Nachos in Exile

I may not know much, but there are certain facts which are incontrovertible. These are the kind of facts which bind the molecules of the universe together, keep people voting along party lines in spite of evidence of folly, ensure that plants grow towards the sun and make a person very certain that "Free" anything is worth less than it costs.

My co-workers make lunch suggestions and because I'm new, I bite back the proper responses to the obvious.

"Let's have Mexican food", when suggested in South Carolina, should be greeted with the response:

"It takes sixteen hours to get to decent Mexican food and I've got a meeting this afternoon. Let's go to the cafeteria."

In Texas, I order the same thing at every Mexican place because I hate surprises. Chicken fajita nachos are the same everywhere. They contain the same ingredients. The presentation may vary slightly (across a range from delicately constructed individual chips formed with creepy attention to detail to massive piles of stuff over a haphazard layer of chips), but the substance consists of core components which are unalterable:

1. Chips (corn or flour)

2. Chicken (grilled)

3. Cheese (maybe shredded, maybe poured)

4. Lettuce and tomato (not a deal breaker) 

5. Guacamole

6. Beans (probably refried, but black sometimes)

7. Sour cream

That's it. Seven ingredients and none of them are surprising or imaginative. If I want surprising and imaginative, I'll eat blindfolded from the dumpster behind a food court.

So I ordered them at the "best" Mexican grill in town earlier this week. I needed comfort following the ketchup-based salsa they had provided the table.

What arrived was unrecognizable. There were chips, to be fair, and some chicken. There may have been cheese, too. The problem was that the whole dish was covered in a thick pile of sliced bell peppers and onions. At that point, it could have been the best food ever -- It still would've been too wrong to be even peripherally involved with.

My Southeastern friends, grilled vegetables are not something one adds to chips. Not even if you really, really hate those chips on a personal level.

It just is not done.

You've been warned. The next time I see that kind of chip-focused hate crime you can expect to be on the receiving end of a hissy fit the likes of which one would only expect from someone from Atlanta, maybe. Or Charleston. And you won't like it, believe me. No one does.

Of Homes And Gnomes

I have responsibilities here in Columbia. I mean outside of work (which consisted of five and a half hours of meetings  today only because I skipped one). I've been tasked with finding our new home. Shana sells ours (nearly impossible in this crappy market) and I search new housing areas for a place with solid gold toilets.

I found a place with a totally bricked in backyard. I immediately thought of filling it with water and holding mock naval battles for the amusement of my subjects.

Then I thought about how cool it would be if the wall extended all the way around the front of the house so that my garden hose could create a moat, which has been a long-term goal of mine for a while.

Stupid Girl Scouts and their high-sugar cookies.

The agent selling the house said they would not extend the wall around the front, though. She acted like I was crazy for even asking, actually. Perhaps it was because of my searching dressed in ripped jeans and a Gwar t-shirt. Maybe she just skipped her meds.

Anyway, I found another house before that agent could follow through on her threat and "call ahead" and now I have to time the purchase of that house with the sale of our own.

That is almost impossible.

But anyway, at work today we took the test servers and dropped them into the Organizational Unit with the new Group Policy Object, then requested that they be rebooted and scanned for vulnerabilities. The security team wanted to know who built the servers, since that group would need to reboot them.

When they asked me, I realized that I had had no contact with the people who actually touch computers so I replied,"Server gnomes?" with kind of a half shrug.

Without cracking a smile, the security guy informed me that there were no "Server gnomes" and that this company had been using Oompa-Loompas since 1998 as a cost-saving measure.

I'll be avoiding the server room on purpose now, because those little guys freak me out. 

Happy Birthday, Gwynyth!

Listen to this brilliance:

Take some cookie dough ice cream and jam it between two cookie dough Pop-Tarts to create the greatest ice cream sandwich of all time!

While I'd love to take credit for that, it is an original Gwynyth invention.

