End of the Year

Had Neil over here for the week before Xmas, it was so good to see him but I barely got to spend any time with him due to work overload. Due to my improper time management he almost missed his plane home (I'm guessing his bag took a different flight), but at least I managed to get him on the plane. Ted took him around for a day, so Clau and I are taking him and Katie out for dinner tonight. Incidentally, we still owe Sam and Matt a dinner for Sam's referral money.
Apparantly we're hosting a NYE party on Sunday - I actually like that, although anyone who wants to get back from our place is going to have a rough time getting a cab.
Recruiter stuff has died down, which works out well for me since I've been so busy lately and wouldn't have had any time for interviewing.
Worked some really insane hours for the last few weeks in an effort to get a new search platform out the door in 2006. I'm actually pretty surprised that we pulled it off.
Lately I'm so tired, all I want to do is sleep for about 16 hours. So, most likely there will not be any cool insights from me coming up until 2007.

Happy New Year, everyone!

For love or money

I've noticed that I'm not very good at being a "company man". I have my own life and generally I expect a good work/life balance from my job. When a crunch comes, I expect that I'll be working some long days (or weeks), and I'm OK with that. When I have a situation in my personal life, I expect it the company to be able to bend the other way and allow me the extra time I need to get it dealt with. When the two come at the same time, I expect the company to respect that - I suppose that the compromise would be to work normal hours with maybe a tiny bit extra thrown in where possible.
So, I'm in a situation where I have stuff going on at home - I had my family's annual Xmas party last weekend, and my little brother is visiting me for a week here; he's really stepped up and improved his grades, and when asked what he might like for a reward, the only thing he wanted was to come visit me in NYC. On the work side, I've been handed some very high-profile projects that were already ridiculously late with the task of saving them and getting them out the door by the end of the year. As a result, I've been working until midnight most nights, and needless to say I haven't gotten a lot of time with my brother. I also got a big ration of shit for taking off at 3pm on Friday to make the plane, and for not being around on the weekend. And the thing that amazes me about this is that nobody seems to care.
Which got me thinking - I'm not getting anything out of all this overtime. I'm not going to get a big bonus, I'm not going to get a raise, I'm not up for a promotion - so why am I doing it? Which made me wonder, why is everyone else doing it? I can only guess that my managers have some sort of monetary incentive if everything goes out on time, whereas I'm just told to work longer and harder. Many of my coworkers are working crazy hours and don't seem to be complaining, but I think they're "company men", whereas I'm really not. I fancy myself as more of a mercenary: I do it for the plunder, and I do it well. If you want to really piss me off, make me work a lot more for no extra benefit. For bonus angry points, wait until around the holidays when I (just like everyone else) have a bunch of shit going on; family, shopping, vacation, etc. There's nothing like that combo to make an employee start calling headhunters.
I guess it comes down to (for me, at least) a simple reciprocal relationship: as my employer, if you treat me with respect, then I'll do the same. If you treat me like a "resource" (a word that, when used as a euphemism for "person", never fails to grate on my nerves), then that's how I'll act. At the very least my boss could offer me something, but I know he won't, because there's nothing in it for him.
Personally, I think that treating your employees that way is bad in the long run, because it eliminates all sense of loyalty. A lot of people stick around in their jobs because they worry that the company will suffer without them (even though they're usually mistaken about that), or out of some sense of loyalty. When the company makes it clear that they don't care about the employees, the employees usually go somewhere else.
This wasn't written very well, mostly because I wanted to post something and I wanted to write about this in particular, but for the reasons mentioned above I don't have much time to do it. But, hopefully, I got my message out.

Company_A Happenings

I guess that in some other posts I've been saying "there's lots happening at Company_A and I'll write about it soon", but I haven't really updated. So, let's get into it:
1) Company_A has been working on a very large project. I don't want to get into what it is (not sure if I can legally get into it), but suffice it to say that it involves some very expensive products, a large team of consultants, and just about everybody in the tech area of the organization from both sides of the house (consumer-oriented and professional-oriented). The consumer side of the house has taken a serious beating for the last six months or so, with a few people having absolutely lost any hope they might have had of a life outside of work. Fortunately, this doesn't include me at the moment, but my day in the barrel is coming.
2) Two people from my group have left - this is out of a group that's only made up of seven people. I can guarantee that at least one more will be leaving within a month.
3) Most of the senior developers have left.

