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I absolutely love my current employment situation, but due to my experience in security and loss prevention, a local firm has made an offer that is a huge in regards to the pay rate differential. I don't like the thought of running a security team again, but am considering it. The starting wage is 25% more than I am currently pulling in... 

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  • 1 month later...

Saw a dog get killed in the road. Fucking ruined my night :(

 

It was fucking awful. I was walking back from the pharmacy, busy-as-fuck street, everyone going past at, like, 50 MPH. Here a *thump* up ahead, and I see the dog scrambling to get out of there: it had been hit, but was still alive but injured. Another car came along a moment later, hit the dog again, and killed the dog.


It was a few 100 feet ahead. I got closest to where the body was (in the middle of the road). It was either a puppy, or a small breed ;_;


I wanted to get the body out of the road, so at least it would not get mangled, but cars just kept fucking coming. FUck.

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Yeah. I'm honestly angry at how ineffectual I ended up being. Re: not even really being able to retrieve the body: if the dog had humans who were looking for it :(

 

I was losing it like a crazy person when I saw that happening. Shouted "Oh my god!" the moment I saw it maimed, but still alive. Then, afterward, I just kept shouting "Fuck!" every few seconds.

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(like I wrote on FB) I know it's such a male stereotype, but I'm kinda angry over the whole thing. Just woke up (fell asleep for 3 hours--I'll probably try to get back to sleep), but I still have this undercurrent of "want to punch a hole in the drywall".

 

That happens a lot with me: I end up getting an unfocused undercurrent of anger in response to any bad thing :(

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  • 2 weeks later...

@InfinityCircuit wasn't feeling well, so she was recuperating, and thus didn't visit

@heavyboots still came out, tho, so we had a mini-mini meat :D

 

Visited this Mexican restaurant IC had recommended, that coincidentally was very near my AirBNB in Mesa.

 

We then visited the hiking trail at South Mountain for a bit.

 

the BootsMobile:

49009760288_638118053d_c_d.jpg

 

the mountain:

49010395867_4ecddb5215_c_d.jpg

 

49009653308_089698acd1_c_d.jpg

 

the metroplex:

49010397367_b483ba11c8_c_d.jpg

Edited by xen0phile
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  • 2 weeks later...

So it has been an eventful week and a half.

 

I was asked to speak at a conference in Orlando.  This particular conference is a big deal in my weird little space.  More interesting is that a colleague of mine, who used to hold my position, has been trying and failing to get a speaker slot at this conference for many years.

 

Then I went to Vegas for my very first Big Tech Conference.

 

I made a video about it. Also, I am back on twitter due to work stuff. The only positive is that I can reconnect more with WGBers @geographerjay

 

 

 

Edited by editengine
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  • 2 months later...

GettyImages-495598229-1024x707.jpg

 

I'll become an Arizonan tomorrow afternoon!

 

For three months, at minimum. Hopefully longer, if the company wants to convert me to permanent!

 

Like I've whined a lot about, not a huge fan of the Phoenix metro. That said, I do think the desert southwest wilderness/aesthetic is quite lovely. And, the job itself seems interested/and pays better than what I've had!

 

@InfinityCircuit @heavyboots:

I'll be in Mesa until May 1st (if they decline to convert me to perm), or indefinitely (if they *do* want to keep me on). I'd totally welcome another mini-meat :D Most of my weekends should be free.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm in my new place. Got a room off of CL for $550/month. Housemates are pretty cool, kinda nerdy like me. It's not in the greatest location for someone without a car :( But, at least I have the eBike.

 

sharing the house with a dog and two cats this past week and a half. I love both species very much, but TBH I think I am slightly more of a cat person

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Dude! I haven't really been keeping up, but it sounds like you're in a better place now. I can only be happy for that :) 

 

So you've probably seen on twitter we had a bit of a meat in London earlier this week. It was a quick one, most of us only being there for the one day, some for a bit longer. Despite it not being formally organized other than "hey are you coming?" messages on Twitter, there was a surprisingly big group actually. Some old familiars, some new faces. Catching up with everyone is always lovely. The event itself was good, even if the interviewer seemed keen on going through as many spoilers as possible in the time he had. The audience questions were better than the interviewers. Afterwards there was only a time for some signing and a quick group photo with Bill; but so it goes. One thing that struck most of us is that he seemed frail and tired :/ I hope after the tour is over he has a lot of opportunity to rest and recover. 

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  • 1 month later...

Dude, if you're willing to do the work to make it work? That's really almost all they care about. I'm a *terrible* coder, but I code a lot of stuff I shouldn't be allowed to code just because I'm the only one willing to sit down to expend the effort to make it work. No one else is willing to, so they tolerate my code.

