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Little problem = sleeping schedule. Bigger problem = read below.
I'm not sure what is better: knowing you have a character flaw and tabling the correction until it explodes or not knowing you have the flaw at all.
The scenario: my comfort level for travel in and around DFW has been limited to the major airports, North Oak Cliff and anything up US 75. It's not that I don't like travel and it's not the issue of traffic. My fatal error is that I can't be comfortable going anywhere around North Texas unless I know exactly where I'm going and know how to exit when I have to. I know it might sound silly for some folks that love to err on the side of whimsy, but I'm sorry. If my spacial intelligence is not satisfied, then I can not carry on with a right mind.
Forensically and historically, I'm not really sure how this came about. When I was younger, my family did have trips and we did travel to places that we didn't venture to every day. I didn't live some sheltered life where I had to follow the yellow brick road. I don't get it and I can't explain the origin.
The only thing I can relate it to is the simple example of a grocery store. Most times, people select the closest store for convenience. Say you go to the new store specializing in organics and other assorted goofy food bits that they have now. In the new store, you don't know where everything is, it takes you longer to find the needs, you end up buying a bunch of junk you don't need, you don't know the shortcuts and the nuances like with the local store.
Well, when I don't know the new store like I want or like I should, there is this hidden anxiety that shows up. It's the anxiety that shows up when you know you are out of time or you missed something important. I'm just one of those people that want to know where the fire exit is...the one person that actually reads the safety instructions before a flight...call me crazy.
The one big repair I need to do is to not freak out about it. I don't know why I get so annoyed when I don't know exactly (to the coordinate minute) where I am. But when I lose that sense of control, I lose my temper. I have no reason for it. I need to fix that. Where's the duct tape?
Technology helps. Granted, Garmin makes a good product, but it doesn't make up for my mental shortcomings. I do feel like I am ready for a GPS upgrade, but maybe my settings are off. Why does it want me to go headlong into interstate highways and toll roads? Yeah, it's probably the settings.
Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) Little and little, more by more, the Dallas Spurs fans are showing up...and I keep running into them.
2) The better the pizza, the worse it is on the reheat. Trust me.
3) I feel better about my training coming at the end of May.
So, with that catharsis out of the way, I need to prep mentally and physically. Two weeks out for Beach to Bay and this will probably be my worst run EVER. Maybe I can buck up and get ready...but I am cutting it close. Talk later.
Colt is getting some looks from some teams...hopefully not from this angle.
- It starts with the Super Bowl and now it continues with the Draft. What the hell is up with the red carpet garbage? It's the draft, not Plush. It's bad enough these players haven't made a football dime and they have a suit ensemble more expensive than my truck.
- Three months ago, the 1-2 was Suh and G. McCoy. Now it's a broken quarterback that couldn't finish the Texas/OU game because he doesn't know how NOT to land on his throwing shoulder. Obviously, Bradford has never wrestled with his dad in the living room. Got to learn how to fall or Sam will be a bust.
- Why don't teams go for their most important need as opposed to try to fit in the best available? That never makes sense to me. Why am I going to by a Mercedes when I don't have a roof over my head? Why buy the steak if I can't afford ramen noodles.
- There is a reason why the first teams in the draft are where they are. Bad offensive line and bad front seven. One draft pick is not going to do it. I'm starting to buy the whole Colin Cowherd Top-down approach for sport franchise success. If your management stinks, there is no hope, no matter how many draft picks you have.
- Just to be honest, if I was any of these talented athletes, I would be a little bummed if I was shipped to Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland or Buffalo. C'mon, I don't want to play football in a football wasteland. It's difficult for me to filter out the bullshit from the genuine sentiment. At least the Oakland weather isn't THAT miserable.
- It's a damn shame that we can't have Todd McShay versus Mel Kiper all year long. I know it's not meant to be hilarious, but it is.
- Yeah, sure, I like to keep track of the Longhorns. But then it I get distracted and pay attention to the Cowboys and Patriots all over again. Thus, my attention span is torpedoed. So much easier to focus just on college football than to bounce around nine-eleven teams in the league.
