The Random Thoughts of Crash

I'm seeing a trend

2010-10-18T09:46:00.000-04:00

I went to Six Flags with a friend, my cousin, and two of his friends. I wanted to make this a less shitty version of his birthday party (which was a disaster thanks to his dad). I figured we'd go to Six Flags and have fun at Fright Fest. On my first ride I dislocated my shoulder. I swear, I hate this goddamn shoulder. Luckily my friend was with me and dropped me off at the hospital. The kids were able to stay at Six Flags until it closed. He then dropped them off at home and came back to get me.

I've noticed that, without fail, I tend to dislocate my shoulder when I start a new job. It's quite annoying, really. I'm going to have to get surgery to fix this mess.

Worst weekend ever. His stepmom was a raging bitch this weekend, his father has no balls to stop her, and the shoulder didn't make matters any better.

So much to tell

2010-10-15T00:24:00.001-04:00

I might as well start of by telling you guys that I got a new job. I know it's been quite a while since I last posted and it's mainly because everything sucked for a while. This job pays VERY well and they value the quality of the code written, not just the quantity. I've been at the job about a month now and I love it so far.

I also got a new phone, a Samsung Fascinate (Galaxy S SCH-i500) which is a very fun Android phone to play with.

None of this is why I chose to write this blog post, though. About a month ago was my little cousin's birthday party. He turned 14 and we had a small family gathering for him. It was fairly last minute and, as usual, his father bailed halfway through. I told my cousins that I may take over my parents' mortgage since I'm making good money now and my parents want to retire and move away. On hearing this my little cousin's older brother suggests my cousin move in with me.

He declined saying he wished to go to school with his friends, which I can't fault him for. He called me tonight to tell me he's reconsidered because he believes he has a better chance at getting recruited to college on a soccer scholarship if he goes to high school around my area than where he lives now. Quite frankly I'm honored he'd consider living with me.

I spoke with my uncle (not his father but another uncle) about this and he thinks it's far more responsibility than I should take on, no matter how much I love my cousin and want to give him a better life than he currently has. Raising a teenager will be very challenging, especially a teenager that isn't yours. I have until the beginning of the next school-year to consider this and deliberate very carefully. I'm not sure what I should do just yet but one thing is for sure, I won't be making any rash decisions.

My uncle then dropped a bombshell on me. He told me his sister-in-law is to raise his two kids (currently 5 and 4 years old) should he and his wife die and that he wants me to raise them should anything happen to his sister-in-law. He told me to think about it long and hard because it's a big decision. The likelihood of that happening is very slim, but still something that needs careful deliberation.

I now have two monumental decisions to make that impact my family. I would love to immediately say yes to both but they are not decisions to be taken lightly.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.3

Busy bee

2010-06-05T12:23:00.000-04:00

My friend and I have been working on a website for a local marina. He pretty much did all of it, haha. He was bored, he just graduated college, and had time on his hands so he started throwing features in for the hell of it. I learned some Cake (PHP Framework) so that was good.

Aside from that, I dislocated my shoulder again on Sunday during my uncle's Memorial Day barbecue. I was playing football with my little cousin. I threw the ball, he came at me and I went to bring him down. That's about all I remember before I hit the floor. He says he stiff-armed me and hit my arm. All I know is my arms were out, I felt an impact, and heard a crunch.

As odd as this may sound, it's not so bad. It hurts like a bitch when it's out but when you either have drugs or it's back in, it's pretty much over and you move on with your life. The only difference is you've experienced something very few people have. You're one experience richer. Sure, it's not exactly a pleasant experience but it's still different.

I've also been working on my personal website, which is long overdue. The code was easy, the content has been the hardest part so far. It's always been hard for me to say anything about myself or my work because I don't like to toot my own horn, I usually let my code do the talking. I'll be putting it up in the next few days.

A quick shout out to Mirrorboy for being far stronger than me even though he's only 17. He could teach us all a thing or two.

Such a pushover

2010-05-08T19:48:00.001-04:00

Came to my uncle's house for the weekend. Might leave tomorrow morning. My uncle seems to have promised my cousin a bike and when he went back on his word last night my cousin threw a tantrum. Not a "yelling and throwing stuff" tantrum but more of a "depressed, went to sleep early, nobody talk to me" tantrum. I guess that's not really a tantrum, is it? In any case, I went out and got him the bike anyway. Consequences me damned.

We played catch, ran around, and rode the bike today so far. It seems the main reason he asked for a bike is because his friends are going to a pool party but they're riding their bikes there. I'm glad he's happy now. I feel like a bit of a pushover, to be honest. Oh well.

One of my uncles planned a birthday party for me and invited the whole family (no, seriously, the whole family) next week. Should be fun and also interresting. I'll fill you all in on more details later.

-Crash

A few changes

2010-04-29T14:41:00.000-04:00

I've decided to start a web development blog. I think I'll host it on my site and build it from scratch. I'll probably start tonight.

I sat down with the recruiters last Friday and they, of course, are trying to convince me to stay. This Saturday is my 90 day mark, the halfway point. I'm having serious doubts about being able to finish out this contract. To add insult to injury I've turned down countless opportunities (not actual job offers but recruiters that call with potential jobs). Today I got red in the face and felt like I was about to blow at the absurdity I've been facing. Just a few minutes ago I got that, all too familiar, anxiety.

I actually heard one of the developers say "As long as it works in one browser, who cares?". This website is already 28 days overdue and changes are still being made by the powers that be. I think it's time to find a new recruiter, and consequently a new job. I've been trying to talk myself out of that but I'm not sure I'll be able to stand this place for another three months.

I've gotten calls about jobs that pay between $40 and $50 an hour, that's between $83,000 and $100,000 per year. It's very tempting. What I'm worried about is how this will look on my résumé. I don't want to seem flaky. I have good reasons for not staying at those jobs and I'm sure I can convey that during an interview. What I don't want is for them to judge me based on my resume and then not even get to the interview step. Also, if I start missing days at work because I'm interviewing I'll most likely get fired. I don't want to end up out of a job because I was looking for a job.

This is tough.

-Crash

The shitstorm

2010-04-15T08:06:00.000-04:00

On Friday I had planned to visit a friend of mine in PA. Because it's a long drive and I didn't want to get caught in rush hour traffic I opted to come in to work early and leave early. I came in to work at 5:30AM and left at 2:30PM. Some might see that as diligent, responsible, or even just doing my job (getting my full 8 hours in). Others only look at the negative, the fact that I left early. The latter would be my manager.

I got an email reprimanding me for not telling her I would be leaving early, despite the fact that I told my supervisor of my plan days ahead of time and the fact that I made sure the day of that I wouldn't be needed for the rest of the day and the fact that I got all my work done. That pushed me over the edge. I called the recruiter and then I sat down with my boss to straighten things out. It turns out she has no idea what I work on all day, no idea how productive I am or am not. As it also turns out she's been removing my supervisor's subordinates one by one by putting them on other projects. I'm the only one left still working under him (by her own admission).

My supervisor is a really nice guy and his code is good, it just seems his leadership is lacking. What bothers me is that she is taking such sneaky measures to effectively demote him. It also bothers me that she told me all of this. I'm not here to be in the middle of a battle of wills, to take sides, or to hold anybody's hand. I'm here to work, get stuff done, and get it done right. What I'm worried about is how it will look on my resume if I don't finish out my contract. I only have 3 and a half months left to my contract. I'm thinking of just toughing it out and getting the fuck out when it's up.

The fun part is that it seems my manager has made waves with another contractor as well and that the recruiter had to step in to smooth things over. Let's see how this all plays out.

The cycle continues

2010-04-13T15:07:00.000-04:00

Pride will be my biggest asset or my downfall. I'm not yet sure which it is.

After 2 months and 2 weeks at my current job I'm ready to beat people's skulls into their desks for lack of common sense, lack of knowledge of the tehnologies they were hired for, and lack of planning on the websites we've been tasked with building. I'm going to stick it out the rest of the week before telling the recruiter that I'm no longer willing to finish out my contract. Luckily NJ has at-will employment, that means I can quit at will and they can also fire me at will.

I take pride in what I do because it's what I love. Even if it wasn't, it's my job, I get paid to do this. I might as well do it right. Apathy is setting in and I'm no longer willing to fight. If I don't have the will to fight for my code, best practices, or the security of the website (or lack thereof) then I'm no longer an asset to the company. Furthermore, this website will do nothing to further my career. It's not something to be proud of so I will most likely not mention it as prior experience.

In that case, why am I here? Time to start job hunting again.

-Crash

An interesting few weeks

2010-03-20T09:54:00.001-04:00

I've had a pretty good last few weeks with the exception of the past two days. I've thoroughly enjoyed my new car and I'll continue to for quite some time.

I've been really busy at work but I've had a bitch of a time balancing quality against their deadline. I like to be proud of my work and they just want it done by their due date. To be honest it doesn't really concern me what their due date is since it's not my fault they're behind. I'll do what I can as quick as I can as best I can.

I'm heading to my uncle'a house today but before that I'm getting a long overdue haircut. That's all for now, folks. I'll post anything I might have forgotten later

-Crash

Shitting Bricks

2010-02-28T23:28:00.000-05:00

Hey, all. I just picked up the title to my car yesterday! I'm so happy that I'll finally get to drive my car. I'll register the car this Saturday which means that's when I'll pick up the car from the seller's house. I've already made the first payment on the loan so it's really about time that I got to drive the car. To be honest, I'm glad I didn't have the car yet. Considering this huge snow hurricane the northeast got this past week, I would've killed myself had I been driving the car and crashed it or something happened at all.

Anyway, that's now the reason I'm shitting bricks. I've been absolutely obsessed with my budget as of late. I'm constantly checking my bank account and modifying my budget to make sure I'll stay within the lines. I'm bent on moving out, though I had to push it back to August. I'm trying my hardest to, both, get out of debt as quickly as possible, and save up as much as is necessary to move out. So far I'm looking good in terms of my budget. I actually saved money this month over what I projected. Let's hope the other months are just as good, if not better.

My Surreal Day

2010-02-14T23:22:00.000-05:00

I went to Raymour & Flannigan today to check out some Presidents Day deals and look at some stuff that was different from Bob's Furniture. I wasn't sure I'd find anything at a decent price but we found quite a few things for a great price, a little too much stuff. I planned out my living/dining room and my bedroom including a mattress. It worked out to $6474. That cuts into my TV budget so I probably won't have a TV in the living room for a bit. I'll also most likely have to delay moving in by about 2 weeks to make sure I have enough money to fall back on just in case. This makes the whole moving out thing much more real. I need to make sure it all fits in the apartment! I'll most likely head that way this week and submit the credit application for the apartment. I'll probably need a co-signer since my credit's been crappy due to, both, my financial irresponsibility and my being unemployed for 3 months last year.

I went with my parents to visit my uncle up north since we were close by while buying the furniture (not the uncle I usually go visit). I played with the kids, they're 3 and 4. They're so much fun. He lent me his Grand Prix so I don't have to inconvenience my parents. He hardly uses the car and had it garaged since they use their minivan more often because of the kids. I'm hoping this car thing is solved soon.

Sidenote:
@Steve: The reason for the prices being so high is it's Northern NJ. The cost of living is quite high here compared to the rest of the country.

The Direction of Things

2010-02-13T13:52:00.000-05:00

I started my new job 2 weeks ago and it's been good so far. I've been doing simple stuff and some more complex stuff as well. To be honest, the project itself scares me, not because it's too much to handle, but because it's a clusterfuck. I wouldn't put my name on that. Unfortunately it's mostly done so there's no chance of a rewrite. It's horrible and I've tried to merely do as I'm told in terms of fixing or adding features. I've had to fix stuff for browsers they didn't even test on like Safari and Chrome and even some javascript issues on IE7/8 which they DO test on but somehow didn't catch. I know this sounds like I'm bitching but it's a good thing. I'll be working on a new project soon and it's from scratch so there won't be any horrible code to look at :).

The car situation still isn't sorted out. The loan went through, luckily, but now I have to figure out how to get the title. It seems the seller's bank is going to send it to my lienholder, which I then have to request it from and have it sent to the DMV to register the car. It's annoying, but at least we got this far. I'm one step closer to driving my (realistic) dream car, an E46 M3.

I'm at my uncle's right now. I drove here last night in order to drop off his car, which he so graciously offered the use of, but I realize it's been 2 weeks now and he needs his car. I'll borrow my mom's car for a bit and if this takes too long, I'll simply rent one for a bit or ask my other uncle if I can borrow his Grand Prix.

I don't remember if I posted about this, sorry if I already did. I've been planning on moving out of my parents' house. My stepdad's company is closing in the next two years and he's pretty close to retiring anyway. They're planning on buying a house in Puerto Rico and moving there within that time period. That's not why I'm moving out, though. I've felt it's time for a while but after having been unemployed it took me a while to get back on my feet. I made a budget a few weeks ago and was planning on moving out with a friend of mine. Unfortunately it seems she won't be able to. I would've saved a lot more money by getting a 2 bedroom apartment and sharing the cost of utilities, furniture, etc. even if the rent was more than a 1 bedroom. I found a nice 1 bedroom near work for ~$1200/mo. It's a really good price for the area it's in considering the average is between $1300 and $1400. On paper, it should all work out and I'll be out of credit card debt by next May. I plan on moving in around April 1^st.

Cross your fingers! If all goes well, 2010 could be the year of my independence and a turning-point in my life.

The More Things Change...

2010-01-29T19:09:00.000-05:00

The more they stay the same.

I'm quite annoyed right now. My cousin hasn't come home yet and it's 7. I asked my uncle where his son is and he simply responds with "I don't know. He didn't call me or anything." I wait an hour or so and proceeded to prod my uncle again. "You may want to find out where you son is." I say to him only to get some lame excuse I expect from his son. I hand him my phone and have him call his son, who doesn't answer. He calls his son's friend who also doesn't pick up. I ask him if he's got his son's friend's mom's number and he tells me "He never gave it to me." Seriously? This is your rationale? How about fucking following up on this shit? It's your kid and he spends time at this person's house, shouldn't you have their goddamn number? It sure as hell isn't his kid's top priority so he needs to make sure he, as both adult AND parent, gets that number.

Come to think of it he's probably at the skating rink (who knew those would be cool again?) but still, my uncle's apathy is appalling. I'm not even sure I could describe it as apathy, I know he cares about his son but he's just so laid back about this it's truly bordering on disturbing. I thought things would change, I see I thought wrong. I've stopped being the parent and he filled the role for 2 weeks but that seems to be his limit. I refuse to play parent anymore. Bryan will simply end up hating me for being so strict and I will be the only one to blame should his upbringing be questioned.

I think I may have to walk away from this situation and hope it turns out for the best. I truly hate the idea but I'm not sure I can do anything more.

Let's change the subject. I'll be delivering the check for the car tomorrow and then I just need to register the car. I'll be driving my M3 soon. I start my new job on Monday and hopefully I'll be moving into my apartment in April. Things are looking up for my independence. I'm making some serious money (hopefully I'll be hired full time, this is a 6 month contract with possibility of hire) and hopefully my debt should be severely reduced over the course of the next year. Let's see what happens.

