DarqByte

So the H1N1 flu is off running around the country, making people sick. I don’t think anybody at my work has gotten it yet, but some people have been out sick so I may be wrong on that.

In any case, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my health and the health of those around me. Specifically, diseases, illnesses and viruses. I’ve always felt very good about my immune system. When I was really young, I think I got sick more than your average child, and I had ear infections from here to kingdom come. But nowadays, I just don’t get sick much.

I get four sick days at work per year, and I tend to use all of them. I’ve never had to use two in a row, and usually the reason I’ll use a sick day is because I’m worried about getting my coworkers sick. When I get sick, it’s not very bad. The worst I’ve been in the last few years was food poisoning, and that’s not even a virus. I just don’t get hit hard at all, really. My concern is usually with spreading disease at work, so I’ll stay home to save my coworkers.

Whenever Laura gets sick, it’s worse than me. Usually she’ll get hit first, and I’m not entirely sure why. But she’ll get hit and it’ll be bad, and when I get it, it’s about half as bad and half as long. Sometimes she’ll get sick and I won’t. Hell, for nearly a week until very recently, I thought I was getting sick because my throat felt like it was on the early stages of a cold, but it never materialized and now my throat is back to normal. Maybe that wasn’t a virus, maybe my throat was just irritated at something, but you get the point.

Anyway, all of this immune system introspection has brought me to wonder why my immune system is strong despite my storied medical background. Honestly, I think it’s because I was exposed to all sorts of crap when I was a kid.

I got sick a lot as a kid, thus I was exposed to all sorts of viruses. Perhaps I’ve built up a tolerance as a result. I also got into all sorts of outdoors trouble when I lived in Clovis, New Mexico. I’d get cuts, I’d do all sorts of dumb crap, you name it. But one thing I’ve never been is a clean freak. I’ve never been totally afraid of getting a virus or sick.

When I was younger, Purell didn’t exist, but if it did, I still wouldn’t have used it. I don’t know. I don’t see the point, I’m not a germophobe. In fact, when I was younger, I never washed my hands when I used the restroom (I do now, thank you very much!). I think stuff like that contributed to my stronger immune system. I also think the fact that my family had a lot of pets over the years helped too.

So this bring me to my conclusion: I’m not going to over-worry about illness with my kids. Sure, I’ll take proper precautions and have them get their appropriate shots. But I’m not going to be a germophobe parent, because I think exposure to things here and there actually helps us when we get older.

I began my technological career with a job in technical support. I used to work for CSN (called CCSN back then, for Community College of Southern Nevada). I was a lab assistant, where I helped college students with their computer issues. Scanning a picture, email not loading, basically anything that a paying college student needed help with on the computers.

This is a similar start in tech support for just about any techie. Almost all of us have a job doing tech support at some point, and it’s usually one of the first jobs that a techie will have, since it’s an entry-level-type position.

I moved on from that job after about 2 1/2 years to start my first programming job. So I’d progressed in my career to doing what I really wanted to do, and I didn’t have to do tech support anymore. This made me very happy, as tech support isn’t something very many people enjoy. In fact, a lot of techies hate it. I’m now in my second programming job and have been programming for over 5 years professionally now, 9 years personally. I’m also pursuing my MBA.

So why do people still consider me their tech support? Most of the people these days that consider me their personal tech support never knew me in my lab assistant capacity, although Robert Silas (a friend of mine) first met me when I started as a lab assistant, and I still help him with computer things from time to time. I did earlier this week, actually. But he’s an exception because I’ve known him so long and have been helping him for years.

But seeing as most people that ask me for tech support these days never knew me back then, it stands to reason that they assume I’m good at tech support because I’m into computers and am a programmer. Fine, in my case, that’s a valid assumption. But it doesn’t always hold true. I’ve known plenty of computer-savvy people that weren’t good with the people side of tech support. And there are some programmers that really just aren’t very good at general tech support.

