This is turning out to be the week from hell at work... Going in early, taking a short lunch and then working late. One year later and what's changed? I'm still doing twelve hour days though at least here, there is light at the end of the tunnel. At Infowave the tunnel was much longer and the light was a train.
It's hard to remember that I've just past the six week point and sometimes I think I'm being hard on myself given the length of my tenure. I just wish I had more time to get organized and learn the software. Life at a start up... I knew it going in and being a small company you need to do things like this but I'm getting tired of it. Three years of this shit.
I like the guys a lot and there's great potential for the companies future but the software leaves me flat. It's just not very interesting compared to what I've done in the past and that makes it difficult. At times I wonder if the North Van job might have been a better choice but I think if I were there I'd be thinking the same thing.
The thing is, everyone that I know seems to be in the same boat. They've found a new job after the layoffs and no one is very happy with their positons. Was Infowave that special? It was a great place for sure and had a certain feel to it as did StockHouse but what is it that we are all missing? The industry is forever changed so maybe we're all pining for something that's never to return. Maybe this is the new reality and we need to get used to it. Or maybe we just haven't found what we're looking for. I'm just happy to be working but once you start working you start to wish it was better. Or maybe just different.
I got home just before 8 last night and was in bed dead asleep by 10:30. Of course, I woke up at 5 this morning and have been wide awake since then. I'm assuming that I'll have the same schedule tonight except that I'll be even more tired, go to bed even earlier and then wake up at 4:30.
I've given thought to returning to the shop but that doesn't seem like much of an answer, more of a copout. Maybe I should look around for something else but then I think that I need to ride this out a bit longer. I know that the early days of all the other jobs have been hard as well it's just that now there's a lot more on my shoulders. I love computers far too much to leave the industry but I really don't like QA. I told Janice that it's like wanting to be a newscaster and ending up doing the weather. You're part of it but not in the role that you desire.
My perception is all over the place... I have a bad day and I'm ready to start sending out resumes then I have a good day and I'm content with everything again. The thing is there are more bad days then good though that's improving. I know I've made huge gains since I've started but somehow it's not enough.
So what now? Take some classes and try to do something more in keeping with my goals? I have no idea and no time to even contemplate it. Maybe I'll email jaalaM and see what's going on with them. At least I know what my commute would be like. Well enough ranting... I have to go to work. I wish I was more excited about it.
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Sunday 04.27.03Welcome to the hosted blog! I've finally paid to have the site hosted properly at eHosting and so far so good. They were great and had me going in about 15 minutes. I spent a good part of yesterday moving all the files to the new server and correcting all the links and images. There are probably a few that slipped past me so if you notice a broken link, feel free to let me know.
I think there's been more sun in the past three days than in all of April and it's nice. Really nice... I was starting to wonder if I'd ever get to work and not be soaked.
I went back to Metrotown today and bought some shoes and I was surprised by some of the changes. It's been a while since I was back; whenever I last had lunch with Carmen and that was late in the fall I think. New stores in the mall, some have closed and a new building going up by the library. I stopped in at SaveOn as well and was taken with how huge it is. I used to shop there every week and today it seemed all new... One thing that hasn't changed is my deep hate of that mall.
Once safely back downtown, I bought Fallen by Evanescence and I'm really enjoying it. I don't buy many CD's these days but this was a good choice though it may be an aquired taste for some. I can remember buying a CD or two every payday and now it's a CD or two every year and no, I'm not downloading all my music.
I'm gonna bail here as there are still some issues to sort out. Like why I can't see my images locally... I created the structure and uploaded it, so it's the same as on the server. *shakes fist at monitor*
I'm also going to investigate Moveable Type a little more and see if it's somethig that I'd like to use for the blog. I was all excited about using it when I first started the site, then I lost interest in it as I got into formatting my page a little more. Now I think that I might like to use it again as it has some nice features. I just hate using templates... I'll probably pick the brains of my MT friends (and Shnewt) see what they say about it.
GO CANUCKS!!
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Saturday 04.26.03Happy 82nd Birthday Gramps!
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Thursday 04.24.03Not much to say today... Work's been going well and I guess I'm going to be learning Perl scripting. That will probably be started this weekend and should be a fun project. It's exciting to be learning new things, though all the time I spent practicing my SQL queries hasn't helped me yet but it will. In fact it'll be handy to view the output of the Perl scripts, so there you go...
Paul has his new site up and it's running Moveable Type, which looks good. He's using the hosting company that I was thinking about using and he says they're good, so I think I'll sign up in the coming days. Shaw doesn't allow me to FTP up unless I'm on their network and it's a pain. Plus the hosting is really cheap and despite plans to host this myself, I find I just don't have the time now.
