Monday, June 22, 2015
Errors and Omissions
Well last week was pretty damn grim - my birthday was just horrible - I think I'll just pass over that rather than memorialise it
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Let it come down
Well, that was exciting - we had a rainstorm yesterday afternoon (a change from the regular 7pm ones), and wow did it rain. 7 inches in about 2 hours, thats some heavy shit.
Cat was coming to pick me up for 5, but the rain had flooded so many intersections (and cars), she didnt get here til 5:30 (for a 10 minute drive) and we had a look at the queue to get off this island and decided we could just have dinner here instead (which we did, a middle-easternish restaurant that was pretty underwhelming over all), then finally left about 7. \
Amazingly, the drains here are so good that the floods had all abated by then, and the bottlenecks cleared up so we had an easy trip home. I wish I'd gotten a picture of some of the major intersections though, with water four and five feet deep ... and idiots trying/failing to drive through it.
Cat was coming to pick me up for 5, but the rain had flooded so many intersections (and cars), she didnt get here til 5:30 (for a 10 minute drive) and we had a look at the queue to get off this island and decided we could just have dinner here instead (which we did, a middle-easternish restaurant that was pretty underwhelming over all), then finally left about 7. \
Amazingly, the drains here are so good that the floods had all abated by then, and the bottlenecks cleared up so we had an easy trip home. I wish I'd gotten a picture of some of the major intersections though, with water four and five feet deep ... and idiots trying/failing to drive through it.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Still struggling
Each day seems awfully hard, and leaves me wrung out. And Cat keeps saying, "I know it's hard, and I'll try to avoid taxing you with anything extra" .... which lasts about 30 minutes each time, before she does anyway. I get that it's hard for her and she's not very well still, with the Meunieres disorientation coming and going, but ... geez, she's not actually working a job, can nap every afternoon. Eh, I'm just being bitter and unfair.
Last Sunday was a bit of a fiasco - Cat's birthday, and we went (after a late-ish breakfast) for a road trip to a park called Weeki Wachi (sp?), to watch underwater mermaids swim/dance. No really, google it. Well the drive up was pretty enough, along a toll express, but we stopped just before the park for lunch at Ruby Tuesday's and that was pretty bad: food substandard and not very warm, waitress totally checked out and oblivious.
THen we got to the park, to find it full (no parking even in overflow), and realised we should have gotten there 3 hours earlier. At Cats instigation we wisely gave up on the idea, then tried to find a different route home, hoping to drive by the sea.
Ha! Instead we stumbled onto route 19, which was basically 40 miles of endless stripmalls, fast food, and ... well pretty much any sort of product-sale you could think of, except for gin-joints :) Really horrible. She spotted a Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts, and decided ice cream would cheer her, but we couldnt get any, the service was really horrendous (and the 2 donuts we got were stale as shit).
Still couldnt find a coast road, so we drove home on 19, through several torrential rainstorms (all heading for that Park, so aborting that turned out to be a doubly-good idea).
OH well, dinner at the Columbia was much much nicer - very upmarket & swank, without being TOO horrendously expensive (the Babe Ruth Steak was $39, the priciest entree ... which I ordered of course lol).
Last Sunday was a bit of a fiasco - Cat's birthday, and we went (after a late-ish breakfast) for a road trip to a park called Weeki Wachi (sp?), to watch underwater mermaids swim/dance. No really, google it. Well the drive up was pretty enough, along a toll express, but we stopped just before the park for lunch at Ruby Tuesday's and that was pretty bad: food substandard and not very warm, waitress totally checked out and oblivious.
THen we got to the park, to find it full (no parking even in overflow), and realised we should have gotten there 3 hours earlier. At Cats instigation we wisely gave up on the idea, then tried to find a different route home, hoping to drive by the sea.
Ha! Instead we stumbled onto route 19, which was basically 40 miles of endless stripmalls, fast food, and ... well pretty much any sort of product-sale you could think of, except for gin-joints :) Really horrible. She spotted a Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts, and decided ice cream would cheer her, but we couldnt get any, the service was really horrendous (and the 2 donuts we got were stale as shit).
Still couldnt find a coast road, so we drove home on 19, through several torrential rainstorms (all heading for that Park, so aborting that turned out to be a doubly-good idea).
