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old news
[2010-03-20] - i didn't think i was going to be able to afford to go to fasnacht
this year but, at the last minute, my company distributed bonuses, so i was
happily able to go after all. i literally had to buy the airfare and fly
out later the same day! maybe it was because of this circumstance, but
this year seemed particularly great to me; i had an absolutely smashing time,
thanks as always to the gracious hospitality and splendid company of brigitte,
fabienne and ralph.
and: i'm finally moving out of lowell (w00t!). it took some searching, but
i finally found a nice two-bedroom place about a mile and a half from where i
work - no more brutal commute! the rent is only slightly more than what
i've been paying for my current place so, when i factor in the savings from the
gasoline i won't be buying any more, i'll actually end up making money on the
deal! i'm looking forward to buying proper furniture and everything, and i
hope some of you slackwads will come and visit me when i get all set up.
8-)
[2010-02-07] - i keep repeating to myself, "my father is dead. my father
is dead." but i just can't get it to mean anything to me. we
didn't get along (now that he's gone, i'll be writing about that soon); we never
spoke. it's just weird - what ought to (and should by right, in a
functional family) be a major, devastating milestone, but i'm just empty.
[2009-11-26] - let's see; since my last update:
the bass: well, i tried for about three hours to get a decent photograph of it,
but my crappy little snapshot camera just doesn't seem capable of producing a
half decent photograph. of anything. but! - and this is
pretty nifty - it's shown on the pedulla
website, the reason being - and this is really nifty - it's the model
for a new feature that i personally developed with mike pedulla! here's
the story (and i'll try to keep it short): we bassists who play "fingerstyle"
generally anchor our thumbs on the top edges of the pickups. on a
two-pickup instrument (the most common configuration), there's a big gap between
the pickups. for literally decades, i've wished that i could rest my thumb
anywhere in that gap area, because the tension (or excursion, if you prefer) of
the string changes depending on where you play it, and so does the tone.
one day, when i had my other pedulla basses in mike's shop for some minor
maintenance, i got to talking with him about my idea and, somewhat to my
surprise, he agreed that it sounded like a reasonable idea, and he agreed to
build me a new bass with a raised block of wood between the two pickups!
well, it came out great; i love the new bass, and mike decided to offer the new
feature as an option on all his instruments! he named it the "finger ramp"
and, since my bass is the first to have it, he took some photos of it for his
website. so! without further ado: photo 1 (it's the green
one) photo
2 (my bassist readers will also notice the unusually heavy strings;
the instrument is tuned B-E-A-D rather than E-A-D-G.)
the new car: one day, when i had my jeep in the shop
for some minor maintenance (hmm, i just noticed that coincidence, actually;
things seem to happen when i go places for maintenance), i was killing time
wandering around the dealership lot and, as you know, one can't wander around a
dealership lot for more than about four seconds before being accosted by a
salesman (it reminds me very much of a falconry display - the little bird is
chirping happily along and suddenly BAM - you're lunch!). well, i
got to chatting with the fellow, who was actually a very nice chap and not pushy
at all and, as it turned out, they had a couple leftover 2009s around with very
nice incentives so i got one. why would i replace a jeep with a jeep, you
ask? stop interrupting! i was getting to that. the new one is
the four-door "unlimited" model, which has a lot more cargo room in the back;
it's more like the old isuzu troopers i used to drive back in the day. it
also has the advantage that the back seat folds flat, rather than having to be
removed and stored in my apartment. it was always a struggle to get my
bass rig into the back of the old jeep - every dimension in the back was one
inch too short - so i've actually been wishing for the extra cargo space for
quite some time, and this was the perfect opportunity.
[2009-09-05] - autumn is suddenly already in the air, and that makes me very
happy indeed - it's far and away my favorite season and the transition from
summer (my least favorite) always makes me feel more alert, healthy, energetic
and just generally alive.
i marked the end of summer with a week's vacation at frank's house in new
jersey, which was good fun. played music with vince, rey and rick (and
jay!), went to a ren fair with frank, gina, vince and barbara, played lots of
bad tennis with frank and vince, floated in frank's pool, drank heroic amounts
of beer and waxed philosophical late into the night around the fire. we
solved all the problems of the world from the A-Bomb to the Anti-Baby Pill.
king's x were unbelieveable, tremendously inspiring, and great big sea were lots
of fun. lots more great shows coming up still, as well.
my new pedulla bass is ready! i'm
going to pick it up next tuesday; photos and a little writeup will follow
shortly. (i hope to do the same for all my instruments eventually.)