It may not kill a person as quickly as a double bacon cheeseburger made with Krispy Kreme doughnuts for buns, but it will most likely be a more pleasant death.

I got back to the hotel room to discover that my cellphone has no service. Maybe "the" tower is down. I'd call and ask, but . . .

Anyway, as much as I'd like to call my daughter (again, since I called before she got on the school bus) it looks like that won't be possible for a while.

I hope her birthday is an awesome one and I'm sorry I'm missing it.

At work, I've started doing the actual "worky" part. Today I reviewed the blah-blah and prepared for testing the whatever starting tomorrow. Once the stuff is implemented, we will have a solid plan for moving all of it into the production environment. See? Firm grasp of the details is what makes a good . . . Whatever the hell I am.

The hotel is completely boring and they tend to "turn off the internets" at about the time I'd be going on raids in World of Warcraft. This makes me stabby.

On the subject of World of Warcraft, I found out one of the guys on my team has a level 70 Paladin in a raiding guild on another server. You'd think we'd get along great, but he plays Alliance and I play Horde, so the tension between us has rapidly built into genuine animosity.

He doesn't play in the Arena and he isn't in my server's "Battle Group", so there is no chance this will build into an actual virtual physical confrontation.

Unless the game developers take my suggestions into account during the next patch phase.

April 25

Happy Birthday, Shana!

The personal party I'm throwing from five states away is a bit lame, with snacks limited to matzo and peanut butter for Passover and the disturbing lack of a guest of honor, but I'm celebrating as much as circumstances permit.

By way of updates on the new global headquarters of Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng Worldwide Amalgamated Internet Heresy And All Night Final Destination For Old Television, it could be better.

They came and made the bed and took my towels and washcloths and bath mat, which was nice.

The subsequent replacement of the towels and washcloths and bathmat would have made it ideal, or even the availability of Housekeeping Services to replace my missing bath stuff during the hours when I can meet them. Dripping dry loses its appeal after a couple of days. Or I suspect that it soon will, anyway.

I finally got a computer on a table of my very own at work today. I used it for email and reviewing documentation all day when I wasn't in meetings.

I also discovered a section in the Employee Handbook which talked about strict adherence to processes and procedures. The area was titled "Maintain an Attitude of Healthy Discontent". While it went into detail, the important part was that even a new person should question and complain loudly when confronted with something dumb, which flies in the face of every place I've ever worked. Our mandate is to follow intelligent processes and change the dumb ones. In fact, there are weekly meetings in the executive area where they review and modify dumb processes.

On the downside, the chicken quesadillas in cafeteria seem to have corn in them, but on the plus side they are only $2.75 with a drink.

Yes, Darrell, I spend part of every day looking for references to the giant super laser code named "Project Moonbreaker". 

Happy Birthday, Shana. I miss you.

My Workstation

Let me show you it:

Actually, that isn't it. I really don't have a place to sit at all so much. Or a computer. But this does set a low bar for my expected productivity and I'm okay with that.

I got a little more definition about my job function today. I'll try to explain it without being boring, but I make no promises. If you stick through to the end, I promise a picture of a urinal. Don't scroll ahead!

Okay, so for a Microsoft domain to establish settings for user and computer accounts, the Domain Controller must deploy Group Policies, which are configured using Group Policy Objects. I spoke with a co-worker about my role. This is how it went:

Me: So I establish Group Policies for the Citrix servers?

Co-Worker: Actually, there is a set of guidelines established by the Government for that.

Me: But I set up the policies, right?

Co-Worker: Just the security ones.

Me: Okay, so I create Group Policy Objects for security on the Citrix servers.

Co-Worker: No. You request the GPO from the group that creates GPOs. And when they make it you check it.

Me: And fix it if it is wrong?

Co-Worker: You can, but we usually just send it back and make them fix it since they built it.

Me: Why should I not tremble in fear for my job security?

Co-Worker: Your's is a Federally mandated position. Unless you get caught selling state secrets to Canada or something, you are set.

Me: How hard is it to get caught?