This is seriously the most useless exercise in the creation of Western civilization. All of these predictions and wild guesses mean absolutely nothing. These men haven't played a down. Yet there is so much stock and time burned with analysis that may or may not translate. We don't do with with the NBA (unless we are paying attention to the Draft Lottery...embedded hilarity). We don't do this with baseball (because we have a hard enough time keeping up with 378 games...or something like that). We definitely don't do this with hockey (some 17 year-old Canadian went somewhere...okay). Who knows if any of these men will work out, especially with millions of dollars and on the good side of their twenties.Lessons Learned, my three things.1) Seriously, this night shift is really messing with me. I have had the worst running times in my life with strange sleeping and eating patterns. I would be lucky to go sub 9/mile.2) I can waste my money of plenty of things, but it will not be a 3D HDTV.3) Beer in growlers are only good for 48 hours. I wish they would have told me that at NXNW a month ago.Okay, I need to waste more time tweeting about the 239th pick. Talk later.
The graveyard shift is doing a number on "family time".
It was a rewarding trip to Waltham...I'm delineating Waltham from Boston not only because of distance, but because I was in Waltham ninety percent of the time and just happened to fly into Boston. Anyway, it was a rewarding trip to Waltham. I got to meet the bosses, we did some non-technical training and partook in lots of team building (accidental and purposefully). Plus, my healthy disdain for GPS devices was reinforced on the old and somewhat-unsafe roads of Eastern and Coastal Massachusetts.
Then, we had to get back to work.
It's no secret that our operations are now 24/7 (or 24x7 if you are writing code). When service is extended with such a time frame, certain concessions have to be made to perform all tasks and objectives set within the mission. So, I took one for the team. No, no, not in that way (get your mind out of the gutter).
How did I take one for the team, you ask? I had to cover the graveyard shift. Initially, I thought it would be no big deal. I would just have to flip-flop my daily routine to accommodate the change. Well, it's easy in theory, but in practice it's a whole 'nother story...especially if you were programmed for 0700-1600 shift for most of your professional life. Sure, you think it will be the easy switch, but who knew I was such a fan of daylight?
It's little things when it comes to such a change. Of course the commute will take less time getting there because not a lot of folks are on the roads...unless it's a Friday night. Trying to wind down when the Today Show is still on is a difficult mental trick as well. But keeping the mind active when more than half of the electronic world you are monitoring is asleep...that's been the real kicker.
But people take one for the team all the time. Whether in social situations or professionally, we "take the graveyard shift" at some point. Our motivations change and our reasons vary, but when we know we have taken that sacrifice for a good reason (not merely to satisfy some self-centered goal), we know we have the capacity of other wholehearted endeavors. If there is a greater good involved, then we know why we do it. We understand why dad had to work weekends and nights. We understand why mom has to travel. We see that absence but we know why it's there.
Therefore, I hope everyone understands why I haven't called or written in the last couple of weeks. Sure, I can give you the short version that my sleep patterns are a bit off. But the big picture is what matters. And that's how you know you have grown up...just a bit more.
Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) I do not understand golf or golf fans...and I never will. They will continue to cheer an amoral Tiger Woods while scoff and cheer for the demise of a golfer in Phil Mickelson that has two(!) members of his family CURRENTLY and simultaneously suffering from breast cancer. Pardon the language, but what the fuck, golf "fans"?
2) Therapeutic optometrists can also write prescriptions. I did not know that.
3) There sure are a lot of new people moving to Dallas. The last stat I heard was every day, 300 people move to DFW.
Hopefully this mea culpa explains some things (especially the photo). Got some fun things coming around the bend (despite the poor scheduling issues) including my triumphant return to Corpus. But that's in about five weeks. I will scrounge some things up meanwhile. Until then, talk later.
So, P30P is not winning a Pulitzer this week. It's just more incessant complaining on what used to be and what will never be again. Call it the Andy Rooney approach.