Right now I wouldn't call it a sinking ship - I'd more call it a revolving door. There's people coming and going at a high rate, and for every person that leaves, there's another one coming in before the first fellow's seat has gone cold.

As a result of the people in my group leaving, I now have many more projects than before. Naturally, I have to play catch-up with all of them, since I'm going into mostly unfamiliar territory with most of them. I will probably be very unhappy with the workload in a few weeks, but to be honest it feels good to just be doing something in the Linux world; I've spent the last few months focusing on a video project that's all Windows-based, and mostly it's been pretty dull with a lot of drudgery. I had one good opportunity to learn some Windows scripting, but it came at a bad time (I didn't really have any time to commit to it), so I cheated and installed Cygwin, then wrote a bash script to deal with it.

I could write a long list of gripes about Company_A (you know I could do that, since I'm such a big fan of gripe lists), but suffice it to say that I'm not happy and I don't see that changing in the future. Actually, it's more like the relationship I had before I met Clau - I liked her, there was nothing wrong with her per se, and I could see myself being with her for another five years, but I knew she wasn't right for me. It broke my heart to break up with her, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I'm not unhappy with Company_A, but it's not (and never was) the right place for me, and it's time to do the right thing. Two days ago I bit the bullet and called my recruiter. I spent yesterday fixing up my resume - from what I wrote about it, you would think I've been having a blast at Company_A; my list of completed projects looks varied and impressive. For the next gig, I'm going to either go with "big fish in a little pond" or "little fish in a big pond". There are benefits to both - big fish allows me to move my skills in some different directions, whereas little fish allows me to hone my craft and eventually work towards "big fish in a big pond".

So, those are the big developments in my working life. Personal life is basically the same as it was - the big news is that Clau and I are going to the Bay Area for our annual visit and my grandmother's famous Xmas party - Clau's brother is also in the Bay Area, so now we have even more folks that we have to divide our attentions among. I'm very much looking forward to finally meeting my little sister, and I'm also going to get to see Adrian that weekend (who I haven't seen since last Thanksgiving in Missouri). After that, we're taking the redeye on Sunday night back to NY, and Neil is coming with us and staying for the week - we really have to look up some stuff for him to do (and make sure he brings appropriate clothing - it's getting really cold).

Hopefully I'll have another update before the holidays...

Techie career planning

I'm going to state a fact that (almost) every techie like me has to come to grips with: you can't have a career as a techie.
Sure, you can spend 10-20 years doing what I'm doing and enjoying it, but eventually it'll be time to meet your techie maker. This is a young man's game; it demands fast thinking in a high-pressure environment, knowledge and familiarity with emerging technologies, and an above-average dedication to the job. Eventually you simply get too old to do it.
So, how do most people work around this? Some go into the managerial track, which actually has a career path and some semblance of stability once you pass the age of 35 or so. Some go for higher and higher levels of specialization and salary, in hopes that they'll have enough to retire on when they become dinosaurs. I've been leaning towards the second option, since management has never held much appeal for me, but to be honest I've been trying not to think about it. Fortunately, I have a backup plan in my wife, who loves corporate life and will become a great success by the time I need to be put out to pasture.
I was talking with Matt last weekend, and he presented a third, interesting option: take the entrepreneurial track. Work on independent projects in your spare time and see where they go. Some may end up being just another untouched open-source project, but some may turn into the kind of thing that lots of people would want to work on and try out. You may even hit the jackpot and discover that you've created a product or service that lots of companies want and are willing to pay for (or, alternately, that a similar company views as competition and wants to purchase).
So, Matt and I got into a long conversation about it. He recently noticed that Prosper has opened up a lot of their data and will be creating an API (basically a bunch of pre-configured ways to talk to prosper.com and do things without using the website). Matt wants to write some apps to help us decide on the best loans to bid on, and maybe release it to the general public if it works well for us. Also Matt considered writing a sniping tool, which would be cool. This one probably wouldn't ever become a profitable item, but it would a nice trial run.

