Still Not Getting Old

I find that I've settled into an 8-5:30 schedule, and I'm pretty happy with it so far. I've got a permanent spot in my Outlook calendar from 8-9:30 called "Morning Chores" and I just get my project maintenance stuff done so I can focus on the day. Most people drift in at 9-ish, and wind up staying late.

When it snows, even a tiny bit, the buses can't get up the hill and it's a gamble as to whether or not I'll get to work. Today I saw sparks flying out the back of the bus as it thought it could, it thought it could.

From the window behind my desk, it looked like this today. The mountains were a bit cloudy, but the stark cloud line was really cool. Last week the mountains were out like crazy and it was awesome.

Still on the Bus

Most of the time, I like the bus commute. It's not underground. It's pretty quiet. I often feel like I need to make sure I don't listen to music too loudly on headphones, lest I disturb others. The downsides of the bus are that you're out in the cold, you're subject to traffic, and they can take 20-30 minutes to arrive if your schedule is off.

I took this picture and the last few pictures with the camera on my new phone from work, but I'll return to Crappy D shortly. I keep the phone in my bag and off during non-work hours. This is a big step for me, and I like it.

I learned a lot at work today from someone who is a complete expert at the work I am now doing. Wow. I don't know if this is the path I will follow, but I'm definitely going to ride along it for a while.

Of note for me, this is my 551st post since starting this blog in June. It's the same number of posts I did in 30 days in oz. Yes, I can see how much this interests you.

Not A Clock

I'm pretty squarely in the not-all-that-impressed-by-kids camp. While I appreciate that kids do things like draw and write and sing and stuff, most of the time they suck at it. This is just reality. Maddox may have illustrated it best, albeit slightly violently.

The buses here do the same thing they do on the subway in NYC, featuring various art and poetry. I saw this one today and I liked it a lot, and then realized it was by a 6yr old. Still, I like it a lot. In case you can't read it:

I dream about trees
Some are little
Some are big
Some are medium
They pull out their roots and walk to my house
They knock it down
Eat my entire town
And all because
Everything there
Is made of trees

-Sharon Zumwalt, age 6

Nice work, Sharon.

Everyone has been asking me how my new job is going and it's going...totally fine. I've taken a very what-I-assume-to-be-Zen approach to work. I'm not looking for it to be the all-fulfilling thing in my life, nor am I looking to grow old and die at this job. This is simply a totally acceptable way for me to earn a living at this time. We'll just see how it goes.

Me Time

I'm feeling normal again, and that's a good thing. After my sick 1st week at work, the second one went a lot better. I'm doing well, and have managed not to mess anything up too badly.

M has been having a "girls' weekend" and I am taking some time to catch up on movies, reading, and emails. Before anyone gets too excited about the reading part, I should mention that the book is MS Project 2003. Yeah... Woohoo.

Last week, M and I went out to the ale house for a new job mini-celebration. I ordered a Mac & Jack, and M just had water. The bartender brought our drinks with a "Barley water for you, and a regular water for you" which I found awesome.

I also met some of the people I work with, and hit up a happy hour or two. I wound up sort of inviting myself out this week with some co-workers to a shooting range where we played five stand. I did not do well. I think I hit 2, and that might be generous. It was a lot of fun though. The key point is that this place did not rent guns, so you had to bring your own. This is my first time really living anywhere where this is not just possible, but completely normal. The people I was with had grown up hunting and shooting, so I tried to play it as cool as possible. I got to shoot an over/under (two barrels on top of each other) and next time (if they invite me) I'll try the pump-action.

Also, we went to a drive-in burger joint afterwards. You turn on your lights for service, and they heng your food on trays out of the window while you eat in the car. Weird, but good.

Well, I'm going into my third week of work and all is good so far. I'm not looking to this job to be the all-fulfilling thing in my life, and I'm hoping that some creative sparks start reigniting fairly soon. I miss them.

A History of Sick

So, it's totally lame to be sick for the first week of a new job. I'm really going to need to talk to my boss and the rest of the account team and tell them that I have a cold, and not that I'm stupid. I've been coughing on cue every 3 minutes and they're not good, happy coughs. Boo...

I'm going to take G's advice and grab PeerGuardian for dling, because when you're me, you can't be too careful. I've had to rebuild many a machine and trashed drive because of various evil beasties, and I'm not very eager to do it again.

And as nowpicnic mentioned, I will definitely be introducing myself to everyone at work once I can do so without coughing on them.

The Law

I thought I was being all clever setting up a virtual machine to handle all my downloads and "sketchy" application testing so that I could avoid viruses and such on my real machine. It's a good idea, but every few hours it wipes out my network connection. Ugh. It beats viruses, malware, and other internet beasties though. So I'll stop complaining.

Today was my first day at the new gig. It was busy, exciting, and a little scary. There's a lot to do and not much time to learn. I'm not worried though.

Not much else to report on the life front, just taking it one day at a time and so far, so good.

Square 1

My last posts were on Armistice Day, and I think I mentioned something about not going three weeks without posting again. Technically I suppose I've kept to that but it's now been close to two months since my last post.

My reasons for not writing are the same that they have been since October, mostly that things just haven't been that good. There have been some cool things like trips back home and to Vancouver and the farm, but I've basically drained all my energy trying to find a new job, and tomorrow I start it. It's been 6.5 yrs since I had a new job, and I'm a little nervous, but very excited.

I may get to writing about the last two months, but there's not a TON to say, and I'm looking forward to moving ahead.

Here's hoping there's plenty of good stuff to report.