careless process interpreted
Hey LJ,
Parties, Girl Status and Candy
Not having written a true LJ entry in the past three months has left me with quite a few things to talk about. It feels like between work and my social life I've spent more time living than talking about it.
I went to Hippie Hollow for the first time a few weekends ago and it was just about what I had expected it to be. Getting down the rocky slopes to the water was actually pretty harrowing, not to mention the slippery seaweedy rocks that one has to negotiate when trying to get into the actual water.
Swimming naked felt pretty amazing. Any shyness that I might have pretended to have completely vanished once I got there. I'm not a strong swimmer, so I spent a lot of my time talking with emmainfiniti and fractallia in the shallow parts of the water. Hooray for nakedness, boo for the voice in the back of my head continually mumbling things like, "a turtle will probably bite your dick," and other similarly pleasant warnings.
I enjoyed feetwilltravel and wesbante's Fourth of July party. I struggled between wanting to be chill and flirting with this girl who I totally have a crush on. I think chillness won out, since I don't seem to be feeling very flirty at the moment. Still, damn good time.
I helped alucardkitty and fruit_smoothie vend tiny hats at Anime Overload, a tiny little local anime convention. I say I "helped," but I really just sort of sat around and talked while people walked by their booth and drooled. I bought a sushi pillow and a cool little fleece-y rabbit ear hat. I spent part of the time trying to make a list of the things I had been up to. I feel a little like my short term memory has been suffering, and it might possibly be due to the large amount of stressful work I've just completed (see below). alucardkitty had a bitchin' costume. I liked the convention. It seemed small and ratty, but it was most definitely authentic.
orangetango had her final performance with her dance troupe somewhere in there. The group definitely demonstrated a lot of professionalism in the way they were organized and the individual skills they each possessed. orangetango had a solo piece to a Mountain Goats song that I must admit I did not recognize. It was slow, deliberate and beautiful and her dance played well with the music. There was also a mind-blowing pole dancer. It really is difficult to describe just how awesome it is to watch something like that.
At some point, fractallia and I joined a group at the San Marcos river for some toobin' fun. We arrived fairly late, so we actually just ended up hanging out at camp and swimming around in the icy cold river water. Someone had a goose or duck (difficult to tell at distance) that was following him around the water in his toob. I wonder if they are ever going to rebuild the Lion's Club, I don't imagine it would be cheap, but I could really do without the port-a-poties.
I went to Schlitterbahn and it was my first time and even though it hurt I loved it. Well, it didn't really hurt. It was way cooler than Wet N' Wild in Dallas ever was. And I'm not just saying that because I'm not a big fan of Dallas. Something about Schlitterbahn made it seem thicker; like there was more park per square foot. Due to some odd time-space anomaly I felt like I was able to get enough people time and water park time in before we eventually had to leave that evening. It was bitchin' fun. The only thing that would have made it better was if fractallia hadn't been working that day and had been able to come.
There are some totally sexy women in my life right now. A recent flurry of great dates and great sex has left me feeling quite happy and fulfilled. I've also started sort of seeing a new girl. She is a total geek. It's really cool to have someone besides fractallia who I feel comfy talking about computer stuff with. Also, she's way fun, intelligent and has a great body.
Workies High and Low
I started software programming work for my dad shortly after getting back. Similar to the previous work I had done for him, my principal task was to create software to sit inside of a scientific test device and operate it. Keeping up with a project like that while also having a 9 to 5 job turned out to be more than a little stressful. In the grand scheme of things, the project was quite small when compared to the others that I've undertaken in the past. Older projects have had 4-6 months worth of development time; this one had had 8 weeks. Still, knowing this, I decided that it would be a good idea to essentially re-write all of the old, reusable code that I had laying around from the previous work.
It turned out well. The older code wasn't really "reusable" because (while being usable) it still had to be uniquely adapted to each particular situation. Long story short, I've made it fully adaptable, so I should never ever ever have to touch that code again. As if.
I spent the last four weeks of the project incredibly frustrated. For the first time, I was programming a device without actually being able to see it or operate the buttons or anything. The development process essentially consisted of me continually guessing at the resolution of a problem and then having my dad try it out for me. It was slow as hell and I'm not really looking forward to the prospects of having to do that kind of work again. Everything worked out, but was it because of my skill or were we just lucky that all of the problems were small?
