It's been awhile since I last put something in the journal. So much has changed since the last time I was putting stuff in this thing. I have jobs at the company I work for, a semester has ended, a new one has started, I have a girlfriend, I'm moving to a new town.

Phew. So much in so little space. Sorta like how I'm trying to pack things for my move down to Little Rock. Should be interesting.

Man, this week has been a long one, and it doesn't look like the end is near even though I'm writing this on a Friday evening.

As long as I get the work stuff done in a timely manner, things should be o.k. I'm going to a get-together that a friend of mine is having tomorrow. I don't know why he's having it, and really hasn't told me much about it. I think it's gonna be pretty small, though.

I don't have to do any class prep next week...hurrah! :) I think I just have one left to do, and that falls on Thanksgiving week. Everything after that is downhill. (Or at least appears to be).

I went to lunch with a lady that a friend of mine set me up with last Friday. She was very smart, very pretty, and pretty well off financially, but things just didn't feel right. I haven't called her since then, and kind of feel bad about that because she was really a sweet person. She had been through some of the same with a cheating partner that I had except she has a child and been through a divorce.

I also finally got to meet another girl that a different friend of mine had been wanting to set me up with. She was very pretty, too. I'm supposed to hear back from my friend if she was interested or not. We'll see, but I think there was interest there.

One of the bad things is that the last girl that I went out with on the few dates, I still wonder how she is doing. I miss talking to her, also. I could talk to her about all sorts of stuff with such surprising ease. I hope everything is well with her.

November somehow is always a nice month out of the year. Obviously, there is Thanksgiving where all of my family can come together in one place and enjoy just being with each other with not worries. In addition to that, though is the changing of the season.

Mother Nature gives off the last blast of color before turning and going into the bleak, cold doldrums of winter. You would think that the turning of leaves in the fall would get old after some period of time, but the majesty of the display never fails to awe and amaze me.

November is also the time when it truly starts to become cold in the morning and evenings. While I'm a cold-natured person, I enjoy fall and winter somehow. I could do without the occasional ice, but other than that winter is the time when warm liquids are welcome, fires are cozy and the run to the door of the house to get inside makes things interesting.

This year's thanksgiving is going to be a bit different, though. In years past, I would spend most of the week down in Dallas with my brother, and we would go to a professional sports event. The last two years had been hockey, and I had really been looking forward to that this year, but a couple of things have messed that up. First, I have class on that Tuesday afternoon, so I probably won't make it down there until Wednesday morning. Second, there isn't any hockey season so far, and doesn't look like there is going to be one by that time of the month, either. The only pro basketball game is the Monday that I can't make it down there. Oh well...we'll get it next year.

One thing that I have decided is that teaching is a very rewarding thing to do, but I'm not sure if it's something that I want to do full time. The politics of a department seem to be a bit helter skelter, plus they just move at a different speed (s-l-o-o-o-w) for doing things. The reward is when people get what I'm talking about, other that don't get it now hopefully will see the value of things later on when they are doing the job. The flip side is that you get to know some of the students pretty well, and when one of them has something happen, you want to be able to help them as much as you can, but on some things you just can't.

I have been lightly contemplating words that begin with the letter "v". I wonder where English picked that letter up at. It seems like all the words that pop into my head that begin with "v" are all strong, precise words that leave nothing to be misunderstood. Even a word as simple as very pronounces the upcoming importance of something. Of course, one of my favorite words (not actions!) is Vomit. It's such a cool little word.

I went with a friend yesterday to work out in a thing that seems like weightlifting to music. It was pretty neat. I think my eyeballs just about popped out of my head a couple of times because of some of the girls in the class. Wow. My arms a little sore, but not too bad.

I got an e-mail from my friend that got mad at me, and I immediately wanted to ask how she was doing, and talk, but I didn't. I just answered the question she was asking and no more. I miss talking to her.

