More Updates

First off, if you've recently purchased the Veggie Tales Bob & Larry Cookie Cutter, be extremely careful when you frost the actual cookies. It can make all the difference between a wonderful birthday party and a restraining order.
Also, it should be noted that 'poking' someone on Facebook is considered a legal violation of those restraining orders. Some judges have absolutely no sense of humor.
Most judges, actually. I blog this in order that these lessons can be learned here instead of in court. Here is much less expensive, even for the paid subscribers.
If you aren't following me on Twitter, you may be missing out on whatever random crap I encounter in the course of a normal day. Sure, there is a sidebar over there with the last half dozen or so, but since Miley Cyrus quit, no one has anything better to do than listen to whatever inane stuff I can squeeze into 140 characters. I'm totally followable @PrettyGeeky, as featured on io9 for my brave stance on our latest noble military efforts.
Perhaps most importantly, Internet, I've learned a few more important facts about working in this building in downtown Charlotte.
The Coke machine (Coke Zero, for the win!) happily accepts my bank card, $1.25 at a time in exchange for ice cold 20oz drinks which fly at me through an elaborate soda roller coaster and robotic arm. The whole process makes me giggle and clap my hands, each and every time. This disturbs the normals. I love disturbing the normals.
Also, the building's sliding glass access doors open slowly from the outside following a badge swipe but very quickly from the inside in reaction to motion. It is too fast to kick them from that direction. So far.
Lastly, if the people who share the break room refrigerator on the 12th floor don't start packing some decent lunches I'm going to stab someone. For serious.

Pumpkin Flavored Awesome

The new job is certainly interesting.
I've been made responsible for a high-demand business group. This means a couple of things.
It means that all aspects of the functionality of their varied applications are flung to me first for resolution.
It also means that they users are a whiny bunch of asshats who have gotten the idea that they are entitled to some measure of attention.
Strangely enough, I've held this exact job in the past.
The key isn't solving the various application issues. A few can almost certainly be knocked out pretty easily.
It also isn't getting the users to send valid information about their errors instead of "some application on server 11 blew up" so that a baseline can be established including valid activity parameters, though that would be nice as well.
The absolute must-do in this type of role is to reset the user expectations, first to the limitations of modern computing ("No, the server cannot do your laundry while it calculates your spreadsheet adjustments if you never, ever let us schedule it for a reboot") and second, most importantly, in the responsiveness of their assigned consultant ("Oh, it did 'it' again, did it? Awesome. Please send me the data I requested the last time 'it' happened, in addition to the same data for this occurrence, and I'll see about getting you a better diagnosis than 'it crapped out' this time. Once I get back from lunch, probably.").
The tightrope to walk here is in not ever sending a response to them that is more vague than the request they flung at me. As long as I have a use for the data I demand, there is no reason for it to not be provided.
This is my core skill set. People-hacking.
The other great thing is that I laid all this out in the interview, so no one on my side of the technical fence should be at all surprised by any of it.
The drive from Columbia it Charlotte and back to Columbia every day sucks quite a bit. It is easily my least favorite part.
Hopefully, the house will be on the market soon and we can begin our final drive to Charlotte.
I can endure until then. Some days I work from home. Today, for example.
Today I was productive without pants until about 10:30am, when I needed something out of the car and it was cold and rainy.
After that, the pants seem to have quelled the earlier productivity, though the correlation wasn't made until after lunch, when I'd again dressed the part of working from home.
Why did I take my pants off after lunch? Because I'm a professional and there is a certain standard I like to acknowledge and subsequently ignore.
Pumpkin-flavored everything makes all of this infinitely easier. It's like falling off a log onto a large orange gourd, given the proper no-sugar-added enhancements.

