The shine wears off

January 27th, 2010

I feel like I’m in over my head at work. I don’t have access to revision control, and the guy who’s supposed to let me know about what the URI is for our revision control system keeps blowing off that question. What’s more, I don’t have all the access I need to do my next task, which will involve some reporting work, ensuring that stuff from our ticket system matches our routing information in the database. I would have had a more productive day had my manager been in the office and could talk to him about these issues, but attempts to discuss things with him electronically met with no success. I didn’t get through to him until 4:30, after I left out of sheer frustration.

To top it all off, I’ve got my very own Creature From 8A living downstairs. She’s complained about the noise I’m making twice now, saying that I’m keeping her up. She came up here within two hours of my parents leaving to complain that I had been making too much noise for the entire weekend, ignoring the fact that I had just moved in to the apartment and a large chunk of that noise was me having furniture and belongings dragged up here. I’m seriously afraid to walk around up here, simply because I know she’ll complain. She’s much like my grandmother was 20 years ago: retired, shut in, and going insane.

So to review, no Rock Band, no moving, and work is going in circles already. I know I belong in Carrollton, but something is broken, and I don’t know how to fix it.

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Getting settled

January 23rd, 2010

So I’ve been here a week now, and honestly, a part of me is getting really homesick. I don’t know that I’ll venture to the Galleria Dallas that much: not only does it seem like a knock-off of The Galleria that doesn’t quite cut it (it feels to be about half the size of The Galleria), but it makes me homesick for the real thing.

I’m also looking for sleeper sofas. I found one at a furniture liquidators in Arlington that I really liked. There’s a pair of similar items that come in a set at The Dump, and if I had an apartment with a study, they’d have been mine last week. I’ve decided against getting a night stand or a linen cabinet, as I’ve got another set of drawers coming from Houston that will fill the role of both quite nicely.

I’ve begun the search for a the best cup of tea that I did not make myself in the Metroplex. If you’re in Houston, I can tell you that you want Té House of Tea in Neartown (and next time I’m down there, which I hope to be next weekend, I will introduce my mom and sister to the place). I found a place called Tea Thyme and Tisane in downtown Carrollton that made a pretty good cup today. About the only thing wrong with it is that it seemed to fall between Té’s informality (which I love) and geniality and the posh and proper upscale tea rooms that are generally more common (which I honestly could do without). Also, they don’t have crepes. In their favor, they did sell individual cups of loose tea, which was a blessing, as I didn’t need a whole small pot. They’re also a lot closer than Teavana, so I won’t have to run all the way to the aforementioned Galleria Dallas to get my own teas. In summary, I need a similar crack team of hipsters, anime fen, freaks, and weirdos to help me out again, but I don’t have them here yet.

One thing I’m struggling with is the fact that there are no regular Howard E. Butt’s grocers around here. If they did, I’d be shopping there. Sure, they have Central Market with about the same distribution as Whole Paycheck Foods, but those don’t sell the store brands. This wouldn’t be a huge concern for most people, but they do make a particular bagel that I’ve come to like. I’ll have to have them shipped from Houston until further notice.

Also, DART doesn’t have a declining balance fare system like Houston METRO does. This makes me sad.

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My first week: done

January 22nd, 2010

Yeah, it’s a little early, but I had to be here at the apartment to babysit the delivery guys. I finally have a bed1. If 5:00p weren’t so damn close, I’d head back in to work. In any case, I managed to accomplish everything I wanted to get done today and then some. The take-home lesson here is that Linq is easier to use than ADO.NET.

Also, I had an American staple for the first time today: the leftover meatloaf sandwich. It would have been better had I remembered to bring lettuce, tomato, and spicy brown mustard, but it was still worth eating. Interestingly, I didn’t start eating meatloaf until I started cooking for myself.

We’re going to do some more bloggazing this week. Today, I’m looking at the search terms through which people got to this blog on Google. It appears they’re all looking for this post, where I discuss my attempts at figuring out what the Weight Watchers’ POINTS algorithm is, armed only with their slide rule, a POINTS calculator, and nutrition labels from all sorts of food. They also particularly seem interested in the Roasted Almond Sensation snack bars (the best snack bar ever made, taste-wise), which were introduced last month, probably as a seasonal item2.