Co-Worker: Damn near impossible.

 

I promised a urinal picture and I intend to follow through with it:

I'm not sure you can tell from the grainy cellphone picture, but the interesting thing about this urinal is that the . . . opening . . . (lip?) is at a little over waist high for me. I'm not that short, so I have to assume there is a design choice at work here I have no reference for.

I've started wheeling in a chair to stand on whenever I need to go.

I thought the "vertical" properties of South Carolina started and ended with the mountainettes, but they apparently extend into the men's room.

Even More Stuff To Orient Me

 

This picture was taken on my old lady phone from the doorway of the new-hire training area. If there were windows in the classroom I would have had an excuse to zone out during the "Org Chart" lecture instead of just doing it because it was so amazingly boring.

I also had a chance to drive through the subdivision we like to inspect it for signs of gang activity or (even more horrifying) "being a long way from Starbucks". It showed no signs of either, oddly enough, though I intend to drive through tomorrow when there is more light to double check.

New Hire Orientation is a weird kind of pseudo-work. It isn't like anyone actually expects productivity, but at the same time it is the first opportunity to establish a reputation in a group of people who (in a company with 13,000 employees) I will probably never see again.

There were two times when we had to introduce ourselves. The first I ended up rambling about how much I missed my family and how much the housing market sucks and how I hope to see my daughter again before she enters college. "Go, Gamecocks!"

The second included the special instructions, "Tell us something which would surprise us."

Hmmmmm. How wrong could that go?

"Due to a luggage miscalculation, I'm not wearing underwear."?

"Over 50% of the crates to move in our garage are filled with toys, and of those 10% are my daughters."?

"I hate meetings so much that I stab myself in the palm with a pen to stay awake and I refer to the wounds as 'Corporate Stigmata'."?

In the end I settled on, "I was only able to bring with me what I could fit into a two-door car and I chose to bring a bag of funny-shaped dice for Dungeons and Dragons. Just in case."

Day 2. That's how I roll.

This, unfortunately, surprised no one. But I did get invited to a game this weekend.

Nerds.

I've decided to continue my impress-the-hell-out-of-everyone trend by playing a Pixie Bard. With a speech impediment, probably.

7210681818

The background check continued today, believe it or not.

That number in the title is my Selective Service Registration ID. I'm glad I've had it memorized since 1990. For the record, I picked Coast Guard because I figured sometimes they get to wear shorts.

They also took my fingerprints. For those familiar with my strict "no stuff on my hands" issue, imagining my distress at actively inking my fingers in front of a room full of strangers might be amusing.

For the record, I did not shake uncontrollably. Instead, I focused my energy on memorizing the proper finger layout order on the card so that I could ink, press, re-ink, and press again with no interruption. In the end, the process was so smooth I got ahead of the fingerprinter and pushed the card up in the holder to make room on the next row before she could.

"I've just done this more than I care to talk about," was the explanation I chose for that. And, in truth, once is more than I care to talk about.

The orientation process at my new job is two solid days of coursework and catered meals. This is different than the orientation I'm used to which is, "Holy crap! Everything is broken! Fix it! Fix it!"

I will have no access to the interwebz while at my new job, though, so I'm looking for some kind of chemical substitute. Preferably something which won't turn up in any random screening.

The main differences I've seen between South Carolina and Houston are all about the vertical. There are hills here. I'd call them "mountainettes". They get in the way of navigating by sight, but the turnarounds are all really pretty so the stress of being lost kind of goes away.

Also, everyone is friendly. At least so far. It is the kind of friendly which makes the paranoid in me (40% by volume) avoid drinking the water and expect to find some mound of murdered drifters around every corner, but I'll take it at face value because there is a Starbucks and I like Starbucks.

So that is all the update I'm allowed to give at this point. I miss my friends and family very much and my hotel room is so small I can hardly turn my suitcase on its side, but there are trees. A lot of trees.

Someone should do something about that, in my opinion.