[2009/06/20] - not really much to report; just a brief post in the name of good
form.
the new job is no longer new, but it's still great - in fact, it keeps getting
better. was a long time coming, and i'm gonna be holding on to this one.
as both of you already know, i've been playing the bass again for a little over
a year now, and i've gotten my chops back to the point where i'm tentatively
striking out in search of others to play with. it's very, very difficult
because, of all the "musicians
available" listings, 90% of them aren't for bassists, 90% of those that are
are from shitheads who can't properly be called musicians, and 90% of the few
that remain are for styles of music outside my interests, leaving maybe two or
three useful listings per month, and only then do you get to contend with
logistics and personal chemistry... i probably ought to have chosen an
instrument which lent itself to solo performance, all those years ago, but i
guess it's a bit late for that now - it's taken me thirty years not to suck at
this one!
other highlights since my last post:
lots of other great shows coming up, too; ian anderson, mediaeval baebes, king's x, porcupine tree, holdsworth (as
mentioned)... i've started tracking them all by first checking the
artists' websites and then noting the dates on my google calendar - very handy. if
you have one too, you're welcome to link to mine (p3t3.net at gmail.com), to see
what i'm up to, and i'd like to link to yours as well.
[2008/10/31] - right; let's see, what's happened since last time?
oh, first off, for technical reasons beyond my control, the domain has undergone
a period of instability, resulting in my website and email being offline.
as a result, i've gotten my very own server for the first time ever (the domain
has previously been hosted by an extraordinarily great bass-playing unix-head
[almost shocking how many people in my life meet that description!] called matt;
the hosting meltdown was beyond his control, too), which means that i'm finally
in complete control of everything there. this may or may not mean:
frequent outages due to my incompetence, the realization of the sister domain
which will end in ch instead of net, an irc server (i already run one on my
home network [accessible {via dyndns <wow, trebly-nested parentheses!>} at
pete.homeunix.net on port 1337], but this would be somehow more official), a
proper blog with a cms like maybe
wordpress or drupal, and generally more *stuff*.
the new job seems to be going well; i'm doing about one third as much work and
getting paid about 25% more than i used to get at the old job, *and* they treat
people like human beings rather than serfs here. i still have a couple
weeks to go to get past the 90-day mark, but i feel fairly comfortable about
things at this point.
there have been a couple good trips to new jersey since i last wrote, just for
visiting with friends and family. i'm a tough character to please,
apparently, as there aren't too many things in life that make me happy, but
foremost among these is the company of friends; consequently, i've come to the
position that all the time and effort and expense of traveling to spend time
with them is well worthwhile in the end, and i've been doing exactly that.
between playing with vince and the guys, philosophizing with frank and those
other guys, heckling john's band and
messing up the towels at john & jeannie's, and parading with brigitte & ralph
and *those* folks, i can't think of much else i could ask for in life.
as for the near future: i'll be back in new jersey on december 10th to see karan casey - that'll be great. i
recently went through *every single bookmark* i have for bands and musicians, to
see who's touring, and i discovered that like 85% of musicians i like are
touring everywhere *except* the usa(!) i'll skip the rant; you all have
heard it from me enough times before - draw your own conclusions. at least
i'll (finally) get to see symphony x.
[2008/08/14] - so a few weeks ago, the BS at work got to be too much, and i
quit. it's a bad habit that i really do need to break myself of; i know
that. it's just that i really do kill myself trying to do good work and
earn a good reputation, so when i get shit on anyway, my sense of justice is so
offended that i really feel i'm left no choice.
the universe apparently wasn't paying attention this time, though, because i
actually caught a break: ten days (counting two weekends!) after i left the old
place, i interviewed for a new job, and they made me an offer two days
later. a really nice offer. from eighteen candidates.
it seems like it's going to be good - a team of four guys supporting about fifty
servers (as opposed to 4:500+), development systems (as opposed to live
production - no more oh-two-hundred phone calls), a positive, supportive
environment with an emphasis on correctness (as opposed to a nonstop
headless-chicken firefighting brigade), a budget for equipment (actual
servers - from this century - as opposed to antique, ebay-bought PCs) as
well as training (they plan to send me to at least two courses this year alone,
as opposed to the last place, where i paid my own way to redhat certification),
and so on. i could go on, but these are the highlights, and i'm sure you
get the idea.