Fish on Thanksgiving

Clau and I went to Aruba for the Thanksgiving week - it was a good way to get some time to ourselves with a limited number of vacation days. I don't think we'll be going back there - it has the advantage of being (relatively) nearby and environmentally unspoiled, but other than that the whole damn island feels like one big tourist trap. I'm guessing that the population when we were there was probably equal parts tourists and locals (and probably swings to the tourist side during the winter months). Overall I did get what I wanted: beach, tropical drinks, a little time to get reacquainted with my wife, etc. However, there were many things that I didn't like and why I wouldn't recommend Aruba to my friends. In my usual fashion, I've compiled a list of gripes:

• Every hotel and some of the restaurants automatically add a "service charge" to the bill. In hotels, this charge gets tacked onto _everything_, from the restaurant to the spa to the coffee cart in the lobby. Unprovoked, they will go to great lengths to explain to you that it's not a gratuity. It really started to piss us off after awhile. After that experience, I understand how Clau feels about taxes in restaurants in the U.S. (in Brazil, taxes are included in the menu price, so end up spending what you think you'll be spending). Of course, the "service charge" is even worse - you could make an argument either way on including the tax in the price, but it's something that the restaurant has to pay to the government no matter what - it's just a matter of factoring it into the listed price or not; what these hotels are doing is setting a price, then asking for 15% more on top of that price for no apparent reason, then expecting a tip on top of it. I should also mention that the prices are roughly equivalent to NYC (although the quality is generally sub-NY).
• Everything is geared towards Americans. Perhaps this seems like an odd gripe, but when I go to another country, I like to feel like I'm actually in another country. The fact that every transaction takes place in English with prices in dollars takes away from some of that charm - especially when the prices are just as expensive as home.
• It's way too difficult to find good fish. This place is an island with lots of local fish, yet nobody seems interested in serving it. Of course, that's partly due to the last point; Americans don't generally like fresh fish (you can argue with me on that one, but most common ingredient on every menu was beef, and it probably wasn't because it's easier or cheaper to get in Aruba than fish). We tried to eat fish the whole time, and 50% of the time it was a disappointment.
• Although there seems to be very low unemployment in Aruba, almost everyone is employed by something for tourists (i.e. in a hotel or restaurant). In other words, their entire economy seems to involve other people coming to the island and spending money, as opposed to generating their own money and goods. There are very few (if any) aspiring entrepreneurs or small business owners there. As a result, nobody seemed to have any money of their own. One of the many consequences of no local businesses is that we didn't find any "local" restaurants (and we looked!). I was hoping to find a hole in the wall with the smell of seafood and the sound of families speaking Papiamento coming out - as far as I can tell that place doesn't exist, or else it's extremely well hidden from the gringos.
• The Radisson (where we stayed) was extremely structured; you had to sign up for everything, and the times were pretty limited. Breakfast is from 7-10:30, lunch is from 12-2, etc. Not that the food in the restaurant was terribly good anyway. Clau started referring to it as "camp". Oddly enough the best breakfast we had was on our last day - we ordered room service, got a ton of food, it was better than the food we had in the restaurant (although it was probably the same kitchen, so maybe we just got lucky) and cheaper as well. Go figure.
• The Radisson also screwed up our bill. We knew we had booked some kind of special or discount, but we didn't bring the reservation paper with us (hey, we were on vacation!). When we got the bill slipped under the door the night before checkout, there were some charges on it that we knew we hadn't made, and there was no discount of any kind. We went and asked the front desk about it that night (it was admittedly 11pm or so) and they said that they would have to leave a note for the accounting department. The nice man at the front desk wrote down our request on the bill and put the bill in the accounting department's inbox. We decided to follow up early the next morning before breakfast, and - surprise! - the note had magically disappeared overnight and nobody professed to know anything about it. The woman working at the front desk said that it would take about an hour for the accounting department to put together our receipts. I wanted to go back to the room and have some breakfast, but Clau pointed out that the front area would soon be packed with people checking out, and if we didn't stand over them and watch then the "accounting" simply wouldn't get done until it was too late (and really, shouldn't all the receipts for a given room already be together, if for no other reason than to assuage guests who fear they may have been wrongfully charged?). I sighed and admitted that she was probably right. So, we waited for an hour an a half, until finally we were presented with the reciepts. Sure enough, two of them were obviously not ours (names and signatures didn't match, although the room number did). The "accountant" (actually the same woman who was working the front desk) removed the fraudulent charges from our bill, and upon request discovered that we had in fact booked a $100 discount (which, as my father says, had been "conveniently forgotten"), and took that off. All in all, the bill went down about $200, and all it cost was our last three hours of vacation.

