My old colleague, Vicky, stopped by the office today. I haven't seen her since February sometime. Since she lives in the Big Apple now, we only chat via IM anymore, or the occasional phone call. It was nice to see her. While she was here, we went in to see her old boss (who is my boss), and all three of us we talked for a little bit. Then, my boss stands up, closes his office door and starts in with "since I've got both of you here...". He then goes on to tell us that he's resigning from the company essentially. Well, actually, he's moving on to another part of the company, but won't have any association with our office anymore. I think Wednesday is his last day here, as he ships out to that other division to help get them up to speed (that division was recently acquired...
Category: General
Long Ago…
As of now, Ivan looks to be veering off to the west a lot more. What a difference 24 hours can make. As much as I'm bothered that it's hitting the Florida panhandle, I'm glad it's missing us. Star Wars fever is in the air: I'm starting to get excited about the Star Wars Trilogy coming out on DVD next Tuesday. I think I'll be watching a lot of it in the coming weeks. It just so happens (no... I'm sure it was planned) that Star Wars Battlefront is also coming out that day. I'm gonna go pick up a copy at EB Games for the PC. Also, Schunk came over and we FINALLY finished a the last level of Rogue Squadron III on the GameCube. Man, that level was really friggin hard. After watching Star Wars: Empire of Dreams on A&E last night, Millard and I both got inspired....
Fantastic Friday
I met with Dave last night from TriBridge at 5:30pm at Applebee's near where I work. He ordered a big burger and I got boneless buffalo wings. For about 50 minutes we sat and talked about the job position and I told him that I thought that the technology they're using is exciting and that I really see it being the wave of the future for companies. I got a very good feeling about the interview, and I get the impression he did too. So, he went ahead and thanked me and told me that Monday I would either need to go on another interview with them, or I'd be getting an offer, depending on how everything went. I left him with the bill (which he offered to pay). Mil came over and we sat around for a while talking about the Matrix and how much I didn't care for...
The Last Mile
I heard from Dave at TriBridge today. We're gonna meet for happy hour around 5:00pm tomorrow (August 27th) and discuss my potential employment. I guess we're skipping Round 2 and going straight to Round 3 of the interview process. Wish me luck. Sick Thought of the Day: Beans Above The Frank
Goodbye Charley, Hello Tony?
It's been just over a week since Charley hit South West Florida. Fortunately, it missed Sarasota entirely. Unfortunately, it hit Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte (50 miles southeast of here) and devastated them. A friend of mine, Naser, lives down there. We finally got word from him that he, his wife, and the kids are all OK and he's moving them up to Tennessee for awhile until everything gets back to normal. So, fast forward to today; I get a phone call today at 2:20pm from my recruiting agency. They tell me that they have a possible job opening with a company, TriBridge in Tampa, who outsources web and Visual Basic development work. They were in a hurry to set up a phone interview with me and the company, so we scheduled it for 2:30pm. Sure enough, my cell phone rings at 2:27pm and I spend the next 20 minutes...
Something Wicked This Way Comes
The time is almost upon us. I live in Sarasota, FL, which currently lies smack-dab in the middle of the path of hurricane Charlie. Yeah. Great. Shauna and I will most likely weather the storm at home, even if it's in the bathroom in the middle of the building. Currently, it looks like Charley will be knocking on the front door around 8:00pm Friday, so we have a little time. I expect I will make a definite call tomorrow morning if we'll stay here or get in the car (me, Shauna, our two cats, my mom and sister, and their cat and dog) and head East towards Lake Okeechobee. They say the storm will be a strong Category 3 by the time it gets here. Needless to say, there are a lot of people that are nervous over this one. A hurricane of this magnitude hasn't hit the Suncoast since...
The Grindstone
I wish I could say I had an interesting weekend, but I spent it at the office. 53 hour week this week. And that's with taking Monday off because I was sick, and having to leave 3.5 hours early on Tuesday as well. Yuk. The only fun thing that happened was that my wife and I went to the dollar theater last night and saw Around the World in 80 Days. It was a fun movie. It really helped get my mind off work for a couple of hours. Sick Thought of the Day: Shit Moustache
Cop Killa
I'm normally not the kind of guy who thinks that blowing up police cars is funny or killing cops is cool. Last night I realized that, in the virtual world, I'm quite happy with both of those scenarios. Millard and I sat and played Vice City for hours and I was laughing my ass off every time I'd slam into a cop car or run an officer over. Man, they were ganging up on me so much. They'd push and slam into my jacked SUV or car and just make it do these crazy stunts. That's so much fun! I started out last night not feeling too vibrant because the crazy week at the office drained me hard. After playing that game, I was so relaxed and happy. I wish I'd have gotten this game when it first came out. So, that being said, I'm at the office today with...
Day Off
I decided today that I was going to take Wednesday off because my last paycheck stub showed the following balances: Vacation time: 232.09 hours (5 weeks, 5 days, 4 hours, 55.56 minutes) Sick time: 40 hours (1 week) Personal Days: 16 hours (2 days) Insane. And, I still have another 1.5 weeks to accrue this year. So, I went up to my boss and told him. He was cool about it. I think I'll go get my hair cut, as it's about a week and a half overdue. Maybe get the oil changed on my truck as well. I have a load of old VHS movies I'll take to Goodwill, along with some clothes. The rest of the day I'll spend on the comic book database application that I'm working on. Sick Thought of the Day: Penis Blisters
Habitual Mastication
Last night I watched about a third of Tron with Millard. For some fucked up reason, the DVD freaked out (twice) at the point where Flynn is talking to RAM in the cell block right after he gets digitized. Oddly enough, the digitizing of the disc screwed up, and all these odd colored blocks were all over the screen while the inverted movie played in the background. Like I said, fucked up.So, after getting sick of that real quick, I popped in Spider-man and we watched that. Millard fell asleep on the couch...After the first snore, I slowly approached him like the prowling cat that I am. First came the sweaty palms, then the salivation as I touched the zipper on his pants. He mumbled something in his sleep and shifted, but didn't wake.My eyes glazed over. As I unzipped his pants, I dropped my zipper too. The both of...
