Thinking Outside The Box

Mandarin oranges on my "Quality Signature" QFC salad are the most exciting thing to happen as of yet today. As much as I enjoy the tiny slices I would gladdy sacrifice them if I thought stuffing some of my salad into the ports of our F5 would resolve some routing issues and end a 4 hour long bridge. Some of my colleagues don't seem to agree that it's the right solution, but I would argue the biggest risks offer the greatest rewards. Maybe I'll test my theory with some almonds that garnish my salad. I don't like almonds. I guess I have nothing to lose then, huh?

Home this week

I've been on a short break for awhile in Paris. Work pretty much sucks up every second of computer time I can handle in a 24 hour period. Some free time on weekends to walk and get to know the city. I have a few pics, not much time to post. I get back to Seattle this week and with every timezone I cross I'll be adding another hour of freetime to my day- I'm so over 12-14 hour days.
Gonna miss my Paris apartment.

Not my apartment ;)See the rest of Paris here.

Unenjoyment

Spent the weekend visiting Heidi in San Fran. We lucked out with the weather. The forecast was calling for rain, but ended up being sunny most of the time. Did some hiking, eating, drinking, and clubbing...good times.


Just got a call out of the blue from my old companies competitor, they heard I was let go and want me to work for them now. They're trying to create a full-time gig for me, but have some immediate contract stuff I can do while I'm in Bali. I wasn't planning on working while I was there so I agreed to answer emails. At least I'll have a paycheck when I get back.


I leave in a few days and until then Jackie has a list of things do like painting and building a storage shelf. I may try and squeeze a trip to the coast between chores.

Work Week

Summer is fading away and it seems as though I've been concentrating on work a little more. Strange how that works huh? I'm sure the fall/winter swells will help draw my attention away. Kev and I actually talked about surfing tomorrow, but swell not working out as we expected.

I had to sit through a meeting with a vendor today were we talked about MySQL replication for hours. I really had to try not to laugh each time our Indian counterpart said "I put the dump on the server".

On-call Weekend

One week out of every month I sacrifice my personal free time so that your booty calls, American Idol votes, daily horoscopes, and ring tones, are delivered to your phone as quickly as 1's & 0's can beam across the internets and wireless networks. You may be extremely appreciative, or you may be wondering-"how can I do something so selfless that improves the quality of everyones lives?" I hate to disappoint you, but chances are you'll never have an opportunity to do what I do. It's a highly specialized high tech voodoo performed by masters of the black arts. I don't expect you to understand with your inferior brain;)

As exciting as it may sound it's not all that cool. There are a couple drawbacks like not getting to surf this weekend. It's not like the surf's going to be anything to write about, but at least it's surf. I also can't really do anything that requires any dedicated amount of time or concentration- movies, eating out, boozin' with friends, going to the gym, sleep. The second I get settled in what I'm doing my phone starts buzzing.

Even though staying home and working sucks, it does keep me around the house and the wife can't complain that I'm off surfing every weekend.

Coming up next week....

Motorcross in the Rockies

Living like a king

Room service, room with a view, clean sheet every day, news paper at my door, being called Sir, dirty laundry that just disappears, big bed all to myself, wake up calls, and cable tv while away on business. Sounds pretty nice doesn't it.

Cell phone rings every ten minutes, sleep 3 hours a night, wake up 3 hours earlier than normal, shitty hotel food, crap on tv, living out of a bag, big bed all to myself, a week without Jackie, another week with no chance of surf, and 8 hours on a plane. Doesn't sound like much fun anymore- especially after my 100th time going to the same place.

It seems like I've been on the road alot lately. I guess could be a good thing. My ankle was really sore after surfing the other day and it could really use some rest. Jackie's on the road about half of the month so it's nice I'm not just sitting at home waiting for her to get back- now just waiting it out in a hotel room.