So far so good on the job front, on my 3rd day solo, 2nd day on the payroll, I’ll get paid the 1st it looks like, or a very small check on the 16th, but so far so good, I finished the last leg of the HR hoops today (well the core stuff) by peeing into a cup, first time for doing it, even when I worked for KHSD I didn’t have to do a drug screen, I think it’s random in that case, but here I got to pee in the cup, it was a tad awkward with a wall-length mirror, but I survived!
Last night was fun, had Scott, Sara, Sarah, Beth, Michael, Ron, Karan and ME! we went to El Pueblo for dinner to celebrate the excitement that is my employment, it was awesome food, dad got mine, I got his (Chicken vs. Beef) - but still lots of fun, good laughs - I was going to hit Denny’s with Scott later, but I just got super sleepy - and backed out, still not 100% on this new schedule, and my body isn’t yet fully used to the concept that I can’t sleep whenever I want anymore - but it’ll level out in time, probably after the first check direct deposits into the bank I am sure that’ll give me peace of mind, but it is seeming like more and more I’ll be getting the apartment in March I am guessing, not a huge deal but it works.
Worlds are colliding with Work and Work, as it stands MLS is migrating from it’s current email offering with the local guys (who’s name I dare not speak, in fear I’ll go on a rampage) - but the replacement is the big question, I think Google Apps is the route I am going to take, it’s a nice solution for outside sales folk, 25GB of storage, etc. etc. but it’ll run the company about 3k a year in costs, as it’s $50/account - so we either need to slim down the email -or- one of these other options, currently Fusemail has my attention some, fair pricing, takes the cost for 25GB TOTAL storage down to under 1k a year, so a big savings in comparison. Granted I could always just setup something in-house, there’d still be some cost, but not sure. Already have the OK on Google, but I know there is resistance to it, so I want to have alternatives in the wings just in case, plus some of these offer anti-spam solutions so more for FH/TN to consider.
Anywhoo - things are good, getting the swing of things pretty well, the MBP is doing nicely (where I am typing now) and the office Dell I use for work, is not to shabby either. So now I am going to sit here and continue reading, lunch is in 2 hours, so tasty food is on the horizon! (I hope) I am thinking maybe of grabbing a slice or a dog from Costco down the street…. time will tell.
So today I started it a tad rough, woke up feeling a lot better, but a little queasy, got up at 6:45, got in the shower, and warm water relaxed my shoulders and back which have been hurting, and then - whammo - puke city. Not a fun thing by any means, but at least it wasn’t at the new job So I showered, brushed the teeth, got dressed, headed out and got to the office a whole 5 minutes late - which still beat most folks in it seemed.
A full day though, been a while, at FHS when I was working with Ray Juhl I started early, rode my bike into the office, and changed, and got to work, not going home till sometimes 5pm after the last student finished a project, and the same with Masscom, sometimes we’d be there all night - though granted sometimes that was to play Quake 3 with the boss - but the bottom line is, I survived. I got my app filled out, copy of my resume in, a copy of my drivers license, have to bring in my social security card too - but it was not too shabby - even one of the guys who interviewed me walked by and saw the MacBook Pro and said “A MAC!? What?” - thinking I was going to get some fan boy speech either for or against, he said “I’ll have to have a look at that, I’ve been considering getting a mac for my office” - he uses PC, but is getting tired of M$ licensing fees, so he may have me help him make the leap if we can keep his access to some apps (ala Parallels) - in other words, the equation must be balanced.
So after work I took my usual quick route home, however, tonight everyone else, their cousin, their pet hamster, and their friend Joey who lived down the street from your cousin Ted in 3rd grade, ALSO took that route, and in turn I played the “Alternate Street!” game, which let me test my knowledge of the roads, and find myself a round-about, backwards way to get to the right freeway to wait another hour to get to my bank to only beat the manager from locking the door by 3 minutes, to put money in the bank to help combat the overcharge issues, so I was excited that I really had gotten there but I didn’t know *breath* - that my bank was fine. The two credits cleared this morning at the same time as the initial transaction from them, so I was ahead, and then some, adding an extra $400 from PayPal.