In fact, the only person coming here that actually dealt in my primary area of expertise (that would be computer programming and software engineering) was looking for “how to write python burned calories formula”. I will admit that I don’t have a script that calculates calories you’ve burned, but if you know the Metabolic equivalent of the Task, you need only multiply that by your mass in kilograms and the length of time you did whatever exercise you performed in hours–the resultant number is how many kilocalories (which are the same as dietary calories) you’ve burned. Honestly, if a machine I’m using tells me how many kilocalories I’ve burned, I divide that by 50 for the Activity POINTS that I’ve earned.

1. I haven’t slept in a bed in a week. It’s murder on my back. My father, on the other hand, loves that kind of arrangement.
2. I know a lot of Weight Watchers members, myself included, that will revolt if they are discontinued.

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And now, I’ve got a phone. And Internet. Real Internet.

January 20th, 2010

So my apartment becomes more home-like as time goes by. I’ve got FiOS dragged in here now. I still haven’t gone for a workout yet, and I’m planning on doing that tomorrow.

I’m starting to make plans for this weekend. My next acquisition shall either be a linen cabinet or a sleeper sofa (well, a sleeper loveseat, really). If I were slightly richer, I’d have gotten an apartment with study, but alas. Or perhaps I should invest in a coffee table where I can set my laptop.

I miss sleeping in a bed. I can’t wait until Friday when my new bed gets here.

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And I have tubertubes!

January 19th, 2010

Well, not really. I’m updating this using my work laptop, which has a 3G card in it.

I’m officially employed. All the paperwork is done, now all I have do do is not screw up. I do, however, need to decide how I’m arranging my benefits, which I believe will come online on the first of the month. Sadly, payday isn’t until the 5th, which means I have bills due before I have money. My parents are willing and able to help me on that, though.

I think I’m going to take some time and review my comments. I get a lot of spam and almost nothing in real comments at WordPress, probably because most people reading this space do so at other locations throughout the Internet (it is relayed multiple times through various sites). Thus, I’m probably responding to spam. If I tagged you as a spammer and you aren’t, please let me know.

I’ve just come across your blog on Bing and to start with I’m loving your layout :) I agree with what your saying here, your judgment is spot on. I’m sure going to sign up to your rss feed so i can keep informed of furture postings.

Really? I’ve been tracking the analytics on this spot with multiple tools, and nobody has come here through Bing or Live Search. In any case, the layout is the WordPress default. The rest of the site is custom and based on my admittedly limited knowledge of front-end technologies.

Damn, that sound’s so easy if you think about it.

This was in response to the posting where I was talking about the Weight Watcher’s POINTS algorithm. Yes, it’s quite easy when you think about it. Most members, however, don’t.

Have you seen what your site looks like with chrome? It looks a little messed up on mine. Is it just me or?

I’ve tested this site in Chromium and Firefox on Mac and Linux. I haven’t put it through its paces on any Windows platform quite yet.

I found this blog by searching on Google for hotel marketing. How did you optimize your site to rank so high in the search engine results?

This comes to us from my Christmas post when I was in Arlington. Again, my analytics software does not indicate anyone has come here looking for information about hotel marketing information for the Arlington area. In fact, I’ve only ever been in Arlington on two occasions: a trip during the summer of 1996 and the Christmas of 2009. I was about to say that I’ve only been in the Arlington area twice, but that’s a lie, as human readers of this space should know.

Happy New Years!! To my favorite blog, hopefully tactical body armor was not needed with all those morons shooting their shotguns above residential housing.

I’m glad to hear that I’m your favorite blog. And no, body armor was unnecessary. This was actually amongst the more unique spam postings, as they did manage to work the product they were hawking into the text organically and somewhat amusingly.

There were other postings in the comment queue as well: one person was advertising a camgirl site or something and several comments that were obviously randomly generated characters.

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Live from Carrollton

January 18th, 2010

I’ve moved in, but my phone and Internet haven’t been set up. I have a public library that’s a short walk from my apartment (I now have a card), so I’m currently typing this from there.

I’ll admit that I’m incredibly terrifed. What do I do, Internets? No, seriously, what do I do? I’m out here and truly alone for the first time, with home more than a phone call and an hour’s wait away. I don’t even have a bed yet–I’ve been sleeping on an air mattress that won’t hold pressure due to advanced age (I got a sleeping mat today, so that will change). I don’t know anybody here, really, and the reality of my situation is beginning to sink in. At least it’s just the Metroplex and not the far side of the moon.

Those who follow my Twitter account know that I have a television now, even if there’s nothing to watch quite yet. I’ve played some old Super Nintendo games on it, even. Yeah, that’s perverse and honestly harder than I thought.

I’ll start work tomorrow. As a gesture of awesome, I’m taking in a dozen donuts for the team. Perhaps that will help relieve some of my lostness.

