worried that I am headed towards burn out and suggested that I get up more oftern and even talks walks outside of the building. Since I do work at a call center, I have to be available on the phone for a certain amount of time each day. They consider 6 hours and 45 minutes a good amount of availability. On an 8 and 1 half hour hour day, everyone is required to take two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch. So subtracing that, it leaves 7 and a half hours to time for being on the phone. The last couple of days, I've been pushing 7 hours and 25 minutes. 30 minutes longer than the average for my team...

Figures that when I push myself to do I good job, I go a little too far... :p At least everyone, supervisors, managers, and team mates, are helping me out with this. (Pushing me to trainings, going for walks, talking, shooting the ... crap.)

"Benefits"...

One of the unmentioned benefits of my new job is what they call the "Tech 20"...

During the last two weeks on the job, I've received 5 free breakfasts, 3 free lunchs, and 2 coupons for free snacks. All for just doing my job. Not bad... :)

So in comes the "Tech 20". They've tracked this too. The average technician gains 20 pounds over their first six months of employment... I've got some watching to do... :p

The last week...

The last week has been kinda hectic, but in a good way. The job is going great. My days are flying by. I'm not looking at my watch every five minutes only to see that two minutes have gone by. (Intentional play on words...)

Sorry to everyone I normally see in person. Things are finally settled down at the new apartment enough that I can arrange my office so contact to the outside world has been slim to none via phone, and virtually non-existant online. Kirk, I know you called and I'll be getting back to you soon. Smilemore, I owe you a movie with Totem sometime. Acw, I owe you a firefly night. And lisalou, I owe you a dinner once you recover from your wisdom teeth surgery.

But all things considerred, Totem and I are doing better than we have for any other move we've been through. We're actually calling the new place "home" which is a welcome change. :)

In the Linux world, the tweaks to the laptop are coming along smoothly. I've got wireless installed and since I have access to an insecure network from my house, I should be able to test it. ;) From what I can tell, there really isn't any good support for WEP yet, outside of writing the drivers yourself...

On the network side, I got my 1000ft spool of cat 5 dropped off a day or two ago. Totem's office is now networked with my office on the third floor. Once I get the cable drops put in, my Linux box will be up an running like it used to. It really only serves as a firewall and file server so it's not doing much right now. ;) The advantage of broadband though (outside of the speed) is I'll be able to let the box "do its own thing" during the day. Once I get my other computer back from Jay, I'll be starting over. Well, since I'm either going to use Debian or Gentoo, I haven't decided yet, I need a broadband connection for the box to sit on. In come advantage of cable internet...

OH! Totem and I did our pre-cana today. Not much to say on that cause I don't even wanna touch the religious stuff (way too sensitive of a subject) outside of that the big day is getting closer and closer. Thats not a problem, either, so don't get me wrong. It's just coming faster and faster... ;)

Feels awesome...

First day at the new job couldn't have gone any better. Paid training, awesome benefits, good pay, big company, familiar territory. I just feel great. :)

First time in a loooong time. Finally... =)

Consciousness strikes again...

More observations that I sit through on a weekly, almost daily basis...

1.) Alcohol seems to only negatively affect those that are not drinking.
2.) Choosing between family and friends sucks the big one...
3.) Doing the right thing, is not always the right thing...

Sigh...

Movin' on out...

If things go as planned, Totem and I should have the keys to the new apartment tonite or tomorrow. We've already reserved a UHaul and have made plans with a bunch of people to come over and help. We're hoping that we can get this done in a single day, unlike every one of our other moves that took a week or longer...

We're both very excited (duh!) and we can't wait to be in our own place. The obvious reason is that we'll be on our own again. Something we've both missed ever since her parents took us back in... But another reason, moreso for Totem than me, is that we're each going to have our own office. She'll be able to practice her music and give music lessons without me sitting in the background with some RPG going off. ;) One the the main reasons I'm looking forward to moving to the new place is... Yes, I'm an uber dork... The broadband. :p

I can't wait to fire up some of my multiplayer games and just frags for a couple of hours...

Chapter by chapter... Closing...

This past weekend (and some of last week), event after event just kept coming. Final exams, work, job interviews, apartment finding, graduation, work again, 2 week notice, work... I'm pretty surprised at myself. Not too much stress...