The Universe and its Complexities

2010-01-16T09:57:00.000-05:00

Buying this car has been an absolute nightmare. It's just been one setback after another. The bank screwed up from day one and then wouldn't give us a replacement check. They said we had to reapply for the loan in order to get another check sent out but failed to mention there's a 90 day waiting period to reapply so we got immediately denied the loan when we reapplied. 2 days ago I applied with Bank of America instead and they handle EVERYTHING. We don't need to register the car or pay any of the DMV fees, they handle all of that and include it as part of the loan (hehe, not free unfortunately). They also offered to refinance the loan in a few months to get a lower rate which means that everything worked out as it should. Had BMW Bank NA not fucked up, I would pay somewhere around 7%, but instead Bank of America is willing to refinance at 5%. EPIC WIN!

I got a call on Thursday from the job I had interviewed for and they asked me to lower my hourly rate. I lowered it b $2 (not a huge deal) and they agreed to it. I got a new job starting February 1! I gave my two weeks notice yesterday as I left work. I sat down with my manager and he understood that more money and shorter commute isn't something they could very well compete with.

I was incredibly pissed off this week (any of you who follow on Twitter may know) because before Thursday everything just seemed to be on a spiral downturn. The car seemed to be slipping away and I hadn't heard anything back from the job. The loan was completely fucked up at that point and everything seemed to be coming down on my head. Thursday everything changed though and the loan came through on Friday.

I must admit that there are greater forces at work here. I can't fathom that all of this happened like this at random. I seem to have done something right and gotten in somebody's good graces.

Some Clout (thanks to a 16 year old)

2010-01-05T13:15:00.001-05:00

I have to say that reading MirrorBoy's last post was an eye-opener. I've been doing the same thing, only in real life, for a while now. I've pushed aside my own needs and put others' needs ahead of my own. For him to have such clout at the age of 16 is, quite frankly, amazing.

A friend of mine has been telling me I need to move on with my life and stop taking on my uncle and cousins' problems on but I argued that they're family and I should help them whenever I can. Right now I'm torn as to how much I should help because I've been almost taking on the role my uncle should've taken which simply makes me a crutch, not a solution to the problem. I think it's time to step back and hope I've made enough of a difference and they'll take over on their own.

I hate this feeling though. Anyway - MirrorBoy, do what you need to do. I know how you feel and how hard this decision must be for you.

A Happy New Year

2010-01-01T15:22:00.000-05:00

I'm still here at my uncle's house where my family came for New Year's Eve. I'm glad we all got together. It felt great to see some family friends I hadn't seen in a while.

I faxed what will hopefully be the last of the documents needed to complete the car purchase. I will be the proud owner of a 2004 BMW M3 by next week of all goes well.

I'm not feeling as emotionally shitty as I was the other day. I went to a friend's house with another friend that night. We all talked, downed 2 bottles of wine and things felt better. I'm going to enjoy this new year or die trying.

-Crash

Depressed again

2009-12-30T19:47:00.001-05:00

The past few days have been really shitty. I mean REALLY shitty. Last week I got reprimanded for not going to the office often enough, a 50 mile, 1 hour journey including $8 in tolls. I didn't fucking feel like it after my accident, rental or not. Also, not that it should really matter to them anyway but, I've been babysitting so I was staying home with my cousin to ensure he ate, did his homework, etc.

Today I got reprimanded for not looking busy enough. Apparently when the CEO, COO, CWhateverO walks by and I have my two browser windows open (one for work, one for other stuff like music, etc) it gives the notion that I'm not performing my duties at work. They should be glad I even do jack shit there considering the clusterfuck that place is. My work is done on time and is satisfactorily efficient, what the fuck does it matter how busy I look?

Bryan's been bored out of his mind and I feel so bad because he has absolutely nothing to do here. I should've just stayed at his house and then he'd be able to go out with his friends or something. Too late now, tomorrow is New Year's Eve already. I feel like I've made Thanksgiving and Christmas absolutely miserable for him. He didn't want to spend them with me or my family. He wanted to spend it with his dad and/or his brother. No matter what, it all comes down to the fact that I'm extended family. I don't feel like I could ever make a big enough impact in his life. He may love me but I'm investing far too much of myself in this fruitless crusade. His father needs to be the one to nurture him, not me. I'm just his cousin when all is said and done. The return on investment will never match what I put in and I can't expect it to.

I was at work when all of this came to my mind. I wanted to scream. I wanted to break the keyboard, punch the monitors, cry, curl up in a ball, sleep, and just exist outside of time and space. I wanted to be without being. I wanted to stop feeling, stop everything. I wanted everything to just go away. I started hyperventilating again. I feel like such a failure. A freak, damaged, unable to cope with human emotion. I can't be happy, not for long anyway. My life is just an emotional roller coaster. Up and down, round and round. Who knows how I'll feel tomorrow or the next day. I just want it all to make sense. I want to organize my feelings, my thoughts, my life, but the harder I try the more it resists organization.

I try leave from under my parents' collective wing and what happens? I get rear-ended. I try to help my cousin but the best thing I could've done was probably not have been here. Maybe that would've forced his father to spend time with him. I try to be happy and I'm only miserable.

It's almost as if there is no "good", only "less shitty".

Christmas wishes and lots of food

2009-12-25T17:40:00.001-05:00

Hopin you're all having a great Christmas, and if you don't celebrate Christmas then happy holidays!

I'm at a formal dinner with friends of the family. They're very nice people and the food is great. Bryan is, unfortunately, bored out of his mind. Like I said, it's formal so I didn't figure he'd have much to do. He's being a trooper though. He's entertaining the kids but they're 5 and 6.

I'll be going to finish the car stuff tomorrow morning. Let's hope for the best. Thanks for all of your Christmas wishes.

-Crash

Teenagers, Oh Boy...

2009-12-24T13:07:00.000-05:00

My cousin got picked up by his brother on Monday night. He was there until last night so that was roughly 48 hours. He absolutely did NOT want to come with me and complained all the way home about how he doesn't know the people we'll be spending Christmas with and that he didn't care to even remember their names and how he wasn't going to have fun. I humored him and told him it would be the most horrible Christmas he would ever have, with all the presents he's getting and what not. How could anybody POSSIBLY enjoy getting presents? Sounds horrible to me too!

It seems to me, regardless of what we'd be doing he would've complained when it came time to come home because he wanted to spend Christmas with his brother. His father gave me very specific instructions that he was not to spend Christmas there because it would be awkward. His brother was going to be at his girlfriend's parents' house. They hardly know him and to have his little brother over as well would be strange.

Oh well. I wonder if I was like this when I was a teenager. The answer is probably yes. Whiney, constantly complaining and questioning authority...the definition of a teenager.

Damn Snow

2009-12-21T10:50:00.000-05:00

Friday night my cousin had a sleepover and his friend stayed until last night. They had a lot of fun and I have to say that I did as well. We rented movies, bought junk food, wrestled, and they went outside and had a snowball fight as well. It snowed about 16-18 inches down here. I had no idea it was even going to snow. I have to say, I felt like a kid again when we played made up games and what not.

Unfortunately the snow messed with my plans for the weekend. I was supposed to have run the errands to get the ball rolling on purchasing the car but unfortunately due to ridiculous amounts of snow, I wasn't going to drive 400 miles. I tried to get it done yesterday but unfortunately we didn't have time to get to the bank. I got there and they had already closed. I had planned on signing all the paperwork there since they had a notary available, and who else would have a notary working on a Sunday? I drove 8 hours, ~400 miles yesterday for nothing. The kids weren't thrilled. They were basically just along for the ride. I felt bad. I left them at my parents' house while I drove around and then came back for them when it was time to leave. They were bored out of their minds.

I hope we can get this car thing over with soon, though. It's annoying to have to wait this long but the upside is that I get to look over all the paperwork and make sure we're not missing anything. Here's to hoping.

Drama

2009-12-18T11:25:00.000-05:00

A little backstory, I went Christmas shopping with my uncle and cousin and he got to pick out whatever he wanted in Hollister. We got him about $300 worth of stuff. I told him all of it was for Christmas so he couldn't wear it until then with the exception of picking one outfit that he could wear on Christmas. His father let him put on a sweater/shirt thing last week which I didn't agree with but whatever, he's his father. I found out he put on one of the hoodies last week as well, without asking anybody. When I asked him, he then lied to me about it and made up some story. In some way I'm glad he's afraid of me enough or respects me enough to lie to me. On the other hand, he lied to me. I finally got him to admit he wore it and made it clear that lying would not be tolerated. No sense punishing him the week before Christmas though.

Now for the drama! His mother called me this morning. When this woman calls you, it's never a good thing. Through all her badmouthing of my uncle and his wife I saw her motive. She tried to make me feel bad about how his cousins had gotten all worked up about seeing him for Christmas and that his dad "abandoned him" during the holidays and that he'll spend them alone ("not that you don't count but what if you weren't there! What would my baby have done!?") and so on. In passing she asked if my uncle had left my cousin's passport anywhere. In my mind I'm going "Oh, hell no. I'm not sending him without his father's permission". Plus, I didn't want him going in the first place. I don't know where his passport is and I'm not going to look for it. Apparently she's going to drive over to where my uncle is and is going to tell them both off. This ought to be fun, especially because I tried calling him to warn him but they're not answering the number they left me. Why leave me an "emergency contact number" if you're not going to answer it?

I also go reprimanded by my boss for not being in the office the past few days while I'm babysitting. Whatever. If I cared any less about this job I'd quit. I wonder what they'll say when I have no more rental car next week and CAN'T make it to the office. Hopefully this other job will pan out. It pays far better and isn't a 100 mile daily commute plus $8 in tolls.

Further Explanation

2009-12-16T21:54:00.002-05:00

So I told you guys I'd update you today after my interview. It didn't go particularly well. I did fine on the PHP and HTML/CSS/JS portions of the 3 person interview but the SQL didn't go so well. Oh well. If I get it, great. If I don't, no skin off my nose. I went to visit some of my former co-workers after my interview. It was good times. It's nice to see your friends after a long time.

I also said I'd update you guys on the family situation. It's fairly amusing, really. I've been grooming my uncle to become the father he's failed to be so far. Out of a cosmic twist of fate (and some luck) the airline didn't allow my cousin to fly alone. This meant here was no way his mom could keep him if he wasn't there! Now he's spending Christmas here, I'm taking him to my house and we'll spend Christmas with my family.

My uncle is very lax with just about everything, from dealing with his kids to dealing with his wife. As I've told you guys before she's very Type-A so she's very bossy and controlling. After my outburst, my uncle saw the need to curb her attitude and set limits to how she deals with his son, mainly after his oldest son and I sat him down and talked to him. I'm also teaching him to say no to his son. He needs to learn both responsibility and accountability. He has things he's charged with doing around the house and he needs to do them before he can go out with his friends and such. The alternative is staying home until he completes those chores. My uncle has never put his foot down so I'm surprised my cousin is actually dealing with it fairly well. I'm also surprised he accepted me putting my foot down considering I'm not his father and he could easily dismiss me.

Hopefully everything I've tried to instill in my uncle will stick after he comes back from his trip to Colombia (again) only when he comes back he'll be with his wife so we'll see if somehow she can nullify everything I've done. As a people-watcher, I'm fascinated by this situation and the way it plays out. As a human being I'm appalled by the goings-on. As a family member I'm drawn to fix it.

You can't fix the world...

One Step Closer to My M3

2009-12-15T22:29:00.004-05:00

I've been out looking at cars the past 2 weeks and I found the one I want. The car is a 2004 BMW M3. 6 speed manual, all the options except navi and parking sensors, completely stock, Titanium Silver, 62,000 miles. The car is in GREAT condition and I test drove it...I should've taken a change of clothes because I had FAR too much fun driving it.

My aunt got the loan for the car, she has far better credit than I do, and she got approved tonight but I'll be paying the monthly dues for the loan. If all goes well I should be able to register the car sometime next week and I'll be driving my M3! It's been so mentally draining to go car shopping on such short notice. My rental runs out on the 21st. I could always call my insurance company and try to extend it though.

On an unrelated note, a recruiter called me last week and I'll be going on an interview tomorrow morning. The position pays $40/hr which is quite a bit more than I'm making right now. The other good part is that the position is a stone's throw from where I was planning on moving. We'll see how it all works out. I have to do some homework on the company, see what they're about and formulate some questions for the interview. Hopefully I'll impress.

I'll need to fill you guys in on the family situation. Maybe I'll write about that tomorrow when I tell you about the interview. Hopefully I won't forget to post.

Blessing? No, not so much.

2009-12-03T19:53:00.002-05:00

Today I learned what gap insurance does and doesn't do.
Does:

Cover a difference between your insurance payout and the amount you owe on the car

Save you money if your car is worth less than what you owe

Doesn't:

Pay off the rest of your car leaving your insurance payout to cover part of the cost of a new car

Help much if the depreciation is roughly in line with the payments

My car is totaled and I end up with a grand total of $1500. I basically get to start over with buying a car instead of making some headway like I thought I would. I figured gap insurance would take care of the car and I could use $7K-10K to pay for part of my next car. I was terribly mistaken. I have 27 days left on my rental (26 tomorrow) and I need to get a loan and find a car in that amount of time. The problem is that I'm picky about cars and I'm not going to go out and buy a Honda for $15K if I'm gonna hate it. Why sink that much money into a machine you'll hate to look at, let alone drive? Considering the rate of depreciation of a Honda it would be hard to find a newer Honda for that price anyway.

This blows

Blessing in Disguise?

2009-12-01T11:55:00.003-05:00

I took my cousin to his brother's place after leaving my uncle's house and my cousin slept over there. I picked him up the next day and we all headed down the turnpike. Little did we know this would be a painful trip. I knew there would be traffic and I figured cops would also be out in force. My 17 year old cousin would be following me to his father's house in his girlfriend's car.

We pulled over at a rest area for gas just as traffic began to get heavy. We depart with full tanks of gas and we're on our way. Traffic is stop-and-go and we're making slow progress, but progress nonetheless. We're in the middle lane and I decide that this lane is no longer moving quick enough so I move to the left lane which seems to have a nice flow. I saw an opening an took it, my cousin would've fit except he got cockblocked by the guy I got in front of so he gets behind him instead. As traffic normally works, as soon as I moved into the lane it came to a halt and the lane I was in began moving. Go figure.

Why am I complaining about traffic? I'm not. I'm setting the scene for what happened next.

We're in the left lane for about 5 minutes - stop, go, repeat. I'm fuzzy on the details but as I'm told, the lane began moving again and we got upto roughly 40 MPH. The car in front of me stopped, so I did the same. The guy behind me chose to try plowing through traffic instead of waiting in it, which is to say he slammed into my car at ~40MPH. It all happened so quickly that I hardly remember it. I remember having to pick my glasses up off the floor of the car because they flew off in the collision. He hit me so hard he slammed me into the car in front of me. My car is fucked up on both ends and I'm not sure what's going to happen to it. It may get totalled.

I woke up Monday with a sore neck. It's been getting steadily worse. I woke up today and it hurt a bit more. Luckily I reported that to the insurance company, but unfortunately my neck wasn't hurting at the scene of the accident so I told them I was fine. It might be time to look for a new car on top of my apartment search.

On the bright side my uncle flew in from Colombia last night and we all sat down and talked things over. It seems my uncle has been doing some thinking recently about their home situation and we all appear to be on the same page. We'll see if things really do get better. 2010 can only be better than this year, right?

The Gift of Family

2009-11-29T00:19:00.002-05:00

As you all know, I've been taking care of my cousin these past few days because his parents went to Colombia. My parents went to Puerto Rico so we were left to fend for ourselves for Thanksgiving. I called one of my uncles and we spent Thanksgiving with him and his family. My cousin wasn't, at all, thrilled with going there. He always felt my uncle never liked him because he would always yell at him. I tried to tell him it was because he loves him (I know, we've all heard it before but it really is true) and because he's fairly strict, even with his own kids (3 and 4 years old).

