fucking spammers
fucking exploiters
fucking suspended account
fucking extra work on a crappy day

think that says enough

Technorati Tags: spam, exploit, idiots, waste of my time

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Alot has happened in the last month since my update. After giving my notice at work, I spent the next two weeks up to my eyebrows in ‘last minutes’ to get done before I left. This included things like site tours, documentation, purchases and installations.. We also interviewed several IT consulting companies who we felt could be used to fill in some of the gaps in my absence.

Then I had a few days off and we traveled to MA for Thanksgiving.

That was my final reprieve, as we returned on Saturday and I flew out to Downey, CA on Sunday.

So I’m laying here now on Tuesday night, and I’m hear for another 3 days. I’ll be returning Friday night. I don’t have a car this time, so there isn’t alot I can do after I get done my work training. Granted, I didn’t finish until almost 6 tonight anyway. Originally, I thought I might see who was around up in LA from my Ithaca days and maybe stop by and say hi for dinner or something, but that’s not feasible without a car.

Luckily, on day one, I got a new mobile phone and laptop. So now that I’ve got it all configured, I’m actually paying for WIFI access in the hotel for the next 3 nights, and hence my ability to finally post.

I’ll talk more about the job later, but I wanted to comment on the flight out.

The worst flight I’ve been on in 25 years. We got in the air 45 minutes late, but then the pilot told us we might be in for some rough weather and he was going to leave the seatbelt sign on. He wasn’t exaggerating. He got on 3 more times to update us over the next hour. He apologized and said it was the worse he’d seen in years as well.

For an hour, we kept changing altitudes. 20k. 28k, 22k, 3ok. 25k. Trying to smooth things out. It didn’t work. I haven’t see a vomit bag used in 25 years, and I saw a dozen used on this flight. People would vocalized ‘woahs’ and ‘ahs’. We were holding onto headrests and arm rests. I found myself locking my fingers under the tray table and standing on the balls of my feet trying to deal with the shifts and bounces. I felt myself straining against the seat belt several times as we dipped unexpectedly. I’m glad I had a seat belt on, or I’d likely have hit my head on the ceiling.

Wow. Don’t make me go through that again please. At one point I thought, what a way to start a new job, dying in the mountains of western PA. When we arrived, we heard that we’d just missed being redirected to Ontario, CA because of the fog. Flights afterwards were, and that would have put me 50 miles from the hotel instead of 22.. The taxi at 22 miles cost my $64.. another employee got redirected and split the $130 cabfare with someone else. Heard later that there we delays all across the country. In LAX, outgoing flights were backed up several hours.

I’m so glad I didn’t have to add on THAT to the end of a horrible flight.

Let’s hope Friday’s return is easier on the insides..

I know I haven’t been sleeping well the last two nights.. Hoping staying up a bit and writing this will help me settle down… last night I was up at 3 and 5 and finally got out of bed and started my day at 6. Monday morning, I was up at 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. I wanted to attribute that to the plane ride + first day jitters, but today was day too.. Am I still nervous? A good night sleep will prove otherwise.

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ial; FONT-WEIGHT:Normal;'>Just testing posting remotely by phone.=

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…who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. ~Confucius

Well today was the day. After being with my current company for 12 years, I’ve given my two weeks notice.

While woodwindy (woodwindy) was wondering if we were moving to her neck of the woods, we’re not. We’re staying where we are, *but* I will be working in Philadelphia, so I guess that’s technically close enough.

This is the best thing for my family right now. I’m moving to a much larger company, and with that comes stability. The economy has really hurt my current employer (a real estate developer), and we’ve seen several years of decreased cash flow. This has affected our annual reviews, our year end bonuses, and our profit sharing. We’ve also had a round of layoffs starting last year (which incidentally coincides to exactly when I started getting serious about looking for another job, and then another just two weeks ago.

So while their future doesn’t look so bright right now, I think the future for me is much better. I’ll be receiving an increased salary and be part of an executive team for the first time. Sure, I may wind up working harder, but there will be benefits from that hard work. This change once again opens the possibility of a larger family, or a larger house - just two of the things I thought I had put behind me forever in the current economy.

Who knows where the future will take us, but today is about change. Certainly not on the same level as the Presidential change and the change in our country, but to me, change that is much more important.

