ok so I waited a year (+3 days) before making my 3rd entry; if you want to file a lawsuit, line forms to the left...ok so I guess some updates are in order. I'm no longer in network operations (thank GAWD) but I no longer work for that company either. Now before you decry me as one of the millions (well maybe that's a strech) of shiftless, unemployed IT monkeys, take a moment and relax; I'm still paid to have fun. I'm just doing it in a different state with a different company. Let me catch you up; no that would take too long; let me sum up. dot.com startup I worked for decides to reduce manpower to tighten budget. Sr Sysadmin gets taken out by cuts (he made some prod booboos that management wasn't too keen on I think). Operations responsibilities are redivided and I'm dropped in as Jr Admin. Network Ops becomes a rotating pager tied to HP Operations. My cohorts in Ops join content management and QA teams respectively.

Fast forward to 2003. I'm working regular hours again but living right down the street from the datacenter at my aunt's place (my lease was up and I was trying to find work in my fiance's town) so I'm constantly at the datacenter at random hours of the day and night. I'm also looking pretty had for a job in fiance's town. dot.com announces that they're in the process of merging/being bought out by competitor just as I get offered a pretty sweet job for a huuuuuge tech co in my fiance's town. Ah serendipity, thy name is tech recruiting. Of course to now former colleagues I just look like my shit is wired in so tight that I'm out the door with a new job 90 minutes after announcement of impending closure. Well, I'm pretty sure they don't read the journal so I guess they can live with that impression of me.

So that gets us to about march of '03. I'm living in the same town as the woman for the first time EVER in our 4 years of romantic involvement, we're sharing a place, and generally loving life. So I decided to complicate things by marrying her. I guess that's not entirely fair. We were already in the process of buying a house together and I'd already bought the ring, so it was never really a complication <self-editorialization: you better check that shit! Complication my ass! She's the best thing to ever step in your path...complication....</self-editorialization>...
more of a logical next step in a relationship that was already quite apparently headed that way. So that should catch us up to about mid summer. We've moved into the house, we're planning the wedding, the personal life couldn't be better. The professional life, on the other hand, isn't so hot. I'm working at a huuuuuuuge company, like 90k employees large, doing more or less the same thing I did before sans e-commerce and with 7 digit numbers in the black (I kill me). No matter how hard I try to make myself useful, I realize that I'll never be "part of the team" b/c I'm a contractor. I'll always be the cannon fodder b/c there's no need to conserve me. This co can replace me much easier than a salaried employee b/c there are very few ties with me. My "boss" just signs my timesheet. This is more than a bit disheartening b/c I'm making about 10k less than the going average in the area and have to pay healthcare out of pocket. Unfortunately I have this realization in the middle of wedding planning and house purchasing. Not a good time to go career changing. So I resolve to back burner that until after the wedding.

So I'm +10 days into married life. It's pretty fucking great, I have to say. If we can ever find some birthcontrol for my wife (short of me getting my junk clipped) that doesn't completely short circuit her, I'll be the happiest motherfucker on earth. But now it's time to put up or shutup. I've been contracting at the same co for 6 months and I've developed a certain degree of comfort. While I think it would be grand if they tried to hire me, at the same time I think I'd like to work for a smaller shop. Let me rephrase, I'd much prefer working in a company small enough that I know exactly who will be on my systems at any given moment. Getting called by a DBA on a friday afternoon handing you the inquisition b/c you rebooted a server they needed (don't log in as fucking ROOT if you don't want me to assume your connection is me, dipshit!) but never, ever use or even TOLD somebody they were using isn't something I like to experience. In a smaller shop, like oldco, I'd know the DBA was on the backup server and avoid rebooting it. That and I really really really want to go back to salaried and benefits. Constantly tracking when I'm here and what I've worked is for the fucking birds. Which fucking reminds me I have to go turn in my timesheet. Oh wait I can't, b/c my boss has already gone home!!!! Do I even care at this point if the proxy filters pick up traffic from my IP to careerbuilder and monster? I just dunno...

Interesting how life works isn't it? I've got everything that I could possibly want in my personal life right now but my professional life is the shitter......fuck

Whenever I get that Green Day jones, it seems like Dookie is always there with my fix. Thank you, Dookie. Didn't really have anything to say, but I felt like I should sit down and update the journal since I hadn't posted for a couple of days--by my time....I see that confused look on your face. Sit back while I explain.

I work in IT.

What? That wasn't enough. Ok, here's some mo'.

I work in Network Operations for a commercial ASP/ISP. It's pretty much shit work, but hey I've got just enough access to have my own geeky fun writing shell scripts, plowing through man files for that under-utilized parameter that's a magic bullet fix for my current problem, and generally just having a blast on Enterprise hardware while they pay me (can you believe that shit!?)