We discussed the family matters and we all learned a lot about each other and our loved ones. On the second night, though, we talked more specifically about my cousin's upcoming trip to Colombia. Unfortunately, we all know if he leaves he won't be coming back. His mom is very controlling and uses her children against their father. My uncle sure can pick them, eh? My cousins have a shitty stepmom and a shittier mother. God help them. In the end, the man my cousin didn't want to see turned out to not only be his Godfather but also promised to move the earth in order to do what's best for him. I don't feel so alone in this fight that almost seemed futile. My cousin has changed his view of our uncle.

We both cried a bit after all this talking and all the issues that came up. One particular issue was one of my other cousins, in particular my little cousin's brother. He's had it rough, much rougher than is at all fair for any human being. I had, honestly, given up on him and so had everybody else. He got in a lot of trouble when he was younger, he's only 17. He ended up arrested a few months back and was thrown out of the house but it all started far before that when his mother physically and mentally abused him. She did the same thing to my little cousin but not nearly to the same extent, he was her favorite and it's sad that she played favorites. His older brother was routinely locked away in his room if not beaten and nobody did anything about it. Here's the kicker, my uncle isn't my older cousin's father, technically the two of us aren't related but he's still family. He sees my uncle as his father and my uncle has always treated him like his son. He got involved with their mom in order to help him and ended up having a child with her.

In an odd twist of fate, my little cousin was expecting a visit from his brother today but it turned out he wouldn't be able to make it so instead we went to his apartment (he's 17 and has an apartment whereas I still don't, this puts things into perspective). After learning so much from our Thanksgiving talks I've come to see that his brother is FAR from where he almost ended up. He's doing very well for himself. He's stayed out of trouble and he has 2 jobs, a girlfriend, and is planning on going to college. I wish I could say I had something to do with that but I think the truth of the matter is that he is who he is because he suffered. He's suffered so much he's become callous (to some extent) and because of this he's been able to will himself through the latest leg of his life. I stayed until about 11:15 and my little cousin wanted to sleep over. I'll go pick him up tomorrow after they go shopping. His brother wants to buy him some shoes and stuff. It's good for them to spend some time together so I figured I wouldn't stay. They offered for me to stay over and asked me a few times but I declined.

It's sad that most of what I've known about my family has been either very one-sided or a flat out lie. Family goes to great lengths to hide its deep, dark secrets - to seem normal. At age 23 I've finally been let in on these secrets. Unfortunately my 13 year old cousin lived some of it and learned a lot more of it. Even worse, his 17 year old brother has been in the thick of most of it, at least in this particular case. There's far more that I've been told that boggles the mind and nobody wants to deal with so I won't even bother trying to. I'm still trying to take all this in and decide how to deal with the issue of my cousins.

I just hope between my uncle and I, we can help my little cousin with everything he NEEDS (not necessarily everything he WANTS) in order to ease the home situation and make sure he doesn't turn to drugs, alcohol, or getting in trouble just to escape his stepmother. I know his brother is also determined to help but I want him to sort his life out first before taking on another burden. I just wish I knew how to help him as well.

How do you right the parenting wrongs of another?

Attack of Mr. Mom

2009-11-24T08:01:00.000-05:00

So far the past few days have been quite interesting. Sunday morning I got in a huge fight with my uncle's wife. My uncle woke up my cousin and handed him the baby. Of couse the baby cried and was inconsolable. She walks in and starts yelling at my cousin for being useless, at which point I remind her it's not his child and that he was woken up to be yelled at. She walks away pissed and talking to herself. I go downstairs for a drink and a few minutes later I hear her coming down the stairs and thinking out loud, more about how my cousin is useless and how he won't even "say goodbye to the baby".

At this point I feel the need to shut her up because waking him up to hold a baby while she gets ready and my uncle packs the car is hardly "saying goodbye", let alone getting yelled at mere minutes after waking up. I sarcastically tell her that I, for one, LOVE to be woken up in the morning only to be treated like SHIT. She's hysterical now. I think it's the fact that nobody's ever talked to her that way.

She yells out the door for my uncle to come inside immediately. I'm holding a glass of water, shaking so badly I can't even take a sip because I was so angry. She's going off on him about how I dared speak to her that way in her own house. I'm silent, attempting to drink my water. My uncle looks at me and I simply shrug and walk upstairs, leaving him to deal with what, as far as I was concerned, he started by setting up my cousin to be yelled at. He could've just as easily put the baby in the crib and he wouldn't have cried any more or less.

Maybe it was the fact that she saw that I walked away and left her looking like a lunatic, or that I simply didn't care enough to continue the fight after I walked away but she apologized and gave me a kiss goodbye (the kiss of Judas? Maybe) after I helped finish pack the car. My uncle apologized repeatedly before they left. We'll see what happens when they come back. I'm sure she won't treat me the same, like I'm always going to back her up. She's a shitty parent.

Alright, so four paragraphs later, I finally get to what the title of the blog is about! Back to how she'a a shitty parent, this house was absolutely disgusting. I hate walking around and having my socks get filthy. I take my shoes off at the door normally since it's how we keep my house clean. Yesterday I couldn't take it anymore and I did the laundry, washing bathmats that hadn't been washed in months, washed the new clothes I bought my cousin on Sunday because who knows where those things had been before we bought them, sweeping the floors, and mopping. I didn't dust, I neither had time nor the will. I doubt I will, it's not my house and that would be a monstrous undertaking.

I helped my cousin wash his bathroom properly. It had been washed before when his father told him to but you know kids. Besides, nobody ever showed him HOW to wash a bathroom properly so he did it his way.

Now at least most of the areas I spend time in are nice and clean.

My cousin and his friends seemed happy his family went away because they were able to roughhouse downstairs and make noise. It was amusing to watch them wrestle and beat each other up. It made me miss those times. His friends were fascinated at the fact that I actually LET them do that. One asked me if I would let my cousin "do anything he wants", a typical question from a 13 year old.

After a while of wrestling amongst themselves they seemed to want to drag me into it. I saw one of two things happening, a lawsuit for breaking somebody's something, or my shoulder getting dislocated again, neither of which were pleasant. I opted out. Luckily my cousin came to the rescue telling them they didn't want to mess with me because I could take him and his older brother, who they know is a pretty tough kid. That didn't stop them from trying though, merely made them think about it before they'd try. One approached me with a metal ruler to see what I'd do. After disarming him and twisting his arm a bit, curiosity was satiated.

I easily spent roughly $300 in the past few days on school supplies and clothing for my cousin (about $150 in each category). He was so excited to get decent supplies, which I found quite weird. I never liked school supply shopping as a kid. After we bought the supplies we organized his binders and pencils and all the other stuff we bought and he was thrilled to go to school today. I can't help but think he just needs somebody to actually take interest in his studies. Sadly his father has yet to do so and his stepmom couldn't give a shit less except to yell at him when he gets a bad grade.

I don't want to make myself more important than I really am, honestly I should only be supplemental to this family, not one of it's main components, but after my cousin said to me last night "I'm glad you were here to take care of this because my dad is too busy" I was about ready to punch a wall. I'm glad he thinks of me as instrumental but I'd hate to see what would happen if I got banned from this household by the wicked witch of the west. I could only hope my uncle was see reason and make sure that never happens or be ready to finally step up and take an interest in my cousin's day-to-day activities and homework.

-Crash

The Dark Side

2009-11-21T02:58:00.001-05:00

I've felt out of control only once before and that was about 8 months ago. It was the day before a coworker got fired. I couldn't stand him. He was incredibly annoying, hardly had a personality and could spew verbal diarrhea with incredible ease. His blatant lies hardly even gave him pause. On top of that I was cleaning up after his coding mess for months.

I had reached my breaking point. I could no longer take it. I was LITERALLY being driven insane. I normally pride myself on being resilient and enduring in the face of adversity but this was different. This was insurmountable and worse yet, it consumed me from the inside out. It felt like my chest was hollow. I would have fits of what I can only guess to be a panic attack. My pulse raced, my breathing becoming more rapid, and yet I was suffocating. My ability to think was gone. I would take more frequent breaks in order to escape the person mere inches away just behind the wall of the adjoining cubicle but it was in vain. I had to return to my desk eventually. I would be on an emotional rollercoaster experiencing a range of emotions - from apathy and detachment to rage, to despair.

I had never experienced anything like that before, but sadly it would return.

I've been struggling to get my life in order. I've finally reached 90 days at my job which means I can receive health insurance and finally get my shoulder properly taken care of. My finances were in shambles before unemployment, now I need to get that taken care of. Two friends and I started a project and I can't say I even have the will to follow through. I'm trying to move out of my parents' house. I don't feel right here.

All these things together have brought back that feeling of drowning or suffocating. Sitting at my computer at work trying to will myself to be productive so as not to end up unemployed, only this time through direct inaction on my part - suddenly the air feels thick and I gasp once or twice, but the relief is only temporary. The detachment lingers, even once I'm home. Programming used to be escape, the place in my mind I could retreat to where things made sense. Problems were solved in the form of for, while, switch, if or else but that's no longer a place I can reach, not right now. This makes programming for my project a chore; the air thickens...

Before you freak out let me explain a few things. First, yes, I'm depressed and it sucks. Second, I'll get over it without doing anything stupid like self-mutilation, self-medication, or suicide. And third, I wrote this - in part - to get it off my chest but also with a hint of creative writing. While I mean everything I wrote, the imagery was meant to be shocking. It's the best way to convey this feeling. So if you were going to reply with "don't do it, you have so much to live for", don't bother. I wouldn't even think of it. Any other comments, however, are welcome.

-Crash

Long overdue update

2009-11-09T01:00:00.001-05:00

If any of you have been following on Twitter, you probably already know what's been going on lately. If not then it's about time I fill you in! Sorry that I haven't updated lately, nothing major has been going on at all.

First big update, I got the job 3 months ago. I fucking hate it. Bet you didn't expect that one. The job blows though. I'm the only real developer. My boss used to have my job but he's a shitty developer as far as I'm concerned. I was told there were 5 developers...bullshit. There are 5 people at the company that can muddle their way through code, that does not make one a developer. That and nobody has any clue what the development cycle should be like. Plan FIRST, code after, not the other way around!

Next update, I'm fucking depressed. Maybe it's my job carrying over into the real world, maybe it's that I'm just a whiner. All I know is that I'm not content with where I'm at in life. People tell me to be patient, that I'm still young and that I'm doing well for my age. Why the fuck can't I afford to move out yet then? What about being upto my eyeballs in student loans and credit card debt? Wonderful.

I just feel like something is missing. I didn't feel this way when I had a girlfriend, maybe that's the missing piece. Then again, my previous girlfriends didn't work out well and caused me far more grief in the end than it was really worth.

Let's try thinking about the good times recently. I went to Six Flags on Halloween with my little cousin. That was fun. We went on rides til we were bored and we couldn't walk anymore. On a sidenote he's got a girlfriend now. Oddly enough I'm a tad jealous. I used to be the person he'd look forward to seeing every week, now she's taken that spot. He deserves it, though, as long as he doesn't get in any trouble. Whatever gets his mind off of his dysfunctional family life and is healthy for him (not drugs or gangs) is ok by me. They've been going to the movies on Friday nights. It's kinda cute, really. Like I said, he needs his mind off of his shitty stepmother and a father that's far too laid back. Those two things together are a recipe for disaster. I try to be a buffer and hopefully it does him some good. His grades have certainly improved over the last year, which I can only hope is a direct result of my involvement, at least my uncle thinks so.

Quite honestly, my uncle and cousin are the only people keeping me sane as of late. It keeps me distracted; gives me something to do. Otherwise I'd be feeling sorry for myself at home 7 days a week, instead I'm doing that 5 times a week. I guess it's an improvement though, right? I'll take what I can get.

-Crash

When it rains, it pours

2009-08-20T08:43:00.001-04:00

And jobs are no exception. I probably failed to post that I got a job. I had been chasing this job since February and finally got it last Monday. Well, a friend of mine called me just a few days later (that Wednesday, I think) and said his company was looking to fill a position for a PHP developer. The company in the city so the compensation would be greater.

I went to interview for the position on Tuesday and so far all signs are good. It seems I nailed all the technical questions he asked me and we struck up a conversation as the interview ended, which can't hurt. My friend and the gentleman that interviewed me seem to have a meeting to discuss it further today. I'm crossing my fingers to hope I get a job that pays a substantial amount more than I make now!

Wish me luck :-)

-Crash

Lefty for a while

2009-08-02T07:38:00.000-04:00

I came up to my friend's lake house for the weekend. It's always fun. We went shooting yesterday and then went out on the jet skis. We set off some fireworks to top off the night.

Lo and behold, we're playing with poppers and my friend and I begin to roughhouse. I went full sprint at him to pop some poppers on his back. When I slapped his back full force, he stopped. I'm traveling forward, as is my arm but now he's stationary. I felt it drop as soon as I hit. When I tried to lift it past my elbow, I couldn't. It, then started to hurt like hell. Everybody stood around as I dropped slowly to the floor clutching my shoulder. It was time to go to the hospital.

The ride there hurt here and there but was bearable. The more time passed, the more any position hurt to hold my arm in. We waited about an hour and a half to two hours. At this point my arm was in excrutiating pain. I got an x-ray done and then they gave me a shot, a conscious sedative. The doctor then came in and popped my shoulder back into place. It hurt a lot but only for a second. The pain was over. They immobilized my arm with a thing that resembles a sling. We got back home at 4am or so. I woke up just now and my right hand is swollen, maybe my whole arm.

All-in all it was an interesting weekend. Oh, and my friend's sister is jerking off her boyfriend in the bed across the room. Fun

-Crash

Been busy, here's an update

2009-07-27T10:27:00.002-04:00

I was playing with OS X, as you all know. My laptop didn't like it because I installed it on an extended partition (I wasn't sure what would happen but I gave it a try). I was able to boot and run OS X 10.5.6 but had no internet. 10.5.7 would go straight into a reboot loop and on top of that it messed with my boot partition which meant that turning on the laptop now did nothing. I had to use the OS X disc to boot into OS X and couldn't get into my windows partition at all.

It gets better. I came home from a weekend at my friend's lake house and fired up my desktop. I'm watching Kings (AMAZING SHOW!! More on that later) on hulu because he told me to watch it, only 14 episodes so far. I had just finished watching episode 12 when my computer froze. I thought nothing of it and rebooted. It failed to do anything but turn on the fans...crap. Maybe it overheated...I opened the sides and let it be for a bit. Turn it on again later and it gives me a memory error. Try again and it freezes in the bios. Try again and it boots but then gives me a Blue Screen of Death. Fuck. Long story short the motherboard is fried, specifically the memory controller. I need to get a new one but they don't make my motherboard anymore so I'll have to get a newer one which doesn't support my CPU anymore so I need to get a new CPU when I get the new motherboard...shit on me.

I figured, I want to learn Objective-C so I can code for the iPhone and if I spend the money on the desktop it won't get me any closer to learning it so why don't I buy a MacBook? Found a MacBook refurb form last year for $845 on the apple site. I was seconds away from buying it when I started thinking about how I'd run windows apps without a desktop. I figured I'd go with a virtual machine but that requires a beefy system to virtualize the other operating system. The MacBook wasn't going to cut it. I looked around and saw the MacBook Pro 13" with 2GB of DDR3 1066, almost enough but not quite. Luckily a memory upgrade to 4GB was only $90. I bought it and I've been using it since Saturday and writing a few useless apps so far while I learn the language.