But anywhoo - I think it’s time to find food, and I might just be ordering a pizza, or cooking one, or thinking about cooking one - something though, as I realized around 3pm that I didn’t goto lunch, and I really didn’t feel like walking / driving anywhere except home, so it didn’t seem wise to tempt fate. So for now I’ll say farewell, may put down more thoughts later tonight, but I fear once the full belly hits, there will be little stopping me from the pillow. Thanks for the continued prayers and well wishes via IM - I’ll keep ya all updated!
So…. how are you doing? Good? Well I am doing alright, I just got back from a day of job shadowing, I was supposed to go in Tuesday, but was ill, thus I went in today, and the boss man saw me and said “Come on over” - so I went on over, and he offered me 32k a year + benefits + 401k, and all the other hodgepodge things like vacation, cell phone, company card, you know the basics - he also offered me the option to simply do contract work if I preferred, as he knows I have my own business. I accepted the offer for the full time position, and I just have to get some paper work filled out, and talk to the co-owner, aside from that I am hired.
Change is definitely in the air. I am going to start actually going and looking at apartments, vs. the “web” method I have used thus far, I know where I’d like to move into, it’s decent pricing, close to home, on the east side of town - but ya never know, might be full - or they may say I stink - so many possibilities, but we’ll see, but who knows I may meet the 28th deadline for things, which would be very cool.
In other news, got another one of the late-payers club to pay, a nice $$$ in the bank today, of course the old server company decided to bill me the usual amount, thus making me go overdrawn $900+ so not cool, I had enough in the business account to keep it happy with the remaining customer server I had, and some other bills, but not the full force, so I am trying to work that out, but from the sounds of it, they are more or less giving me refunds via the card that take 5-6 days, thus they’ll clear about 2 days AFTER the bill clears my bank, leaving me with overdraft fees etc. So not cool, so going to get that sorted some tonight and I imagine tomorrow as well.
Anywhoo - going to go find a light meal, the ill feeling still isn’t 100% gone, but I am at least able to move around and breathe a little, so I am not going to push it and get me some more rest, as 8am comes early, at since I am getting paid during the time I am “not hired” officially, 9 hour day x $17.50 = $160 to learn the ropes, ain’t too shabby at all, granted not my traditional hourly rate, but that ol chestnut to not bite the hand that feeds you so a few days of that, talk to the other guy, and then it’s smooth sailing! Thanks to everyone for their prayers, keep em up, me at 8am? New territory. Night folks.
So far so good, gotten 3 servers squared away, 2 little ones remain, shouldn’t be so bad, going to run em real quick this evening, probably 3-4 hours max, but I’ll probably start at 10pm vs. 11pm and try to be in bed no later than 3am on Sunday.
Then its sleep, sleep, sleep - must get a schedule down in which I can hold a normal 9-5 time-frame for some reason offices don’t operate from 12-7am! Silly companies.
Anywhoo, rest soon. Thanks for the prayers! More later…
One of the downsides of course to going for weeks with little sleep is your health, and in my case, I know my limits on sleep, well one side effect is of course pain as the body is exhausted, another is for me a family favorite - throwing up. Thus this morning as I was getting ready for church I urp’d and urp’d good - of course I felt better afterwards, cleaned up and was only 10m late for church.
Church was fun, and I am glad I didn’t just wimp out and go back to sleep (Faith is Done now, all accounts over) - got to sit next to Scott and His Dad, got to see Dan and Val, and a good portion of the Poon family, the nephews were there and I scared members of the church as I gave Gavin a big hug, and then I proceeded to share the secret of shirt.woot.com as he enjoyed my sugar rush t-shirt.
So a fun morning, and more things this afternoon, but for now, I can get at least 3 hours of sleep in before the Foster’s shin-dig, so going to try and nap a bit, then load up, and head towards the ice-creamery, I am thinking of a shake with Chocolate, Malt, and maybe Carmel, or PB - not sure so many choices, so little time - anywhoo, thanks to everyone for the prayers, don’t worry, tonight’s move is really just 3 sites, it’s a low-profile smaller server, all the BIG stuff for this weekend is done, next weekend is the move of 2 other smaller systems, but by no means the collective GB’s of data this one had this weekend, so sleep is coming, promise.
Anywhoo - I am off, one more day of the house to myself, tonight aside from sleep I hope to get some headway on my bedroom. Okay, processing a ‘break;’ on random rambling, more later I am sure. Good Sunday to All!