So this is starting to irritate me. I apologize if you feel that you, the reader, are the reason I’m posting this particular post on my blog, but this feeling has just been accumulating within me. I really don’t like the fact that friends and family will often just assume that if they have a computer issue, they can call me up whenever to ask me to look at the issue or run things by me in a call. Often, this advice I give is free, and sometimes the actual work on a computer I’ll do is free.

But do you really think that a professional programmer and MBA student wants to do tech support all of the time? I get paid well as a programmer and tech support does not pay nearly as well, especially since people come to me because they don’t want to go pay the outrageous fees that Geek Squad charges, which means they’re expecting me to cut them a deal. My time is worth money, and doing tech support is underpaying me for my time.

Really, what bothers me is people asking if I’m busy on any given night because they need tech support help. I had that asked of me today, actually. And yes, I am really damn busy today. Today is a mega-busy day for me. I have a doctor’s appointment, work, an MBA career services appointment, Julia’s birthday dinner and, depending on how long dinner goes, indoor soccer (unlikely, unfortunately). So yes, I’m busy tonight and cannot be at your beck and call to fix your computer issue, the third one you’ve had this year.

I’m not trying to come across as a jackass here, but I just want people to understand that techies get irritated at being asked for tech support all the time, especially if that’s not their professional field (like me), and especially if they’re busy. I’m curious to see what happens when I’m a technological manager someday (yes, I’m assuming it will happen, but hey, I will get my MBA!).

That’s like asking some manager at a GM plant to come over and work on your car. Seriously folks, that’s what that would be like.

In any case, I’m not averse to helping friends and family with tech support issues, especially not averse to helping family. Just don’t assume that I have all this free time lying around to help you get that virus off your computer, and don’t assume that I have to help you out of the goodness of my heart and get paid very little. It’s not fair to me.

[Update 1]

After a comment from Andrew, I need to amend this article. Well, really, just make sure to read the comments!

[Update 2]

Some people are confused as to what I’m talking about in this post. Don’t be alarmed! If you’re a totally cool person that appreciates any help I give you and tries to pay me back in some or other (even if it’s just, say, lunch), then I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about people that take advantage of the fact that they know me and that I know technology, yet never really offer me anything in return, despite repeatedly asking for help.

Really, I’m just irritated at people that use and abuse my kindness. Most people don’t.

I figured at this point I’d have something nice and meaningful to post about, such as the fact that I’ve completed the first two of five days of MBA orientation at UNLV. But Bar Louie has stolen the show, folks. And it wasn’t pretty.

Last night, Laura texted me to meet her and Julia at Bar Louie at 9:30 after I got out of orientation. So I headed on over there and we sauntered on in to the place once they got out of a movie at Rave they were watching.

At first, the hostess wasn’t sure where we would be sitting. She offered a booth and we accepted, but had to back out and ask if a table was ok. Not sure what was up with the whole booth thing. So anyway, we went and sat down at our table. All three of us pretty hungry. I hadn’t eaten since 11:30, so by the time we sat at the table at 9:25, it’d been 10 hours since my last meal. I had a couple of snacks during that time frame, but nothing substitutes for a full meal.

Very soon after we came in, a group of five ladies dressed for a night on the town (or, perhaps, a night at Town Square, which is where Bar Louie is) were seated at a table next to us. A couple was seated at another table on our other side.

Laura, Julia and I had sporadic conversation about various things to spend the time waiting to get our order in. Julia and I checked our iPhones for various reasons. I glanced at the TV a few times because they were talking about the ludicrous return of Brett Favre to the NFL.

Soon we realized it was 9:40 and we’d been sitting at our table for a full 15 minutes with absolutely no communication from any of the staff. We began to get more and more irritated and upset at the ignorance being thrust in our direction. By this time, one waiter had already spent a great deal of time at what we’ll call “the ladies table.”

We were speculating on whether or not we would just leave and go someplace else to eat, which in retrospect would have been a wise choice. Right as Julia and I were about to get up to walk out, Laura wanted to try to stay there since we were there for dollar burger night… A very, very cheap way to eat in Town Square if you’re there on a Tuesday anytime after 5pm.  A buck a burger and then added charges for whatever you put on it beyond the bun, patty and lettuce.