Well there is a downside...a couple to be completely honest. First, the job (and thus my residence) is in a completely different state than where my fiance lives; so, as you can imagine, our personal life is a bit strained at times. Second, it's a shift job; in other words they pay me hourly to come in at a predetermined time on a monthly rotating schedule. This can be bad b/c i'm usually juuuust getting used to whatever 8-12hr block of the day I'm supposed to be awake and then it bumps forward 8-12 hours. Fuck. Lastly, it's almost exclusively an evening/dead of night/early morning gig. So I've become almost ENTIRELY nocturnal (I've been home from the office now for about 90 minutes). But hey, 20/hr to sit on my can and learn myself some unix can't be beat when it comes to paid experience. Now if I can just find the friggin' boot camp manual for the Solaris exams I could probably take the test. It would help to have a solaris host at home to break...but I'll elucidate upon that subject another time.

<whiney_rant>I guess when it comes down to it, I'm lucky as hell my fiance is as understanding as she is. It's been a year since we lived in the same state (even then we lived almost an hour apart). At this point I just want to live in the same city as her. This long distance shit is getting silly </whiney_rant>

<new_subject><meta: where the fuck did these html styled internal monologue things come from? It's like being Hunter S Thompson, technogeek, but without the drugs and ether>
So I was thinking today how thankful I am to have concert dogs for friends. NRA, if you're out there, thank you for making me go to AAF. For some odd reason I must be signed up for the AAF newsletter b/c I received correspondence of an electronic nature this late afternoon from none other than their frontman, Dryden somethinorother. Basically he was just updating everyone on his and the band's progress post their horrendous metallica-like bus accident in May of this year on some backroad in Espana (that's with a tilde). The guy broke his neck right at the 2nd cervical disc (same place as Chris Reeves) and bounced a bone fragment off his cord in the process. I had a family member go through that same thing (under different circumstances), and let me tell you it's some evil shit. Unlike Reeves, both Dryden (and my family member) are up and moving. Through the miracle of modern medicine they were able to fuse the spine back together with a titanium rod( speculation there on my part but that's what they did to my family member) and he's gotten on his feet again through some intense therapy. Here's the REALLY shitty part: when they do that little fuse the spinal column thing they go in through the throat (right through the vocal chords) so you get to spend a few months relearning to talk as well. Sucks big dick if you made your living prior to that as a singer. Another shitty thing about nerve damage: it fucks with your tactile sensation in the weirdest ways. You sense temperatures differently; you may lose it altogether; you may lose the ability to distinguish textures; it's pretty random. This sucks bigtime if you ever played guitar...cause now you can't feel the instrument.

But the guy remains positive; it's fucking amazing. The conscious assertion one must make to live after something so utterly life changing blows my mind. It requires a degree of testicular fortitude that I doubt I possess (maybe these people didn't before either; we constantly amaze even ourselves). Needless to say, though, AAF is off the road for the forseeable future; although they are going back in to put together a new album soon. At this point I could really go for a studio release from them and after the harrowing experience of last May, I bet the emo underneath will just blow the fucking doors off the studio. But I'm glad I got to see them before it happened. I'm in your debt, NRA.</new_subject>

I guess that's all for now. My wrist is starting to warm up; I think my chair may be a bit too low.

More later, as always......

how apropos given the forum to which I choose to post. I've never been a big fan of any sort of personal record that one might share or that could be shared later (posthumously I'd guess). Why do we feel the need to put our thoughts to paper? Does it exorcise the thoughts from the mind? I don't think so. Is it a sense of vanity? Do we, I in this case, think we have something so profound to say that it must be saved for posterity's sake? Maybe. More often than not journals just end up as the primary source footnote of some historian's dissertation on a subject that only another historian would find interesting or that some history student would use as a footnote in their final for some history survery course.

So why now at this point in my life do I feel like I should start writing things down? My girlfriend would probably say that it's because I'm old (even though I'm young by most standards) or because I can't remember anything (which is mostly true). Twice today I've asked of people whose opinion I respect, how do you know your writing for the right reason. It's a question I still can't answer. Maybe this somewhat overlooked feature of slashcode will be my own little lab for answering that question....maybe I'll just rant about whatever I want--shout into the wind as it were--and see if anyone is listening or cares to shout in reply.

Ultimately, if I choose to write down any thought I have, it must be for me. So that means I have to employ a certain degree of honesty that makes me uncomfortable given the public nature of my chosen medium. Then again, maybe I've chosen the best possible place to speak my mind; in a crowd of people eaching shouting their opinion at the top of their lungs, who will notice one more soul quietly whispering theirs? I don't think I could choose a more perfect place; Harry Houdini would be proud....however that does imply rather strongly that I'm hiding something here. If so, what am I hiding......