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Oh, man.

 

Yeah, I actually hear that a lot (that, like, 90% of any job is stupidly showing up).

 

I still feel incompetent. But, if they decide I'm competent enough to hire, I guess I could get over that.

 

I'd still be wary of using any "mission critical" software I wrote if my life depended on it! 😮

 

(Like. Please don't ask me to code, IDK, pacemaker firmware 😮 )

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the other thing is part of it is, I think, just out of my hands: like, the "business need" of the company

 

In the sense that you could be the best coder in the world, but you'd probably have a tough time getting hired as, IDK, a butcher.

 

Not *that* damn misaligned here, but I mean just, like, the company might not be in such a hiring mood, simply because of (say) COVID-19

 

so, yeah, I *do* get me not getting hired is not always necessarily a reflection on me

 

I should know by the middle of next week, either way!

Edited by xen0phile
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18 hours ago, xen0phile said:

I just don't know if I can hack it. I feel like every time I try to code something non-trivial, it inevitably turns out a fucking sloppy mess.

 

Imposter syndrome is a bitch, but we all deal with it from time to time. 

 

When doing front-end stuff, I used to get terribly discouraged when I saw some solutions that were so clever they were beyond me. Like, a function I would write in 10 lines some people would do in a single line that I couldn't even begin to comprehend. But then I kinda realized it doesn't matter... Sure, it might have taken extra lines to get there, and some would call that less "elegant" or whatever, but in the end all that really matters is that my solution worked and that you I could look at it and understand what it's doing.

 

So, as long as you're delivering to the specifications, and delivering it on time, you are doing OK. And if you work with others they'll expect your code to conform to this or that standard or style, and that's just another requirement you need to meet.

 

 

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No word, yet, on whether I'm in. (The deadline for them informing me is April 16th)

 

The good(?) thing is, the closer to the deadline it is before I get "hire/no-hire" news, the more likely it is that it will be a "hire" decision.

 

I think this because, if they make a hire offer, there is more involved stuff (filling out all the paperwork, getting my offer package organized, etc).

 

As opposed to them just saying "Thanks, goodbye", which (I'm pretty damn sure) is simpler (and thus would come sooner).

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15 hours ago, xen0phile said:

How *do* programmers do it with, IDK, pacemaker firmware, or ATC software, or the SCADA for a hydroelectric dam? Guhhh!

I suppose build in a lot of redundancies and make sure there is no single point of failure? Also, I think critical systems are deliberately run on simpler technology. Also also, I would really not be surprised if some of that stuff is also just hacked together bits copied from stack overflow ;)

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  • 4 weeks later...
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I can't remember if I even mentioned this here, but I got cold-called by a recruiter for Facebook. Anyway, had a series of interviews--some good, some bad--and am anxiously awaiting news from them.

 

It'd be remote, so I'd be able to live in Oly, still (Oly to Seattle or Redmond would be a helluva commute)

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  • 1 month later...

Not today, Friday.

We'd left thursday morning for the Olympic peninsula, to the Hoh river. After a night on my favorite sandbar, we were driving down the coast checking out as many beaches as we felt safe looking at. Down 101 past Ruby Beach toward Ocean Shores. Took 109 to 115 to get to the beach, and as I am doing about 50 mph passing a casino parking lot heading south, a guy flies out into the intersection turning toward the southbound lane, after blowing a stop sign. 

I swerved to avoid being "t-boned", and gunned the 5.9 litre, 360 v8 that lives in my Durango and steered into the oncoming but empty turn lane. The rig jumped, and the guy hit my passenger side, rear wheel instead of the passenger side door. Now I have 2 tons of truck heading uncontrollably into oncoming traffic, so I crank the wheel all the way right and slide, jumping the curb, avoiding an aluminum phone pole, and came to rest after shoving my bumper into the guardrail.

I took out 6 posts on that rail...

The driver was uninsured, but was decent enough to stay at the scene and confess his guilt to the responding officers.

I am happy to be alive, but 2020 can eat the whole bag.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm not good with birthdays, and I have one coming.

 

So as I feel in debt to the G board, I'll leave one of those unpleasant but absolute true stories which is simply weird.

 

When I was about 11 (+-1..2) I would watch television long after normal bedtimes, as my parents let me.  I got to see a lot of MASH as it originally aired.  