just a little story by way of illustration, though: today was my first
day. i was issued a laptop. now, the way these places usually work,
one simply can't escape microsoft: regardless of what the actual job is, the
need to be able to access corporate email and documents ties us to microsoft,
like millstones around our necks with pictures of albatrosses inscribed upon
them. so: they give me this (windows) laptop, and they ask if there's
anything else - i say, "well, actually, i feel much more comfortable and
productive administering unix from a native unix system, rather than from
windows-based compatibility tools..." about eight seconds later, one of
the guys is handing me a brand new high-spec PC to do with as i please.
are you kidding me!? at the last place, i literally had to buy my own
equipment and bring it in from home! so, yeah; i'm pretty
excited. 8-D
p.s. and yes, in case it wasn't obvious, about another six minutes later, i was
up and running with openbsd, because that's
about how long it takes to install a real operating system...
8-)
[2008/05/05] - cinco de sucko. the reason i haven't written is that i've
been under duress. things have been badly screwed up for a long time,
waiting for resolution one way or another. i don't like to write when i'm
miserable, and i didn't want to write about this in the event that it went the
other way, but it didn't, and now i can write about it.
i've broken up with the woman i'd been seeing. last summer, i discovered
that she'd been keeping secrets from me. i don't have a problem with
polyamory - i believe in open relationships - but what i did, and do, and always
will have a problem with is dishonesty. she knew all this; we'd discussed
it, of course.
after loads of agonizing and soul searching, i was torn about what to do.
i decided to err on the side of compassion, and so i gave her and the
relationship a second chance.
since then, though, it hasn't been the same. having been betrayed so many
times over the years, i've learned that trust, once broken, can never be
un-broken, and without trust, the feelings were gone. finally, i've faced
up to it and ended it.
i know
it's my own fault. it's my own fault for behaving irrationally; i
let myself be seduced by the illusion of "love at first sight," and now i'm
paying the price for that suspension of reason. i trust too easily; it's
been the motif of all my romantic relationships. in the struggle to strike
a balance between falling in love too easily and being overly guarded, i've
always erred on the side of good faith rather than on the side of good sense,
and i've paid for it every single time. i guess i am naive. either
that or i have a predisposition to choose lying whores? if so, i haven't
yet learned to spot the markers. or perhaps there's something about me
that makes women want to cheat on me and lie to me, something about me
that somehow elicits this behavior? i don't know. it's a
blind spot i have about myself; whatever character flaw of mine leads to this is
probably glaringly obvious to everyone except me. all i know is that i'm
hurt, i'm lonely, i'm angry - but i can write again.
[2007/09/03] - life proceeds apace. i went to england again in early july,
and The Woman and i hopped over to basel for a weekend for ralph's 40th birthday
celebration, which was a hell of a good time. good people, good
conversation, good places, good food, good beer, good times. noteworthy
was our hotel, directly on the bank of
the rhein - i'll definitely be staying there again if and when the opportunity
arises.
at the end of august, The Woman and The Sprogs came over to my place for a
week's holiday. we went to new jersey for a few days' r&r encompassing
wallowing in frank's pool, dressing up for a renaissance festival (i loved the
delicious irony of their coming from england to go to a ren fair) and gorging on
vince's world-famous burritos. back in boston, we went whale-watching and
they went on a duck tour; during
their stay in the states, we also caused a brief spike in the revenues of the "international" house of pancakes. thanks
in no small measure to the gracious hospitality extended by my mom (who made us
at home in her house) and frank and gina (who entertained us at theirs), a truly
grand time was had by all.
now that that's done, i'll be starting to look for work in england. it's
almost a full year (!) since The Woman and i met, and we've decided we'd like
to lose the "long-distance" aspect of our relationship.