OH well, dinner at the Columbia was much much nicer - very upmarket & swank, without being TOO horrendously expensive (the Babe Ruth Steak was $39, the priciest entree ... which I ordered of course lol).
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Grim
Bad week at work - imposter syndrome, bumping up against bits that I'm not esp familiar with (and which have been mutated -radically- since the last time I did deal with them, esp SSIS). Lots of depression & frustration.
Also financially squeezed, without the income from Leidos I'd budgetted on for last Friday, we've been running on fumes all week - and Cat's kind of ignored that and kept spending carelessly, despite my pleas.
Bad week all around.
Also financially squeezed, without the income from Leidos I'd budgetted on for last Friday, we've been running on fumes all week - and Cat's kind of ignored that and kept spending carelessly, despite my pleas.
Bad week all around.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Vertigo
Cat's Meuniere's disease has unfortunately reemerged as an issue, again, so we had a pretty quiet weekend, & she spent a lot of it lying down to minimize the vertigo.
On the bright side, I drove us to Fresco's for a wonderful brunch, looking over the yacht harbour.
I seemed to spend a lot of the weekend zoned out, myself, tired from the work week. I guess the last 18 months of indolence take some time to put behind me. Nice holiday (heh), wish it could have continued longer.
On the bright side, I drove us to Fresco's for a wonderful brunch, looking over the yacht harbour.
I seemed to spend a lot of the weekend zoned out, myself, tired from the work week. I guess the last 18 months of indolence take some time to put behind me. Nice holiday (heh), wish it could have continued longer.
Friday, May 29, 2015
Leidos ... Incompetent? or Evil and Incompetent?
I'll go with the latter, I think.
The latest (and hopefully final) screw-over by Leidos is to inform me today, that - despite what they told me in April - I will NOT be given my final pay on the last day of formal employment there, today (having been on unpaid leave for the last four weeks). No, now I have to wait another two weeks. No actual reason given - it's not like it hasnt been known when this is happening for the last 28 days. Just, Fuck You, We Can.
Which is pretty much the Leidos motto, actually. nowadays.
HR departments are notoriously poor quality, the world over, but for a combination of incompetence, malice, deceit and fraud, I dont think you could find anyone to compete with the Leidos HR department.
The latest (and hopefully final) screw-over by Leidos is to inform me today, that - despite what they told me in April - I will NOT be given my final pay on the last day of formal employment there, today (having been on unpaid leave for the last four weeks). No, now I have to wait another two weeks. No actual reason given - it's not like it hasnt been known when this is happening for the last 28 days. Just, Fuck You, We Can.
Which is pretty much the Leidos motto, actually. nowadays.
HR departments are notoriously poor quality, the world over, but for a combination of incompetence, malice, deceit and fraud, I dont think you could find anyone to compete with the Leidos HR department.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Adjusting
Still adjusting - for me, mostly about adjusting to a new job, so very different in ethos, setup and environment; and at having to go to the office every day, not just roll out of bed at 2 minutes to 8 for an 8 a.m. start. I must admit, it's leaving me quite exhausted at the end of each day, between the earlier start (6:30) and the mental stretch and concentration.
It's also kind of alarming how amateur this place was (until my boss started, about 3 weeks before me) ... documentation is either wrong or nonexistent, ditto most policies. Oh well, we'll lick it into shape.
Memorial Day we took it fairly easy: Cat was really wiped out, so I did the driving, and we didnt go anywhere much, just lunch at the Acropolis. And it was nice enough but man do I miss the Santa Fe - for the food (obv) but also for that warm sense of being among friends, of being home.
It's also kind of alarming how amateur this place was (until my boss started, about 3 weeks before me) ... documentation is either wrong or nonexistent, ditto most policies. Oh well, we'll lick it into shape.
Memorial Day we took it fairly easy: Cat was really wiped out, so I did the driving, and we didnt go anywhere much, just lunch at the Acropolis. And it was nice enough but man do I miss the Santa Fe - for the food (obv) but also for that warm sense of being among friends, of being home.
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Exploring
Well, we took time this weekend for some exploring - drove down to Picnic Beach Park area, which looked very nice, yesterday.