Laura got up and looked around for a server, waiter, bartender… Anybody. She didn’t end up traveling very far, because the waiter that was still at the ladies table had finally gotten up to go do something else. He started walking by ignoring us, but Laura got his attention and let him know that we’d been sitting for 20 minutes without anybody having done something so simple as take our drink order.

Very quickly, a different waiter came by our table, who’d also been working some of the other tables in the vicinity. Interestingly enough, he’d also been to the ladies table a couple of times. According to Julia, both of the two waiters that visited their table had flirted with them the majority of the time they were there. I can’t verify that because I wasn’t close enough to that table, but I 100% believe that. They were there for too long.

So he took our drink order and said he’d be back to take our dollar burger order soon. Laura and I are usually forgiving when it comes to bad service, so long as they appear to be striving for good service, so we both were giving him another shot to redeem himself. Although it didn’t help that we really didn’t get an apology from him when he came by. He said, mostly rushed and pretty quietly, “sorry, I must have not seen you walk in.”

And then we sat some more. For another 15 minutes we waited with just our drinks while our waiter tended to nearly every table but us. All we needed was for him to take the 10 seconds or less it would require to pick up our crayon-marked dollar burger orders. But no. He spent the majority of his time at the ladies table.

Now you might notice that I mentioned a couple being seated to the other side of our table from the ladies table. Well, pretty soon after we got our drinks and started waiting another 15 minutes for our food order to get picked up, the man at that table went up to the hostess and complained about the lack of service as well. I have no idea what he said, but he was obviously complaining, as they had been in Bar Louie a few minutes shorter than us and still hadn’t been seen the first time.

So 15 minutes later our waiter finally picks up our food order and we’re left to await the food. By this point, we’re expecting them to take another hour to prepare and deliver our food for consumption, or something close to that time frame. Really pissed off.

The food actually came quicker than we were expecting. Unfortunately, it was not without an issue. See, there were 2 add-ons in the burger menu that related to blue cheese. One was dressing, the other crumbles. I ordered dressing, which is 25 cents, as opposed to crumbles that were 50 cents. Yeah, they mixed it up. Because of the terrible service we’d had to that point, I did and at the same time, did not want to send it back. Who knows how long that could have taken to fix, let alone what they might have done to my burger in the meantime. Oh well, it was close enough to what I wanted.

We were pretty much ignored the rest of the time we were eating. Our drinks had all expired for quite some time by the time he came by to drop off the bill and asked if we wanted more to drink. By that point, none of us did. We just wanted to pay and get the hell out of there. He did continue to spend inordinately large amounts of time at the ladies table. He also visited the couple seated next to us about as often as he visited us.

The food wasn’t even that great. The burger wasn’t, at least. Since that was the only time I’ve been there, I’ve never had any other food. It might be better. For $1.50, my burger was worth the money, but it wasn’t anywhere near worth how pissed off I got over the whole situation. Average food, I’d dare say a little below the quality I was expecting from a place like that.

Laura and I are by nature good tippers, at least I think we are. We tend to tip in the 18-20% area if the service was good. If there was shaky service, we still tip around 15%. If the service left a lot to be desired, we end up in the 10%-15% area.

Last night, we left a 7% tip. That’s the lowest tip we’ve ever left on a bill. Julia left no tip at all. Laura also complained to the hostess about the issue. Looking back, we should have asked for a manager, because maybe then we would have gotten somewhere, but… What can you do.

I’ve had better service at Buffalo Wild Wings. BW3 is my prime example of a place that I always get bad service at. Well, not necessarily bad service, but severely lacking. We expect it and get it, save for the few times recently where they’ve picked things up a bit. Maybe they’ve noticed a deficiency and are taking steps to correct it. But the service issues at BW3 aren’t so bad that they can’t be overcome.

Bar Louie is completely dead to me. I will never eat there again. I know that many of you have had good experiences there, but maybe boycott them for awhile in my memory. Maybe someone from Bar Louie will contact me and profusely apologize, and actually be able to convince me that they’re sincere. Then we’ll consider them again in the future. But based on our experience last night… Never again. It was the single worst dining experience in my life.