[2007/06/03] - the last month has been mostly unremarkable, but since i'm
pledged to update regularly, here goes nothing.
the one point of (slight) personal interest was that i finally went to canada,
after all these long years. strange that i've spent so much time in
europe, but never got to canada before now. it was a business trip to
toronto, so i didn't have too much time for sightseeing, but what i did see i
liked - to the extent that i ever like cities (those who know me know
that i tend rather toward the rural, the pastoral, the bucolic; population
density and its attendant filth aren't for me [and zürich doesn't count,
being, as it is, the very corporeal incarnation of heaven on earth]).
funnily enough, i have to return within a week or two (business again), and
then, on my next trip to england to visit The Woman (who reports approval of
that sobriquet) at the beginning of july, i'll have to change planes in toronto,
so i'll end up having gone there three times within six weeks.
the england trip will also encompass a weekend jaunt to basel for the occasion
of ralph's 40th birthday; i'm very much looking forward to that, for many
reasons, as you, dear reader, can well imagine. my next update here will
likely be after that trip, and will therefore be a bit more interesting than
this one. sorry about that! (quoting allan holdsworth, one of the
greatest musicians of all time, who frequently apologizes for his performances,
feeling that he hasn't achieved what he was capable of - humility in the
extreme! but i digress...)
but probably the best thing that's happened in the past month is that one of my
closest friends' daughters has announced her marriage - as close as i am to the
family, i feel almost as though she's a sister, and i'm completely thrilled for
her. all my love and best wishes! (you know who you are!)
[2007/04/29] - holy cats, half a year to the day since my last entry here.
i promise to do these more often - the original idea was to update once a month,
and i'll try to get back to that.
since that last entry, i've been to england twice and she's been to the states
once; things are going perfectly between us, i'm pleased to report. my
next visit will be in early july, which trip will also encompass a jaunt to
basel for ralph's 40th birthday celebration.
otherwise: work's kept me very busy; especially hectic were the months before
the latest daylight saving time change - hundreds of systems, of all different
sorts, needed to be patched, and most of them had to be done out of hours, which
meant no weekends for me for quite some time (which is part of the reason it's
been so long since my last update!). it's grueling at times, but after
those lean years in switzerland, i swore i would never complain about work
again, and i won't - that was a very harsh lesson, and i'll not forget it so
quickly. i just had a truly outstanding review and got a very nice raise
as a result, so that helps to balance things out.
rush have a new album coming out, a rare event these days. even though i
haven't cared much for the stuff they've been doing these past 15 years or so, i
still can't help getting a bit excited when they put out a new one. The
Woman (i'm going to have to come up with some sort of pseudonym for her; i use
the present one with sherlock holmes in mind, but i'll have to come up with a
better one) secured tickets for a rush concert in manchester in october, so
that'll be fun. as i said last time i saw them (in glasgow), even if their
recent material isn't stellar, it's still great to hear the older tunes, and
they do put on an entertaining show. especially the LIGHT SHOW,
PATRICK! 8-P
[2006/10/29] - advance notice: my 50th birthday will be in five (5) years
(assuming i live that long), and the party will be in switzerland. pencil
it on your calendars now.
all righty then! my recent trip to the british isles was truly excellent,
in many ways and for many reasons. it was really great to see craig and
maxine again; they made me feel truly at home and comfortable, and i had an
excellent time with them. also, their part of england is a lot
nicer than swindon - when i left there, i hoped never to see england again, but
on this trip i surprised myself by feeling nostalgic about it on a few
occasions; it actually felt like home to me. (you can read more
about it and see a few pictures on my web page about
it.)
ireland was sort of a ...complex experience for
me. it was simultaneously harsh and beautiful, idyllic and cathartic,
pastoral and brutal. i was in a place called inis meáin, one
of three small islands in galway bay. i chose it because it was isolated
and remote because, after my summer of working every weekend, i felt i needed to
get as far from computers and cell phones as possible; i wanted to be
unreachable, to disappear for a few days, just to decompress and rest. in
a sense, i didn't want to go there, i needed to go there, as an
act of self-preservation... it was very beautiful, and restful, and
exactly what i'd expected and needed, but i think it takes a certain kind of
person, an ascetic personality, to appreciate that sort of rugged and spartan
existence, and i wouldn't recommend it generally.
the very highest point of the entire trip, though, was meeting a girl. as
regular readers of this site will already know, she and i met at maxine's party,
and (irrational as it may sound) fell in love at first sight.
unfortunately, she was there with her boyfriend... doh! well, that
was all that stopped us from running off together, but we did spend several
hours talking with each other, enjoying each others' company. at the time,
though, since she was involved, i thought i'd never see her again...