Of course, there are some good points:

• Very safe - I've spent a lot of my time in Brazil looking over my shoulder. Aruba is an extremely safe place. Hell, there was one mysterious disappearance and it made headlines for weeks.
• Unspoiled beaches. Turquise water and white sand everywhere. Absolutely gorgeous. Even better if you put blinders on and ignore all the fat, loud, pasty people around you (I don't fall into this demographic because I'm not loud).
• Beautiful weather - damn hot, but it's always windy so it doesn't feel crazy hot. Bring sunscreen if you're a paleface like me.
  
• Fresh fish - if you can find it.
• Really good drinking water. All of it comes from a desalination plant, which means that it's basically seawater that's turned into steam, re condensed, then filtered. Very, very clean.
  
• Balashi beer - local beer from Aruba, made with the same water. Surprisingly good (and I'm a beer snob).
• Casinos - if that's your thing. Of course, it's nothing like Vegas, but the blackjack's pretty good - $5 minimums and nobody seemed to give a shit about me counting cards (of course, that could also be because I lost anyway).
• Friendly locals, most of whom speak English. The few who didn't speak English spoke Spanish (and my guess is that they're generally immigrants from Venezuela or Ecuador), so we were never unable to communicate. Everyone who you need to interact with (cab drivers, waiters, etc) speaks English.
• Although the Radisson definitely wasn't worth it, the Spa is very, very good. Clau and I got massages and it really felt like a first-class kind of Spa (or course, it also wasn't cheap - more than $200 for a "couple's massage", but it's the only thing in the Radisson that's really worth the money).
  

So, overall, it was just what we wanted but there's a myriad of reasons why we won't go back.
Lots going on at Company_A, I'll write all about that soon.

Almost forgot I had this

Of course, I really wasn't writing anything since nobody was reading it. But, I may as well keep updating this with big developments.
OK, here's the big things:

• I applied to Google and almost made it.

• I got handed a video project, very cool stuff. Unfortunately some consultants ended up taking way too long and effectively screwing me, since now I have to work double-hard to catch up after waiting for them for so long.

• A Trader Joe's opened in Manhattan, around Union Square. For those not in the know, TJ's is about the best food store ever - good stuff, really cheap, nice people working there. It is a bit of a madhouse, though, seeing as apparently I'm not the only transplant to NYC who remembers just how awesome TJs is.

• My dad and Ania had a baby girl in August, named Cora (not actually sure of the last name). I don't think we've spoken since she was born. I'm not happy about it (not speaking to him, that is) but that's sort of just how it's worked out.
  

• My brother's doing much better, I can tell just from the few brief conversations we've had in the last couple of months. Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned there for my future parent self - maybe discipline's not such a bad thing if it's couple with attention and support.

• I have a new client, she's about the nicest person you could hope to meet. She's pretty clueless about computer stuff but obviously sharp and educated about many other things. Plus, she never haggles over the bill or anything, which is good.

• We bought a new car. After having the old one break down once every couple of months, we realized it was better to just get a new one. Buying a new car is so much fun on the east coast - I though that the California car sales places were sleazy, but NY and NJ are way worse. Nonetheless we ended up with the car that she wanted at a price we could live with.

So overall life's OK. Clau and I are going out a bit less (trying to save money) and making weekly pilgrimages to TJs for dinner for the coming week. Between that and the Kraft store we're definitely spending more on Saturday night than the rest of the week combined. Dunno if that's a good thing or a bad thing. We're limiting ourselves to two nights out per week, and shooting for one (going to a friend's party and stuff like that doesn't count).
Oh, and I almost forgot another point - Sam got a job at Company_A and will probably be joining me soon. She probably won't stay all that long but it'll be nice to have her nearby for a little bit.

Web link:
"Peanuts" by Group X. I love these guys

Updates

So what's up lately:
Just when Clau and I were starting to get our finances under control, we've decided to go and splurge on all kinds of shit, this time for me. She bought me an xbox 360 for our anniversary and it's awesome. My computer has been dying lately, I think it's the RAM but I can't be sure, and so I must replace it with another. This could, however, be a good thing, since I want to replace it with a Mac Mini. I have one of the original (PPC processor) minis, and I'm using it to display my video etc. It's working fine (I put Linux on it) but it's neither pretty nor user friendly, and since Apple has the sweet Front Row application (in addition to all those others), I'd just as soon use that for everything. But, I'll probably try to replace the RAM in my box first. I just wish I knew exactly what I needed to replace it with.