Even worse than the time a waitress constantly reminded my table to tip her. At least she paid attention to us.

[Update]

I’ve gotten in touch with John Polizzi, who left his contact information here on my blog (which was removed in the publicly-posted comment). He’s offered to bring the three of us back in when it’s convenient for us so he can “show us what Bar Louie is all about.” So I’ll keep you all updated as things progress.

So at some point in Finding Nemo, Dory says “just keep swimming.” She says this in a way to keep Marlin pressing on to find his son. And in Meet the Robinsons, Lewis is quoted (sort-of) as saying “keep moving forward.” Sometimes, these two quotes are what I and many other people need to remember when things aren’t going as well as we’d like.

I’ve been trying to keep these quotes in mind lately. My MBA courses are fast approaching, so my life will be much more hectic soon and I’ll have to start picking and choosing what extra stuff I’ll do outside of work and classes. I’ve been trying to work here and there on OMGN, as well as in general relax here at home. I’ve also had additional work come in from different people I know and friends I have. I’ve apparently developed a decent network of contacts in regards to my professional career. I’ve just got to figure out how to budget time to still get my other ambitions dealt with while I take classes.

So I’m just trying to keep my eye on the prize here. The road may be long and tough, but I’ve just got to keep on swimming and pressing on. This applies to my career as a whole, not only to just taking classes to advance it. I’m at a point in my career where I feel like it’s time to make the next step and move up the ladder. At all of my jobs to date, I’ve never advanced beyond the “entry level” for my career path. That makes sense, as I haven’t really been in the general workforce for decades. I’ve had jobs for about 9 years now and I’ve been working as a professional developer for 5 years. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not very long.

But it doesn’t change the fact that I want this new challenge. I don’t think the opportunity at my current employer exists for me to move up. Part of it is probably this economy, but my employer recently restructured some people above me, and it looks like they’re trying to remove additional people at the tier just above me, the one I strive for. So I have no idea how I can continue to move up. But I’ll just keep on keeping on, because I feel I’m very valuable to them and I’m pretty sure they do indeed value me quite a bit. I think my boss appreciates all of the work I do, and I really like working with him and the people around me.

I’m pretty happy with where I’m at though. All things considered, I’m in a really good spot in my life. I’m just in one of those moods where I want more…

I just spent quite a lot of time on Facebook, trying to find old friends to connect to. I updated my profile and alll that jazz too. I’m trying to keep up on Facebook better than I did in the past. Oh, I also shut down my old MySpace profile, because I never used it or logged on to it.

In any case, I ended up coming across a bunch of people I was in high school band with. I ended up browsing through them long enough to find my old band teacher’s wife on Facebook. I couldn’t find him, but seeing her on there prompted me to find his contact information on the local school district’s website and shoot him an email. He was one of the most influential teachers I had in high school because he showed me that I could do anything, just as long as I put my mind to it and had confidence and faith in myself. Oh, and hard work too, haha.

Anyway, it ended up making me miss high school band, specifically marching band. Even though the practice hours were grueling, especially in the late fall at 5-6 in the morning, I loved it. It was so much fun to put that much work and effort into something and to come out and perform for audiences and compete against other bands in competitions. I suppose it didn’t hurt that we were a pretty good band, competing against bands much larger than ours and holding our own very well.

My old band teacher is now at arguably the best high school band in the city, if not the state. They play at high-profile events and competitions in the US and I ended up finding several accolades they have won since he moved over to that band. It appears they have two directors, including him, but I’m sure he’s had a hand in their success. It makes me happy because I’ve always thought so well of him.

Anyway, I think I should go to bed. But it’s nice I had some time this evening to catch up with old friends, read blogs and post here. Only three weeks left before I obliterate any free time I had by starting on my MBA…

Hey look, I’m still alive! Whodathunkit after so few updates over such a long time span. Sure looks bad compared to the times I was able to get in 3-4 posts a week, huh…

Basically I’ve been really busy. Obviously. I’ve had all kinds of things going on, such as work, studying for and taking the GMAT, applying for UNLV’s business school… I’ve also taken on a smaller side project with my friend Andrew, getting some of my creative PHP juices going to make a little extra cash on the side. More money is always nice.