Let's backtrack to last Tuesday. I had an interview!! I was told I did very well and they'd give me a call back but not to expect it too soon since they still have more interviewing to do and they're also hiring for multiple positions. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and even though it's not close (it's an hour away) I'm sure this job sounds like a great fit. We'll see what happens!

Now to talk about Kings. It's a great show with an amazing cast. It has many parallels and allusions to the Old Testament but in a modern day society. It tells the story of a hero destined to become king. Unfortunately NBC cancelled it but they may pick it up again for another season if enough people do their part. Go watch it on Hulu, then when you see how awesome it is write to NBC and tell them you want more! The whole first season is available to watch on Hulu. Go now. Do it.

Addiction and all that

2009-07-15T19:53:00.002-04:00

Sooo...I'm addicted to my iPhone. I'm seriously considering becoming an iPhone developer, maybe release an app or two on the AppStore. We'll see how all that goes. I'm downloading iPC, it's OSX for a PC, for my desktop. Hopefully it'll be done in an hour or so and I'll get on installing that tonight and be well on my way to playing with stuff this week.

I'm thinking of flying to Florida for a week or so to visit my brother since he's been bugging me to go visit him. He moved from NJ to FL a while back and he's wanted me to visit, on top of that my dad flew in from Colombia and is staying with him. I honestly don't want to see my dad, I'm doing it because my brother asked me to visit and I never had the time. He also asked me to visit my dad so I figure I'll do that and get it over with. Oddly enough I respect my brother more than my dad even though I saw him less than I did my dad. My brother is about 20 years older than me (more, I think) but we became pretty close over the past few years.

It seems a lot of us second generation "kids" have a resentment towards the first generation. I'm not saying they were bad people, a lot of them just suck as human beings. My dad had 3 chances to get parenting right. I can honestly say he got it wrong all 3 times. Hell, my brother and sister (both 20 years or so older than me) don't refer to him as "dad", they call him by his nickname; they may as well call him by his name. I'm not saying all my uncles are failures. There are stories of great loyalty among my uncles just like there are a few crazy (no, seriously) ones and some we don't speak of. It's interesting if you're an observer on the outside. I try not to be judgmental, though, except in the cases I know of first hand.

Interesting how I just went from iPhone to daddy issues, and no, not that kind.

-Crash

iSkin Fuze

2009-07-13T11:46:00.001-04:00

I ordered the Fuze late last week and was eagerly awaiting my new toy. What I got, though, was a box full of disappointment. Here is my email to customer service:

I have to say that I'm not satisfied with the iSkin Fuze for many reasons. Whether I want to return it or not will be dictated by what I think over the next few days of use but as of right now I can tell you I feel the item was misrepresented.

Having owned the iSkin Revo and iSkin Revo2 and having been satisfied with both purchases I chose to buy the iSkin Fuze. To my understanding it was supposed to be a soft interior (I thought it would be like the Revo2 only thinner) and a hard exterior. To my surprise, all I got was a hard shell with a soft plastic flap to cover the docking port.

The Fuze was said to have a screen cover to protect the screen but also be usable, a "touch friendly screen guard". This is most certainly not the case. The screen guard hampers use of the iPhone and any press on the screen must be very deliberate or it will not register. Forget typing quickly as you will miss roughly 50% of your keys. I took that off quite quickly, actually it began to come off on its own when I was putting the case on. Luckily it was held on by nearly no adhesive.

The buttons on my phone are now hard to press and have no feedback due to the case's hard plastic covers for them. Unlike the Revo and Revo2, the Fuze's hard plastic button covers have you guessing as to whether the button even got pressed when only the slightest pressure would've otherwise sufficed.

Again, I'm not certain as to my case's fate as of yet but the next few days will decide whether I can get used to this or not. Having owned the Revo, Revo2, RevoClip, and Fuze, I have to say I've only really been satisfied with the Revo and Revo2 to date. The RevoClip was terribly bulky and impractical to carry around and the Fuze may not have been a let-down if I hadn't owned the other two cases. It's not, however, worth the $45 I paid.

iPhone and MMS

2009-07-09T11:24:00.005-04:00

READ THIS PARAGRAPH FIRST!!!
I posted a tweet about how I got MMS working and it seems a few people got interested. Great! These are the steps I followed in order to get MMS working on my iPhone 3G back in February and how I lost MMS when I upgraded to my 3GS. Last night I got MMS back and I'm thrilled! If you don't have the patience or willingness to hear "no" a lot today, don't do it. It's frustrating or fun depending on how you look at it. Hell, you may get a rep that's very willing and eager to help. I did a few times. YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR VOICEMAILS IN THIS PROCESS WHEN THEY REMOVE THE iPHONE DATA PACKAGE
If you get suck at all, refer to the troubleshooting section at the bottom of this post

AND THIS ONE TOO!
You will need a few things in order for this to work:
1) an iPhone (duh!)
2) a non-iPhone (oh crap! I didn't have one so I borrowed my cousin's for 5 minutes)
3) the balls and patience to speak to AT&T all day, different reps, and be told no several times. You'll most likely end up calling multiple times and spending hours on the phone.

Let's get started.

Back in February I called AT&T (don't call 611 from your cell, grab a landline because these steps require things done to your phone that will disconnect you if you're using it). The number is 1-800-331-0500.

First, tell them you're extremely unhappy with viewmymessage.com and want that notification removed from your account and the regular messaging plan added to your account. They'll tell you that you will no longer know when you receive an MMS. Tell them you understand you won't be able to use it but that you would rather not see the alerts than know you have an MMS and be unable to retrieve it. The messaging plans are called Messaging 200, Messaging 1500, and Messaging unlimited, not iPhone messaging 200, iPhone messaging 1500, etc.

Get them to enable WAP Push on your account (this may be one of the hardest things to get them to do). Good luck.

Get them to reset the VLRs and resend the Over-the-Air Activation (OTA). These are merely formalities and may not have anything to do with MMS at all but it doesn't hurt to try.

Get them to put MEdiaNet pay-as-you-go on your account. This is NOT compatible with the iPhone Data package. With my previous experience the rep told me so and then when he added it, the iPhone data package got removed. This time when I called back I was told the system spit out an error message instead and they were unable to add it. You may need to give them the IMEI of the non-iphone at this point and tell them you plan on using that phone from now on and that you don't want the iPhone data plan anymore. Turn off anything on your iphone that uses internet because medianet charges you $0.01/KB and you probably don't want that. I just had my phone off throughout this whole thing. Put your sim into the other phone once you're done with the rep and maake a call or two, text a few friends, or just wait a few minutes. Go to http://mymedianet.wireless.att.com/ and enter your phone number. If it tells you your phone does not support MEdiaNet then you either didn't wait long enough or the rep screwed up. Once you're in, customize your MEdiaNet. Add local weather or something, it really doesn't matter. What MEdiaNet does is control the MMS gateway. If you don't have access to MEdiaNet you won't have access to send MMS.

Try to send an MMS with your non-iphone. If you have trouble, call AT&T and tell them you can't send MMS and make them fix it until you can.

Once you're done, put the SIM back into your iPhone and try to send an MMS, see what happens. Hopefully it'll succeed. Now call back AT&T and tell them to put the iPhone data package back on. You should now have MMS.

TROUBLESHOOTING:
1) I don't have the option to send MMS in my "Messages" app!
Crap...You'll most likely have to go to http://help.benm.at and download the settings file that enables tethering. After that, reboot, and hopefully you'll have MMS enabled in your Messaging app.

2) I don't have a different phone
You're kinda screwed. Find somebody whose phone you can borrow for just 5 minutes, that's all you need. I did this at work and found a few people willing to lend me their phones.

3) I still don't have MMS, even on my non-iPhone
Call AT&T and make them fix it. Tell them you switch back and forth between your phones and you want all the features working all the time. They'll try to tell you that you'll need another sim card because the iPhone does weird stuff that means you can't switch it into another phone. That's a lie.

I hope this helps and if it doesn't, post a comment or send me a tweet @Crashspeeder and I'll try to help you out.

Back to Reality

2009-07-07T12:23:00.000-04:00

The vacation is over. It was absolutely beautiful in Cozumel. Quite honestly, though, I'm glad to be back home. I missed my bed and although I love my uncle and like spending time with the family, I'm not good with people for long periods of time. I'm more of the loner type. They started to get on my nerves, especially the last day.

I hate deviating from a plan, especially a plan that I've had in my head. When it was 9:15 and we had yet to leave the hotel room and our flight left at 12:30, I began to get a little ticked. I ended up returning the beach towels myself, throwing the luggage out the hotel room door and loading up the car (with a little help from my little cousin who saw I was pissed and helped out). I can honestly say that I pretty much single-handedly got us out out of the hotel.

I don't like airports. It's not that I don't like flying, I just don't like that some random people with microphones and maybe a badge control my timetable and whether I get on the plane or not. I like to be in control of the situation, I don't like the unknown. For that reason, flying is stressful for me.

In any case, I'm back and I had a package waiting for me. I had ordered my iPhone 3GS before I left. I've been playing with it for the past few days, setting everything up the way I want it. Lukily the iPhone dev team released redsn0w today because purplera1n was getting annoying. I had to restore my phone a few times yesterday due to glitches and stuff.

Sorry I didn't post as soon as I got back. If you want to know what's going on and I haven't posted here just follow me on Twitter. I usually update that every few hours. My username on Twitter is crashspeeder.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to show you guys of Cozumel as I didn't take a camera, however my uncle's wife did so as soon as I get those I'll post some. Later!

-- Crash

Fun in the sun

2009-06-27T08:33:00.001-04:00

I'm in North Carolina waiting for my connecting flight to Mexico. Wish me luck! Fun in the sun for the next week :-D

-Crash

An interesting day

2009-06-19T10:03:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was different. I woke up after a restless night. I haven't really slept well, until last night anyway. There was a hell of a storm that night and I enjoyed it. Unfortunately people here litter so when there's too much water in the river they shut down the water treatment plant so no garbage jams up the equipment which means no water.

I turned on the water and it just trickled down. I had to fill up a bucket (it took about 5 minutes) and then use the water I had collected to bathe. At least I was clean.

I got my contact lenses yesterday. I think I'm finally used to them. As usual my phone kept me sane through the day.

I thought my grandmother would die yesterday. She was seeing dead people and asked for a priest. She's still hanging in there though. She really should let go. There's nothing left for her but pain and morphine and her body's already building up a tolerance.

I leave tomorrow night. I love it here but these circumstances just plain suck. I just want to go home. Normally I'd be able to stay months on end but right now I just can't take the tension, the lack of sleep, even the heat that I already about about is getting to me.

Anyway, later

-Crash

Busy iPhone day

2009-06-17T19:50:00.001-04:00

My poor phone's battery has been abused this whole trip. It's my escape, really. I've been charging it 2-3 times a day since I got internet on Sunday or so.

So I signed up for a twitter account, got a few twitter apps on my phone and just downloaded a blog app so I don't have to open the page every time. I'm having fun at least.

Feel free to follow me on twitter. I'll most likely post lots of smaller updates there and keep posting like I've been here. Later, folks!

-Crash

Paradise Lost

2009-06-16T23:52:00.004-04:00

So maybe I should've saved the title "Trouble in Paradise" for this post...

My mom and two of my aunts started a yelling match today. Dealing with my grandmother's condition is wearing everybody down, especially my aunt that lives with her and has taken care of her. She feels like my mom and my other aunt came and started turning her world upside down. It's partially true but it was also for her own good. She's worked far too hard already and deserved a rest. Yes, we took over, she's right - but she's on the verge of a breakdown and she WILL break down if she keeps up her current pace.

Luckily they made up and got to talking. I've never considered myself the sensitive type. In fact, I consider myself to come off as somewhat cold at times. I simply don't know how to react to certain situations. When they were fighting I figured it would just blow over, and it did, however now I've got an upset stomach and I'm thinking that had something to do with it.

In only somewhat related news a damn iron burned my foot this evening before the blowup. This was the precursor to the big bang, if you will. My aunt that lives here got an iron from us, an expensive iron at that, but the damn thing is finecky and it's a professional iron. The damn thing doesn't make steam properly and leaked a bit and when it steams it tends to sometimes throw jets of hot water instead, thus soaking what you're trying to iron. Well, in my attempt to troubleshoot the iron and calm my aunt down I started to figure out some of its quirks until the fucker threw scalding water out past the ironingboard and, onto my foot. I have a welt on my foot and now A&D ointment too.

I say that was somewhat related because just before the screaming match my aunt burned herself using the iron then that set her off on her tirade.

What a day. At least I got new glasses out of it though. I went out today and bought a frame. I'm going to get my eyes checked tomorrow and the lenses should be done by next week. My aunt will bring the finished glasses for me since I leave for home this weeked and she leaves in July.

GTFO

2009-06-16T19:48:00.004-04:00

I feel like killing my cousin. She came as a whim and she's not helping with anything. She's more a pain in the collective ass of the family than any help. Her daughter is absolutely adorable but does whatever she wants because she's 2. On top of that she's pregnant so she wants things done for her. This isn't the time or place to be coddling her ass. Help or GTFO. She had the balls to suggest her daughter stay here with my aunt (my cousin's mom) while my cousin flies back to Virginia. Like we need a senior citizen AND a toddler to take care of.

Rarely does she wash her dishes and that of her child. I have no problem washing everyone's dishes if we all just shared a meal but don't trickle dishes into the sink and expect somebody else to take care of your shit. Don't expect people to get shit for you because you're carrying your daughter. Put her down and get what you need. You're not handicapped.

She doesn't think of anybody else but herself and I can normally deal with it because I know she's selfish but apparently I can't put up with her for this long a stretch anymore like when we were kids or maybe it's that she has a child she should be taking care of and isn't and that's what's bothering me. All I know is I'm dangerously close to telling her off by week's end.

The circumstances and the feelings

2009-06-15T19:29:00.002-04:00

The cumstances behind my visit were strange. My mom called me to get a ticket for her and then asked me to get another for myself so she wouldn't be alone. I'm really just here for moral support. I just feel like a third wheel though, in the way. I don't want to be a burden while they're tending to my grandmother. I'm not doing much of anything but I'm trying to wash dishes, mop, etc. I just don't feel like it's enough. Oh well, I'll keep keeping them company and trying to do some housework.

Trouble in Paradise

2009-06-14T11:16:00.004-04:00

Let me start with the fact that I jumped into a new project a few days ago called iTalk iPhone as a web developer until my new job starts. I got about 2 days into it and created a Cydia repo for them and I'm working on an auction system. It's for free because I feel I should be coding for fun as well as profit. Never just one or the other.

Anyway, the reason I only got about 2 days into it is that we got a phone call saying my grandmother is doing very poorly. My mom was worried but she had already said she wouldn't visit again. She flew out last October when my grandmother's condition deteriorated and everybody expected her to die. She paid her respects, they all said their goodbyes but came to the agreement she wouldn't make the trek again.

It seems my grandmother asked for my mom specifically on this past Thusday or so. She asked me to buy her a plane ticket while she was at work. I called her back and told her she'd fly out the next day, then she asked me to buy a second ticket and go with her. We arrived and looking at my grandmother is just sad. I'm not sure how my mom or my aunts do it and take care of her. I don't think I'm strong enough.