As far as my 9 to 5 job, there have been a few developments. Almost immediately after returning from my trip, the entire call center went through a shift bid. It was a very unpleasant procedure in which everyone had to bid on a new schedule to keep for the next few months. I don't know what kind of cracked out program was used, but the number of tolerable schedules amounted to somewhere close to two. Since I was ranked number 18, I was not likely to get something I liked. Luckily, the management thought better of it and the bid was postponed.
Something else happened, too. I was asked to act as a Subject Matter Expert for new tech support training classes. For the past month or two, I've spent most of my work time in the training rooms educating freshly hired people on the correct ways to troubleshoot boxes and modems, and I have to say that I've really enjoyed doing it. I've surprised myself at the kind of penchant that I have for public speaking. The work is ongoing, so I'm not terribly sure when I'll be done for good.
During the time I've spent in the classroom, I've been taking online learning courses using the internal training system thingie. I've also been applying for jobs, and I had an interview for a network position last Friday. It went incredibly well. I'm really, really trying not to get my hopes up.
The Amazing Disappearing Boy
fractallia and I started on a diet after we got back from Flipside. Long story short, we've essentially carved processed carbohydrates and most sugars out of our diet. I guess the hope is that I might be able to lower my blood pressure and be generally healthier. I bought Wii Fit somewhere along the way at the recommendation of a pretty girl and it's turned out to be quite awesome for keeping up with working out and visually seeing progress. I happen to be quite good at Wii Fit's unique version of yoga and I really enjoy playing the little manoeuvre-the-bubble minigames.
Eating differently has had some very positive effects on my health in the past two months. Very often, I would wake up with headaches in the morning. Despite the fact that I've had them for years, I've never been able to pinpoint the exact cause. Evidently, laying off the carbs and sugars has all but eliminated them. Even when I sleep with my neck in a cricked and/or bent position, it's very rare that I'll need to take acetaminophen when I get up. I've also noticed that I'm not hungry like I used to be. It feels quite odd to me to look at food and say, "No thanks, I've really had enough." In the past, I feel like I would have been much more inclined to munch and graze whenever there was available chow, but not so much anymore. Also, evidently my snoring has gone away.
I've learned quite a lot so far. First and foremost, cooking food that is low-carb and low-sugar takes up a sizable amount of time. Very few restaurants have items that are actually considered okay during the first phase of the diet, and as a result fractallia and I have had to do quite a lot of cooking to cover for the gap left from fast food and eating out. We've started doubling many recipes simply to save on cooking time down the road. Also, not eating out as much as I used to has made it quite evident to me how expensive it is to eat. The money I've spent at restaurants has been greatly reduced, but my grocery bills are much higher and more common than they were before. I'm not necessarily sure that I'm spending more money, but that money is much more visible than it was in the past.
Random Thoughts
I don't know that it's really possible for someone to fault another person for not being innocent. Doesn't it seem like innocence is something that a person really doesn't have complete control over? After all, I can imagine several situations where malice or ignorance on someone else's part would cause someone to drastically alter the way they look at the world. Is it fair to judge someone on a quality that it's not possible to maintain on one's own?
Do people really get first degree burns? I expect that in most cases, people usually get a few degrees more.
There's this song with the lyrics, "My mama told me don't lose you cuz the best thing i had was you," I always interpreted these lyrics as the mother talking directly to the son and only recently realized that the mother was speaking to the son about a second woman who I guess to be the son's girlfriend. There's probably a message there, but if there is I don't know what it means.
If there are two T-Rexs fighting, is that small arms combat?
I've began to write an automatic poetry writer. Here are some gems it's coughed up so far:
want will moisture spent
variables guard each record youtube
plastic restaurants increase chopped smiled
awesome turn cake fucked reusable
evidently record non-iodized
breaks slake worth make
carefree seductive innocence
slightly expensive evident robot were
ice fresh olive
expensive disappearing working wii
bought fucked sated
Right now, the cute little program is able to arrange words together if they go well, but I just haven't had enough time to teach it what works and what doesn't.