Exams went better than I had hoped for on Thursday last week. Software Engineering was OK. No surprises, nots of writing, and lots of "can you convince the teacher that I know what I am talking about" questions. Everything was subjective. Good or bad, I don't know. I'll let you know after I get the grades. ;) My Operating Systems was almost an exact duplicate of the practice questions she had given us. So when she allowed us to bring in two sheets of notes, you can bet what myself and the rest of the class did. None of us thought she would make the questions so similar so we were all pretty happy after the exam...

Friday morning was work, followed by an afternoon at job interviews. Made some critical decisions that evening. One was to not take the apprenticeship that I was offered. Everyone I spoke too said it was not worth it. Let me put it this way... The program offerred two years of work along with certifications to boot (MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+, NET+, Security+, yadda yadda yadda). The only hitch is that I had too pay for it. Yeah, pay. The student loans would have cost me 28K by the time I was done paying them. That's more than half of what I spent on college. While no one doubted that having certifications was a good thing, everyone said there were cheaper and easier ways to get them (IE: Not having to fly to another state for training, then be sent to another state for two years as an apprentice). Luckily for me, the interview went VERY well, and I won't have to fall back on the apprenticeship for work... :)

After all that, Totem and I went apartment hunting again. We had our minds on a place that was going to be nice, and a place that we'd be willing to live at for more than a year. First one we looked at had everything we wanted. Great price. LOTS of space. And is it right by everything we would ever need to get to, and in the middle of our parents (20 mins to each house instead of living near one and have a 40 min ride to the other). That got us pretty excited and started the weekend off right...

Saturday was all graduation. Lots of names. Lots of sitting. Glad it is done. Had a nice dinner with my family and Totems. Congrats to you too, Starfire!

Mothers Day was fun. We worked in the morning (kind of a gift to Totem's Mom who normally works, we coverred her morning shift). Spent the rest of the day with my parents. Spring cleaning actually was good this year. We got a lot done. Mom won $100 on a lottery ticket. She was happy. ;) Dad treated us all to dinner. First time in a while that Mom and Dad had both of their sons and their significant others at one place.

This morning was work again. Handed in my two week notice. Tonite, I think I'll be playing on my computer since I don't have any school work to do (YESSSS!!!). If I'm lucky, I'm gonna see if I can get Gentoo up and running on my laptop. I downloaded all the files I needed when I was at my parents house so hopefully I won't have to try and get a PPP connection up...

Anyway, things are still looking up. For a change...

GASP...

Reads email... OH YEAH!!!!

Does happy dance waiting anxiously for FEDEX package...

Whats going on here!?!?!

I don't think I've ever gone an entire week without posting before so this is out of the ordinary... Lets just say I'm on vacation and can't write much right now... :(

There is an odd trend developing though... On days that I don't post, I get close to 100 less visitors and 300 less page views when compared to days that I do post... Hmm... When I post, MT pings a bunch of sites to let the world know that I have written something new. Those listing usually last a little more than an hour before they are erased by other people updating their blogs... Do a lot of you come from weblogs.com or any of the other blog syndicating sites???

Pretty good actually...

Well, Totem and I are officially moved in. We got almost everything over to the "new apartment". The only things we have left are boxes of paper things that eventually need to be filed, and stuff like our dishes and food in the fridge... If all goes as planned, we should have it completely empty tonite or by tomorrow night.

As for Internet, I got lucky. I don't get a 14.4 connection out there... I get a 28.8!!! ::sarcasm:: Wohoo!!! ::/sarcasm:: Its not as bad as I had thought, though. Granted nothing comes up as fast and downloading almost anything is out of the question, but text comes up pretty speedy. I was actually kind of surprised when the text on the main page of my blog (you're looking at it) came up in 2 seconds... The rest of the page took 15 seconds to load... But you're coming here for the journal, right? So it dosen't matter. ::cough:: Bull$hit! ::cough:: Excuse me...

Outside of a nasty cough ::evil grin::, my cold seems to have passed. So all in all, things are changing. And as of yet, the change has been pretty good. Now to start playing X2: The Threat and Neverwinter Nights since I really can't do anything on the Internet...

Moving out...

We're progressing pretty well... Totem and I have most of the "we don't use this" stuff either thrown out or moved into storage. Tonite we should be able to finish our clothes situation. Tomorrow we'd like to have our living room and kitchen finished. That'll just leave our bathroom and office stuff left to do. Basically the things we need/use daily. Next weekend is the "big" move. My brother is coming over to get out bed and furniture out. Then all we have to do is clean up and we'll be out...