It's a bit of a family reunion, I haven't been here in 4 years. I love coming here, though clearly not under these circumstances. Some people think of Colombia and the first thought in their mind is cocaine and drug dealers. I look around and I see beauty and think "home". This is where I grew up for the first 3 years of my life. I don't really remember much of it but clearly it was enough to evoke nostalgia 20 years later.

The town we live in here is far from luxurious - hell, there's no hot water - but sometimes it's simplicity we need. It's poor, but most certainly not lacking. There's always food on the table, a roof over your head, and I'm always welcome. I miss this.

I'll post later. I'll be coming home next Sunday but I'll most likely post before then.

What happens now?

2009-05-29T12:56:00.004-04:00

I made a few phone calls today and I may have a job or two lined up. We'll see how this goes.

I got back from my friend's lake house in PA on Tuesday. I spent the whole of Memorial Day weekend up there and got a nice tan. I was in pain until last night due to tubing behind a jet ski. I was holding on for dear life but I enjoyed every minute of it.

Wish me luck! I may take that trip before my new job. I'll try to keep you guys posted if anything new and interesting goes on.

String of luck (bad? not sure yet)

2009-05-21T08:22:00.003-04:00

Let me give you guys some backstory. I started my new job and all seemed to be peachy. I impressed them by actually working on stuff day 2. They expected the first week to be me just getting used to the system.

End of week 1 I already had features working and ready to be put live. They were happy that everything was going so smoothly. Soon enough I ran out of work and they threw a whole new project at me. They gave me a broad overview of what they wanted. We sat down for a few meetings for the planning phase. After meeting #2 I didn't hear from anybody. Specifics were nowhere to be found and my time was spent twiddling my thumbs. They gave me a few little things here and there, nothing major. I sent out emails reminding people of what I still needed from them, but to no avail.

3 weeks ago I was given a project that had been talked about but no information had ever come in until then. I was to modify their ticket system to store HVAC information. It took all of 4 days, not long at all.

Here's where it gets interesting...

I made a budget 2 weeks ago Thursday so that instead of financially floundering about I would actually make headway on my credit card debt and student loans. I got into a car accident the next day...awesome. Nothing major, just paint and a missing mirror. Some lady sideswiped me.

It gets better...

I had planned to go out the following week with my friends to the city to celebrate my birthday. I got a phonecall that Wednesday saying Friday would be my last day at the company due to lack of work. My birthday party turned into a birthday/unemployment party.

Where am I now? I spent the last 4 days or so at my uncle's house for lack of anything to do with myself and knowing they needed the help. His wife is insane and treats his kids like dirt. I'm not saying they don't deserve it on occasion, they are teenagers after all, but I maintain that she's insane. I'm just glad I was able to smooth things over for all of them for a few days.

I filed for unemployment and I've called/emailed recruiters left and right. My family is pushing me to take a trip instead. They say I should take the unemployment money and take a vacation, which I haven't done in years. It might be good for me. I was hesitant at first but they're starting to get to me. For the past few years when I've had the money I haven't had the time, and when I have the time, I don't have the money...why not live a little while I'm still in my early 20s?

Long time

2009-05-18T22:08:00.000-04:00

It's been a while and I'm still trying to make sense of this month.
I'll fill you guys in soon

Playing Catch-Up

2009-03-26T21:24:00.003-04:00

I haven't posted in quite some time. Sorry about that. Let me try to get you guys all caught up.

My last day of work was kinda sad. I didn't want to leave. I was fine all day but when 5:30 came I realized I wouldn't be coming back on Monday. Luckily I had the next week off. I went to Naples, FL and had lots of fun. It was beautiful there, almost surreal. It's crazy how perfect life can seem down there. I got a sun burn during my last 2-3 hours in Florida which totally sucks but it went away quickly. I'm still peeling though.

I came back 2 weeks ago Saturday and started work that Monday. It was a great first day. They were expecting me to take the whole first week to figure out the system. I was implementing new features my second day and analyzing and offering suggestions on the first day. They seem to be fairly impressed and I'm happy to be there. They pay for breakfast and lunch most times. It's pretty cool and laid back. Nobody's hassling me, which I guess is worse because I'm my own worst critic anyway. I can work from home at will, and have been for the past 2 days and will again tomorrow because my boss wouldn't be there Wednesday-Friday. No reason to be there if I can save the gas by doing the same work from home. We have each-other's phone numbers anyway.

Yesterday I installed Windows 7 Beta 64 bit build 7000. It's not as fun as I expected but it does seem to run a lot better than Vista. Today I found a torrent of build 7057 and upgraded to that. Not a huge difference that I can make out yet. A bit disappointing that I can't run Virtual Box on physical drives though. I can only create images and use those as virtual drives. Apparently this was a change they put into Vista and it's still in 7 as well.

That seems to be about it. If I think of anything else I'll post it. Hopefully you've all been doing well. Leave me a comment, let me know.

Breakfast Battlescars and Linux Too

2009-03-03T21:54:00.002-05:00

What a day. Let me back up a bit and mention that I was at my uncle's place this weekend and there was a nice snow storm on Sunday night through Monday afternoon. No work for me because I couldn't get anywhere and didn't have my laptop to even work from home. I played Xbox 360 all day with my cousin. Good times.

I woke up this morning to get ready for work, took a shower, got dressed and then proceeded to help my uncle with breakfast. It wasn't complicated, it was ham, egg, and cheese on a bagel. Stupid me got the idea to put he cheese on the bagel while it was in the toaster oven so it would melt a bit only I touched the top of a toaster oven that had just turned off mere seconds earlier. I've got a nice burn on my hand. My "breakfast battlescar."

I got home after work and started fiddling, as I tend to do, because my parents got me a cable box for my room. I had given up on TV because I couldn't fit one if I wanted to fit my desk in my room. I got a Hauppauge HD-PVR last week (I shouldn't have because now I'm broke but that's besides the point) and now I can watch TV using my computer and even record it! Well, that was the idea anyway. I had installed Kubuntu Intrepid Ibex (8.10) a few weeks ago and I've loved it. Today, however, I'm hating it. I'll probably love it again when I get this working but so far I've been messing with it for 3 and a half hours trying to get it to compile correctly.

I love computers, I swear. It's just a love-hate thing.

How? Always!

2009-02-21T00:28:00.003-05:00

I went to watch a movie with a friend tonight. We watched "Taken". It was quite good, really good, actually. Anyway, after I got out of the movie it was about 10 and a few friends from work called and asked if I wanted to go to a lounge. I reluctantly agreed. It sounded loud but being that it was a lounge I figured I'd try it out.

When I got there I almost wasn't allowed in due to dress code. I got there and it was REALLY loud. It was basically a club with some couches and ambient lighting. I wasn't a fan. Two of the people from work were fighting because one was jealous (they're dating) because their SO was "flirting" with one of the other guys. Cluster-fuck, really. I drove home shortly after arriving.

On the way back home there was a car going south on the northbound side of the Garden State Parkway. It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. He was in the left lane (his right) and I must've been doing 90 before I saw him. It's a good thing I was in the middle lane, as usual or I would've hit him and the combined speed would've been well over 120MPH.

I got home safely, obviously, and I'm off to bed. What a fucked up end to an otherwise ok day.

First Time in a While

2009-02-18T23:40:00.002-05:00

Today I accepted the contract job offer. I really hope I get the other job though. In any case, that's not what I wanted to post about. For the first time in a while I actually worked my ass off. I not only fixed a few important bugs on a site that a high profile client wanted fixed tonight but I also finished my redesign of the Baby Phat site.

Keep your eyes peeled. The site will change from black/purple to white/gold/red at some point tomorrow. It actually came out quite good if you ask me. Very close to the designs given to me and I cleaned up a LOT of the code. It was terrible. I'm not saying it's perfect now because I didn't have enough time to do a complete overhaul but it's far better than it was before. I worked from 9am to 10pm tonight. Hell of a day but I got a bunch done.

I also gave my letter of resignation today. I'm free!

Nonsense Galore

2009-02-17T19:24:00.003-05:00

This morning started off as any other but quickly changed. As I'm passing the parking lot this morning I see a construction crew in front of the entrance. I had to go around to the side entrance to the parking lot. I sit at my desk ready to start the morning. A little before 10am all internet functions cease. The whole company is unable to access the internet...at an e-commerce company. This is quite a problem. As it turns out, the construction crew was tearing up the street and had to cut some cables. They cut our fiberoptic line.

We were completely unable to do ANYTHING. Even testing on our development servers couldn't be done due to the need for images from the live servers. We all got in trouble, of course, because we weren't doing anything useful. Go figure. Somewhere around 2-3pm we got minimal connectivity through a satellite connection but everything crawled and productivity was at a stand-still.

On the bright side my phone interview went really well and they're looking to move forward. I was told by multiple people that I should accept the contract job offer and if the perm job turns out then I simply decline the contract job. Chances are if the perm job turns out it will be before I start the contract job anyway. And if it doesn't turn out I will have already accepted the contract job instead of losing out. There you have it, folks! That's my plan and we'll see what happens. I'll keep you all updated.

Jobs, Interviews, and Recruiters! Oh My!

2009-02-16T20:32:00.005-05:00

I got the job I interviewed for! The recruiter called me this morning. I'm sure he was expecting much more enthusiasm from me but I also got a call from another recruiter saying I landed a phone interview at another company. This job would be permanent, not contract like the first one. If I get this one it'd be great. I'd be letting down the first recruiter but I'm not here to get jobs to make others feel better. I'm out to get paid and get paid well. Job stability would really be a plus and a contract job would mean I'd be looking for a new job as soon as I start, pretty much.

What do you guys think? I'll list the pros of each job are and you tell me what your thoughts are.

Contract:
I already got the job, I just have to accept
It's 30 minutes from home (perm is an hour or so)
I'd be well compensated (roughly $10K more than I make now)
I'd be focussing on new features to an already working system
Telecommuting would be allowed at will

Permanent:
Compensation should be about $2K more than the contract job, minimum (~$12-15K more than I make now)
Permanent means unless I get fired or laid off I've got job stability (contract is 3-6 months)
Larger company (or so it seems) means I'll be working as part of a team (I'd be the sole developer, pretty much, at the contract job)

Productivity is Relative

2009-02-13T21:49:00.003-05:00

I spent all day on the phone with AT&T. I sat at my desk at work just fucking with my phone, really. I wanted to be able to send MMS. I bought a phone for $330 plus a 2 year contract, damn right I'm getting MMS! Hell, my VX9800 and VX6000 could send MMS! I called tech support a minimum of 5 times today just fucking with settings on my plan. Finally by around 9:30PM or so I was able to get MMS working. It took a long time but it was worth it.

Don't get me wrong, I worked today. I got everything done that was assigned to me. I just devoted most of my time to my phone. I was able to send and receive messages just a few minutes ago. I'm hoping I'll be able to still send and receive tomorrow, a week from now, a month from now, etc. I've heard this can be finecky and work for maybe only a day or work for a few months and then stop. We'll see.

All-in-all, it was a fun day. I got to be so many different people while on the phone. I gave one lady a brow-beating over the phone for telling me the iPhone can't MMS and I was the funniest, nicest guy with another lady. I was the "I know how you system works so just do this and don't ask questions" guy with 2 people, and the helpless customer with another. A great experiment in social engineering, really. Quite amusing to see how different people react to different personalities.

I guess I clean up well

2009-02-11T17:21:00.003-05:00

I got a haircut this morning and then headed off to my interview. I bought new windshield wipers on my way back home and had lunch at a place I had wanted to go to for years but they closed too early for me to we get there on time. Apparently my aunt has some tickets to "Guys and Dolls" on Broadway tonight. I didn't want to go but if I don't then they'll go to waste so I'm going tonight.

The interview went very well. They seem to want me there and gave me a tour of the place and introduced me to some of the staff. I got a call from another recruiter this morning offering me another job. It's further away but it's full time, not contract. We'll see what he gets back to me with.

I'll leave you with a pic of me all spiffy for my interview.

Interview

2009-02-09T22:58:00.002-05:00

It seems the phone interview went well enough to get me a personal interview on Wednesday. Let's see what happens then. I need to get a haircut on Wednesday before the interview...my hair is totally getting out of control and I can't show up like this. The scary part is that he didn't like one of my answers to his questions on Friday. It seems he's a fan of HTML Tables for layout and positioning. I don't have a problem with tables when they're being used for data, but using them for positioning is a rookie thing to do. That being said, if I get the job I won't walk in there and start tearing tables apart and replacing them, I'll work within my established parameters and get the job done.

Enough work talk. I woke up this morning and wasn't in as much pain as I expected to be. If it didn't cost so much money I'd go skiing next weekend again. Oh well, sometime soon I'll go again, just not yet.

Wish me luck on Wednesday. Let's hope I can wow them!

My God, the Pain

2009-02-08T21:10:00.002-05:00

Ow. I just got home from skiing for 8 hours. Fuck, I'm tired. I'm going to bed. It didn't turn out like I thought. I expected the skill to rush back. It doesn't seem to work that way when you haven't gone skiing in ~8 years. I had a LOT of fun, don't get me wrong. Some really funny moments too. It was good to do something different. I need to get in shape so this won't hurt nearly as much. We'll see what kind of shape I'm in tomorrow morning. This ought to be fun.

Snowboarding/Skiing

2009-02-07T10:48:00.005-05:00

I was invited to go snowboarding on Sunday. I don't think I will because the package includes a limited lift ticket so I'll not only be limited to the bunny slopes but falling flat on my ass most of the day anyway cuz I've never snowboarded before. Skiing, on the other hand, I've done before. Since I've been poked and prodded into going I figure I'll at least do that so I can actually have fun.

My boss went to a sale last night right by work and I asked her to pick me up a pair of snow pants. I had already made plans, otherwise I would've gone myself. The guy from work that got all of us together to go is lending me a jacket to wear so I should be set as long as I wear enough layers. This should be fun. It's been a while since I've gone skiing.

Also, for those of you wondering, the phone interview went quite well I think. It seems he didn't like my answer to one of his questions though. It seems he's a tables guy and as far as I'm concerned tables have no place on a web page except for tabular data. Oh well, I got all the JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL questions right so that should count for something.

Distracted

2009-02-05T21:53:00.002-05:00

I've been terribly distracted while at work. My mind isn't there. I have my phone interview tomorrow at 10am, hopefully I'll be able to impress the guy.

Even though I'm distracted, though, I'm nearly done with my project. Hopefully I'll be done and move on to a new job shortly thereafter. That or by some miracle I'll get laid off and then I can dedicate myself to searching for a job.

That's about it. Nothing big going on.

Snow - Lots of It

2009-02-03T19:35:00.002-05:00

It was snowing this morning when I went to work. It had only accumulated on my car and continued that way throughout the day. When I got out of work, however it was a different story. It's accumulating. Luckily I just got my new tires so I was doing fine.

I have a phone interview with a company on Friday. So far they seem impressed. I find that slightly shocking because My resume really only includes 1 job in my field though I have been there for about a year and a half. Apparently though my resume seems weak, the code samples I sent were good enough to get me the interview. The recruiter called me today to tell me about the interview and also told me my writing was impressive. I guess being a grammar nazi pays off :). I only hope I do well on the phone interview; I have no idea what he'll be asking.

I went to my uncle's on Saturday night. He called me on Saturday and asked me to come over and we'd watch the Super Bowl on Sunday. Oddly enough I ended up not watching it. I was having far too much fun playing Wii with my cousin. My boss called me up on Sunday and offered me the day off on Monday. I took it and stayed over an extra night. It was good because I got a few things done. I rewrote my resume and fixed a few things at my uncle's. My cousin then came home from school and I helped him with his homework.