Today we went to 'First Watch', billed as supposedly the best brunch place in Tampa, which if true, fuck it I'm driving to Orlando for brunch, because it was awful - Cat's salad was wilted, elderly and devoid of dressing, my potatoes were similarly well past best-by date, and the eggs benedict was very short on hollandaise, with eggs still partly clear from being so undercooked: plus slow and surly service.
After that disappointment, we drove out to StPetersburg, vaguely thinking of looking at the beaches, but we wound up at the Pier, where a thousand yachts seemed to bob their heads at us. Very fortuitiously, Cat needed a pee and we saw a public restroom, however while turning, we saw a beautiful looking bistro (Fresco's Waterside) right by the yacht harbour, with a park literally right outside the front door - obviously divine providence, so we stopped there for a late lunch, and it was sublime. So confidence in the universe much restored :D
Today we went to 'First Watch', billed as supposedly the best brunch place in Tampa, which if true, fuck it I'm driving to Orlando for brunch, because it was awful - Cat's salad was wilted, elderly and devoid of dressing, my potatoes were similarly well past best-by date, and the eggs benedict was very short on hollandaise, with eggs still partly clear from being so undercooked: plus slow and surly service.
After that disappointment, we drove out to StPetersburg, vaguely thinking of looking at the beaches, but we wound up at the Pier, where a thousand yachts seemed to bob their heads at us. Very fortuitiously, Cat needed a pee and we saw a public restroom, however while turning, we saw a beautiful looking bistro (Fresco's Waterside) right by the yacht harbour, with a park literally right outside the front door - obviously divine providence, so we stopped there for a late lunch, and it was sublime. So confidence in the universe much restored :D
Friday, May 22, 2015
the zombie blog staggers on
I'm hoping I may have time and energy enough to revive this blog, at least occasionally, so here goes!
Arrived in Tampa from N'awlins on Mon 11th May, found a house to rent Wed, 13th May, got truck and movers to unload Fri 15th May, started new job Mon 18th May, got paid Thu 21st May. Whew :)
It's been a bit hectic, but Cat is bearing the brunt of unpacking/organising - then again, she hasn't started looking for a job yet, so that pretty much works out.
The new house is great - all wood floors, 3 good size bedrooms, 2 office/bonus rooms that are also a good size (my wargaming room and Cat's sewing room, and a big lounge/dining room, plus a decent size kitchen this time. A few teething problems, but nothing unusual really.
Work is ...interesting. Haven't been a one-man DBA shop for 15 years, so there's some adjustment. THis might also be the smallest company I've worked for, so I also need to adjust to a much lower level of formality and organisation (and hte abandonment of a WHOLE lot of Best Practice stuff, like change control, separation of security functions, etc). Certainly not boring, though, as I'll need to get my head around being an Active Domain administrator on the side, as well as learning something about MS Dynamix AX, which is billed as an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, but actually it's an accounting package - general ledger, billing, accounts receivable, all that song and dance - plus a customer-facing section for the franchise holders to handle their accounts.
Arrived in Tampa from N'awlins on Mon 11th May, found a house to rent Wed, 13th May, got truck and movers to unload Fri 15th May, started new job Mon 18th May, got paid Thu 21st May. Whew :)
It's been a bit hectic, but Cat is bearing the brunt of unpacking/organising - then again, she hasn't started looking for a job yet, so that pretty much works out.
The new house is great - all wood floors, 3 good size bedrooms, 2 office/bonus rooms that are also a good size (my wargaming room and Cat's sewing room, and a big lounge/dining room, plus a decent size kitchen this time. A few teething problems, but nothing unusual really.
Work is ...interesting. Haven't been a one-man DBA shop for 15 years, so there's some adjustment. THis might also be the smallest company I've worked for, so I also need to adjust to a much lower level of formality and organisation (and hte abandonment of a WHOLE lot of Best Practice stuff, like change control, separation of security functions, etc). Certainly not boring, though, as I'll need to get my head around being an Active Domain administrator on the side, as well as learning something about MS Dynamix AX, which is billed as an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, but actually it's an accounting package - general ledger, billing, accounts receivable, all that song and dance - plus a customer-facing section for the franchise holders to handle their accounts.
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