Wow, I haven't posted in a long time.
This stems mainly from the tide of events regarding work, life, and the balance in between. We went on vacation in February, which was a fun trip, despite it feeling different (because we had our friend Ken in tow.)
Since then I haven't been able to get to the gym because work is evil during the day. I don't have the motivation to do it before or after work. After work, I just want to hit the car as fast as possible to get home. I have a clear deliniation between work time and home time. Doing it in the middle of the day breaks up the day and makes me feel better all the same. Work has been overwhelming. An endless supply of work, looming deadlines, and my fear that I'm being buried and no one cares. On one hand, I love the fact that I'm not micromanaged. It is a double edged sword however. In the situation I'm in now, I feel like my voice is lost among the masses and I'm worried that it will come back and they'll claim it's a "performance" issue on my part. None of my peers work as hard as I do. None.
With being detached comes me reading the Kindle which I purchased before I went on vacation. It finally arrived and I've been downloading some books onto it to enjoy. Currently I'm reading several books at once. (Which I didn't think I was capable of, but having an ebook reader makes so much more convenient.) I love being able to pick up right where I left off.
I'm still working on my Japanese though. I'm making great progress. A little bit every day.
The culmination of a year's worth of effort has finally come to fruition. As of 11 AM this morning, Harbor, the application I've been developing has finally entered a live production state. It's pioneering the cause as it's sibling applications will soon be following along behind.
I'm a little sad because it has been my entire life lately. I'm also happy to be moving on to other projects as a full time effort. I'm hoping people enjoy this new way of managing data in our ever changing digital universe. Happy Birthday, Harbor. You're now in the world.
Now I get to celebrate, eat, drink, and be merry.
Two days until application go live and things are a zoo at work. I had literally 30 seconds to eat my lunch between three training sessions. Ugh.
Well, I tried to find a picture of the Drowsy Chaperone to post here, but sadly, Vox was kind enough to reject every image I tried. Brian and I are headed to the Fabulous Fox to see it as part of our Broadway Across America package. I'm not quite sure what to expect. I know it did well on Broadway. That's about the extent of my knowledge on the subject.
The gym was super crowded today. Every machine was taken and people were crowding the freeweights. Sadly I'm not gonna argue with the testerone filled jock over the thirty pound free weights so I could do my leg squats. It didn't ever really clear up, so after 2 circuits, I gave up and left.
三十漢字は今日の学びました。
So I've finalized my taxes, except for one piece. I'm thankful that year after year I live a rather humbling life and don't get wrapped up in a lot of tax codes and laws that wants to remind me that in order to claim "x" deduction i need to dance naked under the full moon.
Turner Broadcasting W-2- Six Flags over Georgia W-2
Student Loan Interest 1099Savings/401k InterestIRA Contributions
Really, that's it for my finances. I'm just waiting on my W-2 from Six Flags to e-file. I'm hoping it comes soon, although knowing that company, it'll probably take near forever.
I think I am PMSing. It started yesterday and has bled right through today.
Some background -- I'm a high demand developer. I'm typically working on four to five "official" projects at any given time. On top of that, I end up mentoring a lot of developers on usability concepts, architecture, and code reviewing. I'm also given one off tasks because I'm extremely efficient. I know that sounds like I'm tooting my own horn, but let's face it, when you're good at something, the management is going to exploit it. This coming weekend, one of the projects I've worked on over the past year is hitting the big time with a full production release. This has a lot of people in a panic about making sure everything is worked out in our environment to make sure people can access the product.
Every time someone asks a question about setup, configuration, citrix, training, or required software installs, they all somehow manage to look at me. Last I checked, my job title wasn't guru nor was it trainer, configuration manager, or even helpdesk analyst. I'm really really exhausted with holding people's hands through a process that should have been investigated several months ago by people other than myself.
/rant
On a side note, I think I should ask for a raise.
So last night I received a metric fuckton* of books from Amazon and thejapanshop.com. These included:
- Japanese in Mangaland (volumes 1 - 3)
- Japanese in Mangaland (workbooks)
- Kanji de Manga (volumes 1 - 5)
- Japanese Graded Readers (level 1, volumes 1 & 2)
- 2006 JLPT Level 3 & 4 Study Guide
I was actually suprised how expensive the graded readers were. $30 each for tiny little books and a CD. I was chomping at the bit for actual japanese literature though.
In other news, it snowed in Atlanta yesterday. Someone call the press.
So in a serious scare last night, I was installing updates to my Mac Pro and it rebooted. When it rebooted, I got to this registration and new user screen, as if the operating system had just been installed. For the life of me, no matter what I did, I couldn't get it out of this mode.
I panicked, of course. In their simplicity the mac doesn't offer much in the way of troubleshooting it and it wasn't about to let me go into the console. I begged, pleaded, and argued with the system to allow me to do anything. Eventually it wouldn't even let me use the keyboard or mouse. Thankfully, I had Brian nearby with his laptop and with some quick searching we found that if Software Update fails to finish installing, it hoses something in the start up. I booted in safe mode and did a soft reboot which forced the Software Update to finish and everything was fine.
This was how I felt about Apple not knowing about this problem and at the very least publishing a solution to their knowledge base:
At Macworld today, Apple announced some new products and new features to existing products:
- MacBook Air - It is self proclaimed as the thinnest notebook and the entire package weighs in at just 3 pounds. That's pretty impressive. The price tag, however, is not. Something that is smaller ends up costing about $500 more than it's brother the MacBook.
- Time Capsule - This is a network wireless router with a built in 1 TB storage module for over the air backups of any Mac on the network. This is scary cool. I want one.
- iPhone Update - It introduces maps triangulation and being able to "clip" web pages to the home screen for easy access. It also introduces a way to organize the icons on the home screen, which looks kind of neat.
- iPod Touch - Introduces several applications for the iPhone that are now available for the iPod Touch. Sad thing is Apple is charging $20 to existing users for the applications. They should have offered it for free.
I'm disappointed that there wasn't a "just one more thing" speech this year.