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It’s done

January 14th, 2010

Yesterday, I received two job offers. Today, I’ve formally made a decision. I’m going to Dallas.

I begin the moving process shortly. I’ve got a good chunk of dad’s car packed up with my clothes and some blankets. We’ll be leaving in a few minutes, actually. I’ll be back in Houston tomorrow for sure, but I leave again on Saturday.

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New Year’s Resolutions

January 5th, 2010

The first week of the year isn’t over yet, and I haven’t posted my new year’s resolutions yet.

In years past, I didn’t think I needed to change anything about my life. This year, however, I know there are things that must change. Therefore, I’ve got a list of things I’m going to do to make sure at least some of those changes happen.

  1. Until I am employed, engage at least three companies a day, including weekends.

    2. The only exception is when I’m travelling for an interview. If the interview is in Greater Houston, I don’t get the day off. Sending a resume and cover letter counts as engaging a company, as do phone and in-person interviews. If the in-person interview is not in Greater Houston, it fills the day’s quota.

  2. Get a new driver’s license.

    3. My driver’s license doesn’t expire until 2014. However, I will need a new one when I leave my parents’ house. There is a preference for this driver’s license to come from a state other than Texas.

  3. Start paying down my student loans.

    4. Currently, my parents are paying them. This is not acceptable, and it never really has been.

  4. Buy a car.

    5. Unless my employment takes me to New York City and its immediate environment, I’ll need one.

  5. Purchase a new computer.

    6. It must run at least Windows and Linux. There is a stated preference for legally running OS X as well.

  6. On no day weigh more than 180 pounds, naked and fasting.

    7. I will weigh myself every day. Being over 180 pounds will result in a restricted diet for a week from that date, and the restricted diet will continue until I weigh less than 177 pounds, naked and fasting (in the morning).

  7. Go to the gym for at least 1 hour three times a week.

    8. Yeah, I’m already behind on that one. Walking for one hour may substitue for a gym visit.

  8. Attend a Weight Watchers meeting at least once a week.

    9. If I move, I have one week from the date of initial move-in to find a meeting and two months to find a regular meeting that works for me.

  9. Watch at least one new anime series a month.

    10. I need to catch up here. Use bittorrent and buy it if the series was worth watching. Besides, I need some fun.

  10. Upon employment, find a social group and join it.

    11. Civic groups count, churches do not. There is a requirement of weekly meetings. I must attend at least one meeting a month.

  11. Upon employment, find a church and join it.

    12. I must attend at least two services a month. Between acquiring employment and joining a church, I must attend worship services from at least two different traditions each month. For a tradition to count, it must affirm the Nicene Creed (because that’s how I roll personally). I must take notes and blog about the experience. If I should choose to join a traditional church that requires new confirmation before joining, enrolling in adult confirmation classes will suffice for this requirement.

Those are my resolutions. The last two may be deferred as long as I am making an honest effort to find a satisfactory group or church.

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Trials and Twitterlations

December 29th, 2009

Anyone who’s been on the Tubertubes over the last year and a half or so has heard of Twitter. It’s either the greatest thing since WordPress or the stupidest thing since the handheld egg cracker. Honestly, I can think of some good uses for Twitter:

  • Sending out build failure messages to developers’ cell phones

    • When I’m using a continuous integration testing environment, what do I need to know? I need to know that the build broke, I need to know when it happened, I need to know who made the commit, and I need a link with more information. I can get that in 140 characters or less.

  • Arranging spontaneous meetings

    • Most people have phones. If I want to get my friends together, I can either text them all by selecting them all on my phone or send a single text message to Twitter. The latter is easier.

  • Announcing blog posts

    • Twitter was made for attention whoring.

  • Announcing sales at online stores

    • I admit that I follow a few businesses on Twitter. They occasionally have sales or deals they will announce through Twitter.

  • Posting random surreal humor

    • Maureen Johnson provides all the demonstration anyone could need.

  • Updating your Facebook profile

    • This is the primary reason I use Twitter.

However, a number of companies think that by randomly friending me, they can build a positive relationship with potential customers. Sometimes, they make these friend requests seemingly at random: a real estate agent somewhere friended me once. Other times, I think some users use the search function to determine whether a person has mentioned something in a twit, then friend everyone who used that word. For example, I was once friended by someone promoting events in the Charlotte area because I mentioned being there briefly back in October. We’ll not mention what happened when I went to New York City for lunch.