Clau's going to Milwaukee tomorrow through Thursday, so I'm going to try to entertain myself during that time. I think I'll seriously try to fix the damn computer we have so that I don't have to convince her that we need another one.

Also, we've gone out with Sam and/or Matt a few times now and we're totally enamored with them - those guys are so much fun to hang around.

My little brother's become a prisoner in my dad and stepmother's house. They "caught" him smoking pot (in that they asked him and he told them) and he's been on house arrest ever since. Or at least that's what I get from talking to him. I don't know how to broach the subject with my dad. The last time I talked w/ my little brother I was fuming and Clau made me calm down before calling anyone. But, I need to call my dad before my brother's summer vacation vanishes before his eyes (or worse, he gets the thrill of spending it helping my stepmother care for the new baby). I guess my big beef is that he's such a good kid, and they're treating him like a criminal. Especially since I know that compared to me at that age he's an angel. Then again, he's only 15 - maybe they're saving him from a life of crime. I dunno. It's tough to try to figure out what the best thing is when you're so far away, both in terms of distance and perspective. I can't really understand what it's like for either party, but I can't see how what my father is doing is OK. You can see why I haven't called him yet...

Quick update

Obviously it's a bit late to be writing my blog - Clau's asleep already and I should be, too.
Attila and Reka visited last weekend and brought their boy Shoeldt (I'm sure I'm spelling it wrong, I'll look it up later), he is adorable but I can see that children are a lot of work. Clau and I have decided to wait just a bit longer, I made her promise that we won't wait beyond the point where it's safe.
I just found out that one of my high school classmates became a filmmaker - kind of a tiny world considering how few people were in my high school class. Her name is (or was) Miranda Grossinger - she's now going by "Miranda July", probably one of the reasons I didn't notice earlier. She made a movie called "You, Me, and Everyone We Know", which I read a lot about in Time Out and such, but didn't see. I will of course put the DVD in my Netflix queue now, hopefully she gets some money out of that. Not that she and I were friends or anything - I just remember her being very very spacey most of the time, and she also sparked what was probably the biggest broohaha (how do you spell that word?) during my four years of high school; as I recall, some girl had poured chinese food on top of a guy's car. The guy was extremely extroverted - actually, I can't really think of a good word to describe him...cocky? cocksure? Well, you get the idea, to the point of being frequently obnoxious - if high school were a corporate workplace, he surely would have been fired for sexual harassment. I actually liked him because, besides occasionally being an asshole, he was very smart and funny - we played together in a band for a little while and I had gotten to sort of know him.
So, to get back to the story, after this girl pours chinese food on his car, he makes an announcement at a school assembly asking people to please respect his car. He said something to the effect of "if you have a problem with me, talk to me; don't take it out on my car." Soon after that, we arrive to school to be greeted by a huge banner reading: "You say 'respect my car.' We say 'respect our bodies.' Signed, CPS Women" It sparked a huge debate throughout the school, everybody arguing both sides of it. I wish that, at that time, I could have realized just what a wonderful place that school was. I often refer to that story when I try to explain what my school was like.
Anyway, as far as my personal interaction with Miranda goes, I don't think we ever said anything to each other, but I recall her being nice (but, like I said, spacey). I think, though, that I'd like to have coffee or something with her if I got the chance - I feel like I missed out on knowing someone really interesting in high school. After I realized that she was Miranda July, I took a quick look at her blog (hey, just b/c nobody reads mine doesn't mean that I won't read anyone else's) and there's some really great writing in there - I remember when I used to be able to write like that. Somewhere in my life, between living and breathing Unix and learning Portuguese, my ability to write like that slowly faded away. Maybe I could get it back if I practiced more.
Anyway, enough self-pity - I'm going to update flickr soon, got lots of pictures of last weekend's visitors, and this weekend we're going to CA to see Sean and Tess, as well as meet Sean's new wife, so I'm sure there will be lots of pictures of that. I think, with a lot of practice, I could eventually take a decent photograph...