I sometimes hate myself though for my lack of patience. We were working on his homework and for the math, he didn't want to focus. He doesn't like math. He's good at language (English, Spanish, French) and spelling, but doesn't like math. Being a math, grammar guy myself I sometimes forget it doesn't come as naturally to others. I found myself getting aggravated. Luckily I caught myself; I later apologized. He knew the steps he had to take and he knew the math, it was just that his head wasn't there. Once we moved on to the other subjects it was a breeze. He just needs a push for math and I can understand that. History and I didn't get along when I was in school and I'd just about fall asleep while doing the homework. He was getting that sleepy look on Monday while doing the math.

All in all, it was a good weekend. Though I think I'm getting sick.

A Few Days Off

2009-01-29T20:07:00.002-05:00

I've been working from home for the past few days. I was getting new tires put on and they were delivered late in the day yesterday so my mechanic said he'd do it today instead. I say I worked from home but that's a huge lie. I logged on to the work VPN and then did a whole lot of nothing. It was well deserved though. The company is completely screwed now though because one of the marketing guys that handles all of our advertising through affiliates and cost-per-click stuff quit today. I somehow doubt they'll get anyone up to speed on everything he used to do soon enough. Oh well, shit happens. Like I said, nobody wants to be there.

Luckily I've been getting a few calls, nothing terribly promising though. We'll see what happens.

Just an Update

2009-01-27T20:52:00.004-05:00

Hey guys. I just figured I'd update and tell you what's been going on. I stayed at my uncle's until Monday morning and I drove about an hour and a half to work. I'm working from home tomorrow because my car will be getting new tires. It's actually been scaring me recently because it's started vibrating at highway speeds. I think it's mainly to do with the tires but I can't explain how or why, it just feels as if I'm driving around with snow in my rims causing the wheels to be unbalanced (no, it hasn't snowed here in weeks) but sometimes it just stops.

I'm working on a site redesign at work. They want a "simple color swap" but it's never that simple. Measurements change for different elements causing me to redo portions of the site. That and the site is horribly coded anyway. I keep fixing the bad code and it's slowing me down. At this point I think I have 3 weeks left. Not a lot of time, though luckily the largest portion is done, it's just the minutia that kill me. All the little things you miss here and there get incredibly annoying. All-in-all it looks good though and it's coded far better than it was before.

Everybody makes jokes about the company going under, firing more people, looking forward to getting fired themselves. I'm one of those people. I've been coming home and finding it ridiculously hard to even get on my computer anymore. I don't want to code at home because I'm just so mentally drained. I don't want to be there -- nobody does, not even my boss. At least if I got fired I could collect unemployment and drive up and down the tri-state area applying for jobs and going to interviews, all the while getting paid. Having a job makes it hard to get a job.

As for me, my depression seems to be coming back. I mean, it never really went away per se, but the job situation doesn't help any. I feel unmotivated. I feel trapped. I remember days when I couldn't wait to get to work and didn't want to go home at the end of the day. I was innovating, making cool stuff from scratch. Now I'm hard-pressed to do anything but straight HTML/CSS. I guess that's life though, eh?

I do want to tell you guys that your comments make it all worthwhile. I love that people care enough to read what I write, no matter how bitchy and annoying I may sound. Thanks for the comments, they mean a lot.

A Wonderful Surprise

2009-01-23T22:35:00.002-05:00

I was at home on Tuesday when I got a text from my uncle saying his son would be flying in today. I was ecstatic. I took the day off and went to the airport with him this morning to pick him up. His flight arrived at 4:32AM so it was a long day.

He passed out around 9-9:30 while we were playing PS3. Poor little guy hadn't slept in probably over 20 hours. He complained that trying to sleep on the airplane was an impossible task.

He's 12 and I've babysat him since he was about 8 or 9. I would drive to my uncle's after or before work when I was working retail to make sure his homework was done and spend time with him. My uncle's a lawyer so his schedule can be quite random and sometimes incredibly long. Also the flying back and forth between his mother an father made it hard for him to make many friends here.

I'm a mere 10 years older than him but I almost feel like he's my son -- or at least I defend him like he is. I'm not sure what it is but I've always felt the need to protect him and watch out for him.

I'm not sure how long he'll be staying but I'll make sure to try to drive down to see him every once in a while. Itt's too bad my uncle moved more than an hour and a half away from me over the summer or I'd be able to make the trip more often.

The biggest surprise of all

2009-01-14T15:11:00.002-05:00

About 3 minutes ago the front end was called to the project manager's office for a mini-meeting with the CTO. He told us Friday would be his last day due to being laid off. Apparently they laid off the CTO in order to keep the developers. I can see this going terribly and
especially since now apparently Technology will report to the COO/CFO. I'm positive he'll care more about the money than the procedures.

I didn't even know you could lay off a Chief Officer. I forsee hard
times ahead.

Email is back

2009-01-13T23:22:00.002-05:00

Thanks to google's gmail and support of other domains besides gmail.com I have mail again and it's IMAP just like I had it set up before. I'm cancelling the dead server (it's officially FUBAR. It never booted back up after I rebooted it.) tomorrow and that'll be one less expense per month. I just need to make sure I'm not missing anything. DNS was transfered over to one of my other servers so that's taken care of. Luckily I have backups of all the websites I had on pulsar (the dead server) because I had to transfer them when epicenter got hacked. Time to set them up again. I may do that tomorrow.

I'm sorry if I bitch and moan on my blog a lot. I'm quite a reserved person and, honestly, this is my only outlet. I don't like opening up to people. It's only been trouble in the past. I'll try to post some more mundane stuff to water down the bitching.

And I thought it was over...

2009-01-13T19:05:00.005-05:00

Let me start off by saying I haven't forgotten about my blog, I simply haven't had much to put in here recently. Now on to today's news.

I lied, I'm rewinding an extra day to yesterday. They let some more people go but luckily they weren't from my department. Apparently the financial troubles continue. This leads me into today's goings-on. The CTO called a meeting for the whole department this afternoon. We got a few extra guests than what we expected. The CEO and CFO/COO joined the fun. The theme of the party was pay cuts for all! I'm glad they decided to share the poverty but I'd rather the wealth.

I'm in disbelief as to what happened today. I can't say that I won't be able to survive on what I get paid, far from it. It does, however, mean a change in my daily spendatures. I have to not only think more about what I'm spending on a daily basis but also the overall picture. What monthly expenses can I do without. The first thing that comes to mind is my servers. That just makes me wonder about those with families to support.

I'm being positive though, it's not a ridiculous amount and I'll make it through this. The only question is will the company make it through or will I even be there to find out.

EDIT: Oh, and one of my servers may have a corrupt HDD and now I can't get my email.

What We Take for Granted (Continued)

2009-01-03T14:02:00.004-05:00

Alright, so I know I JUST posted a blog but the story gets better. I need to start taking advantage of these situations NOW btw.

My brother came up from Florida with his family (he's about 20 years older than I am). He asked me to sell him my car if I ever felt the need since his son would be needing his first car soon and my brother has a a BMW 528i and loves it so he figured why not give his son my car. It's a 2002 325Ci and it's in good condition and under 100K miles. I still owe half the car which is actually more than it's worth right now. I figure I'll just give it to him and let him take over the payments.

I mentioned this to my mom and she was all for it. She said she'd cosign for me to get the M3 I've been wanting.

What We Take for Granted

2009-01-03T13:27:00.005-05:00

The wisdom and insight of those around us is probably foremost on that list. This morning I got on my computer as I always do and read that John Travolta's son died. Quite honestly, this means very little to me, I'm not one to follow the stars but it is a sad occurrence regardless. I read this article and put it in the back of my mind as I tend to do. A few hours later my mom and I talked for a few minutes and we went back to doing what we were doing.

For some reason I felt like bringing up the John Travolta story. She's usually up on the happenings in Hollywood for some reason. I mentioned it and we got to talking. We talked at length about life and eventually got to the topic of what we do with our lives. She's said before that I should enjoy my life while I'm young (don't get tied down, don't feel you have obligations anywhere or to anyone but yourself). This particular conversation went the route of the job offer in Canada I told you guys about. She said that she was excited when I told her about it because she had always wanted to travel the world and that it doesn't matter where a job takes me (career-wise and life-wise) I should experience as much as I can of the world, of life. (sidenote: the job turned out to be for a company that made their website in what appears to be Microsoft Frontpage...I don't think I want to work with them. That and they have no portfolio.)

We had worked out a payment schedule a few months ago so that I could chip in and pay rent (not my idea) since times are tough and the mortgage is expensive. She told me just now that regardless of what we worked out, I have no obligations here and if I want to go I should and should I ever find it didn't work out I always have a home to come back to...regardless of whether my stuff has been thrown out or not (and she said she probably would throw it out).

I never thought I'd feel this way but I think I want to go. I want to apply to jobs EVERYWHERE and see what comes up. I had originally confined my job search to Northern NJ, then extended it into NY. After the Canadian job I aded Canada and I think I'm done being passive about this job search thing. I'll list myself as open to work just about anywhere and I'm going to start actively looking. Forget depending on recruiters. It's January, companies will hopefully have a new round of funding for the new year either now or soon and that means looking for talent. I'm currently working on version 3 of my Woot!-off checker and it will be my crowning achievement. I hope to have a job before I finish it but if I don't, I'm sure it will help me get my foot in the door.

The Obligatory Christmas Post

2008-12-25T21:45:00.002-05:00

I wasn't going to make this post because everybody so far has probably wished you a Merry Christmas at least 30 times. A lot of them probably came in the form of an online post of some sort and even more probably came in text messages from people you haven't spoken to in 6 months or more. I don't know you but that doesn't make Christmas any less meaningful. It doesn't matter what you celebrate, may it be happy.

And yes, I do feel better. I'm not 100% yet but the past 2 days have been a bit of a rollercoaster. Yesterday I was doing far better than today though I'd say I'm 65% there today. Damn headache keeps coming back randomly but not enough to stop me, just enough to annoy me and make me cranky :-P

Of all the luck...

2008-12-22T22:13:00.002-05:00

Disorientation, check

Inability to concentrate, check

Hypersensitivity, check

Body aches, check

Good God, it's a cold. And 3 days before Christmas.

I can't believe my luck

2008-12-19T17:26:00.003-05:00

Today started off particularly shitty. It all stemmed from yesterday at work. If other departments could get their shit together before they talk to a developer, that'd be great...but apparently too much to ask for.

I put up a whole bunch of shit, I check it, I have QA check it, I have the creator of the task check it, then I go home. I receive a nasty email at 6:45 forwarded from my boss that she received from the marketing manager. Apparently it was an absolute fucking emergency that some banners go live on the website at 6PM and not midnight like I coded them. I told the person that put the task in that they'd go live at midnight with all the other banners they had given me. I wasn't going to bend over backwards for them since the task was already late and being done on only hours notice.

The marketing manager raises a HUGE stink about the fact that it's not live. Luckily we have a system that keeps track of all our tasks and all comments posted to it where it clearly says "this will go live at midnight" and the task creator says "ok". I sent the marketing manager an email detailing all the events leading upto the task going live and pointed out that if there was a problem it was with the communication between her and her team. She then went to my boss and my boss more than backed me up, especially considering that they fucked up yet again this morning. She didn't have a leg to stand on.

So after all that drama and aggrivation at work, I come home in the sleet/snow and break out the snow blower and clear my driveway, clear the sidewalk and the walkway around the house. I'm almost done and I run over an extension cord...awesome. Now I have to untangle this shit. I tip the snow blower over and start to untangle the fucking cord. After getting it free of the machine I continue. I'm outside for about an hour and in that time what I first cleared is now covered with snow again so I give it a second go for good measure before putting the snow blower away. I go to put the snow blower away but we have 2 cars parked side by side in the driveway so I need to move one before I can get the machine back in the garage...my car key is missing. It's not in my pocket and it's not in the ignition. FUCK! I remember hearing a clicking sound inside the snow blower when I went over the area I was untangling the extension cord at. I must've dropped my key and the snow blower threw it somewhere in the front yard.

Now I'm out a $300 car key.

Recruiters (not all of them)

2008-12-10T17:56:00.004-05:00

As far as I'm concerned a large portion of recruiters out there suck. I get all sorts of calls and can't stand their lack of knowledge for the jobs they're placing you in. Don't get me wrong, I actually like a few of the ones that call me and genuinely seem interested in making sure you find the right job, a good fit. Today I wasn't so lucky.

I've been dealing with Napier Partners in NYC for about a week. Ever since I got the first phone call I thought they were a bad idea but they seemed to know what they were doing at the very least. The woman was a fast talker and very pushy. She wanted me to go to the city on Monday and meet with her. I reluctantly agreed, I hate going into the city. On Monday another recruiter from Napier Partners calls me and asks if I can come in earlier because he has another person to meet with at 7 and the first recruiter is going home sick. I reluctantly agree (I sense a pattern) and tell him that the earliest I can make it is 6:30 and that's cutting it close. I tell him I work in NJ so getting there will take time due to mass transportation and what not (you don't take a car into the city...bad idea unless you like being stuck in traffic for hours).

At this point he seems genuine and understanding of my situation and says "Oh, I didn't know you were coming from NJ, I don't know why she'd ask you to come in then. Give me a call when you get out of work and I'll interview you over the phone". Great! No, not so great. I call him at 6:15 and he seems like he's got no time for me. He asks questions and doesn't wait for answers, he simply moves on halfway through my answer. Today YET ANOTHER recruiter calls me from Napier Partners and I urge him to email me instead because I'm at work. He's pushy as well (another pattern) and I tell him I'm busy but he insists on talking. He's done talking, I can continue working...nooooo apparently now he wants to put Drew on the phone, the guy I talked to on Monday. Damnit, I'm at work! I have to go! This means nothing to them and they're threatening to give my interview spot to somebody else because I can't go into the city on Friday (2 days away) during work hours. I HAVE A JOB. I may be looking for another one but that doesn't mean I'm willing to jeopardize the current one on the off chance that I'll get hired at a company I've heard nothing about yet!

I tell them I'll call them back with an answer and that I really have to go. Come 5pm (I left work early because I didn't take a lunch break) I decide to call Drew back and decline the offer. I tell him how rude they were while I was at work and that their lack of listening skills is a key factor in my not wanting to work with them further. He turns around and calls me crazy for asking for more than 2 days notice ("You're crazy if you want more than 2 days notice. I've been doing this longer than you've been working" - Drew Sussberg on 12/10/08 c.5pm). It turns out Drew Sussberg of Napier Partners in NYC is the manager! All the other people work under him. It's no wonder they're all assholes.

Drew Sussberg

Professional Asshole at Napier Partners

In case you're wondering why I keep plastering his name and the company, it's because I want it to come up in a google search -- a lot of times.

EDIT: Ughh. I was set on coding version 3 of my woot-off checker tonight and now I'm too pissed off. Thanks, Drew Sussberg.

I Don't Get It

2008-12-08T00:29:00.003-05:00

There's really no way to put this better than "I should be pulled over a LOT more often".

I'm cruising along at 80MPH on the parkway and it's not terribly fast. I'm passing cars but not incredibly quickly. At one point I pass a little old civic with a bigger tail pipe than stock. I can tell by the look of it that it's somebody I can have fun with. He doesn't bite and I don't do anything more than pass him like all the other cars.