There are multiple ways to determine whether a person is indeed using Twitter genuinely and is interested in your bowel movements, or whether they’re just trying to spam you. Here’s my test:

  1. How many people are they following?

    2. People can’t handle the amount of information generated by 1000 users. I struggle to follow 80. If they’re following more than about 300 people, they’re probably not even reading their feed, but instead are reading their at-replies, if that. They’re likely spamming.

  2. What does their user information say?

    3. Does it sound like something you’d see in spam? It probably is!

  3. How many of their tweets have links?

    4. If most tweets are linked to something, it’s either a blog announcement feed, a legitimate storefront or spam. Only one of those things actually follows many people.

If it dings any of these, I mark it as spam. It’s that simple.

Now to be honest, I feel that the only solution is for Twitter to put a CAPTCHA on friend requests. Yes, this means that you can’t friend people over text message anymore. Honestly, the problem is that Twitter is too readily abused. The fact that people are out there advertising themselves as Twitter experts is frankly disturbing. You’re not going to build a positive relationship with me by sending me a friend request on Twitter. Every commercial operation I follow on Twitter is one that I found out about through other means: I visited their storefront and found that they had a Twitter account to keep me up on their latest deals or other information. I sought them out, not the other way around.

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The year in review: a meme

December 27th, 2009

This one goes around every year. I figure I’ll start this time.

  1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

    2. Well, I went to the west coast, New York City, and managed to sit around the house doing absolutely nothing.

  2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

    3. Most people who know me know that I’m not the kind of guy who does that.

  3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

    4. Not that I recall.

  4. Did anyone close to you die?

    5. . *sniff*

  5. What countries did you visit?

    6. Still didn’t leave the country, but aside from visiting East Texas, Austin, and the Metroplex, I managed to see San Diego, California, drove through Louisiana, Missisippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina (and stayed in the Charlotte area for a week), had layovers in Northern Virginia and Chicago, and visited New Jersey and New York.

  6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

    7. A job. My own place.

  7. What date(s) from 2009 will be etched upon your memory and why?

    8. Most of these are travel related.

  8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

    9. Losing 78 pounds.

  9. What was your biggest failure?

    10. Not getting a job.

  10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?

    11. Actually, I got better. Losing a lot of weight will do that.

  11. What was the best thing you bought?

    12. I didn’t do much buying this year. Things were bought for me.

  12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

    13. My own. Did I mention the fact that I lost 78 pounds?

  13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

    14. Hiring managers: they didn’t hire me. The Yankees for winning the World Series.

  14. Where did most of your money go?

    15. I never had any in the first place, but we’ll just say video games and call it good.

  15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

    16. The prospect of getting a job. Multiple times. I was always disappointed.

  16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

    17. “Fireflies” by Owl City. A crap song for a crap year.

  17. Compared to last year, are you:
    • Happier or sadder?

      • Sadder.

    • Thinner or fatter?

      • Thinner.

    • Richer or poorer?

      • Poorer. Much poorer

  18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

    19. Resume spamming. Working.

  19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

    20. Doing nothing.

  20. How did you spend Christmas?

    21. I spent it with my sister’s in-laws in the Metroplex.

  21. Did you fall in love in 2005?

    22. No.

  22. How many one night stands did you have?

    23. This is a stupid question. I don’t do that kind of thing.

  23. What was your favorite TV program?

    24. I don’t watch much TV. That said, The Office and 30 Rock remain favorites.

  24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

    25. Nope.

  25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

    26. Molly Lewis and Paul and Storm.

  26. What did you want and get?

    27. A trip to all three American coastlines. A walk in a city larger than my hometown. Seeing an accumulation of snow–on three separate occasions, including a white Christmas. Obtaining my weight goals.

  27. What did you want and not get?

    28. A job.

  28. What was your favorite film of the year?

    29. Star Trek. The title should say pretty much everything you need to know.

  29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

    30. I was 25. I had an ice cream cake.

  30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

    31. Getting a job.

  31. How would you describe your fashion concept in 2009?

    32. For the first half, clothes that were too small. For the second half, clothes that were too big.

  32. What kept you sane?

    33. Sane? Me?

  33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

    34. I’m not into that kind of thing. I prefer to fancy people closer to me.

  34. Who did you miss?

    35. Everyone. They were all so far away.

  35. Who was the best new person you met?

    36. I didn’t meet many new people that stuck around.

  36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.

    37. It doesn’t matter how bad it is now. It will find a way to get worse. There’s just no hope.

  37. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

    38. It’s hard out here for a pimp.

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