Current Mood:  ecstatic

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My wedding ring is once again upon my finger. No more phantom limb syndrome. We picked up the rings last night, and Jean is wearing hers again after 3 years.

We had a nice dinner at Don Pablos to celebrate a big change in our lives - forthcoming. I’ll fill you in when the details are all flushed out.

By the time you read this, have you voted yet?

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..I always vote against.  ~W.C. Fields

So I voted today. All done. Gloucester County has early voting as of a a few weeks ago. At the Deptford Mall, they have a County Office (near Boscov’s). So it’s really easy to head into the mall, vote, and get out of there.

Early voting is up throughout the country, with a prediction of as much as 30% of the votes being early cast this year (as compared to 14% in 2000).

Early voting is a great way to get a chance on a vote that fits your schedule, rather than trying to make it fit into a single designated day.

You might want to look into it in your area.

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I got married 7 years ago. On that day, I put my wedding ring on. I haven’t taken it off, with very few exceptions (notably dropping a dresser on my hand while moving - and having the ring stop the dresser from breaking my finger against the stairs ~~ very The Abyss). Now, I’ve been without it for 3 days and I keep thumbing the empty spot and wondering what’s missing.

My ring is very similar to the picture, with black enamel between all the knots. Consequently, the enameling between the knots is kind of worn, and actually has come off in a few places.

Jean’s ring has always been a tight fit. When the kids were born, she stopped being able to wear it at all. So she’s been ‘naked’ for over 3 years.

This weekend, we went to a FSMom hayride in DE, and decided to head down early and stop in at Robbin’s Delaware Diamonds, where we got the rings, and have both of those things taken of.

We had to get hers resized from 6 to 6.5. The stretching wouldn’t have been too big a deal, except that it also breaks the enamel. So they took both of our rings and sent them off for an estimate. 1 resizing, and 2 reenameling. Could take a few weeks, but we think that the total cost may be less than $75 - money well spent.

Jean is looking forward to being able to wear her ring again more than I am to make mine look nice, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do both.

I’m thinking about hitting some singles bars this week to try out my new found freedom…

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Midnight Madness (1980)

For a while now, I’ve been planning on developing a road rally/puzzle rally for my friends and extended friends. Finally, I’m pulling it together.

There are a couple of different kinds of road rallies. They go by different names and variations, but these are the core ideas

One is known as a TSD (time/speed/distance).  In this kind of rally, a team (typically two people -a driver and a navigator) is given a set of route directions to follow, and the speeds at which they should travel the route. The route will generally consist of rural and quieter back roads. The goal of a TSD Road Rally is to travel the correct route at the correct speeds, and arrive at “checkpoints’” precisely on time. You are scored on how closely to the correct time you arrive. A Road Rally is not a race, and no rally will ever require you to drive in a reckless or illegal fashion. Arriving too early at a checkpoint hurts your score, as does arriving too late.

The second is a puzzle rally. In this case, a team is given a set of clues and puzzles which will lead them from one location to another. At each location they must answer questions to earn points and then end in a final destination.

This kind of rally can easily be explained by this clip from Midnight Madness. More details can be found at nayrium.com. Their second video link isn’t working correctly, so I’ve copied both videos here for review.

Explanation:

Example clue solving:

My plan is to combine the best of both. I’m going to have puzzles as well as driving clues.

When I was about 10 years old, my mom used to participate in, and design road rallys, that were hybrids as well. I was always too young to participate (as they wound up at bars in the end), but I’ve always wanted to do it myself.

My rally will be family friendly. The end location will be a place we can all hang out at and enjoy ourselves and eat and drink.

I’ll need to pick a weekend that is free from SCA events and (hopefully) on an odd week to make it accessible to my law enforcement friends.

This is the kind of thing where you enjoy the company of your team while you are solving. Enjoy the drive and the competition against the other teams. Then, kick back, relax, and tell stories of getting lost etc. at the restaurant.

I’m going to design and put together the whole thing and then send out some invitations. I really hope to get a good group of folks together, as these are really alot of fun, so I encourage you to invite your friends along as well. I’ll just need to get a final RSVP count of teams so I know how many packets to put together. My goal is have this ready by the end of the year, but we’ll see how that fits into the schedule.

Technorati Tags: road rally, midnight madness, puzzle, fun

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