Mike Wilson

Godspeed DJ Snooze.

I…

yeah.

wow.

So… it’s August.

The ambient temperature in my apartment is under 60 degrees.

#win

I might actually sleep a full night for the first time in six months.

Or maybe it hasn’t been the weather.

Believe it or not, I actually don’t have my Mother’s phone number.

This is a particular bitch because today is her birthday.

So, love me or hate me, it’s totally her awesome fault.

<3 Mom

“Look at this flower” and “Numismatic Compendium” For the win :-)

I loled

Hard.

(hat tip to Ted)

I repeat…

We have noodle.

That is all.

We have what you’d call a “knowledge silo issue.” There’s a major portion of our long-standing application that has no knowledge representation in the development team. There’s literally nobody who knows how it works or how to use it. It’s an important piece of functionality.

HOWEVER, the “operations” team has one person who has been up to her eyeballs in this application for years. Just her, that’s all. Now, you’d think that ‘operations’ did… ‘operations’, and they do. But they (or, rather, she) does all the development and support of this application. If she got hit by a bus, there would be 3-6 months of nightmare as all usual business was put on hold while we tried to investigate and come up to speed.

Fortunately, it’s not just the ground troops who are aware that this is a problem.

The first thing I worked on when I joined this team was a development project related to that set of applications (unfortunately I have to be intentionally vague, so I’m not sued into a damn work house for the remainder of my brief existence on this little blue dot.)

I was able to sit with her for a bit to pick up some background information and off I went to make a first cut at my task.

Occasionally I’d send her a snippet of code as a design example and ask if it made sense. Her response was usually to stare at me blankly, shrug her shoulders and say “I guess so.” Guesses about what that did to my head are an exercise left to the reader.

That first project of mine had faded in to obscurity, not because it went out the door, but because when it came time to actually test the code, my “mentor” was chronically unavailable. Production problems, other responsibilities. The test environment was being used, they’re migrating the code. Excuses excuses excuses. Finally we stopped pushing.

Now fast forward nearly six months, to about 2 weeks ago. The business side is turning up the heat a bit on that project. “Well, she’s busy.”

So we schedule a series of training sessions, two hours a day, three days in a row. We invite her, her backup on the operations team, me, my backup on this team, and the analysts.

An hour before the meeting starts on Wednesday “Oh, she’s not going to be able to join us. She’s really busy.” I give our analyst a glare that burns a hole in his forehead. He calls our boss, who calls her boss, who says “she’s busy.” So our boss calls her bosses boss, who calls her boss, who says “she’s busy.”

So we have the first session. The guy who works as her backup comes over and says “look, I don’t know what I can tell you, she’s the one who knows.”

I jump in “that’s fine. Tell you what, why don’t you take us through what you can, so that when we do get her time, at least we won’t be asking her stupid questions.” He’s a nice guy, but what he’s learned he’s learned via osmosis, sitting next to her.

He nods and we all sit around my desk and go through an introductory powerpoint presentation that we’ve all been deeply familiar with slide by slide, for about 45 minutes. We sit around and “bs” a bit afterwards and he mentions a couple other documentation sources on the intranet, a Lotus Notes database they use, etc.

There was a lot of “as I said, I don’t know what I can do for you. She’s the only one who knows all that Level 3 support stuff.”

“No no, that’s fine. This is pretty helpful, I appreciate it.”

“And I’ll send you a link to that Notes database.” A Lotus Notes database is (ostensibly, in this case) a collection of embedded documents, freeform database information and such.

“Excellent, thanks man.”

He leaves. 10 minutes later I get an email with an attachment.

“Sorry, the link to the notes database wouldn’t send so I’ve got this.”

The attachment is a word document, which I opened to find nine screen shots that he took of pages in the notes database.

I try really hard here to keep the tech talk out of it. But it’s tough to describe how… irrelevant, superfluous, just plain stupid that was. It’s like saying “well, I couldn’t fit the book in the envelope to send to you, so here’s a picture of the table of contents, cheers!”

I actually had a “good god, who DOES THAT!?!” outburst.

I turned to our analyst (who sort of shephards all this, since he’s the business side contact) and said “We need her. This can’t go on. If we have to delay it, then we do. But there’s no reason to continue these things.” He agreed to talk to our bosses boss the next time she was in (our direct manager is on vacation this week and left strict orders that these meetings need to happen.)

Turn to Thursday. I get a meeting reminder and twitch. Again, I swiveled my chair around and looked at our analyst.