Voltamos a vida normal

Grr...estô um poquinho mal humorado - tenho tentado escriver português no meu laptop (de Linux) por trente minutos. Bem, não e fácil- ao fim, achei um jeitinho; posso usar Windows num "computador virtual" al dentro do computador de Linux. Não gosto, mas funciona.
Então - o que tem acontecido ultimamente - desde chegei do Brasil, tenho sido doente. Pois, não posso fazer um dia para estar doente diretamente depois das férias, então tenho trabalhado e tossido toda o dia. Finalmente estô ficando melhor, mas estô tossindo ainda. Provavelmente todos os cigarros e cerveja nos fims de semana não ajudaram.
Procurei os fotos da minha câmera (um presente da minha esposa para meu aniversário), e vou colocar alguns no web. Preciso aprender mais dos sites como flickr - não me importe se otras pessoas vêem os meus photos, mas nao entende completamente como esse tipo de site funciona. De qualque maneira, gostei do viagem - não vou me esquecer jamais a experiência do carnival no Brasil.
Acho que a Sam e o Matt tambêm gostaram do viagem - ao menos, somos ainda amigos. Agora, acho que eles sabem que foi muito mais barato viagar ao brasil com uma brasileira que viagar sozinos. Alem disso, eles tinham o oportunidade para experimentar muitas frutas estrangeiras (açai, caja, manga brasileira) e sucos diferentes (abacaxi com hortelã, cupuacu, graviola), beber cervejas e drinks diferentes (Skol, Brahma, caipirinha - não gostaram), e experimentar comidas diferentes (talvez foi um mal idéia introducar os meus amigos ao fejioada e a churrascaria no mesmo dia - vc pode ver o que aconteceu com o Matt depois). Nao se preocupe - ele viveu...

Comencando escriver em Portugues

Esto fazendo um curso de Portugues a NYU - comecei a terca passada, e o professor recommenda que fazemos um jornal. Entao, vou tentar escriver ao menos um pouquinho cada semana. Geralmente vai provavelmente escriver do que tenho feito na semana passada.
Come sempre, trabalhava durante a semana passada, mas ultimamente nao tenho tido muito para fazer. Falei com o meu gerente e ele diseu que vai haver muitos projetos, e ao momento eu deveria so esperar. Entao, tenho tentando ficar movimentado, porque nao gosto de fazer nada - parece legal ao inicio mas fica chato rapido. Na sexta eu e a Clau fomos na casa de Anderson e Andrea. Gostamos, mas a Clau estava muitoa cansada, e precisamos ir embora a duas horas de manha. Um amiga da Clau nos vitisou na sabado; ela se chama Sharon, gostei muito dela - ela estava visitando a Nova Iorque para encontrar um groupo grande de Internet. Ela ficou conosco para fin de semana, mas a gente nao via ela muito. Sem problemas pra mim e a Clau - gostamos dela, e a Sharon vai repagar a Clau essa semana quando a Clau vai a Chicago.
No sabado noite, eu e a Clau fomos de novo a casa de Anderson e Andrea, e essa vez bebemos demais. O problema com visitar o Anderson e que ele e um "host" bom demais, especialmente com a cerveja. Eu nao posso beber devagar - se eu tenho um cerveza en frente de mim, vou beber-lo. Entao, eu me controlo para esperar um poquinho entre uma cervaja e a outra. Quando voce ta na casa de Anderson, ao momento que voce esta acabando a cerveja, ele esta ali con a proxima. Adoro Anderson (e Andrea tambem), mas e tao perigoso lhe visitar que eu so posso ir a casa dele na fin de semana.
Essa semana, minha gatinha vai ir a Chicago para a empresa dela. Ele parte hoje (segunda) e vai voltar na quinta. Na proxima dia (sexta) a gente vai ir a Salvador (finalmente!). Nao gosto da ideia de falta minha esposa por quatro dias, mas ao menos vamos ter ferias juntos directamente depois a seperacao.
Bem, espero que esse e bastante. Em escrevendo esse, realizei que nao sou accostumado a escriver em portugues, e preciso praticar mais...