I’ve also had a lot of extracurricular activity going on lately. I’ve had knee appointments, dentist appointments… Lunches with Julia (who finally joined Twitter). Indeedy.

Really, I’ve got something interesting to post about today. The other day a good buddy of mine told me that Laura looks really hot now. Well, she does. She always has been hot to me. But he was mostly referencing her weight loss, which now stands somewhere over 20. I think closer to 25 pounds, but I’m not really sure.

This got me to thinking about how awful men have it when their ladies start losing weight… And before I proceed yes, I know I’m leaving out anything besides heterosexual relationships, but it’s just easier to talk about it this way and it’s a classic example. But yes, men really have it awful.

What the hell is a man to say when his woman is losing weight? It’s a catch-22. There isn’t anything you can say that will be 100% solid.

You’re hotter than before. The response to this is “What, was I not hot enough before? Was I not good enough for you?” Whoops.

You look just as great as before. The response: “None of this weight loss has made any effect? I’m still dumpy?!”

You’ve always been hot to me. The response… Well, I can’t think of a specific response to this, but it could be perceived that you never tell the truth about your spouse’s attraction level. But I think this is the best response out of the three.

So basically, all I’ve been saying to Laura this whole time is yes, she’s hot. Her weight loss does look good but it’s for her, not me. I’ve always been happy with her however she wants to be and am not dissatisfied. Now if I could just figure out what the hell to say…

Oh, on a side note. My weight loss hit a big plateau at about the 190-192 range for over a month, but I believe I’ve finally broken through that barrier because I’ve finally ducked under 190. Hopefully I’ll be posting about my next milestone, 185, here very soon.

I do plan on posting about a variety of subjects soon, so here’s a list that will hopefully keep me on track:

• San Francisco
• Chase Auto Finance issues
• MIT Sloan??
• Perceptions of programming
• Deconstructing arguments & conversation
• Computer building

Alright, so this congressman wants to limit the times of day that erectile dysfunction ads can be broadcast, so that they cannot be on the air from 6am to 10pm. Read about it here.

This is stupid. Sure, the commercials are mildly embarrassing, and little kids probably shouldn’t see them. But this is overprotecting our kids. Pharmaceutical companies have a right to advertise their products just like anybody else. Honestly, if we start banning ED commercials, then you know what I want to see? I want to see tampon and pad commercials banned.

That’s right. I said it. Men everywhere probably feel it too. Those damn ads for Tampax tampons or friggin’ pads for women’s periods. We don’t want to see those stupid ads either, and I’m sure little kids don’t need to be seeing those too. So why stop at banning ED ads during certain times of day? A ban like that should be extended to feminine products.

Oh, this one time, I saw a friggin’ commercial for a douche. Fucking serious! A damn douche! You think men everywhere want to see that? Fuck no! Just like women don’t want to see cheesy ED commercials, men definitely don’t want to watch these lame commercials where some woman has this stupid grin on her face, followed by an animation of some tampon that soaks up bodily fluids using high-tech channels, or some shit.

Just stupid. Ban one, ban ‘em all, I say. Oh, and I apologize for the profanity in this post. I don’t normally curse here on my blog, but it felt appropriate and I think conveyed the tone I wanted to. See, there’s a method to my madness.

[Edit]

You did get that I’m semi-joking around here, right? Right? But seriously. This is one ban that shouldn’t be enforced…

Yes, the title is ominous, as it should be. But no, this has nothing to do with religion.

Very recently, a good friend of mine lost faith in their profession. At least, this is the best way I can put this. And it’s not me, so this whole “friend of mine” is not a euphemism for myself. I haven’t lost faith in my profession.

In any case, I had a long discussion with them regarding this. They’ve been a pretty idealistic person for much of their life, as they try to see the good in things and always give people the benefit of the doubt. They believe(d) in their profession and all the good that it could do.