It might not be exactly what Totem and I have planned, but it is a welcome change...

Where have you been?

Wow. It's been a really long time since I have written something... :\

These past couple of days haven't been hell, but they sure have been busy. Friday and Saturday were pretty much uneventful. I had to go to work for most of each day. Surfed and coded and usual...

Sunday was a little busier. The day started by my actually blowing my windoze box away. And, as expected, I did forget to back some minor stuff up. (It happens to me every time.) I lost all my email account settings and mail filters... At least I managed to save the emails... :p But as that chugged along, something else popped up. Most of my software and things I needed weren't at my house anymore. They're in boxes. I ended up downloading mostly new drivers and software from the Internet so it wasn't a completely bad thing. What was bad was not having my Quicken CD with me. When your normal routine is to come home and check your finances and email, and suddenly I couldn't do that, everything becomes really weird. I was so out of place. At one point I was just sitting in my chair trying to think of what I could do next (in terms of reinstalls) and Totem walked in asking what was wrong. She said I looked so confused and lost... ;)

Needless to say, the computer is feeling healthier... Software installs are going slow but I've got all my data, email, and financial stuff back up and running so all is well. Unfortunately, on Sunday, not everything went well.

We spent the rest of the afternoon packing up stuff and moving it over the new place. We then got news that Jen's (step) Uncle had died. Now her grandmother has lost her husband and son within two years. Just as she was starting to be able to cope with the loss of her husband, her son dies. She is a wreck, the poor woman. I hope everything turns out as good as can be expected in the end...

Monday. Totem's first day of classes this semester and our first day to attempt car pooling. ::fake sarcastic laugh:: It was also the first day of really really bad snow in the area. Driving was a pain in the a$$. It should have taken me about 45 minutes to get her to school and then get to work. It took an hour and 45 minutes... What a way to start a Monday.

But, the day went off without a hitch for either of us. Work kept me busy all morning and school was nice too. I'm really getting used to this 3 days of school stuff. Totem's classes went well too. She was glad to be back with a bunch of her friends.

Tuesday was even worse than Monday, in terms of weather. Driving was horrible ALL day. Snow everywhere, and I mean everywhere! Another couple of hours drive for us in the morning. The day was normal. Work, meh... School was OK for Totem. We had dinner at a local sports bar (kinda a back to usual schedule treat type thing) and will never be going back there again... Not the worst $30 we have ever spent on dinner. There just wasn't much to quantity and Totem's chicken was drying than cardboard...

I got myself registerred for Tuxedos for the wedding. Its kind of a nice feeling to get that out of the way... Just one step closer I guess...

Wednesday morning. This morning. BAH! 2 hours of driving and I was still late for my class... All the roads were moving slower than usual. Wierd thing was that the side roads were going faster than the thruways... :) That's the only reason I was extremely late to class. I took all side roads to campus instead of the thruway after I dropped Totem off...

Now I'm just sitting here in a computer lab waiting for my next class... Creative Nomads (the devices, that play mp3's, not creative people that move from place to place, even though I qualify as one) are so nice... 8)

New Semester...

The first day of the new semester. I can definately tell it is here. I was an hour and a half late to work because my truck got stuck in the snow. Some mice were stolen at work so now I have to go through and re-lock down every computer I've been securing over the last week. I'm being blamed for problems with faculty systems that I did not do (and my boss knows that I did not do and is defending me).

Today is a really good day. And finally, finally, I'm not bummed about it. :) Honestly, I'm pretty excited to be going back to classes. This semester is the "lightest", and hopefully last, semester I've ever had. Operating Systems, Networking Concepts, and Software Engineering are all I have. These are far from blow off courses, most compared to hell (2 of the 3). But the all sound very interesting. Who knows, I'll be sure to be writing later. I've got my first class in 30 mins...

Belly Up...

Well everything that Totem and I have planned for the past year or so has gone belly up. We have literally done a 180 on life. We've come to realization that living on our own has finally gone beond our control and is an unattainable goal at this time, even though I've thought it could be, and fought for it to be, for over a year now...

Totem is not able to work this semester. I am limited in the amount of time that I am allowed to work at my job. We cannot live, even in a new place, on my salary alone. Student loans are not an option at this point. After talking with both of our parents, and having very long talks together, we decided...