Parties, Girl Status and Candy
Not having written a true LJ entry in the past three months has left me with quite a few things to talk about. It feels like between work and my social life I've spent more time living than talking about it.
I went to Hippie Hollow for the first time a few weekends ago and it was just about what I had expected it to be. Getting down the rocky slopes to the water was actually pretty harrowing, not to mention the slippery seaweedy rocks that one has to negotiate when trying to get into the actual water.
Swimming naked felt pretty amazing. Any shyness that I might have pretended to have completely vanished once I got there. I'm not a strong swimmer, so I spent a lot of my time talking with emmainfiniti and fractallia in the shallow parts of the water. Hooray for nakedness, boo for the voice in the back of my head continually mumbling things like, "a turtle will probably bite your dick," and other similarly pleasant warnings.
I enjoyed feetwilltravel and wesbante's Fourth of July party. I struggled between wanting to be chill and flirting with this girl who I totally have a crush on. I think chillness won out, since I don't seem to be feeling very flirty at the moment. Still, damn good time.
I helped alucardkitty and fruit_smoothie vend tiny hats at Anime Overload, a tiny little local anime convention. I say I "helped," but I really just sort of sat around and talked while people walked by their booth and drooled. I bought a sushi pillow and a cool little fleece-y rabbit ear hat. I spent part of the time trying to make a list of the things I had been up to. I feel a little like my short term memory has been suffering, and it might possibly be due to the large amount of stressful work I've just completed (see below). alucardkitty had a bitchin' costume. I liked the convention. It seemed small and ratty, but it was most definitely authentic.
orangetango had her final performance with her dance troupe somewhere in there. The group definitely demonstrated a lot of professionalism in the way they were organized and the individual skills they each possessed. orangetango had a solo piece to a Mountain Goats song that I must admit I did not recognize. It was slow, deliberate and beautiful and her dance played well with the music. There was also a mind-blowing pole dancer. It really is difficult to describe just how awesome it is to watch something like that.
At some point, fractallia and I joined a group at the San Marcos river for some toobin' fun. We arrived fairly late, so we actually just ended up hanging out at camp and swimming around in the icy cold river water. Someone had a goose or duck (difficult to tell at distance) that was following him around the water in his toob. I wonder if they are ever going to rebuild the Lion's Club, I don't imagine it would be cheap, but I could really do without the port-a-poties.
I went to Schlitterbahn and it was my first time and even though it hurt I loved it. Well, it didn't really hurt. It was way cooler than Wet N' Wild in Dallas ever was. And I'm not just saying that because I'm not a big fan of Dallas. Something about Schlitterbahn made it seem thicker; like there was more park per square foot. Due to some odd time-space anomaly I felt like I was able to get enough people time and water park time in before we eventually had to leave that evening. It was bitchin' fun. The only thing that would have made it better was if fractallia hadn't been working that day and had been able to come.
There are some totally sexy women in my life right now. A recent flurry of great dates and great sex has left me feeling quite happy and fulfilled. I've also started sort of seeing a new girl. She is a total geek. It's really cool to have someone besides fractallia who I feel comfy talking about computer stuff with. Also, she's way fun, intelligent and has a great body.
Workies High and Low
I started software programming work for my dad shortly after getting back. Similar to the previous work I had done for him, my principal task was to create software to sit inside of a scientific test device and operate it. Keeping up with a project like that while also having a 9 to 5 job turned out to be more than a little stressful. In the grand scheme of things, the project was quite small when compared to the others that I've undertaken in the past. Older projects have had 4-6 months worth of development time; this one had had 8 weeks. Still, knowing this, I decided that it would be a good idea to essentially re-write all of the old, reusable code that I had laying around from the previous work.
It turned out well. The older code wasn't really "reusable" because (while being usable) it still had to be uniquely adapted to each particular situation. Long story short, I've made it fully adaptable, so I should never ever ever have to touch that code again. As if.
I spent the last four weeks of the project incredibly frustrated. For the first time, I was programming a device without actually being able to see it or operate the buttons or anything. The development process essentially consisted of me continually guessing at the resolution of a problem and then having my dad try it out for me. It was slow as hell and I'm not really looking forward to the prospects of having to do that kind of work again. Everything worked out, but was it because of my skill or were we just lucky that all of the problems were small?