A few minutes later I see these headlights coming up "fast". I'm doing 80 still and this car is going faster than me. Etiquette says to let him pass but he's not going fast enough to let him pass because there's a car in front of me that I want to get around. I go around it and the civic still hasn't passed me. Now I'm just wondering that the hell is going on but I continue on my way as I had been. He decided to FINALLY pass me after a few minutes but I watched him do it so slowly that I was able to watch, wait, change my mind after a few seconds and go. He didn't really stand much of a chance. I slowed down after 30 seconds or so and declared victory with my hazards. He was still catching up, slowed down a bit, then guns it again. As I'm doing 80 and he's passing me I see aftermarket gauges lighting up his car. This was just plain hilarious because my car is completely stock.

He took so long to get away from me that I, again, changed my mind. I decided to play with him again. He was in the left lane flooring it. I came up behind him and the poor little car just couldn't get enough speed. He was forced to let me pass. I hate Hondas just for the sole fact that they've become synonymous with teenage drivers. Every punk driving one wants to race. I'll give him one. My car doesn't even break 200HP or 200ft-lb at the flywheel (let alone the wheels) which just makes it all the funnier. Hmm, maybe I should rethink the supercharger I wanted to get. This can only lead to trouble.

Friends and Acquaintances

2008-12-07T02:46:00.004-05:00

I've said it before and it bears repeating because I feel so naive. I always considered myself a good judge of character and I consciously repress those feelings because I don't want to be prejudiced. I want to be fair to everyone so I give people a chance. Stupid me.

I went to a co-worker's house, he made this cranberry-grape and Skyy drink. You couldn't taste the alcohol at all...wow was that a bad idea (because it was DELICIOUS!). So here we are playing poker, there are about 6 of us. We all go out for a cigarette (I don't smoke but I wanted to be social so I went out there to accompany them) and at some point the host's brother whips out two half-smoked joints. I haven't smoked in about 3 years so I figured there was no harm in it. My boss did as well and a friend of ours just stared at us and told us how disappointed he was. He proceeded to really lay into my boss for it because she has kids and what not.

Before I continue this story, let me say that I don't condone drug abuse. I normally don't smoke but I have no problem with recreational use every once in a while. It'll probably be another 3 years if I ever smoke again and it's not for lack of availability, I've turned it down plenty of times in the past 3 years. That being said, I'm not going to give anybody shit for doing the same. If you smoke every week though, then there's a bit of a problem and I'll try to convince you to stop, but I most certainly won't go on and insult you and so forth. Let's continue where we left off...

I went inside, it was cold out. We basically took 2 puffs each and it was gone. Apparently they stayed outside smoking their cigarettes and he really let her have it. He then goes on to say some really fucked up stuff about her marriage and how her husband thinks she's having an affair with him but he should really be worrying about me...all within earshot of our host, which I said earlier, we work with. Wonderful. Apparently he also continued to say shit at the table while we were playing poker. I honestly don't remember half of this because I was just beginning to sober up from the vodka but I'm told things were said and friendships are on the rocks now. He said something to the effect of "You need to slap your wife around" and my boss' husband responded with a firm "keep your mouth shut". Needless to say, he won't be invited to further get-togethers.

This is some good shit. When I met him he looked like a complete asshole. I didn't talk to him at work for months before I had to work with him on the same team. At that point, we became friends and he was recently laid off. He was always a bit of a dick to people but it was mostly funny and somewhat harmless. Now I'm realizing my initial observation was correct and I completely ignored it.

I'm not the kind of person that's emotionally open. For me to open up to somebody takes time, lots of it. Even then, even though I may have opened up to them I'm still very guarded and nobody really knows anything about my life and the goings-on in my head/heart. I keep few friends for this reason and to lose one this way means I have even fewer now. Amazing. I used to consider my lack of friends a virtue because I go for quality, not quantity but now I'm starting to feel alone but still unwilling to waiver in the quality of friends I look for. Do I consider more people friends and simply take what they say and do with a grain of salt and chalk it up to their personality or do I have fewer friends? I guess this is where somebody says "Welcome to the real world". I'm not ready.

The Job Search Continues

2008-12-03T19:11:00.002-05:00

I posted my resumé online last night. I got 4-5 phonecalls today. It was amusing. I'm entertaining some of the offers, I need to find a new job because I don't know how long the company is going to last. It's scary when you don't know if you'll have a job and not because you suck at your job, because I'm sure you can feel that one coming, but simply due to lack of funds. I doubt that at this point they'll single anybody out because there's hardly anybody left so the only logical step from here is to close the company (unless they can get back on their feet and I don't know anything about how long that would take or how close we are).

I think it's time for a new job anyway. I don't know if any of you have felt this but I've had it happen at my retail jobs; I felt complacent and I knew I could get away with more than I should. When you know the system, you know the people, you can use situations to your advantage. I'm not saying use people, but things may no longer be a challenge or you can find a way to shirk something onto somebody else. I don't like doing that and so to keep myself honest I think it's time to move on. Don't get me wrong, I pull my own weight and then some, I just think in order for me to grow in experience I need to go someplace that can challenge me with something more than "how fast can you put up 70 promos?"

And so the job search continues...

Emotions and Dreams

2008-11-30T23:52:00.002-05:00

Last night I had the most amazing dream. Let me begin with a few facts. I'm not a father, nor have I ever come close to being one. I don't consider myself to be a father-figure to anyone nor am I ready to become one. I do love, however, helping and protecting so I guess that's somewhat fatherly. Also, I'm not religious. I consider myself to be agnostic. I don't particularly believe God has anything to do with our daily lives, He probably has better things to do. I do believe in God, I don't believe in religion. Let's move on.

The circumstances are shady. For some reason I have two children and the mother isn't in this dream, it seems. I'm in a synagogue/church. I'm apparently here to affiliate my children with a religion. My oldest, a boy no older than 8 will be Jewish and my little girl will be Catholic.

My son appears to be quite happy about the whole thing and my daughter seems to be almost too young to care. He's asking questions and as we get closer to the "room" in which he's to officially accept his religion he no longer wants to go through with it. He begins to cry and tell me he doesn't want to do it. Immediately I begin to console him. The exact words I don't remember but it's basically "You don't have to, this is YOUR day and if you don't want to that's okay". He's sobbing and you can see it's just so heartfelt and he genuinely doesn't want this at all. I get down on the floor sitting Indian-style and he kneels down and I just hold him as he cries. I try my best to console him and make him understand that it's entirely okay.

As he's calming down the Rabbi approaches me and, again the exact words aren't clear to me but here's the general idea, he says something along the lines of "We're here for a reason and he's just wasing my time". I don't take kindly to this. My son and I are now standing, I'm still hugging him, holding his head with one arm as he sobs and my other arm outstretched pointing at the Rabbi with a me yelling something the lines of "Nobody yells at my son that way and you're here because it's your job". We go back and forth and I end with "I don't need to take this from you. I don't want to listen to anymore of your nonsense", and I appeal to another Rabbi to get him away from my family.

My daughter doesn't appear to play much of a role in this. I'm not sure what happens between the Rabbi thing and now but I simply bring her to another "room" and that's where she becomes Catholic.

I wake up feeling such anger at the Rabbi, such love and a need to protect my son. And within minutes it's all gone. A wonderful dream but sadly it was only a dream. I can only hope that in the future I have a little boy of my own, one to love and protect; to show him the world - someone that I mean the world to. I'm not ready now, but one day I will be.

I find it amazing that dreams can bring out such emotion; emotions we've never felt before and yet they feel so real. Just writing this post made me feel some of that again, though I'm sure even that will begin to fade. It's too bad, it was such a great feeling. Also, keep in mind that the dream does not, in any way, express how I feel about one religion over the other. Take it as just a backdrop, what's important is the what, not the why. The emotion and the characters are the focus.

The Recent Goings-on

2008-11-29T20:35:00.002-05:00

So much shit has been going on; mostly with work. As you know, they laid off all those people and now there are a total of 3 of us working like crazy on all these brands to get everything live. It's the most tedious and repetitive work. I prefer a challenge not monotony.

Enough about work, I've been feeling very depressed lately. Not in the way you're probably thinking, though. I've been feeling very "blah", not "The world is against me! I want to die!". Maybe it's seasonal, though this never happened before. In some regards I should be happy I'm healthy, I have my handful of friends, and my family. But lately I've been feeling like I don't want to go anywhere, do anything...I don't know.

I want to see if I go snowboarding with a few people from work next weekend. I've never snowboarded before, I've only been skiing. I've been wakeboarding, that was difficult but I got the hang of it after a while, though I wasn't very good. It should get my mind off things. Life just isn't what I remember. The simplicity of being a kid is gone. Responsibility takes over and I feel thrust into it. I'm still impatient, cocky, and to some degree, immature.

I just feel terribly short-sighted. Like I don't know where I'm headed. I guess we all feel that way though. There's a degree of uncertainty to all our lives. I just never had it staring me in the face, never had to think about it before. I've also been craving someone to hold and someone to hold me. I've felt this before and it only lead to trouble. But here it is again. I mean, I have somebody that likes me...a lot. but I'm just not interested in her. I'm fairly picky with my choice of girls, and even pickier when it comes to guys...that doesn't make it easy to find someone - throw in some shyness and you have yourself a whole slew of reasons why I'm single.

Oh well. We'll see where I go from here

Oh for the Love of God, Make it Stop!

2008-11-25T20:29:00.007-05:00

So much work and only 3 people. I tried writing about it just now and erased the whole post because it was barely coherent. It made me sound, not only crazy, but like a fucking whiner. I'm gonna go do something other than bitch.

"Of all the things I've lost, I miss me mind the most!" - Jadrian

Nothing could better sum up how I feel.

World record

2008-11-23T05:56:00.004-05:00

I went over my boss' house Friday after work. We invited one of our friends who was laid off. We had some drinks, watched Iron Man, played risk and drank some more. I wanted to go home at the end of the night because I don't like being offered to stay the night due to my stupidity. I drank too much and didn't want to be a burden. Granted, staying was the smart choice since driving in that condition would've
been terrible.

Her kids love me to some odd reason. I've noticed most kids do. I don't think I've paid them much attention until last night, which makes it all the more amusing. Her 4 year old was drawing me pictures and her seven year old was being a typical boy and jumping around. He eventually got tired and laid down on the couch next to me. The he kept scooching over until he was laying against me. My boss gave me this look like "Wtf? Is he bothering you?" and it was far more amusing than bothersome. It was actually cute.

I spent the night and left around 10. I couldn't have been anymore pale. I felt like shit. I made it home at some point, I have no idea what time. And I've been sleeping since. I think it's been about 19 hours at this point. I'm a mess :-P

A sneaking suspicion

2008-11-21T09:43:00.005-05:00

I posted a comment on josh's blog and got an email from google a few minutes later saying my email couldn't be sent. I checked it and it
was a comment notice to josh with my comment. The odd part is it was addressed to webmaster@freshboy.co.uk. Now, I'm no rocket scientist but to my knowledge he's supposed to be a teenage boy in Oxford, not the webmaster of a gay porn site.

Oh, and the Internet is fucked up here at work so we're twiddling our
thumbs.

Aint that some shit

2008-11-19T21:18:00.002-05:00

If I already used that as a title for another post, sorry. This totally deserves it though. Today they made ANOTHER round of cuts. My boss (she's still around for the time being, God knows when they'll get rid of her too though) called me into her office and told me there was going to be some stuff going down but that I shouldn't worry. A few hours later the lead Flash developer gets called into the CTO's office. He comes out, puts his hat on and his coat and leaves. This is at 4:45, our day ends at 6...I knew what had just happened. Then I saw more people leaving. It was scary.

The Front End team is down to 3 people, the Interactive team has been dissolved, and the back-end is down to 4. Aint that some shit.

I've been talking to a recruiter lately about a job in Toronto, Ontario (yup, up in Canada). I really want to take it since they're willing to relocate whoever they pick for the job. We'll see how that goes. The NY Times never got back to me so whatever. Maybe a move away from the American economy is exactly what I need. I hope it works out. I hate the cold but I'll deal if I get to move out on my own and explore another country.

Fruits of My Labor

2008-11-17T19:19:00.003-05:00

So my project FINALLY went live! It's about time, too. I was at work til about 6:45 making sure it launched without a problem. We have a few things to add to it still so it's not perfect but it's pretty good so far. One of the back-end guys messed up a query which caused it to send some empty data to my app and because my app shouldn't receive empty data it failed at one point. So I'll be putting in some extra checks to make sure it doesn't do that if it receives unexpected data (or lack thereof). Without further ado, I give you my project: http://www.playboystore.com/landingpages/customizer.php?dept=women

Fucked up

2008-11-14T20:14:00.002-05:00

I love knowing stuff that other people don't. In this case, though, it's more of a curse. I'm out having drinks for my boss' last day. The problem is nobody knows it's her last day. She was laid off and nobody knows yet. Fucking awesome.

They're making more cuts. Of course the first to go is the one that makes the place run somewhat smoothly. My faith in the company is shaken. On the bright side my project finally goes live Monday. This week was fine until today.

I'll post a link to my app on Monday

Seeing somebody die

2008-11-12T22:45:00.002-05:00

I had the most fucked up dream I've EVER had last night. Only once have I felt emotion so strong in a dream and it was horrific.

Last night I went to sleep and I don't remember much about the bulk of my dreams except for the fact that I know I had more than one but only one sticks out in my mind. I'm in what appears to be a mall, in a store. In this store is my boss and with her are her husband and my old boss (we all work together). Suddenly we see the sewers (in the middle of the main hallway of this mall as if it were a street) start to explode upwards with a rush of water and a fireball engulfing the column of water. One by one they do this down the "street". It seems that in this dream my boss' husband is a firefighter and he's going to go rush off to solve this problem. We tell him a few times that he needn't worry (odd), possibly because nobody's hurt or walking there...and it's a dream so stuff doesn't make sense. Around the 3rd-4th explosion it reaches a central section, kind of like an intersection. This intersection simply explodes and collapses. Now we have a problem.

Water starts gushing out onto the "street" in all directions. It seems that this "street" is on the 3rd floor of this "mall" though. There are 2 girls at the edge of the street when the water starts gushing and it starts to cover one of the girls and push her. After a few tense moments it seems she's ok...but the other girl jumps for some reason. I quickly take off a layer of clothing, my jacket I think, and jump after her but land only one floor down. I'm sure she went further. I run around to the side she was on when she jumped and hurdle a wall that appears lead down another floor. At the top of this wall I realize it's a fountain. It's shallow. I look to my right and see the little girl crushed. She landed in this shallow fountain. Her mother comes running behind me a few moments later and scoops up her dead child. I'm in shock. Somebody yells to get her camera. She had a camera around her neck when she jumped. For some reason getting the camera seemed important. I run to get the camera and see it's completely smashed in but not shattered. This camera was symbolic of the girl and her state. My boss comes up behind me to give me a hug. I run and curl up in a corner facing the wall as I hold the camera, whimpering. I wake up whimpering. I've never felt so much loss.

Music - part one of many (and a job offer too!)

2008-11-10T19:15:00.009-05:00

I'll most likely keep you guys informed as to music I hear that I like. I like music and it plays a big part in my day so you'll most likely see these posts every now and then. The artist I discovered last night while on youtube was Maria Mena. She has the most amazing voice and she's beautiful to boot. I'll try to embed the video below (the video says embedding was disabled by request and won't give you the code so I'm playing around with it :-D)

apparently that didn't work...so just click here to see it. It seems they really did disable embedding, it's not that they don't show you the code and hope you're too dumb to figure it out. Anyway, she has a simply amazing voice.

