188/365 Time to go
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.
Last day at work. The government program that was funding our work got canceled, so we'alls (who just recently switched over to W2 status) got laid off.
I'm probably going to lay low for the summer and get some things done around the house and focus on the massage therapy business which is just as well since I've poked around a bit at the job listings and it's pretty slim pickin's right now.
134/365 Setting the table
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.
The nice thing about having the flexibility of working from home is that I can occasionally see clients during the day. Of course, that may not be an issue in a few weeks, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
91/365 Luncheon of Chumpions
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.
Not what you'd call a quality meal, but by the time I noticed that it was after 2PM, it seemed more important to just get stuff finished ASAP than to take the time to track down a proper meal.
Probably not the best decision-making I've done in a while.
90/365 Packing for Business and Pleasure
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.
Well, we're off in less than 2 days, and we've got lots to do between now and then, so we're starting the packing process early.
The trip to San Diego has been on the books for a while now. Balboa Rendezvous. (yeah, I definitely see that link dying in 6 months) It'll make up for the dance workshops I missed last weekend. And it's better to be healthy for this trip.
Then, on the way back, I have to stick around for some meetings in LA, the first one starting at 8AM Monday morning. Joy. On the plus side, I can expense the hotel for that night.
We were planning on heading straight home after that. Red-eye. Not even time to catch a movie at the Cineramadome because of the work obligations.
March has been tough. I've been busy, but also sick. The SOOTTAD has been working like crazy on a project with a crazy aggressive schedule and crazy team logistics (most of her team is one hour back in central time, but one of her developers is based 18 hours ahead). She probably got 9 hours of sleep over the last 4 days of development, bring-up, troubleshooting and debug, plus travel across country to pacific time to present the finished product. It all went well, and they were scheduled to start phase two with another aggressive deadline for sometime in April.
During this time, a bunch of events seemed to nudge us towards our eventual destination. Wil Wheaton tweeted about watching Maui sunsets via webcam. I randomly started playing my ukulele again. A friend who grew up in Hawaii has had a bunch of pictures from high school (in Hawaii) tagged in Facebook. And then the hotel where we stayed for a night in Waikiki on our honeymoon sent me an email. Which led me to google plane fares (which seem to be at historic lows recently) to Hawaii. And then to check frequent flier rewards.
We kept looking at different flight itineraries, but they kept bumping into this work thing or that client appointment. Another workshop. A local dance weekend. And, of course, Spring in New England. It's one of the nicer times of the year -- really a shame to be away, even for Hawaii. We might have been able to pull off a shorter trip, but you really need to spend more than a week to really give yourself time to acclimate and appreciate the place.
And then her company was notified out of the blue by the client to just stop work.
And with that, it was time to Gee the Eff out of Dodge.
We figured out that we could just tack the trip onto the end of our California trip, still spend 2 weeks there and get back in time for the SOOTTAD to make another client meeting.
Which I guess is how you book an extra 2 weeks of vacation, 4 days before you leave for the trip you were already planning on taking.
Oh, and we're closing on a refinance of our mortgage 4 hours before we fly to California.
Life is good, but you have to admit that it's still kinda crazy.
Crazy AWESOME.
62/365 Lights Out
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.
Last one to leave the office again.
Fortunately, it was only 6:15PM -- most people are in and out on the earlier side, and no 10+ hour work days here.
Except when I'm working from home it seems, and am trying to finish a spec for a deadline. Like Sunday night / Monday morning... Oy.
41/365 Courtyard Railing
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.
Staying at the LAX Marriott for work. They have some sweet architecture and they know it -- there have been portraits of the building in every room I've stayed in so far. Will try to capture some of it in the next day or two if I get up early enough.
Also, figured I'd ask, in case anyone else has had problems and discovered a solution: has anyone else out there had troubles getting Flickr to post photos directly to Blogger?
37/365 Pause|Break
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.
what do you do when you spend most of your day sitting in front of a computer?
You take pictures of the stuff on your desk.
On the plus side, there's better light at the office than anywhere in the house at night.
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.
This is one of the few downsides to working from home. I can feel myself getting carpal tunnel trying not to disturb him too much when I try to type around him.
On the other hand, it's 3:30pm and I'll probably head out for a run in less than an hour. (seeing as I couldn't motivate when I woke up at 6 this morning, and then ended up over-sleeping*.)
*
Prolly got up around 10. Yeah, jetlag...
I'm working from home right now.
This is generally a good thing -- easy commute, less distracting hallway chatter, comfortable surroundings (not over air-conditioned, or air-conditioned at all, really), no interrupts from coworkers or the boss.
Quite good, actually... if it weren't Saturday.
Woke up around 4am this morning, dreaming about some crazy Nerds animal launcher to capture some accumulated in-game collectable item (small nautilus-shaped radio/TV sets?) and thinking about user interfaces and gameplay and then recognizing an underlying rate-matching problem that mapped into a problem I've been trying to solve at work. After lying in bed for an hour trying to figure out a workable algorithm (I hate it when the solution only makes sense in the dream state), I finally realized I wasn't falling back asleep. I think I was also hungry.
All that, after lying in bed awake for at least an hour after going to bed a bit after midnight last night a few hours ago.
So I got up a little after 5, and tried to capture some of what I was trying to work out in my head. (Sadly, not much progress.) And installed some new anti-virus software* while I was at it. And had a cookie and some warm Ovaltine.
I did have this crazy idea that I might try going for a morning run, seeing as I was up and all -- I'm still trying to figure out how to fit the workouts into my schedule these days -- but a quick check of the weather seems to indicate that it went from unpleasant to inhospitable in the hour since I was up, dropping from a balmy 16°F to 10°F between 5 and 6.
*sigh*
Productive, and yet, not so much.
Ok, I think that's it for my gripe this morning.
*And, hey Norton Anti-virus? Since when does "dismiss pop-up window" mean "accept the query as to whether to restart my machine right now?" God I hate it when installation programs to that.