We're moving in with Totem's parents. They have a guest room in the basement that they are allowing us to live in for the next couple of months until I graduate and get a better job. This will allow us to save the money that we would be spending on rent for either a deposit for an apartment in the summer, or maybe even a down payment on a house.

This is not something we've wanted to do, but it is the only thing we can do to not get ourselves any deeper than we currently are. With both sets of parents offering rooms in their houses, we figured her parents would be least inconveniced (sp) by us because they are not currently using the guest room. Whereas if we moved in with my parents, we'd force my dad to move our of his office.

I originally was extremely bummed and depressed about all of this. I've been trying to separate myself from any attachment (financial) I've ever had. IE: Use my money to live my life. Not living off of others. All four parents realized that I have been doing this, and all have been there to talk with me and let me know how they feel. They are welcoming us into their homes with open arms. So, even though I think I will be a burden on their lives, they have reassured me that we will not be.

So while this is not the step that Totem and I wanted to take, we are very gracious for everyone helping us out. Totem and I are happy. That is what I wanted. Thank you Mom and Dad, Mom and Dad. :)

Usual...

Yea for having to be at work at 6AM on a Sunday morning!!!
::jumps for joy::

Wierd thing is that I'm wide awake... Go figure. ;)

Bleh...

It's 7AM on Saturday morning. I'm up and I'm going to work... Bleh... :\

Interview...

Just got out of the interview... I think things went well. We used the full 30 mins that we had. He asked lots of questions, as expected, and I was able to give him good answers except for a few...

He got a lot of good things jotted down about my programming experience, being and Eagle Scout, info on the Traing Manual I developed when I worked at Localnet, and what I do at my current job. Since honesty is the best policy, he also got a lot down about my weakness in math. He quickly picked up that I am a hands on person...

So if I had to sum the whole thing up... I'd say it didn't go bad.

::crosses fingers::

Anger...

I feel like a single pawn in a game of chess made to do the work of all twelve. Work is really getting on my nerves. All the watching, strange comments ("better to start working on xx project now"), software additions and deletions, glares when I get a phone call from Totem (even though they get calls from friends/husbands/relatives all the time), and the general consensus that I am everyone's bitch...

It's really frustrating to watch your boss, bosses boss, and other workers who are above you do all the thigns you do, but you get in trouble for it. Do what I say not what I do. It's not right. I want college over with so I can get the fsck out of here. I don't like my job anymore and I want a new one...

Menial tasks are one thing, but being used is an entriely different one...

Looking up...

I just got invited to an interview on campus today. Our career center has a little thing called on campus interviews where companies come to our college and hold interviews with graduating students. We basically submit our resume to X amount of companies and if they want to interview us, they get in touch with us. Well, Harris wants to interview me. :) HOW AWESOME IS THAT!!! Even if I don't get a job, the fact that out of all the resumes they got from students at my college, they picked me as a student they wanted to interview, is pretty damn cool. 8)

Its a Monster!!!

Had a first happen to me today. I was contacted by someone who saw my resume on Monster. 8) KEWL! Hopefully something good will come of this...

Doing better...

Today was the second official day on the job at my second job and it could have been a LOT worse. I don't think I'll ever say this again, but I was glad I had homework. I actually managed to do almost all the homework that was assigned and due this week during the 6 of the 8 hours I was there. It really helped to pass the time...

So if that's all I get out of this job (a sense of having to do homework to avoid long hours of boredom), I say bring it on... Gently. ;)

The only downside of working at the Tanning Salon was for Totem. During her shift in the morning she decided to give the tanning beds a shot. She came out looking refreshed and pretty good. TOnite, she is redder than I normally get at a day at the beach. And I turn into a lobster at the beach... :\

Second job...

Yesterday was the first official day of my new second job. I'm going to be a clerk at a tanning salon. Easy work. The perks... It's owned by Totem's mom and I'll be working with family. Some people wouldn't like that but I do... It makes the time fly when you're with someone close.

Anyway, at least now I'll be forced to do my homework or have to suffer long hours of boredom. Trust me, I don't want to work a 10 hour shift and have nothing to do with no customers...

No time...

This week has been nuts at work. I've been spending all my time here because we have two weeks until classes start and I am going on vacation next week. I've got 10+ projects that I need to finish before then... Yippee... No time for anything else. Gotta love it when that happens.

::starts burning the midnight oil::

Feel good juice...