EDIT:
I was at work today when I checked my email and saw a linked-in message. Normally I ignore these because they're recruiters and they annoy me. This one was different, though. It was from the NY Times. They're seeing if I'm interested in a position as a Senior Developer. This sort of scares me. I've never understood the divide between Junior and Senior level anything. It seems purely subjective to me. Also I've only been at the company for a year at this point so it leads me to doubt whether I'm qualified for a Senior level position. I have no way of finding out unless I ask though so I responded and I'm hoping to hear back.

Attention Whore

2008-11-09T17:43:00.002-05:00

The title suggests anger at someone...not so. It's about me! I realized today that I was feeling particularly camera whorish, which is completely unlike me. I hate the way I turn out in pictures most of the time. Today, however, I was taking a shower and I got out and figured "why don't I take a few 'fresh out of the shower' pictures?", and so it began. No, there are no nudes :-P. I may post them sooner or later once I decide if it was a good idea or not. Figured I'd tell you about my incredibly random train of thought though. Again, this was completely unlike me.

A Night on the Town

2008-11-09T12:19:00.002-05:00

I went into the city last night with some friends from work. We had fun. I don't dance but I managed to not look like a complete fool so I guess that's good. I ended up being the designated driver. I had the least to drink. I have NO idea how to navigate the city. The city confuses the hell out of me. Luckily we had a GPS system built into the car (which I had to learn how to use on the fly since it wasn't my car). I was going to drive them all home but Mike seemed to be feeling a lot better by the time we got back into NJ. He said he'd take it from there so we got my car and I headed home.

Mike is a very quiet, reserved guy. The man can dance! I'm beyond horrible. I enjoyed myself even though clubs aren't my thing. He must've thought I wasn't having fun because I wasn't moving much at first but, sadly enough, that's just the way I am. He wants to go out next weekend too but I don't think I'm up for it. Maybe in a few weeks.

Non-descript Update

2008-11-06T18:14:00.003-05:00

I haven't had much happen in the past few days. Obviously America's first black president but that has more of a historical significance to me than a personal significance. I honestly didn't like one candidate more than the other. I could've gone either way on the issue.

I'm feeling kinda crappy and have been for the past week or so. I'm going into the city this weekend with a few friends from work. Could be fun, should be. I recently discovered a kickass band thanks to thejoefrom1993. I like their whole album "Wall of people". The band is "Monty Are I". Their whole album is full of passion and every song is different in terms of its sound and sometimes even its genre. The guitar and drum work is amazing and the lyrics and vocals are just as good.

That's about all that's currently going on my life I guess. Oh, I just saw today that my youtube video has 59 views and a 5 star rating (with one rating). Pretty cool.

Dumb People - They're Everywhere

2008-11-01T11:52:00.003-04:00

I can't escape them, I swear. They follow me wherever I go. I had a brunch-like thing with my parents downstairs and we got into an "Palin is dumb" conversation and we just kept making fun of her. If I have to choose the lesser of two evils, I'll choose Obama. Now here comes the fun part. My stepfather mentions that McCain looks like a midget and does a little impression of McCain never bringing his arms up past his elbows. I got slightly annoyed. The guy is old, he was a POW for years and I'm sure it's left physical scars and impairments of some sort so to make fun of the guy just isn't right, not physically anyway.

I say all of this to them and they fire back with "We're prisoners of the Bush regime!" and I respond saying "I don't know about you but I'm not in a prisoner camp being physically tortured". Their response is "We might as well be! This is worse!".

I walked away. I think I ate for 5 minutes total before I walked away from them. At least I'm not hungry anymore, but I'm definitely not satisfied. I might go out and get some food.

I like arguments and the back-and-forth of a good debate. I hate stupidity and arguments that aren't thought through and baseless points. Just because words are coming out of your mouth doesn't mean you're conversing. A speak and spell may not have a mouth but it can speak words (who remembers the speak and spell? :-D) and that's what I'm equating people to that simply vomit words as if to keep the flow going. I would enjoy far more if you paused and thought and broke the flow than you verbally defecating in order to "argue your point".

Brush with Death

2008-10-31T13:23:00.004-04:00

I was driving home last night after going out to a bar to celebrate the launch of a new website. I'm driving back home on the Parkway and I'm anal about certain things. One of which is not driving in the left lane unless you're actually passing somebody. The Parkway is desolate. Maybe a car here or there, but getting towards my exit, I'm maybe 10 minutes out and I grab my phone to change the song (I have my radio playing off my phone) and I look up...I see brake lights on the shoulder and I'm thinking...ok that's weird. I'm doing about 80-90 and all of a sudden i FLY past something in the left lane. I look in my mirror and see tail lights. Apparently the car on the shoulder had collided with the CAR that I flew past in the left lane. If I had been in the left lane I never would've seen him. His front end was smashed pretty badly and his headlights were completely broken because of it meaning I wouldn't have seen him until...well until i was about to hit him at ~80MPH.

Some scary shit. I'm alive out of sheer luck. I had a 33% chance of getting into an accident there and probably inches away from 100%

Going to hell

2008-10-31T01:50:00.002-04:00

For the longest time I've made this claim. I'm quite sure I cemented this tonight. I always considered myself a person of strong moral fiber. And so the story begins.

Drinks consumed. You need a ride home.
Feeling good, both of us
We drive away.
Your lust so obvious,
Your touch prevails.
Outside your house, your will so strong.
I fake innocence,
I pretend to fight temptation in vain.
You claim drink as my weakness.
I let you continue.
Release.
Your husband does not know.
Now we have work in the morning.
What does tomorrow hold?

FINALLY!

2008-10-29T23:52:00.002-04:00

A sigh of relief as I write the last few lines of code for the Flash app I'm working on at work. I couldn't believe it would finally be done. These last 2 weeks have been hell. Somehow we allow the design department to dictate functionality by simply drawing shit on a canvas in Photoshop. After arguing a few points and somebody noticing that we would NEVER get done if the design department kept making changes, I was allowed to move forward with most of the original ideas and a few added ones. somewhere in the vicinity of November 15 I'll be posting a link to the finished product. Now I'll be able to work on other stuff that demands my attention...the cycle never ends.

Stuck in my head

2008-10-27T22:54:00.005-04:00

So I had a really good song stuck in my head. It's an original song by Reina Del Cid on YouTube. It's called Sirens. I couldn't help but sing it over and over and I finally decided to record myself singing the chorus. I hope it sounds ok. Let me know what you think.

Poker Champ

2008-10-26T19:17:00.005-04:00

Went out last night with a few people from work. We had a poker/UFC night at Dan's house, he's the IT manager. He's a funny guy. As soon as I got there he had a beer and did a shotgun...he had to be toasted by the end of the night. His brother made the strongest Long Island Iced Teas I've ever had. We started playing poker around 6:30-7:00. It wasn't looking very good for me, I had 5 chips left. Somehow I started winning...a lot. Dan's neighbor tried to knock me out by putting me all in. I ended up taking him out shortly after that. I'm not sure if it was the alcohol or some skill starting to manifest itself but I started hustling them and bluffing (I've never been good at poker mainly because I didn't understand it until recently). I baited Nick, one of the guys in my department, towards the end too. I checked for a few rounds and saw he had something and let him bet. Towards the end I upped his bets by nearly 2-3x to beat his hand with a straight. Knocked him out on that one.

In the end I won 2 games of poker and lost the last one. It was only a $10 buy in because we were playing for fun.

I was driving home and shortly after getting off the highway I encounter a red light. There's a Mustang next to me (2000's body). I'm not really in the mood to race so I take it easy and now we're both cruising at 40 in a 35. Out of nowhere an older style Maxima flies past us on the wrong side of the road as if we're not going fast enough for him. We pull up to the next red light and this asshole is in between lanes! I stop behind him and so does the Mustang. The light turns green and the Mustang turns left and I go around the Maxima on the right. I'm sure he was caught off guard by both of us. Now I'm cruising again and he tries to go around me on the left again only this time it's only one lane. I throw it into 2nd and floor it because I'll be damned if I let him do that again. Apparently the earlier model Maximas have quite a bit of power because he clearly won by about a car length and moved back over barely in front of me and started to slow down. I didn't say I was done...so I kept the throttle pinned and didn't budge when he tried to move in, thus going around him.

I'm not saying it was smart...but it sure as hell was fun.

Then i went to bed feeling great....and woke up with a bit of a headache. I figured I'd eat something because it was about 1PM when I woke up. My stomach didn't really like that and shortly thereafter the toilet and I were face to face. I still haven't eaten anything since. Funny part was I actually thought of thejoefrom1993's video where he said he had a phobia of throwing up.

On the bright side, no headache anymore.

Hacked

2008-10-24T23:40:00.004-04:00

Backstory: I own 3 dedicated servers. I run one website off of these 3 servers. It's load balanced across all 3. I also have a few websites on one of these servers and only on that server. In the recent past this server in particular was the target of an attack and somehow the attacker got in and made a backdoor for himself.

Today: The aforementioned hacker let himself into the same server and wreacked havoc. I'm part of an IRC network and they were able to traverse a few of the servers on the network because of my compromised server. All 3 of my servers are part of this IRC network. The server that was hacked also went down tonight. I'll most likely have the datacenter reimage it in the next few days. I was able to take a few of the websites off of it before it died tonight. I'm just plain pissed that it got hacked in the first place. Don't these people have anything better to do with their time? I work hard to pay for my servers. The money doesn't come out of thin air. These bastards have the balls to fuck with something that I pay for every month.

I hate people. I find them fascinating, but some people are just so selfish that I can honestly say I hate them.

Life lessons of the real world - cont'd

2008-10-23T18:51:00.003-04:00

My story continues, as you can obviously guess from the title. I got to choose which department to be on. I chose to go back to front end with the manager I like and after a sit-down with the CTO of the company we concluded I'd be on as a special projects developer for the front end. I would be a shared resource for both departments but primarily front end. Basically this means that, for the time being, nothing will change with my current projects. I'm glad everything worked out the way it did and I'm sure once October 2009 comes around I'll be looking for a new job.

As special projects developer for the front end my projects could range from back-end, flash, SQL, and AJAX as well as front end. All technologies I'm familiar with and I'll be glad to use all my skills. I'll also be partnered with a back-end developer for some projects to gain more back-end experience. If nothing more, my time at the company has been one big learning experience. I've learned more about people, Javascript, Flash (AS2 and AS3), PHP, and HTML/CSS than I knew going in. I've grown as a person and I've also grown more cautious. Sometimes it's the bad experiences that shape us most. I know I've learned a lot.

Life lessons of the real world

2008-10-20T18:49:00.006-04:00

I'm not going to lie, you're going to see a lot of work-related posts in this blog. The fact is I code for a living and it's what I love to do so it stands to reason that since it's not only what I love but what I do every day that I'll have quite a few blogs about it. That being said, I wish to share one of life's lessons with you.

Today - Monday, October 20th, 2008 - I learned a valuable life lesson about trust. As many of you know, trust is hard to gain and easily broken. Trust is terribly fragile and once betrayed, it's very hard to establish a relationship with the person that betrayed said trust. Some people are out for themselves, it's a fact of life. That's not necessarily a bad thing because, in the end, it's simply animal instinct to make sure you come out on top - survival of the fittest, if you will.

You might be wonder what I'm babbling about. It boils down to the fact that I had my 6 month review today at work. I thought it went fairly well. I didn't get the raise I wanted but I got a bonus and I was told the raise would most certainly happen at the 1 year mark, mainly because the company is slowly being drained of funds by unmentionable sources. I left the meeting with a good feeling. I was sure my faith in the company, and most importantly my boss, had been renewed (we had a bit of a blowout last week when he managed to come down on the whole department because he was having a bad week). I knew he had lied to me before but I figured I could get past it and continue a working relationship with him. After all, I'm still getting paid. I found out later in the day that although he presented me with two options during our meeting, one of those options had money attached which was not mentioned. In retrospect he led me to the choice he wanted me to make and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Mind you that I have yet to sign a contract with the terms we agreed to in that office and I most certainly won't sign anything until I explore all the possibilities open to me.

I'm very childlike in my mentality. To me, things tend to be black or white. I'm a developer, I guess you can say I see things as binary or boolean, 1 or 0, true or false. I tend to trust those around me. It's clearly not the best practice but at the same time I don't wish to be closed to the world and unapproachable. It seems I merely need to open my eyes instead of needing somebody to accidentally tell me something for it to hit me. Maybe I'm not ready for the real world. The real world is ugly, full of lies and betrayal. It's a place for the battle-hardened. I find it difficult to justify what happened in that office today. I can't comprehend what motivation he had to mislead me (or lead me, in this case). I have a lot of growing ahead of me and a big decision to make in the next few days.

I originally thought of quitting because I can't work for somebody who is going to constantly lie to me and I'm supposed to trust that this person is relaying my messages to upper management and back in the chain of command. I'm not sure I can deal with the pressures of work as well as having to worry about what he's lied to me about today. However I also thought of the fact that I'm not there to understand him. I'm there for me and to further my career. If I make as much money as possible at the company and put as many projects as possible on my resumé it can only benefit me and I'll have a huge stepping stone for my next job.

I'll have to see what I end up doing in the next few days.

What happens when you get old

2008-10-16T23:21:00.003-04:00

A few months ago my grandmother's health began to decline. My mom hopped on a flight last week. She feared it may be the last time she saw my grandmother alive and it's been 2-3 years since they last saw each other. It seems she took a turn for the worse and now my aunt will be flying out. I have to drive her to the airport. Her flight leaves at 7 so we need to be there a few hours before then.

Tonight won't be fun. Not sure if I'll even go to work tomorrow. Maybe I'll go late after a decent bit of rest. I told them today that I wasn't sure if I'd be coming in tomorrow. We'll see how this goes.

When I was young (about 5-6) I had such a fear of getting old and dying. I would cry and come up with theories on how to beat death. I thought you didn't die until you hit the floor. I remember thinking that if I held on to something I wouldn't fall, thus not dying.

I'd rather not think about death and it's inevitability. I'd rather think about life and its inconceivable complexity.

A nice surprise

2008-10-15T17:57:00.003-04:00

I woke up this morning to realize I already had somebody not only read my first blog but also take the time to post a comment. I wasn't expecting anybody to have read it yet since I only created it last night around midnight.

I plan on eventually writing real blogs but for now I'll be blogging about blogging. I'll bring in parts of my day so it's not terribly boring. I also don't plan on blogging every day or that'll be boring. I'll blog every few days or if something eventful happens. In the meantime, check out Joe's vlog and blog and Josh's blog - both far better than mine.

On a sidenote, I've been working on some flash at work. I'm not sure I can legally tell you exactly what it is but I can tell you it's for Playboy's apparel site and it's my first major flash project. I coded it in ActionScript 3 and it's pretty damn cool. I'll link to it when it's complete. That should be in 1-2 weeks.

Back to basics

2008-10-14T23:37:00.000-04:00

I thought I had left the blogging life behind. I guess I thought wrong. I was never terribly good at blogging but always wanted to express myself. I find myself to be far more eloquent in writing than I tend to be verbally. Perhaps it's the fact that I have time to compose my thoughts - though most of my writing is stream of consciousness anyway.

I've recently been intrigued by the idea of vlogging and I'm not terribly sure I'd be any better at it that than I am at blogging but, as I said before, it intrigued me. Maybe it's already past its prime, too popular, too mainstream. Who knows. Maybe I'll work up to it regardless of its social status in the public eye.

For now, I'll settle for blogging and attempting to make my life a bit more interesting so others may want to read about it. Come back soon and see how it turns out.