How I Spent My Unintentional Late Summer Vacation

This is a picture of the work I've been doing on the deck.
It's pretty hard work, actually.
Going from that uniform brown to the realistic gray weathered look takes an insane amount of detail work.
Fortunately, I've got time.
When last we discussed my job in South Carolina, I mentioned that they had decided to stop paying for overtime. Not the time-and-a-half bit, but any hours over 40.
In order to make that work, I was spreading hours out across the week in sprinkles, driving home for breaks, working odd hours in the middle of the night and weekends, and still putting in an average of 50 hours.
So, last Monday I re-activated my online resume and braved the crap economy.
Friday I had an interview and offer. The economy isn't as crappy as we'd heard, I guess.
The non-paying crappy hours job featured $800 a month in insurance premiums, plus about $1000 in prescription costs and then some junk they just don't seem to cover, such as illness or well visits. That, in addition to my pay cap, has left us in a pretty dire financial situation.
It looks like the new job pays a bit more an hour, has $400 insurance, and (supposedly) covers medication with something called a "co-pay" or some nonsense I don't understand.
I put in notice at work and was not escorted from the building with a taser pressed to my kidney, a career first for me.
After consulting my new headhunter, I was told I could start work today. I set my exit date accordingly.
Then, computer stuff broke at the new job.
The new job can't make an access card for me until the 30th, so I have 10 unpaid days off, which will do very little good for our current financial state.
The other interesting complication (and the reason I've been weathering the deck) is that the job is 70 miles away in Charlotte, North Carolina. I'll be commuting until we unload this broken-down, outdated, poorly-designed money pit and officially move there.
Um.
Does anyone want to buy a house in Columbia, South Carolina? It's . . . uh . . . Charming.
And the deck looks fan-freaking-tastic.
So this week I'm getting the house ready to go back on the market. I'm hoping the location (seven minutes from the largest employer in the state) will make it leave our possession very quickly.
And that is my update for the 21st of September.
Everything is fine here. No problems.

Why?

What have you heard?

Technology

GeoTagged, [N34.09296, E80.87153]

I just got an "are we there yet?" text from the backseat.
Compared to the standard voice-driven communication method, it may have actually been more grating.
I kept my response to the standard. "Yes. Hop out."
Of course, I Tweeted it at her, and her phone won't pass along a Tweet, so she'll have to wait until we get home.

Breaking

Local blogger kills useless muse. Film at eleven.

I'm working on a real post.

GeoTagged, [N34.09425, E80.87010]

So, Internet

You thought I'd be gone for good, didn't you? Sure, I've spent the last six weeks trying to wrap my feelings around what happened between us, to come to terms with your absolute failure to meet my needs. Internet, we have a lot of history. Your dank recesses were my music-filled sanctuary, your auction sites my source for amusing odds and ends, your reference sites my out-of-body information storage facility.
But your stunning betrayal caught me off guard, Internet. I've come to terms with it. As much as I depend on you, you aren't to be trusted with my feelings. So, I've carted them off and attempted to squish them with a heady cocktail of denial and alcohol. And rage. Yes, warm, comfortable anger has been my armor, absence from you my shield.
I no longer play World of Warcraft. Webinara has been handed off to a friend and I have no need to carry on her exploits. I no longer contribute to discussions regarding my hobbies or career. This post is the most we have spoken in a month and a half, Internet. I wish I could say I've missed you, but my feelings for you have forever changed. You left me hollow, Internet. You will never again be granted the power to do that.
It is my own fault. I let down my guard, granted you the access to my emotional well-being. Your password no longer works.
I'm tougher than you expected, Internet. I'm tougher than I expected. I'm going to be okay whether you like it or not.
I'll resume sharing my feelings here as soon as I feel up to it.
Heheh. I said "feel up".
Maturity and respect, Internet. That's what separates us.
To my human readers, sorry I've been gone so long without a word of explanation. Let me just say that the Internet made a terrible mistake and I'm trying to forgive.
Thanks for all the emails. I'm pretty sure I've responded to them all, but please let me know if I still owe you a cryptic response.

Uncomfortably long hugs,

G