I've got a really nice boss (actually my boss's boss) who at the end of every semester takes everyone out for lunch to the Olive Garden. Kinda like an end of the hell celebration. Lets just say eating there is not too cheap. You'll probably spend $12-$15 on yourself, not including drinks and/or dessert. So anyway, yesterday I did not goto work because I went to my brother's high school graduation. But since my favorite co-workers last day is next week, and another person I work with is going on vacation, he kinda had to have the lunch yesterday without me so he could included those two people...

I was kinda bummed (because the food is really great) but not bothered to much because I was told he would just make a second trip to include me. Cool. So I won't get left out. That was really nice that he told me that. He's like the only guy I work with that is really and totally honest with me about everything. If I stay at this job it is because of him...

So I come in today and he approached me with a card. He told me that they all went out yesterday for lunch and said he wanted me and Totem to go enjoy ourselves there. He gave me a $40 gift certificate to the restaurant!

So it felt really good that he would give me money so I could take myself there, but it felt even better that he would give me enough to take Totem along with me. :)

And to top that, he dosen't even know her name! I don't know how he found out about her or that we were even dating, but for him to say "have yourselves a good time" was really really awesome.

:)

Brighter day...

About a year ago now, I signed up for my Engineering School's ECI/COOP program. Think of it as an intership-finding program. We were to be taught on the job skills, resume building, financial skills and the like...

When signed up I was told that companies were probably going to be looking for high end GPA students. I was concerned because I've only got a 2.7 but the instructor told me that I can still get a job. He said he has even had students in the past who had a GPA of 2.4 get jobs...

So I went on and about a month later, after about twenty postings for jobs, no one was willing to hire a student below a 3.5 GPA. I emailed him asking for help. He, without me asking him to do so, checked out my resume and website telling me that my 3 years of tech experience should help me in the job market and to just keep at it. (The fact that he did that was pretty awesome.) Six months went by and nothing came of it. I just stopped going to the classes after that (it was a year long program) because I had little faith in the market. There were jobs I liked but they either wanted too much out of me (IE: high GPA), didn't pay more than my current job (so why would I leave?), or were jobs for the military (and I was not going into the military)...

So today I'm walking around campus and I pass him, waving Hi as I go by. He calls out my name and asks how I am doing. He wanted to make sure that even though I didn't find a job, that I was still in a decent one that could help me in the future...

How about that? Someone who I haven't directly spoken to in over 9 months, and haven't seen for 6 months, remembered my name and my struggles. He remembered that I was working on the South Campus of my college and that it was a good tech job. He remembered my GPA questions from almost a year ago. He remembered me and was concerned about my career. An almost complete stranger. Caring about me. That was pretty damn cool. :)

Chapter closed...

I turned in the keys to the old apartment today. It's still hard for me to believe that it has been one year since I moved out of my parent's house, let alone to think I'm in my second home...

Totem found a new home for both of our cats today. She stopped over at an old friends home (who she has not seen in year or two). Her kids saw the cats and just went nuts over them. Totem was blown away when the parents (Totem's friends) offerred to take them. :)

Busy...

It's been a busy week so far... Worked all day monday on Totem's brother's new house. Busy all day yesterday at work. Today was pretty active. Got a couple of more hours of work left and then three hours of Statics...

Maybe it's because it's the final week of our lease on the old apartment. We've got almost everything out except the cats. We've found a place for one of them (IE: a no kill cat shelter). But the other one, Totem is still attached to so we don't know the plans for him yet... I'm probably going to go and get them tonite so that will give us tommorrow and Friday night to clean the place up for our meeting with the building manager on Saturday.

It's kinda weird knowing that I've been out of my parent's house for over a year now... Even more strange that I'm already in my second apartment. Hopefully we'll stay at this one longer if things work out...

Early...

My boss is letting me out early. WOHOO!!! Time to have some fun with Eve!!!

Money should not do this...

Money has made me and Totem go off on each other recently... She would get a lump of cash that I would need to use and then I would get paid and she would have to spend the money...

It's driving us nuts and it shouldn't be. We are fighting over something that we shouldn't even worry about... Its really depressing...

Hopefully when the summer comes around and both of us are working more hours, we'll be a little more comfortable...

I hope...

Should live here...

I'm at work. Again. I should just friggin live here. I mean, they've got a fridge, electricity, heat, water, food, ...Internet. =) All I need is a change of clothes and a sleeping bag...