“Is she joining us today?”
“No.”
“Then… ok, here. Every. Single. Attendee of this meeting knows that they are absolutely useless, completely and perfectly without value right?”
“Right.”
“Then I submit to you that if we have this meeting, we are a bunch of morons. And if you want me to walk in to the director’s office and present that argument, I’d be happy to. I’m in that kind of mood.”
“Well, if..but… *phew*” I can see him sweating it out. Finally he comes up with “Ok, but we’re going to have more people today, right?”
“I don’t know, are we?”
“Yeah, their boss and a couple other people wanted to dial in. So, ya know if you feel you’re not going to get anything out of it and just want to skip it…” He won’t actually say it’s ok out loud, as that would imply a blessing for my absence. It’s cute to watch people move between rocks and hard places.

So I put the headset on and dial in to the conference call on mute. Sure enough, it’s the same guy giving PRECISELY THE SAME presentation he gave the day before, which I know everybody on the call had already heard two months earlier, because we were all in the same call.

As he wraps up, 46 minutes later, just like the previous day, everybody compliments him on what a wonderful training session it was and how much they learned.

I’m rocking back and forth in my chair, bleeding from my ears, looking like I’m choking on a baseball sized lump of pure distilled rage.

I.. I don’t know what to do here. I feel like I’m insane, and there is NO shortage of people who’ll chime RIGHT in with that. But surely, SURELY these people are aware of how ludicrous this all is, right?

I mean, is this all really just a cargo cult of software development? Children play acting at what they think running a development arm of a financial institution is like?

I’d interview, but I’ve only been here for six months and, when asked why I’m leaving I don’t know that I could stop myself from saying that I was sick of working for a shop that subscribed to the “infinite monkeys” school of software development.

Please. If you’ve got anything, I’m all ears.

Seriously. I can see “dude, prozac” actually being the right advice.

“It’s not you, it’s me.” or…something.

I’m getting tired of a lot of things. I’m getting tired of thinking I’m doing the right thing by hocking my soul to people who don’t treat me right under the guise of ‘doing the right thing’.

I fight a constant battle with selfishness and solitude; an elitism of sorts. But I over-react in the wrong direction as a misguided attempt to compensate.

I won’t be treated the way I’ve been treated. I would never do it to anybody else. Ever. And I won’t have it done to me.

I won’t be accused of being insensitive by the insensitive, cruel by the cruel, or absent by the absent.

Look to your own house before you criticize me.

And I’ll look to mine before I criticize you.

Hopefully we’ll meet on the other side.

THAT said, I have near infinite patience for people who are open and honest.

“A John Wayne movie,” I said. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie- with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well, you know something, Mr. Limey Poofter? You’re right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They’re us. WE BE BAD.
“We’re the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We’re three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother’s side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them all together and it wouldn’t give us room to park our cars. We’re the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap d’Antibes. And we’ve got an American Express card credit limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go.
“You say our country’s never been invaded? You’re right, little buddy. Because I’d like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who’d have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying ‘cheerio.’
Hell can’t hold our sock-hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, fuck longer and buy more things than you know the names of. I’d rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen, and jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch.”

P.J. O’Rourke, “Among the Euro-Weenies”

(Shamelessly lifted from Lee Ann’s blog: http://lookababywolf.com/archives/248)

It’s hheeerrrree :-)

I’m gonna drop off the face of the Earth for a few days.

Bwahahahaha

Rabbit Rabbit!

what a delightful lunch.

I just got back from a near 13 hour day so I’m gonna go fall over like a sack o’spuds.

So if you follow me on Facebook you’ll know I’ve been lusting after the 27″ iMacs lately. You know… for development.

It started last week when I was checking prices on macs for a friend of mine. I went back and forth with a couple people about whether they were REALLY that good, etc. I checked prices and bank accounts, bopping my head in acknowledgment.

Today I walked in to J&R and let the salesdrone accost me so I could bug him about cpus, lust after the thing, and such suchness.

I almost pulled the trigger right then and there, bringing the thing back to the office, lugging it back here. But I bowed out, realizing that the smart thing would be to wait for the monster paycheck I’m getting on Friday to cover last week’s madness.

I got out of the subway in Brooklyn at about 5:20 (suck it, plebes) and remembered I had to pick up my laundry. As I walked in to the atm thingie I thought “ouch. There’s $35 down the drain.”

and I stopped.

physically stopped.

right there.

And I thought to myself, I thought… “Self? What the…”

So apparently I have almost NO trouble dropping a quick $2500 on a dev box, but $40 on laundry makes me flinch?

“But it’s for development!”

What development?

I’m not DOING any development.

I haven’t written a line of code in months.

I don’t particularly WANT to write a line of code. Sure, there a couple quick hit perl scripts I want to write. Maybe even a couple dozen. And yeah, I’d like to go teach myself some ruby/haskell/erlang/clojure/go or something.

But on the whole, development just doesn’t get my knickers all in a wad very much any more.

So whiskey tango then?

I’ve just crested the first rise of being back on my feet financially. My balance is going steadily up.

The last two years has been plagued with this feeling of being financially hamstrung. Always in focus were the things I couldn’t do while maintaining any sense of temperance.