 

This is where it gets weird.  At that age, MASH ended, and I remember watching Alan Alda in a sitcom, something like House Calls, but I could be wrong on that.  But I was young, sitting in front of the tv, and noticed some sort of mark on my stomach.  So I picked it.  Gross.  And kept picking it while thinking about doctors on the television half hour.  That and as I now remember, martinis and open operations.  I picked the mark next to my belly button so much, not yet realizing this wasn't good, that a mark is still there till this day.  I think my parents watched and said nothing, at least as I remember it.  They might have stopped me once, but maybe not.  It's slight, but real.  And then I saw some sort of news show on hernias, when I was at that age, about the lower intestines poking through the stomach area or something, and the whole thing freaked me out.  But I never asked my parents.

 

Oddly enough, at an older age, when I got to the TO science center with school, the initial washrooms on the tour were closed, as I walked into one, and someone had attacked them with crap, literally, all over the place.  (And I always see that area on news shows that go to the initial area around this.)  And I care about the exit store, which sells science products.

  

So, Alan Alda means something to me, as the mark is still there, with helicopter sounds, bodies coming in, and flipping martinis, with open operations.  Peace, war.  The number.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I spent 90 minutes in a car with a coworker that is now in confimement, waiting for the PCR test result of her son, as a friend of his tested positive and they spent two hours playing in the same room last Saturday.

 

It creates a certain worry to be linked, still by an uncertain chain, to a positive case. Protocol here right now requires that I confine myself if she tests positive, except to go for my own tests, and meanwhile to live normally, if this can be called normal. 

 

Risk is quite low. We did not sing or shout or cough. We did not spend time face to face. We kept a well put mask in good shape on. In my estimate the risk of a car accident was higher than contagion. But it is clear what stays in my mind.

 

If there are no strong lockdowns I will probably make my first trip abroad (to Milan, Italy) in October. Depending on the plane experience and risk, I am really thinking of going to Venice afterwards, to enjoy the city in partial solitude. And then avoid my parents for a month, which is not easy, living in the same city and they needing help often...

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Egads! I took an antibody test at random this week, but mostly just because it was free, it's for Science!™ and the testing site was like 6 blocks from my house so it only took about 20 minutes including bike time to do it. I guess I get the results sometime later this week. The .mil is ridiculous in that they keep getting outbreaks but never actually tell anyone who may have been involved in them… so you hear 2 weeks later that 3 students in a class all got COVID and are in quarantine now and you're like, "did I bump into them in the break room that week?". A marine I watch on scope is in 2 week quarantine even though she took a COVID swab test and tested negative basically "just because" and since a bunch of her squad got COVID as near as I can tell too. 🙄

 

In other news, got an award from my company for a little VR project I did, which was cool. And after 2 weeks vacation, it's hard to get back into the swing of things again, lol. It's Thursday and I'm finally able to fall asleep before 5am at least so my schedule is coming back around.

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I have not yet taken a PCR test, though I have taken a couple of antibody tests (negative), plus the one I get when I donate blood (every three months). However my wife has been tested twice already (both negative) because she developed asthma last year and usually has digestive problems, so she always ticks several boxes in the symptom quizzes. 

 

Our company support a professorship at the University, and I am part of the steering committee, so we have our fist meeting since January. Discussing grants, science promoting activities, courses and conferences. And possibly a meal all together, which will be a trial. On one hand trying to give a feeling of normalcy. In the other a risk, even putting five people in a twelve seat table. 

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So far I've only eaten outdoors when meeting people, which I figure is going to be my modus operandi for the foreseeable future…

 

Although, speaking of which, I did actually meet up with someone for lunch today for the first time in forever. She's a friend off Periscope and I did her a favor while she was gone to her family's cabin over the summer and went over to her house and moved the cable modem and wifi router to the front of the house where the B&B is. Free lunch, wheee!

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today is a bank holiday in scotland. fairly localised and limited. it is raining and there isn't a lot to do. it is weird, ending up sitting in same space i work in, not working.

 

my car has been largely off road since the lockdown. managed to get it moving. but the inaction hasn't helped. got tyre problems, battery now flat. think i may be drifting towards selling it and not buying something for a while. what is point of car that is going to sit there, when we can't go anywhere? essential for getting to work, only way i can get to work, but until then, kinda stuck.

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I still go daily to work, and for most uses we prefer to go by car than by public transport. Getting in a bus or a tram is stressing right now. Doing more urban driving than before, and that way we really notice the benefits in consumption of the hybrid powerplant. 

 

My boss of 22 years died at the beginning of September. Lung cancer, a clear consequence of 40 years smoking. As this is a family owned company they try to fit his son in the position, but it is difficult, and the core team we are all still shell-shocked. Working in automatic is OK, as we have been a team for eight years (those are the "new" guys and gals), but when we have to stop and decide, or explain why we do things the way we do, it all falls down.