Unfortunately, all of that recently came crashing down. For a lot of their life they’ve had somebody to look up to either personally or professionally. For example, there are plenty of people that IT people look up to, and they’re not named Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer or Michael Dell. People like Miguel de Icaza come to mind there.

Sadly, pretty much everybody that outranks my friend has come crashing down to Earth. At least ethically. The high standards and ideals that my friend has set for their profession haven’t been met by anybody but themselves. They’ve reached the point where they are the only person to achieve that pinnacle of hard work, dedication, ethical conduct and excellent production and output. There’s nobody else. Just them.

That really hit my friend hard, and it shocked me too. I always thought that their profession was just chuck-filled with people worth of being looked up to. But maybe not. Apparently not, given how things are shaking out.

I mean, what do you do? What do you do when you’re the hardest worker? When nobody else is as ethical about your job as you? When nobody else cares, when you want guidance and there’s nobody else better than you to give you that guidance? What do you do if you’re in that position and you’re not the top dog? When everybody above you is either incompetent or just doesn’t care?

I can honestly say I’m very happy this has not happened to me. It’s got to be a total system shock, having your faith in your profession crushed and wondering where to go with your career and life. Sure, I’ve dealt with dumbasses and idiots in my career, but there have always been people I’ve been around that hold themselves to that higher standard and actually achieve, rather than fall. I sure hope that if I ever reach the pinnacle and find myself alone, that I’ve reached the top and don’t ever need guidance again. I can’t imagine that feeling.

As many of you are likely aware, I have designs on advancing my career past where I’m at now (i.e. this post, here, this one and yet another). I think the next few weeks, perhaps even months, may go a long way to determining if that is possible.

I currently work in a 3-man development team. PHP software development. It’s fun stuff, especially since my team is totally awesome, easy to get along with, hilarious… Etc. It’s me and another developer and our lead developer. Three guys.

We’ve been pretty tight on a lot of our development since the other developer joined the team (I have more seniority than he does). We’re rarely ever bored with nothing to do and occasionally we have so much to do that we’re unsure if we’ll have to start deploying overtime work.

Well… He’s leaving. My coworker got a really nice job offer from somewhere else in town that is giving him the position he covets, a Software Architect position for PHP. I’m happy for him, but at the same time, I’m going to miss having him around here, and am slightly worried about life after he’s gone.

Don’t get me wrong. I know I can handle all of the systems and things he did when he was here. His coding style and object-oriented-ness is at least on par with me, in some aspects above me. But I know I can handle all of it and learn everything he did (see this post I already referenced…).

I’m just worried about being able to keep up. It’s like I said, we were pretty tight since he’s been here, and in two Mondays from now, we’ll open up the day without him as an employee for the first time in over a year and a half.

That is the point where I’ll basically be responsible for all of our code and systems. If you read the previous post I already referenced now three times, you’ll see that there is indeed a division of labor and types of responsibilities between me and my lead, so it’s not like all of a sudden I’ll be a lead. But I’ll be the go-to guy for coding the systems, for administering certain things of the systems.

This means I will finally be the man as far as all of our code goes. I’ll be directly responsible for nearly 100% of all of our deployed code and systems. This was the case when I first started here, before they started up the system that my soon-to-be-former coworker currently works on. When they started that one they handed it off to my coworker-at-the-time and he handed it off to my aforementioned soon-to-be-former coworker. Never have I really been responsible for it (and yes, all of that hyphenation was fun).

So this is my chance to really, really shine. To be the f’ing man around here. It’s an exciting prospect and opportunity, really, to have this much responsibility. I mean, I’ve always had a decent level of responsibility around here, but this takes the cake.

So I’m hoping that this reflects really well on me. I know that eventually we’ll have other developers join the team and I’ll no longer have to handle nearly everything as far as the code goes, but I’m really hoping that the higher-ups see the good job I’ll have done by that point and consider me for positions above my current code monkey status. That would rock.

So we’ll see what the future brings!

Laura’s got a great post on her blog about pushing yourself despite mediocrity surrounding you. Go push her! Push my wife! Haha…

By the way, look here for an update later today (well, hopefully) regarding a garden and a sand “pit” making an appearance at my house.