Somehow managed to stay very busy today. I have lined up one of my speakers for my class, and I have someone else lining up another. That should be fun and interesting to see the differences. I suspect that a lot of my students won't get the nuances, but I hope a few do. Plus I don't have to prep for those class periods :)

I ran into a girl that I had not seen pretty much since high school. She's married, has several children and a successful career. She also looked great. Hopefully, I can only hope to have held up half as well as her, I'll be doing just fine.

I went to church yesterday, and I ran into a lot of things that were many of my basic objections the first time around. I will give another go at it this coming Sunday, and hopefully a different teacher will make the difference. I haven't heard the general service yet because I got turned around on times of things, but will probably go there this coming Sunday.

I took whole pile of computer junk with me up to work. I got rid of a bunch of it. Amazing what still can't be given away for free. I gave away two computers that I didn't need anymore. I have more stuff that I probably should get rid of, but can't bring myself to do that yet. I'm making progress, though and the amount of extra junk laying around is significantly smaller.

I had to take some stuff to one of the friends referred to in the earlier entry. It was so awkward. I don't think there is anything there anymore. I wish I could talk to my other friend.

What it feels like to lose two friends in one week? And the worst part of it was that it was my fault on both cases.

The first friend was probably my best friend that I had. She loved me. She knew me better than anyone else in the world. The problem was that I didn't love her, trust her, or interested in carrying on the relationship. That ended this week. She brought the very small set of things of mine remaining that she had and returned them to me. She was mad. Mad at me. She said things that were hurtful and mean. She gave me my things, yelled at me for a few minutes, and then left. I don't think she will ever call again.

The second friend was a new friend, but one that I trust. She is going through a rough spot, and in my blindness to try and be a good friend, I tried to be supportive. What I said turned out to be very wrong. I then interpreted an e-mail she sent from work badly. When I tried to call her, it would dump me straight to voice mail. I assumed she wasn't interested in talking to me, so I left a voice mail. I didn't try to guilt her into calling, but I guess that is what happened. She called. Spewing invective. I apologized. She said she felt like she had to forgive, but those were just words. Forgiveness was not there. Now, I just have to wait for her to return a couple of my things. I don't think I'm going to ever hear from her ever again, either.

Both make me sad. Both were caused by situations I created. I hope that both find the peace that each needs to make their life right. I feel terrible that I have caused pain in two other people's lives.

Am I smart. No way. Socially inept. Yeah..in a lot of ways. A lot of my friends have tried to boost me back up since I have been feeling down, but it comes down to how I feel inside, and there's nothing there. It's hollow.

I get to give back all the midterms and third homeworks to all the students. I was pretty pleased with how well most did. Pretty much a little over a third of the class got a B, with a handful of As and a few C, and only a few below that. I had one question that I think only one person got correct. I don't think I will throw it out, though.

I thought the test might not have been hard enough, and I think that it may have been on the easy side, but it was probably about right.

At work, we're getting into a new dev cycle for our third release of software coming on the heels of two others. Maybe we will get to catch out breath a little once we code freeze in November. I'm not counting on it, though.

I'm ready for this Monday to be over. I'm also glad that I don't have a pile of meetings this week. I think I'm going to distract myself and doing a little coding this week. I haven't been able to do that in awhile. The bad thing is that I have assigned myself a big chunk of the first two milestones, with a couple of other people doing things along-side me. I'm going to have to restrain myself to not do their work for them.

We only have 6 weeks to get the stuff added, and as far as I'm concerned, I want to get the knowns out of the way as quickly as possible. It's the unknowns of this release that scared the poop out of me. Generally the unknowns aren't that bad as long as time is on our side, but that's not a position that I want to get into. Especially when a big chunk of the team is gone around Thanksgiving and a huge part of December (myself included).