He and Rachel are off to Australia for the next three weeks so hopefully we can look forward to some updates from down under. This was news to me, so we'll be getting together when they get back to discuss why they should keep me updated on when they plan to leave the country.
Finally, congrats to Andrea on new her job. I know that she's been wanting to move on lately, so I hope this one works out better than the previous one. It's sounds like the last one was pretty brutal, so it must be better for her. "Let me know how you're making out."
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Tuesday 04.22.03
On to round two!!! What a fantastic game tonight!
I admit my faith waivered but I never fully gave up.
I thought it was so cool of the fans to cheer the US anthem and to hear 18,422 people singing the Canadian anthem was incredible. Good on the fans of Vancouver for having some class.
The horns are going nuts outside and it's great to hear! Finally there is a reason. When the game was over, I could hear people all over the West End cheering like they were at the game in person. There is nothing like the playoffs in Canada!
Seeing that the game was well in hand, I spent the third period practicing my SQL queries. I really need to get up to speed on SQL so I spent some time working on it tonight.
It would have come in handy today as I was up at 5 AM and into work early as there was a build that needed to get up but it had to wait until this morning after we found some bugs. Sometimes I question working for a small company, because the customer can always make you jump. Having said that, I was chatting with a friend and ex-Infoslave who is still looking for work and she was pretty frustrated by it all...
To that I can relate.
Well, I'm off to be serenaded to sleep by car horns.
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Sunday 04.20.03Sorry for the delay in updating the blog, but I'm out on bail now and my lawyer says I'll probably just do community service, so that's cool. Hopefully it won't be so long next time.
I really enjoyed my long weekend though I wish work would've been more organized so that I could have gone home. By the time we realized that we wouldn't have to work this weekend, it was Thursday afternoon and we just fled the office.
Since I was going to be in town, I decided to try and find an LCD that I could afford. Yesterday I finally found one and went out and got it! Tres cool! It's so tiny and the color is crisp and bright. I know that this was something I'd get more use out of than the camera. Plus, it just looks damn cool. Of course, once the tax refund comes I'm going to pick the camera up as well.
I got a good deal on the monitor and perhaps in the meantime there'll be a sale on the camera.
I ended up getting it at Future Shop on Broadway and figured I could grab a bus on Burrard to get home. Due to our 'fantastic' transit system I waited at the only stop for 15 minutes before deciding to walk back downtown. Not that big a deal but I was carrying the monitor and every cab was full so I was left to hoof it back.
I went out with Paul and Rachel last night and I think they were trying to get me drunk or something. If that was their plan, it worked. They refused to let me pay for my tab and said it was a belated birthday gift so that was great. This morning I was thinking that a CD might have been a nice gift... I wasn't crazy drunk but I think I detected some staggering on the way home. Thankfully there were no hotdog vendors on the way so I made it back without condiments all over myself.
I really felt it this morning and had to bail on golf after Neil woke me up this morning. Neil seemed to understand but I could hear Ardie in the background yelling something to the effect of "suck it up".
Too bad too as it was a nice day today. Very mild and the sun even poked out for a bit. It seemed to bring out the strangest people as I went for groceries. I was leaving Capers with some bagels when this guy just starts talking to me. He looked normal enough but he was going on about this diet plan of his and how much he loved Capers.
Then I'm in Safeway and the cashier and I were chatting about our weekends. I told her that I was a bit hungover and she starts laughing and said that she also had a bit too much this weekend. I sort of know her and we chat a bit but it's not like we're friends or something. Next thing I know she telling me about how she really prefers drinking to getting stoned as she can't judge her pot intake like she used to be able to. "That's nice" *rechecks the change she gave me*
Good on the Canucks for hanging on tonight. Tuesday is going to be huge and I'm really looking forward to it. Well, to the game, not to the yahoos driving around with their horns on. I guess it's better than rioting.
Long post. Have some stuff to do. The third season of The Trailer Park Boys starts tonight! Go Bubbles! Freedom 35...
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Tuesday 04.15.03UGH! What the hell is the matter with the Canucks? After last night's game I'm wondering if they're going to make it past the first round. I never get off the bandwagon but please... they could at least try to appear interested.
Hooked up with Shnewt for a little bit last night after work. We watched the balance of "the game" and headed out for a coffee. Rachel is hilarious... asking him if he has a phone in case his stones start to move again! I got a kick out of that.