Today ended up being a great day, got a great gift from BdG (big thanks sir!) which really set the day in motion, some more research through out the day, also got some reading material on a project website for my Uncle’s tent stakes, follow that up with a check coming in (PTL!) which led to a few other things, like dinner with dad (LJS Chicken Planks + Hush Puppies!), it was a good evening.
Then it was back to work. I started basic prep on Faith for it’s upgrade to PHP5/Apache2 (compiling now) and placed an order for a server to test out over the next 24 hours to see if I want to make the plunge for sure - the project server is lovingly called Trogdor, he’s a dragon-man of a machine, 8 cores, RAID10, *tear* a nice upgrade, got the call confirming my order, had a nice chat with “Jake” the guy on the other end, he loved the server name of Trogdor, suggested Burninator as another option for other projects down the line (It is officially on the list) - but he said he’d have me up in about an hour, and he had me running in 45 minutes.
So far so good though on both fronts, Faith is at 15 minutes now compiling, and Trogdor has gotten some of the royal lock down treatment, while their initial locks were nice, and some of the mods they have in place I am definitely leaving, I run a tight ship, so have to have them help with a few network tweaks and such on their end to make my life happy, but all in all, it’s looking good, speed is amazing, seeing 8 cores in top is a lovely sight but I think it’s going to work. Sure sure, it’ll mean some changes from the current way I monitor, and such, but really, the savings is a motivator, the growth potential is amazing, and of course, it gives me another set of eyes monitoring, keeping up the server etc. which in itself is like hiring a crew to stand watch as I do things like Sleep.
Also today I talked possiblity of a local job, it’s one I am really going to pray about, but it was one of those things that just leapt from my mouth, and just felt right, but then I found myself saying “Why did I say that?” so I am putting it to a God thing, and see where it goes, who knows, may all work out just right, may not, none the less, if it does, possibly means no moving, and maybe, just maybe I’ll be in my own place by my birthday!
But that was my day, as I go into Saturday, I lead into things by having picked up my mom from my sister’s house as they returned from a Lakers game with my Aunt, then its onto a site-by-site check on Faith to see if anything has post PHP5 upgrade blues that I can easily fix, or at the very least point the site owners to upgrade options to get themselves back on track, but after a few month or two that this upgrade was coming - I hope everyone is up to date, or at least one hot-fix shy. So now I am going to find my shoes, and pack up to head towards my sister’s house - one step at a time.
As much as I’d love to get the MH Bundle right away, it appears I am waiting a while this year, not by choice, but due to the fact that I am playing the “Got No Money” game - things are just piling up, and I am trying to get things done as quick as possible, trying to get jobs to be done, and get paid.
I really just want to take a nap today, and hope to wake up and things be better off, over $1200 that is on “hold” as folks scramble to get me money, some faster than others - but everyone’s got the same after-holiday stories, stolen cards, non-payment, etc. some folks I honestly think are just dragging their feet to show they are “in-charge” with me, and honestly, I think I am done playing this power struggle games, and getting fed up with being a door mat for folks, while as usual I get that “We’d hire you in a minute” comments from them, I get the suddenly empty wallet when it comes to paying me. *shrug*
I dunno, just really needed to vent a bit, and while I should be working on projects, I think I am going to work on a personal set of stuff, just need to separate myself from this business crap for a while today, I had a great lunch with Dan, fun playing some Halo3 with Scott last night, and while I know that while this junk is all going down, that I am blessed more than I truly deserve, just sucks when folks who claim to hold my friendship above all else, and value my work for their company are the ones who are giving me the shovels of crap on my head, it just really bugs me, and I need to step back and breathe.
So keep me in your prayers, a lot going on this week, server upgrades for Apache & PHP again, working on server migrations, and the usual song as of late, finances are tight. Thanks to everyone who checks in on me on IM from time to time, I appreciate it - I know things are going to level out soon, but just wish I was not in this place with some of this junk to begin with, but maybe some changes here soon will fix that all up. Time will tell. Have a good Fake Friday folks. Relax it up for me.
I am sure that’ll give me peace of mind, but it is seeming like more and more I’ll be getting the apartment in March I am guessing, not a huge deal but it works.
- he also offered me the option to simply do contract work if I preferred, as he knows I have my own business. I accepted the offer for the full time position, and I just have to get some paper work filled out, and talk to the co-owner, aside from that I am hired.