I’ve been lusting after furniture, new computers, music, instruments, trips. All kinds of things kept out of reach by a basic sense of self preservation. (That might be the beginnings of adulthood peeking through. No no, the other … oh neverind.)

I know how positively sensual that feeling is, making a big purchase. Taking the hours I’ve kibbitzed with managers and slaved over shitty code and turned it in to something shiny and wonderful that’s MINE.

And it’s good. That feeling.

But of all things, a computer? Computers are the razor sharp double-edged swords of my life. If I knew what else I would do I’d walk away from them entirely. But now, after all these decades? Well… I’ll keep looking at least.

No. It would be a dark thing for me to buy another shiny brand new computer. A different platform no less! One that I’d stay home, experiment with and ADD over for months and months.

Pushing off my actual goals that much farther.

It’s just fucking time.

I’ll see y’all back here in a bit.

I have to focus.

put on your helmet

So I’m sitting here in a towel and glasses (Settle down ladies.) having just showered after an hour and change on a cardio machine.

I’ve never done an hour on a cardio machine. I’m not saying it’s some huge achievement in the realm of human fitness. But I was pretty damn surprised that I hit that groove. I could have easily gone another. But I figure I should stop and give my knees a couple day recup, just in case I was getting all endorphiny and ignoring some horrid damage.

After all, I’m getting old.

This also (I suspect not coincidentally) marks the first time I brought an mp3 player to the gym. I’d played around and started with a couple tracks in a tentative ‘workout’ playlist. It was upbeat stuff with a nice rhythm, some consistency, etc.

Seemed right.

Wrong.

I TOTALLY misjudged what was important about cardio music.

First: Strong percussion ONLY works when you’re in near perfect sync. Otherwise the phase mismatch is like listening to … uhm… yeah, I’ve got no idea. But it’s really bad.

Second: Frenetic guitar and metal works really well. HOWEVER! Heed my warning plebes!

The use of the title track from Joe Satriani’s album “Crystal Planet” should be avoided at all costs unless you’re Usain Bolt or whatsisname Armstrong. Listen to the end to see what I mean.

At the final note (at 45:22 in to my workout) my eyes rolled back in my head as I gasped for air after 4:35 of alternating between holding my breath and screaming. I fell backwards and cracked my skull on the floor behind me, which was of little note as my heart had exploded out of my chest, sending my soul skyward.

The universe became whiter than white lighter than light and I was overwhelmed by the sense of crossed arms and a cosmic tapping foot. It was then I knew I was in The Presence.

“Seriously!?! That’s your ticket out?” He bellowed.
“Oh, fuck. Look ya gotta give me a mulligan on that. Dick move I know. But let one slide, I got shit to do.”
“If I EVER…”
“I know I know. Jesus Christ, how much harder do you think you need to hit it.”
“You INSOLENT…”
“eep”

And I was on the machine, pumping away. The time read 41:47. I picked up the zune and changed the track, looked up and winked.

But the Chemical Brothers works great. I recommend the “Exit Planet Dust” album.

So yeah, there’s that.

Joined the gym last Monday for reasons both righteous and puerile, though admittedly I wonder some times which is which. With that membership you get a trainer evaluation session and two half-hour sessions for an additional $30.

Now, some of you might remember about five years ago when I had a personal trainer for three or four days a week for the better part of a year. I always said I’d rather be homeless than abandon my gym membership. Ah, youth.

It was a tremendous expense. But it was the only thing that got me to go. Inertia is my Achilles’ heel. At the time my thinking was that at least I understood that, so I could at least play to my strengths and isolate my weakness. It worked for a while, though it was a nontrivial lifestyle hit.

The silly season came around and scheduling got a little wonky with my trainer. Add to that the fact that I torqued my right elbow badly enough that most weight exercises were out.

So I stopped.

I think that was in 2005, might’ve been 2006.

Last Monday work was unbearable and I’d forgotten my zune (yes I have a 64g zune HD. Yes I initially bought it out of spite against apple. Turns out I like it more than the iPod) back in Brooklyn, which is a scant 20 minutes from the office (commute’s pretty rough for the new job ;).) So I hopped on the 4 and came back for it. I blended and drank myself a banana strawberry smoothie (still can’t believe this crap) and wondered what I was going to do with the rest of my time.

I thought about the next phases of life and realized that now that I’m beginning to get in to a groove with an actual income, it’s time to stop living like an unemployed programmer, especially with regard to my health.

So I swung by New York Sports Club on Remsen st. (A word to you Equinox fags: Hardwood floors, managers with cufflinks, trainers with fake tits and New Age soundtracks do NOT make for a better work out any more than the extra $50 a month does.. Have a nice heaping spoonful of go fuck yourselves you pretentious gits.)