Work is going pretty well and it would seem that the pressure is coming off a bit. The project has been scaled back for the May 1st date, officially referred to as the 'soft date' which means our requirements have been halved. Nice. I might get the weekend after all but I'll wait and see about that as there's still a alot to do. In fact, this project will be the first one that I've been responsible for writing the test plan. Should be interesting; I've written test cases before but not the plan.
Well, I'm off to shop for an LCD.
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Sunday 04.13.03I had a busy weekend mostly spent dealing with my taxes. I got a different total everytime so I finally went to Neal and Ardie's yesterday to catch the game and to use their software to do it. Their printer is AWOL so I tried to fix it and couldn't so we decided to print our returns here. That took a bit of doing and I ended up returning there today to get all the files. Time consuming but we're all getting money back. Thanks to the government for using my money all year and giving it back to me now.
I'm getting just enough back to finance a new LCD so it looks like I might spring for it after all. I still haven't bought the camera but I've decided on the model so it's just a matter of time I guess. I think I'm in for a busy couple of weeks at work so there's not much point in getting it now... I don't think I'll have the time to play with it until May.
The Sun Run was today and I was pretty sure the route went down Denman so I was going to poke my head out and watch the healthy people run by. Either they didn't go down Denman or I managed to miss 50,000 people running past my apartment...
A much better effort by the 'Nucks last night but I question the yahoos driving around the West End honking their horns and screaming. It's game two, the series is tied and they won by a single goal. It's not exactly like they made it to the finals.
Well, I gots to hit up my dope homie Shnewt... I hear he's scored some smack and maybe we can do some while we jam to some fat joints. Peace out from Vancity! WESTSIDE! *flashes gang signs*
Sorry about that.. .I've been listening to The Beat all day.
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Thursday 04.10.03
Damn, how did I forget to mention Ayako's birthday gift? She sent me this awesome little wood carving and I just love it. It even arrived Monday so I had something to open! Thanks Aya!
I wasn't really planning to blog on Tuesday as it was a bit late when I got home from dinner with Neal and Ardie and then the whole Shnewt thing came up. Plus, knowing that I'd be out for dinner again Wednesday, I had visions of not blogging 'til Thursday and that would've caused Ardie to freak out and start spamming me so I figured that I'd better keep to a regular schedule.
Kim and Janice took me out for dinner and we had a great time. Hadn't seen Kim in a while so it was a good evening all round. It also reminded me of how lucky I am to have made such great friends since I made the move to tech. The guys in the shop where nothing like me and I had no desire to socialize with them, but in tech I've met so many great friends.
I was reading something at Wired about people in the tech industry and it really struck me as being true. We all complain about the toll that our jobs take and how they tend to dominate our lives and yet it's like an addiction. It's exciting to be a part of it and that's why we keep doing it.
Speaking of exciting, we just grabbed a huge contract at work today! What a great feeling that was; the CEO running around high-fiving everyone. We've hired three people since I started and there are four more starting next week, mostly on the business side. I hope they can manage this growth as we go forward but things are really looking good for the future.
It's so nice to hear a positive annoucement rather than the constant stream of bad news that I'd grown so used to.
Well, I'm off to watch the game. It's not looking so good right now but it's early yet. Go Canucks!
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Tuesday 04.08.03Thankfully the death-rain that was meant to come today never appeared. After yesterday, I'd had enough of being wet at work. Why I thought walking to work was a good idea when it was raining that hard is beyond me.
I just got back from a wonderful meal at Carderos compliments of Neal and Ardie. I'd never been there before and it was quite the setting at the foot of the marina. Great food, great company and a girl at the front with a wide open blouse. Happy birthday indeed...
I think we all agreed that it was a good idea to hold off until today as none of us had a wonderful day on Monday and I think we enjoyed ourselves much more with the stress levels a little lower. The food there is incredible and I think that we should've passed on the appys as I'm so full right now, I doubt that I'll need to have lunch tomorrow. I had a steak that was so tender I hardly have the words for it and wrapped up with the best cheesecake I've ever had.
The festivities continue tomorrow as Janice and Kim are taking me to the Old Spaghetti Factory so that should be good as well. I haven't been there in a long time and it's only a couple of blocks from the office, so it's a an easy walk for me. I might need an easy walk as I have a build to test Wednesday so I hope that I'm not late.
In news of the odd, Shnewt has been in the hospital! As soon as I found out, I immediately dropped what I was doing and called Rachel to see how she was doing. She sounded fine and I had a good chat with her just to make sure she was OK. I think Paul's OK, but I really didn't talk to him... I can only imagine the horror of dragging his ass up to St. Pauls in the middle of the night.