As far as my 9 to 5 job, there have been a few developments. Almost immediately after returning from my trip, the entire call center went through a shift bid. It was a very unpleasant procedure in which everyone had to bid on a new schedule to keep for the next few months. I don't know what kind of cracked out program was used, but the number of tolerable schedules amounted to somewhere close to two. Since I was ranked number 18, I was not likely to get something I liked. Luckily, the management thought better of it and the bid was postponed.
Something else happened, too. I was asked to act as a Subject Matter Expert for new tech support training classes. For the past month or two, I've spent most of my work time in the training rooms educating freshly hired people on the correct ways to troubleshoot boxes and modems, and I have to say that I've really enjoyed doing it. I've surprised myself at the kind of penchant that I have for public speaking. The work is ongoing, so I'm not terribly sure when I'll be done for good.
During the time I've spent in the classroom, I've been taking online learning courses using the internal training system thingie. I've also been applying for jobs, and I had an interview for a network position last Friday. It went incredibly well. I'm really, really trying not to get my hopes up.
The Amazing Disappearing Boy
fractallia and I started on a diet after we got back from Flipside. Long story short, we've essentially carved processed carbohydrates and most sugars out of our diet. I guess the hope is that I might be able to lower my blood pressure and be generally healthier. I bought Wii Fit somewhere along the way at the recommendation of a pretty girl and it's turned out to be quite awesome for keeping up with working out and visually seeing progress. I happen to be quite good at Wii Fit's unique version of yoga and I really enjoy playing the little manoeuvre-the-bubble minigames.
Eating differently has had some very positive effects on my health in the past two months. Very often, I would wake up with headaches in the morning. Despite the fact that I've had them for years, I've never been able to pinpoint the exact cause. Evidently, laying off the carbs and sugars has all but eliminated them. Even when I sleep with my neck in a cricked and/or bent position, it's very rare that I'll need to take acetaminophen when I get up. I've also noticed that I'm not hungry like I used to be. It feels quite odd to me to look at food and say, "No thanks, I've really had enough." In the past, I feel like I would have been much more inclined to munch and graze whenever there was available chow, but not so much anymore. Also, evidently my snoring has gone away.
I've learned quite a lot so far. First and foremost, cooking food that is low-carb and low-sugar takes up a sizable amount of time. Very few restaurants have items that are actually considered okay during the first phase of the diet, and as a result fractallia and I have had to do quite a lot of cooking to cover for the gap left from fast food and eating out. We've started doubling many recipes simply to save on cooking time down the road. Also, not eating out as much as I used to has made it quite evident to me how expensive it is to eat. The money I've spent at restaurants has been greatly reduced, but my grocery bills are much higher and more common than they were before. I'm not necessarily sure that I'm spending more money, but that money is much more visible than it was in the past.
Random Thoughts
I don't know that it's really possible for someone to fault another person for not being innocent. Doesn't it seem like innocence is something that a person really doesn't have complete control over? After all, I can imagine several situations where malice or ignorance on someone else's part would cause someone to drastically alter the way they look at the world. Is it fair to judge someone on a quality that it's not possible to maintain on one's own?
Do people really get first degree burns? I expect that in most cases, people usually get a few degrees more.
There's this song with the lyrics, "My mama told me don't lose you cuz the best thing i had was you," I always interpreted these lyrics as the mother talking directly to the son and only recently realized that the mother was speaking to the son about a second woman who I guess to be the son's girlfriend. There's probably a message there, but if there is I don't know what it means.
If there are two T-Rexs fighting, is that small arms combat?
I've began to write an automatic poetry writer. Here are some gems it's coughed up so far:
want will moisture spent
variables guard each record youtube
plastic restaurants increase chopped smiled
awesome turn cake fucked reusable
evidently record non-iodized
breaks slake worth make
carefree seductive innocence
slightly expensive evident robot were
ice fresh olive
expensive disappearing working wii
bought fucked sated
Right now, the cute little program is able to arrange words together if they go well, but I just haven't had enough time to teach it what works and what doesn't.