I'm also looking forward to the weekend. I'm going to go up to Hawksbill Crag, and it should be incredible with the leaves turning. The leaves should be nice for only a few weeks, so I hope it's not too early. Hopefully the weather will also cooperate. Knowing typical Arkansas weather, it may not. :)

Gave the test...first guy was "done" in 30 minutes, but I suspect that it was more he didn't have anything else to add and he was finished guessing. The next guy was finished not long after that. Took several days to prep the test, and it was demolished in less than half an hour. Oh well. Guess we will see how the results are now.

I got some more information about the speech that I'm supposed to give. I think it's way less formal than I thought it was. As for the length of the talk it was more of a "eh...just wing it"...dinner is 2 hours long, but I'm not expected to talk through the entirety of it. I think I'm going to shoot for 30-45 minutes of talking. Beyond that I regret that I would dive down the path of incredible, drooling boredom.

I was pretty chilly all day long. I think I was wearing shorts just last week, and this week it's jeans with a long sleeve shirt. Guess that's typical Arkansas weather for you, though. I will probably be unseasonably warm in November, too. :)

It's amazing. I'm getting ready to be on the other side of the desk. It seems like not too long ago, I was the one taking the information in, and not realizing all that the professor was telling. I'm sure the same thing will happen with me as well. It's not like this is exactly new, either, because I have been a TA before, but I have never had the full responsibility for an entire class before.

Today I got onto someone that is a friend of mine, and it was more a case of her being in the wrong place & wrong time, with the wrong question. Had an issue pop up at work, and instead of stepping through and answering questions one at a time, we had a hodge-podge of things going on. We had at least 2-3 separate small groups of people not communicating with the other group, and they were all just looking at numbers on a report as opposed to actually verifying the results.

It mystifys me how so much reliance can be placed on a report that shows trends while never looking at the actual results. In fact, I almost suspect that we could sell a product that produced reports that looked awesome performance-wise, but were complete rubbish.

So much for my frustration...another day goes by with me no further advancing to what I do or contribute to. How does one show how slinging data affects anyone's life in a positive way other than my own checkbook?

I can't believe it. I put my bean out for some good sunlight yesterday, and it nearly croaked. I don't know if it just had too little water or what, but one leaf completely shriveled up, the core stalk extension turned south, and the other leaf was half dead. My only hope are two little nubs on the side of the main stalk.

Hopefully it will recover. I have never had a bean make it all the way to judging day, and hoped this one would.

Every day when I'm sitting in my cube and pondering either code or something else, there is always at least a brief, but albeit noticeable, interruption to the day when the cleaning crew comes through and picks up our trash.

For me, it serves as a reminder many days that any of the struggles over the day are almost over and it's close to time to leave and go home.

I just hope that when it's time to leave this earth the person that comes to pick me up is as nice and friendly as the people that collect our garbage.

Had all this stuff typed out, and I backed up and it went away :(

Simply put:
Work in another city today
new boss = good
testing = could be improved
bug = missed detail

Where does testing begin? I have read a lot of articles, even been in some training where people who don't necessarily write code talk about where testing should begin.

It seems that a lot of the time the prevailing thought is that testing should be independent of a development organization and start building their tests at the same rate as development. To me, this makes a lot of sense. It's the same reason that you have editors paired with writers. You don't want the writers proofing their own work because it is altogether too easy to overlook grammatical mistakes. Same thing goes with code.

But what about the tools the testers use to test? In my particular organization, most of our testers simply do not have a development background, and couldn't build many of the critical tools if their lives depended on it. While I don't fault them for their skills, it means that the development organization must provide "tools" for the testers to use. I think, overall, this is detrimental to the software development process, because then the testing organization is limited by the tools that are provided to them. It's not far away from development doing their own testing because the tools will be created with our own bias in how things should work.

Become a Zamboni driver? I have been wondering this quite a bit. Maybe partly because I would like to get away from my current job, or maybe it's just mindless wandering that got me to this question.

Just how does one become a Zamboni driver? Is there a school? Maybe it's in the blood? Maybe it's not a case of becoming one...maybe you just are one and know it if you are.

Maybe it's part of organized crime? Yeah...probably not...