I spent twelve years of my childhood in San Antonio, where I learned my appreciation for good Tex-Mex and Spurs basketball. When you are young and "poor", it's the little things you tend to appreciate. As a perfect attendance award winner at Pecan Valley Elementary, we were awarded a free dinner at Pesos Cafe every six weeks we achieved the goal. The cheese enchiladas were great, but they were free and as an eight year-old. About 10 years ago, my parents and I went back to Pesos for the same traditional menu and ornate goofiness you would expect at a 20 year-old Tex-Mex restaurant.
"Welp, you can't go home again."
Those were the only words I remember my dad saying the whole time we were there. I'm sure he said some other important things, but this statement resonates for the depressing realization of the passing of time.
Fast forward (then hit rewind) to last weekend. Of course, as the timing pattern would have it, The Lovely and I would land in Austin for a third consecutive year for the last weekend of South by Southwest (SXSW). The tradition continues for us, but the insanity seems to exceed the previous years by indication of the local annoyance levels.
Sure, it was the perfect storm on Friday night with South-by out-of-towners roaming about and the old Thursday Night crew coming in from out of town as well. But when driving in from MoPac onto 5th Street under the cover of night...welp, you can't come home again...anymore.
Off the bat, you see this monstrosity scraping the formerly tranquil skies of Austin. Seriously, this is the biggest sore thumb I have seen in a while. It has to be 50-75 feet taller than anything else, if it's an inch. Once driving down 5th...it's absolutely ridiculous. It's the absolute opposite of "gun store, gun store, liquor store, gun store". It's high rise, retail space, parking garage, high rise, retail space, parking garage, rinse, later, repeat. Yeah, sure, California real estate is retarded (satire!) but that doesn't mean they have to develop downtown Austin like some gentrification experiment on speed.
I didn't recognize the place.
I hate to get on the old man platform, but it's pretty bad that ten years ago the UT Tower was on of the top five tallest buildings in the city...ten years ago! I don't know if I made up that stat up, but it sounds good. It was also the perception. The sleepy college town from the sixties and seventies grumbled with nineties expansion. Now you have...present day Austin.
Granted, I don't want to sound like the huff that complained about the Frost Tower or the DKR expansion. Austin is blowing up - has been for the last fifteen years. Slackers and professionals alike are still moving to the capital city in droves even if they don't have a job, a plan or any permanence to sustain living in the 512. If there's expansion, there has to be growth. I just didn't think it would be all vertical and saturating one zip code.
So, I did not go "home" last weekend. I was previously forlorn every time I had to leave my beloved Austin. Now, with the unrecognizable characteristics, Austin has become the ex-girlfriend that has a kid and never lost the baby weight. Oh well. I have my Dallas to fall back on.
Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) Uh, yeah...SXSW 2010 final score: a) crowd is either getting out of hand or b) locals are getting more and more crabby. I am scoring this a draw.
2) Sure, the food might be marginal, but Baby A's have fantastic margaritas. Remember kids, a cab or a DD is ten times cheaper than a night in the clink.
3) As much resistance as there is with Texans and toll rolls, Toll 1 should be a case study in how to do it. Stress-free, worry-free, check's-in-the-mail system that works for me and gets me where I need to be sooner than effing I-35.
For those that are unaware, I will be shifting to vampire mode starting this week. If you can't tell by the post time today I will be doing work overnight from here on until...I don't know when. It will be an interesting three months, especially with SANS, Beach to Bay and other training goodness. But nevertheless, if an email or text or phone call is in order, I will always answer the bat phone and respond to the bat signal - day or night. So, please bear with me as I haven't been this nocturnal since my wedding night. Talk later.
From this perspective, every topic is random
Let's be honest, I think I speak for everyone when I say that the first three months of oh-ten have been retarded (I used satire). On this eve-eve of St. Patrick's Day - the day he drove all those snakes from Ireland then we appropriately drink green beer at two bucks a pitcher (what?) - and on the eve-eve-eve of The Madness (what, you haven't filled out your seven brackets yet?), my brain and consciousness can only handle scattered thoughts and expanded Twitter entries. So, why don't we load this literal shotgun of scatter-shot and see what we hit, shall we?
