Monthly Archives: October 2003

I was going to spend some time typing up my values and mission statement, but decided to make up a batch of candied pecans instead. Mmmm, pecans. Now I must go work out and go to sleep.

Welcome to transitioning

transitioning – (v) the present progressive tense of “to transition” which is a noun with “to” stuck on and pressed into service as a verb. State of being in a transition. Brought to you by the makers of other fine made-up words like relevancy. (Have I mentioned that verbing weirds language? well, so does nounation :)

Well, that’s the other shoe dropped. We’re being fired in exremely slow motion.

It looks like I have 178 days to go in this job, so I will soon be looking for some other place where I can go be a sysadmin or manager. Strangely, I have approximately the same amount of severance and vacation saved up (177 days), so if I were to live off of the residuals, I could probably go to next October without tapping into savings. Not that I would want to… I want to work.

Ideally I would *love* to find a place where I could fight spam, that would really rock. I wonder if there are any anti-spam companies out there that need 1000 unix machines running like clockwork and a team of 4-8 sysadmins well-managed. Anyway, I will keep my eyes open over the next 6 months but I probably won’t start really stressing about it until well into the new year.

[strangely, I found out that relevancy is actually a word according to Merriam Webster, it was published in 1561. Of course, it means exactly the same as relevance. So they were nouning some perfectly good nouns back in those days too! ]

Finally caught up with friends

Wow that took like an hour to read the 170 entries on my friends page from yesterday and today. You guys are on *fire*. I even read the 12 additional entries that appeared in the 90 minutes I was reading the first 170 or so.

Good thing there is nothing important happening at work today. Perhaps I will work some more on my personal mission statement. It’s almost done by the way.

Weekend Report

Wednesday- Met for dinner and brief gaming with J. A good time was had by all.]

Thursday- Nothing remarkable.

Friday- Managed to leave work by 4:30. Forgot what I had for dinner. I think I just watched tv or something.

Saturday- Took apart entertainment center. Received call from D asking for help moving bookcases, so we met at the furniture place around 6:00. D and C helped me get the ent. center put back together, at least enough to get tivo running again. We went to dinner at California Buffet (on De Anza or Saratoga/Sunnyvale Rd or whatever it is called there) – this place is eerily similar to Todai.. a few different kinds of fish dishes, but no ramen/udon and limited desserts. Went back to D and C’s place to help unload and hung out for an hour or two.

Sunday- Made myself eggs and cheddar-sausage for breakfast. Gave J a ride to airport. Finish putting the living room back together just in time for M to get home. Unloaded the car, then took L back to San Jose to get her car, talked for a while.

Monday- Trip to Sac again. Didn’t get started until 9 so I got there at 11. Change control events lasted until 7 pm. Got back home at 9. Actually worked out, first time in a week or so.

Recall No

On the way to work, three or four people were on the street corner by the freeway ramp holding signs that said “No Recall. No on 54.” I waved and gave them the thumbs up.

I made the rounds and talked to everyone at work, asking if they voted. I found at least one person who wasn’t planning to vote because he was disgusted with the whole process so I encouraged him to go Vote No. Two more people weren’t sure if they could vote or where to go, so I told them to check smartvoter.org. I reminded about 3 people that if they haven’t voted yet, they are allowed by law to leave early to go do so. The vast majority of co-workers either had voted already, and a smaller number were non-citizens here on visa or green card.

If I am lucky, absentee votes will actually get counted. If we’re really lucky the recall will get defeated.