Been a while

Well, there's no way to recount everything that's happened so far, so let me try to sum up a few things:
1) I don't believe anyone has _ever_ read this. I thought I would eventually give this blog url to my folks, but I get the feeling that nobody cares. Oh, well. So, maybe this will disappear.
2) Got a call from a headhunter for a contract. I took a breath to say "No, thanks", then realized that I have no reason not to accept contract work. Clau's got benefits now and a decent salary, so we'd have something to sustain us during lean times and still have coverage if we get hit by a bus. As it happens this contract wasn't something I wanted to do, but still, it's something to keep in mind if another call comes in.
3) There was a reorg at work, so now I work in the applications group, which is cool. I'm busy trying to get rid of my infrastructure projects and I realize just how much I disliked most of it. It's too bad because infrastructure is what I did for a long time at QAD, and I thought I would miss it. But, mostly, it just seems like a PITA now that I'm seperating myself from it.
4) I want to take a Portuguese class at NYU. Classes start next week so I better figure it out. I think I'll take the level 3 class and find out where I need to catch up. Conversationally I'm OK, but obviously a lack of formal education has left some pretty big gaps in my skills (which is the whole point of taking a class in the first place). Still, it seems like a lot of money to pay just to force myself to learn (there's nothing stopping me from just picking up a book except for my own lack of motivation)
5) We took a road trip to Vermont a couple of weekends ago and ended up getting into a fight with John and Nicole. It was over who was going to drive, I think that they were pretty unreasonable, and Clau made a good point; we try very hard to be flexible, and the one time she really wanted something her way, they wouldn't be flexible in return. It's too bad because it occurred as we were leaving Vermont, which made for an unpleasant ride back to NYC, and we probably won't go out with them again. Too bad, because I liked going out with them (they're the good-looking ones in the Amazing Race picture).
6) The winter here has been really bizarre - so far only about 2 weeks of cold weather. Yesterday it was in the 50's and just a beautiful day. The trees are starting to bloom (they're confused) and the bugs are coming back. Today it got cold and wet. I keep having to remind myself it's the end of January and not March or April. Of course, that wasn't so good when we went to Vermont (no snow), but we got lucky and it snowed on the last day, so I got to try snowboarding.
7) I went to the gym about 6 weeks ago and asked one of the P.T.'s what I have to do to get into semi-decent shape in time for Carnival. The basic answer is "work out a lot". So, naturally, my response has been to sit on the couch playing Xbox. I don't know why I have such motivational difficulties when I know exactly what I need to do. January's gym membership was a waste, and I gotta get in there for February, if for no other reason that in my current condition I won't last two hours in Carnival. Even if I can't look good, I need to get myself into better shape.
8) I have to swap my drivers license. Seems easy, right? Well, not exactly. Went there on Friday and found out that I need my SSN card. Seriously, what's the point of that card? I'm the type of person who loses useless stuff, and the SSN card qualifies; it's got no photo, and I can't remember the last time I was asked for it - probably waaaay back in the day as proof of employment eligibility (and I mean years ago). So, yesterday I went to the Federal building to get another one. Like a dumbass, I left my pocket knife in my jacket, the one that Geo gave me right before I went backpacking through Europe (when you could still bring a knife on board). They were kind of harsh about it; you can't bring it in, we won't hold it for you, there's no place to store it. Either give it to us (so, we'll happily take it, but we won't hold it) or come back another time. Sigh. So, I'm coming back today (I ditched the knife at home).

Sometimes, all the security we have to go through really bugs me. NYPD doing random searches in the subway is a good example of it. There are literally thousands of ways to access the subway system. The NYPD might be checking two at any given time. Plus, since just randomly searching people is a blatant violation of their civil rights, you can just say "no, I'd rather you didn't search me" and walk away. Even if they use that as a justification to deny you access to the train (which I don't see how they can really do), you can just leave and walk to the next entrance (to the same station), or walk to another station entirely (in Manhattan that's about a 5-minute walk). This is a perfect example of what all this "security" really is: a stupid show to make people feel safer. My question is, how many people (in particular, how many jaded New Yorkers) see that show and actually fall for it? It can't be that many. Maybe tourists would fall for that, but even so, does having armed police randomly searching people send a good message about our city?
Another case in point; not allowing me in the federal building with my pocket knife. What the hell am I going to do with that? The worst thing I could do is deface something; do they think I'm going to try to take hostages with it? I can see that in a plane, where unless you have an air marshall on board, a pocket knife will probably rank as one of the most powerful weapons on board, but in a government building? What would that call be like, anyway...
Dispatcher: We have a hostage situation in the federal building. We have an armed perpetrator demanding a new social security card and he refuses to submit to the standard fingerprinting and DNA swab.
SWAT Team: We're on it! What's he holding everyone hostage with?
Dispatcher: It appears to be a knife - he has threatened to -
SWAT: What kind of knife? Bowie? Machete?
Dispatcher: According to reports, it's a regular pocket knife, but witnesses say it looks like it's very sharp.
SWAT: OK boys! Here's the situation - we have a perp with a knife! Everybody arm your slingshots - this could get ugly. Stand by with an ambulance, make sure it has plenty of band-aids.

Sigh.