I start with a question: would you rather have full job security with all the benefits you could think of, but have to work the absolutely worst shift known to man OR work for a spot with a shaky stance for continued employment with the hopes that someone might pick you like it's some grade-school dodge ball game? See, that's a trick question because I already made that call. However, the worst shift to man is terrible (ref: Cleveland Brown, "Terrrrrible"). Come 29 March, I will clock in...at 11PM. Yeah, you read that right. HEB shelf stockers have a better shift than I do. It's a 10-hour schlep with three on and two off. So, I'm like the fireman of cyber security...but it's not a 24-hour shift. Well, that parallel didn't make me feel better! Anyway, that's coming. At least I get to visit Boston before I turn into a vampire. But it's okay, sports fans. I signed up for this. But, I won't be doing this tour forever.
Responsibility is an awesome power because it gives you foresight such as, "hey, I think we should take a cab tonight." Might I say that cabs are brilliant. Whoever thought of cabs is a certified genius. I go out. I get silly. Someone drives me home. It's absolutely brilliant. It's so effective in it's simplicity that I kick myself for not using cabs earlier. Yeah, I will admit it. But, seriously, this cab thing is awesome.
Is anyone else in the camp of celebrity-news-makes-me-lose-brain-cells? I know I can't be the only one thinking, "Why do I care what Jessica Simpson thinks of Gabby Sidibe? Wait, how do I know who Gabby Sidibe is? Oh, never mind, I know why? Because she was on 'The Soup'. I watch 'The Soup' to shortcut all the terrible television out there so I don't have to suffer through it." I just can't be the only one. But seriously, why is Charlie Sheen's (his name is Estevez!) court appearance infiltrating coverage on POTUS's last push for health care reform? Granted, John Boehner has a Hollywood orange skin-coating...err...tan. But still, leave it out. Baby steps toward Idiocracy is not a winning formula.
I think everyone should go out to dinner on a school night. There is a 100% possibility that you will either end up with heartburn or a hang over, but sometimes enjoying other people's company on a night you wouldn't normally reserve such activities for, it adds that fear of, "oh, I have no idea how I am going to feel tomorrow, but damnit, I am going to have another scotch." Sure, the risk is there, but sometimes the reward is just getting out of your comfort zone, even for a few hours, to throw that hair back and feel like a man (or woman) of leisure. It's a great feeling, especially if you have accomplices.
I may have to go into a part two, but that's enough shotgun target practice for today.
Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) Nothing against my surrogate home town of Austin, but if you ever have to plan anything in that crazy city, DON'T DO IT DURING SXSW (no hyperlinks needed, just search austin360.com, wired.com or sxsw.com and you will understand the Charlie-Foxtrot that city is right now until Sunday).
2) Amazing that a miserly nerd can a) get a show on TELEVISION and b) scare the eff out of everyone simultaneously. Where's my agent?
3) This town does St. Patty's Day (weekend) right. Great job, Dallas Drunks.
So, sneak preview of next week's post...the Inglorious Basterds of Whiskey Bar are having a reunion. The only difference is...we all have WAGs (wives and girlfriends). Very...very...extremely interesting. Oh yeah, and it's during the last weekend of SXSW. Yeah, I am going to need to post this. Talk later.
It's like first realizing that snow is cold.
As superhero reincarnations go, this would be my second. I was a hero in a past life many moons ago before fading to a dark side that not many people know about. With some help, the villain changed his uniform. I started doing for the greater good, with some help from my friends. Now, the uniform is worn hoping to graduate to a cape some day. But such a Kafka metamorphosis origin and rebirth tale will be reserved for another day. Not knowing how many times I will have this blessing, I am trying to make the most of it.