I walked in the and asked the guy at the desk “I need to talk to someone about joining.” As I stood there, someone was coming down the stairs and the kid behind the counter pointed to me, looked at him and said “walk in.” He waved me to follow as he turned back up the steps.

One of the trainers I recognized from the before time came down the stairs and gave me a hearty hello, ethnic hand shake and a “welcome back!” I’m aMAZED he remembered me.

But then, I have a tendency to enter a room when I enter a room. (he says with what modesty he can muster.)

Yadda yadda no no I don’t need the dog and pony show. Where’s the beef? what’s the cost? Can I start tonight? I gotta get back to work.

Sign here, here and… there. Handshake. Hasta. Out.

I came back that night for my trainer “evaluation.” (where evaluation evaluates to “ass kicking.”)

In doing exercises, I kept seeing myself in that same gym, four years earlier. So when he said “push ups” I thought “35″. What I got was 11 and a string of subvocal swearing that would make a hooker blush.

Again and again I drove myself to a point of physical instead of mental failure.

At one point I was so light-headed I felt consciousness starting to go.
“Are you going to black out?”
“ya know yeah, I think I… might.”

He led me to a massage table to lay down on my back then came up and pushed my knee in to my chest with a wink explaining in a whisper that it would look like I was stretching. Kind, but utterly unnecessary. It’ll take him a while to figure out who I am.

The next day I was WRECKED. See, I’d made the mistake of being honest enough about wanting to really focus on my abs. So I was sore in a way that left my range of motion only slightly more versitile than when my back popped out in ‘03. (It’s hell getting old.)

The next day was no better. But that was my next session.

“Lay down here on your back, feet together, legs straight out and… lift!”

Hrrrrr…flump.

“Ok, maybe you’re still too sore. Let’s try this…”

And so it went. As we parted he said “Now before you go, do a half hour on a cardio machine and do NOT crank it up” knowing full well what my impulse tends to be.

We scheduled our last session (it’ll be a while before I can actually afford training sessions on a regular schedule again) for Tuesday, tonight (though it may be last night by the time I hit post on this.)

Work today was nightmarish, leading me to finally declare “alright. I’m going to sit here and grind through this until it’s done.” I cancelled tonight’s training session, claiming that I’d go eventually on my own. I felt my demons crawling around in my head, whispering sweet inertias.

Of course I left work long before my claimed prediction of 8 or 9. It was 5:30 when three emails had gone unanswered, leaving me at a road block, when I finally departed in an huff.

I came back here, did some dishes, made dinner (ghetto burritos, yu[mk]), sat in front of the computer and began to calcify for the evening.

I kept looking at the damn clock in the corner of my screen until finally, at 9:15, I called the number for NYSC.

“Excuse me, what time do you close?”
“10:00.”
“Great, thanks.”

On with the new gym shorts, settled on a plain white t-shirt, (I know, I know) laced up my kicks and headed out.

I ended up getting in 2.3 miles on a half hour treadmill run, leaving the gym at 9:58. Nothing special about the distance/speed achievement.

But at least I didn’t bitch out on my run.

mope

A few weeks ago I was heading up to Chez Bean, which involved me bolting from my desk at 5:00:01 like I was shot out of a gun to get to Grand Central Terminal (not station, terminal. Grand Central Station is a post office. But we’ve been through this, anyway…) in time for the 5:30something with a little bit of time to spare. I know I know, I can make it in 27 minutes from my apartment to the train by folding space and time, but that’s a power I don’t like to flaunt.

So I was sitting on the 5:33 at 5:28 having kept myself in sub-light mode. Now, that’s 5:33 on a Friday evening.

The train was empty.

I thought about it a couple seconds and realized how perfectly impossible those things were. I took up my bags and tore out of the train, up the track ramp and into the great hall. I looked at the board… Yep, track thirty-thr…wait… *squint*

SHIT

I bolted to track 36, seated my not inconsiderable duff in the seat and thought myself a good think.

There was no way around it. I couldn’t see the board. The big board. The one you can see clearly from across the entirety of GCT. I couldn’t see it.

My mind flashed through the last six months of increased squinting, hunching towards the computer, complaining about the light level.

sigh.

That was a month or more ago now. Today I came out of the subway and walked past a chain vision place. Walked in and asked about exams. Yep. Just sit there, he’ll call you in a minute.

Yadda yadda.

The verdict? Astigmatism, 20/50 left, 20/25 right.

Well, it was a good run. My family has been on me like white on rice for more than 30 years about my vision. “You sit in front of that thing so much, you’re gonna go blind.”

My sisters have had glasses for decades, my father since before I was born.

So, in a week I cross that line. Fine with me. I’ll find something suitable to my abnormally huge cranium. In the meantime I got the cheapest pair of glasses I didn’t hate. They look like you took a pair of glasses off a doll and tried to fit them on my skull.

Should be interesting.

So yeah, there’s that.

Is Awesome.

That is all.