In all seriousness, the doctors suspect that he has kidney stones which is no laughing matter. He sounded good tonight and it sounds like he enjoyed the drugs so hopefully this too shall pass.
Get it? "This too shall pass" Damn I'm witty...
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Sunday 04.06.03Happy Birthday Shirley!
Well I had a nice Sunday today. The plan was to hook up with the Shnewt's and head over to Karan and Claire's for a potluck brunch.
It got off to a bit of a rocky start as I'd been calling the Shnewt's and wasn't getting any answer. I wasn't too worried as I figured (correctly, I might add) that Paul was sleeping one off and Rachel was probably in the gym or perhaps organizing something.
When I got to their apartment there was still no response so after about ten minutes, I was getting ready to grab a cab when Rachel called. They'd forgotten about the time change.
This was shocking as Rachel's organizational skills are nothing short of alarming. No problem, I go upstairs and call Karan to tell him that we'll be late. The voice on the other end of the phone sounds like someone who'd just got up. They'd forgotten as well. Whatever, I played Vice City, while the Shnewt's got ready and we were in the wind.
Had a great time munching on bagels, yogurt and fruit and Karan whipped up some tasty beverages. We watched the hockey game which was hugely disappointing, but it didn't take away from the afternoon.
Ayako called while I was there and she wished me a happy birthday. It's not my birthday yet but it was in Male so she gave me a call and was sounding much better than the last time that we talked. Of course she was drunk, so that might have entered into it.
I had a bunch of stuff to do here which I got done and then settled in to watch the Brazilian GP. Third fantastic race of the season so I officially love the new rules. The rain helped too.
Enjoy tomorrow... it's Sevenapril after all...
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Saturday 04.05.03May I now humbly present another episode of "Late Night Conversations with Paul"
Midbach says: how is it that you are about to marry rachel and yet there is no link to her site on your page?
Midbach says: i'm going to have to blog about that...
Midbach says: it's blogworthy
shnewt - screw you all says: it is not blogworthy!
Midbach says: maybe thru my link to her site she will realize that i am the man for her...
shnewt - screw you all says: rachel does not consider her web page ready yet
Midbach says: oh
Midbach says: she told me i could link to her
shnewt - screw you all says: ya ya ya
Midbach says: maybe her feelings are already turning!
Midbach says: me so happy!!
shnewt - screw you all says: ahhh... she is looking over my shoulder
In other news, I'm considering this camera. I still need to look around some more and talk to Paul about it. He might not link to his wife to be, but he does know something about photography.
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Thursday 04.03.03Dammit, I now have the 'Date' anchors working but the 'Top' is doing something weird. Whatever, I'll look into that but now I have two months of blog entries to update, so this'll be short.
Not much else to tell but I do have a question... If you have a bit of money, have two items that you coveted and they were both about the same price, which would you buy? To put it into perspective, the objects of my desire are either a digital camera or an LCD monitor.
I'd love to get both obviously but that's not on, so I need to choose one. Yes I know, nice problem to have.
I've really wanted a digital camera for a while now and I know that I would take more pics if I had one. I'd also like to get an LCD monitor to save on desk space and just generally sit here looking cool. I use my computers absolutely everyday and the monitor is the gateway. I remeber when I got the 17" that I use now... it's seemed like heaven.
Let me know what you think I should do. Abuse me here. Thanks.
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Tuesday 04.01.03Well this has been a trying week so far. Busy as hell and working late but still enjoying it overall. It's just hard when you get one day of training and you're left to run a one man show. Luckily everyone is more than helpful but it's not easy.
At least everyday I can say I learned a little more and that makes it easier but there's a lot to learn. Not just the software but the processes as well. I guess it's a bit of a blessing as I can structure thing the way I think it would work best but right now it takes me longer to do my testing so I don't have the time to work on the other stuff right now.
I realized that I didn't put a direct link to the War Blogs page that I created on Sunday, so there you go.
Giving some thought to a new layout and might start to begin working on it soon. I'm surprised that I still have the interest to do it now that I'm working again but I do. It just might take a while. Carmen thinks I'm completely geeking out which I take as a compliment.
There are aspects of this layout that I like but it was more an experiment in using CSS for laying out the page and therefore it's a bit of a compromise. My initial thoughts are that Version 4 will be a ocmbination of v2.2 and v3. Maybe it'll be version 3.x... I don't know yet.
Given that Flash is such a huge part of our product at work (actually, it's 90% Flash) I'd like to learn more about it and will most likely incorporate it into the new layout. Maybe in the navigation and graphics... too early to tell, so just stay tuned.
Lastly, please abuse Shnewt. He's lonely...
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