Maybe it's this particular mentality that I speak from, because some of you may not know where I am going with this parallel. There are certain environments that heed an acceptance of certain behaviors. Continuing with the crime/punishment, good/bad theme I started with, one would expect (for example) how the institutionalization of a prison would create the desperation or the reform for a prisoner behind bars. You expect and assume that such behaviors and activities would be accepted in such a hostile and controlled environment. That assumption goes for plenty of environments and descriptions: brokers and Wall Street, the White House Press corps and the morning briefing, TMZ.com in front of celebrities...there are expectations within a microcosm experienced.
Such is the case with IT professionals in technical environments, be it personal or commercial systems. The expectation is that "we" (yeah, I guess, with four years into the biz, I can be considered as such a professional) know our way around hardware, operating systems, applications, methods of transport and other languages, is some cases. It's with this assumption that lay-mans ask for advise, support and a helping hand here and there.
The problem with assumptions is the truth is usually more than meets the eye - and I don't mean to associate IT folks with Transformers. Since I have been indoctrinated into this environment, the general assumptions have been benign for the most part. But when you get deeper into the rabbit hole, the erosion of the soil gets more and more obvious in the descent.
By nature and trade, IT folks tinker and experiment and break to rebuild and rebuild to thrive. Faster, better, stronger...without having to do one push-up. So, with innovative, engineering minds toiling away at solutions, some minds wonder. When they wonder, it looks benign on the surface, but is much more insidious that first imagined.
I laugh every time Stephen Colbert heeds the "invisible hand" of the free market. If he made time with any IT professionals, there would definitely be some "free" talk, but not a word about market. As my new cape is still on order, I see a conflict of morality with my fellow heroes...
It's the main reason why companies worry more about the inside job than the outside hack. It's the reason why countermeasures are made with watermarks and service packs to ensure integrity of product. It's the dirty, filthy, noisy secret that the IT world would never let you in on, unless you have the fifteen spare minutes in the lab or the back-knowledge of packets of data slowing down everyone's throughput.
To my IT brethren, I implore you to KNOCK IT OFF! With the general public's ever-growing knowledge and accessibility of technology and the continued general morality of the difference between right and wrong...CUT IT OUT. Just because we know how to break digital watermarks, procure legitimate product keys, acquire software developers are being laid off for, doesn't mean we have to continue our amoral practices.
In my partial decade of being an IT guy, I have seen a continued apathy and disregard for theft of product and art that hundreds of people expect compensation. It's just not right. On a daily basis, no one would steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. Why would anyone steal source code from Redmond, WA on such a frequency? Or for that matter, a full set of film reels from Paramount Studios?
This disregard must cease. The trickle-down is here and now with $8 movie tickets, exorbitant prices for software titles (leading to cuts in traditional-tech jobs like programming and quality assurance) and degradation of a world wide network that is pushing like a "series of tubes".
Now, in no way, shape or form am I saying "quit downloading, you are scaring the children!" The "invisible hand" is noticing the paradigm shift to where not everyone will enjoy the 56" LED with traditional entertainment service providers. The Internet is turning more and more like our TV-Looky-Box. Viacom, Hulu and YouTube get it. And also, there is quite a few alternative freeware versions of regularly-expensive software. Thank you very much, OpenOffice! No, this is not that argument. We can yield plenty of use from other legitimate sources (that want to email us every time there is an update).
No, no. This is just a special message to all of my IT buddies that know they are doing wrong. Are other IT folks that don't partake in the grand theft data accessories to the constant crime? Complicity is a bitch, isn't it? I would like to bring up the discussion as to why the state of the Internet and the state of IT is where it's at, one could easily argue that with this continued look-the-other-way mentality, it could get much worse.
Truly, how many more dominoes must fall before the doppelganger heroes of IT realize that the morality play is one-sided, not layered? Guys (and ladies), you know who you are. And you know what to do.
Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) No matter how long I live here, I will never become a Mavs fan. Sorry. Sloppy, slow, dispassionate basketball is not my thing. At least a Spurs fan appreciates what they have (which is one pro sport team in there town--and that's it!)