I can't wait till I'm out of college so I can have some resemblance of a life and not have to work every chance I get just to survive... Hopefully...

Worn out...

Just got back from a power wash/dry run at my Mom's house. Lets just say that we had a shelf full of clothing and when we moved, we found out that the cats were using it as a bed. Most of the black clothing was now white. I have a white and a grey cat. Grrr.....

Time to get sleep before my first DnD session tommorrow... ::giddy::

Here goes nothing...

::watches rental application to prospective new apartment go through fax machine::

::crosses fingers::

Feeling pretty good right now...

At my job, I am basically responsible for about 200 computer systems. I do maintenance and repair on them as well as upgrades and stuff...

Today I find out that all the systems need to have an option checked for one of the printers. No one in the office thought it could be done remotly. That would mean that I would have to go to each and every system individially and manually check this option...

200 systems X 3 minutes per system = 10 hours of work

No way... Uh uh... Mister lazy computer programmer (like we are all) said there must be an easier way...

So I installed the software on my local system and did some registry searching. When I found a key that looked liked it was corresponding to the option I needed to check, I changed its value to see if the option magically checked itself... IT DID! Then I unchecked it to see if the registry would change... IT DID!!!

EUREKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I whipped out my handy little tool called a remote registry changer, wrote a loop, and BINGO! 200 systems done in 5 minutes. =)

Boy am I happy!!! ;)

Enter stage right...

Pitty fund --->

A little easier...

Well, life is a little easier this week. I was planning on taking an optional final this week to help my grade in my digital principles class, but it turns out I did better than I had anticipated. And since the optional final can help or hurt my grade, I'm not going to risk it...

So I'm relaxing, working, and just taking it slowly as possible this week... Yea... ;)

Heart Stopper...

So I'm out shopping with the wonderful money called a "college refund" and somthing really embarrassing happens to me in the checkout line...

We were shopping for winter jackets, Jen and I. They were expensive so we knew the bill was going to be high. After we got the jackets, we walked around the store and perfomred the cardinal sin. We suddenly needed this and that, and that, and all sorts of "oh this is nice" went on...

We go to check out... $150 over what were planning on spending. Can we say, "DOH!!!" Luckily the checkout attendant (or whatever they are called) was very helpful. She thought the final price tag was a little high too and helped us make sure it was correct. Well is was... (Damn...) Most of the stuff got put back and the lady was really polite about it.

Never gonna do that again. ;)

Need a break...

So I'm sitting here. It's about 12:30 at night on Sunday. I just got home from a trip to my parents house and I have at least 3 hours of homework to do...

You really think I'm gonna do them??? =(

I have learned something though... Procrastination is the most evil thing on this planet for a college student to make a bond with... And along with that, it's great to know your limitations. ;) Getting up in the morning, bright and early will wield a better homework assignment that is more complete and correct then if I struggle to stay awake now and do everything while only getting the answers right half of the time...

I NEED A VACATION!!! *sigh*

Free = Good

I got paid to get free lunch today... =)

I was part of a survey about accessability (sp) and fast food joints. I was able to spend up to $20 for lunch and I was given $25 for answering some questions afterwards. All I had to do was let myself be taped on hidden camera while wearing a splint on my lag to keep it from moving. So I limped around the place ordering food, grabbing napkins, opening doors, stuff like that...

For $25, not a bad deal. ;)

Priorities...

Such a hard subject. One second you think everything is going OK and nothing else could be better. Next second, a complete 180 happens. Everyone around you revolts and say you suck... What do you do?

Do you continue doing what you are doing, advancing your life and your goals to their end? Or do you drop everything and become a manservant with nothing ahead in your life?

Is there a median? I wish I knew... Sometimes I can't tell what I want... Other times I know exactly what I want... I just can't find the right path...

But then again, who would want to listen to my thought's anyway... Oh well...

Another Day, Another Dollar...

I'm learning the joys of living paycheck to paycheck. Got my paycheck yesterday. Thanks to bills, all gone today. Yup, my Dad was right. Life sucks and it will bite you in the ass... Between all the stuff I have going on with school and car insurance (Did I mention that being under 25 in New York State with an accident on your record really sucks?) and car bills and rent...

I guess I'll just shut up now and go play on my computer... At least I don't have to pay the electric bill (it's included with the rent)... Wohoo! :)