 

My mother has the same cancer*, but as she is 83, nobody dares to give a time estimate. It can be ten months or ten years. She does not fight it, and we just try to be with her within the limitations of COVID, as she is at extreme risk in case of pneumonia. Choices, and the delayed effects of smoking.

 

*Small-cell lung cancer, a typical smoker disease, in her case twenty five years after she quit smoking (but she smoked for forty years)

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So far I've spent like 10 hours in the actual office this week. With maybe 2 more to go on Friday. Probably had contact with about 8 different students, a couple ed techs and various and assorted AF personnel, but I just keep washing my hands after we share computer keyboards or mice and I go back to my desk. So far, so good apparently. My COVID antibodies test came back negative from a week ago.

 

Tucson now officially had the second driest monsoon season on record sine 1895. And we're 10 degrees over usual temps for this time of year too. Luckily, I did spring for AC 2 years ago, so working from home is comfy, but it's a bit crazy to have to keep watering my cactus to keep them from dying… On the bright side, at least the smoke from the fires in California has dissipated somewhat, thank god.

 

Oh, and a really good friend I made off Periscope a couple years ago got immensely triggered 3-4 months ago by an event we were both involved in, and now claims that whenever we interact, she completely doesn't trust me. Since this is all basically stuff out of her personal background that's causing it, I finally had to give up and just tell her that whenever she got therapy and got over it, I would still be around but having her angry and distrustful of me in all our interactions now due to stuff that is out of my control was causing me massive stress too and I couldn't take it any more. Muted her on all social media, and we'll see if we ever interact again? Good times…

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Happy belated birthday! 

 

I've seen my parents 3 times total in the last six months, my oldest brother and his family twice, and my other brother and his family just once. No other family beyond that.

 

All of our days are very much the same, we don't have a car and are avoiding public transport so we've barely left the city. It's a drag, but it'd be more of a drag to get seriously ill...

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Rules keep morphing here, at moment pretty much not allowed to have anyone in anyone elses's home, with £1000 fine per person if rules broken. Can meet one other household in bar/restaurant, can't car share. So social stuff is difficult.

 

Caught up with friends for coffee/dinner on Sunday. Which remains odd, and mixed feelings about it, but...

Dad's birthday today. As I say, I have mixed feelings, but folks have been going out for lunch a couple of times a week. Partly it is a mental health thing. A difficult balance, between safety and breaking. So I took day off work, too parents out for lunch.

 

I have something like 3 weeks holiday left, but increasingly nowhere to go. Guy who does same job as me, there are only 2 of us, he tends to take every Monday at this time of year. So I'm testing taking every Wednesday. Can't decide if that is inspired or just fucking stupid. We'll see...

 

ONS have been doing additional local testing for Covid, as supplement/alternative to the regular testing. I see some folk saying their numbers are more reliable. They were looking for folk in our area, so they were here yesterday, and I got a test. Which I've agreed to do every week for a few weeks, which I guess gives some reassurance. We'll see...

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Thanks, Wanderer.

 

I understand the stress with the parents. In my case, additionally, my mother says that she prefers to die if we do not go visit her. Clear emotional blackmail, but with lung cancer, a big aneurism and an ossified heart valve, she could really kill herself almost by thinking about it. Only her naturally low blood pressure keeps her going...

 

We canceled our first business trip in October to another country, Italy. Maybe in November. We are doing some inside Spain, however. Got a couple of documents saying we are an essential industry and that we need to travel. I also have one to Brussels in November that probably will be canceled this week. This is the period for fixing prices and targets for 2021, and many purchasers prefer the direct talk to the virtual. So we get strange situations, such as meeting in the parking for the company, or in a restaurant (that usually was after the meeting, not the meeting).

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My parents are still in pretty good health, so they're not that at risk. But still we're trying to be careful. I think it might be harder for kids what would normally have bigger celebrations for things like birthdays, communions, etc... 

 

Now is REALLY not the time to go to Brussels @Psychophant! I'm supposed to go into the office to clear out my desk at some point (the office is moving to a smaller, cheaper location); but I'm putting it off as long as I can because the prospect of an hour train ride and going through crowded locations like train and metro stations in Brussels sounds like a terrible idea. 

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Good to see you, Colin, even if there is not much to tell.

 

The Brussels meeting, as expected is now fully virtual. I am doing some traveling, but only inside Spain, and by car, avoiding public transport for long distances. A real setback for sustainability, but the risk otherwise is too high. 

 

Tomorrow we go to our favorite restaurant for my birthday. The tables were already at a safe distance before COVID, but we will miss the banter of the sommelier. Spendng what we can to help them survive this period, it is not the kind of place you can get take-away. 

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