2) There should really be a class on how to fill out your W-4 form when you get married. Seriously, can someone help me carry the 2?
3) The Lovely and I have moved to the Metroplex during the second snowiest winter EVER! I don't know what kind of omen that is.
In the bonus: Happy Birthday to the big brother. Brother, you are my brother.
Quick disclaimer: not every IT professional steals product and art from the Internet. In fact, it's a very limited number. Not all IT folks hack or crack or steal. But there has to be a sense of responsibility and trust when we know the whole is the sum of it's parts. If you are good, stay good (and vigilant). If you are bad, even part of the time, the example is not being set. Talk later.
All dressed up...and everywhere to go.
Since landing in 32.782778, -96.803889, the big benefit to moving north was having activities to do without burnout or boredom or reruns. It happens when you move from a "metropolitan" area that has more Farm to Market roads than zip codes. I don't want to call it overwhelming, but two months of adjustment is necessary. I jumped at the chance to hit up P.F. Chang's before waiting in line in a Corpus mall.
Of course, in abnormal fashion, I have inadvertently knocked my engine from drive to reverse and neutral. As I wanted to do in Corpus but just couldn't get it right, I have successfully pulled off the homebody label. Granted, being a homebody as a dazzling urbanite is a bit different than what I tried to pull off in the 361. But, I need to venture out to practice my spacial, geographical intelligence.
Either I am staying put or visiting the same places over and over again. Going downstairs to the cafe bar, walking three blocks to the City Tavern or picking up a bite at three-dozen-plus area eateries in a half-mile radius has kept me contained. And that is bothersome. Come on! I live in Dallas, now. That's kinda lame.
When I decide to venture out, there seems to be some pseudo-military logistics involved. Sure, there is something to be said for a central location. That's why most police departments are located centrally with satellite precincts...most located in Fair Park and Oak Cliff (I kid, I kid). But, responsibility has kicked in. If I know there is a potential to be bent out of shape with assistance from a few adult beverages, I call our driver (we have a cabbie that we have called over a dozen times so I consider that a driver). Oh, responsibility, what a buzzkill. Stakes are high if I were to do something stupid, but that's crushes some of the adventure with losing a share of freedom with safety (and some cash). Why does cool stuff have to be 4 miles from Main Street? That's kinda lame as well.
It's a paradox. There is tons of stuff to do here. There is a want to keep the car in the overpriced parking garage. That's where the lovely yin and yang of marriage comes in for the assist. The happy median (it's MEDIAN, not medium; why would anyone want a happy...wait, what?) is reached, with some help. Perfect example: since the weekend is the only logical time to venture out, The Lovely has gone on a data dump using Google, Black Book, Texas Monthly, Dallas Observer, neighbors and nervous but willing strangers to collect items for trekking. Last weekend was Louie's. It was absolutely worth it. Too bad I was so exhausted I slipped into a pizza coma. It's no wonder Elton John sang about Saturday Night(...'s Alright For Fighting") as opposed to "Going Out To Dinner On Sunday Night".
I had no idea work was beating me about the head and face so brutally that "The Danimal" has been marginalized to some small kitten until Friday evening...after my run, of course.
Lesson Learned, my three things.
1) Dallas loves the Cowboys and football so much that they are absolutely forgetting about the "charlie-foxtrot" inbound with All-Star Weekend...during Valentine's Day weekend. I had no idea Dallas had enough strip clubs to support this event? Yeah, charlie-foxtrot.
2) It never hurts to have a beer distributor as a buddy.
3) Be wary of business and branches that say they are the "Dallas branch" when in fact, they are located in Irving, Addison or Garland.
BONUS: HA! P.F. Chang's is opening in Kuwait City before they will be opened in Corpus. A former war zone is getting lettuce wraps before Corpus. Hilarious.
Wait a effin' minute? Did I just grow up right then and there? Oh, that's effin' awful. Next thing you know I will want to go to bed before 2300...wait, what? Talk later.
Little problem = sleeping schedule. Bigger problem = read below.
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