...but when i returned to civilization from my self-imposed exile on inis
meáin, i found email waiting for me from her: she'd felt as strongly
about the experience as i had, and wanted to remain in contact with me, and
she'd already left the guy she'd been dating... needless to say, i was
blown away and overjoyed... since then, we've been in frequent contact,
and we're planning trips to visit each other. i haven't been this happy in
years... 8-)
"i don't believe in destiny
or the guiding hand of fate
i don't believe in forever
or love as a mystical state
i don't believe in the stars or the planets
or angels watching from above
but i believe there's a ghost of a chance
we can find someone to love
and make it last..."
- neil peart, "ghost of a chance"
"ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing,
only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
so on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
only a look and a voice;
then darkness again and a silence."
- longfellow
[2006/09/17] - here in england again. on holiday, this time; much nicer
than swindon. taking notes and photos; will put together a page about it
shortly. that's not why i'm writing, though; there's something i want to
record and remember...
i fell in love yesterday. it happened in the time it takes for eyes to
meet across a crowd of people. instant recognition of a soul-mate you've
never met before. talked with her, of course - how could i not... ...it
wasn't just me; she felt the same way.
she wasn't alone, though (if she had been, the story would be unfolding right
now, and i wouldn't have time to write this...). all we could do is talk,
which we did all night long, and then go off back to our separate lives...
what choice is there?
so i'll go on, thinking of her, wishing i could have gotten to know her,
imagining what might have been. we only had a few hours together, but
she's part of me now, and i of her, and i will never be the same.
[2006/07/01] - finally, i have a minute to write. i've been insanely busy
since my last entry. i've:
- found a new apartment in lowell, massachusetts;
- vacationed in switzerland, including fasnacht (there are pictures, but it
may be a while before i have time to assemble a web page);
- moved into the aforementioned new apartment, over the course of several jeep
trips between massachusetts and new jersey (as well as a couple trips to
ikea);
- been working like a wild animal ever since;
- endured an evacuation from the aforementioned new apartment, due to flooding
(there ended up being no damage to my building, but many homes in town were
ruined);
- been brainwashed by aliens such that i purchased a cell phone;
- did i mention i've been working like a madman?
the new job is great. i'm finally doing real admin work, which is what
i've been aspiring to these past several years. the company (or at least
my division of it) is pretty cool, too; good people and a generally positive
environment. a real contrast to clueless & witless.
my apartment is cool (when i'm not being evacuated) - it's in a renovated old
mill building, and it has really high ceilings and huge windows with deep
sills. the town it's in (lowell), however, leaves rather a lot to be
desired; it's kind of run down, the traffic is just atrocious, and there's not
much going on here. as much as i'm working, though, it will do for the
time being; i'll reassess the situation when my year's lease is up.
[2006/01/31] - well then! another update, and so soon after the last one!
a few days ago as i write, a sysadmin position - in boston - opened up within my
company. when i heard about it, i immediately thought how cool it would
be to be able to take it, but i figured the company wouldn't want to wait as
long as it would take me to arrange to move. to my surprise, though, when
i ran it by them, they were quite happy to consider me; in fact, they seem
really happy to have me, and they're willing to give me the time i'll need to
get myself set up up there. it's not certain yet; i still have to
interview with my new boss's boss, but i've met him before, and he's a very
reasonable and easygoing guy, and he seems to like me well enough, so it's
pretty likely that i'll get the green light. (update 02/02: the interview
went well; boston is a confirmed go.)
i'm thrilled about the prospect of doing admin work; operations/application
support holds no interest for me, and the skills involved are largely not
transferrable. the lower-level sysadmin skillset, by contrast,
is. the environment is heterogenous, but unix is by far the
dominant presence, which means any windows stuff i have to deal with will be
minimal (which those who know me understand is a big plus for me, knowing how
much i dislike windows and microsoft). it'll also be great for my
education; i'll get to work around a lot of "big iron," and the guys i'll be
working with are very sharp and knowledgeable, so it'll be a great "classroom"
and some great teachers.
boston will also be a big improvement. i lived there briefly in the winter
of 1990 (i think it was); i liked it a lot, but (it was during the economic
recession of george bush I) couldn't find a job at the time and was forced to
move back to new jersey after only half a year or so. i'm not terribly
well-traveled, but of the places i have been, boston is my favorite
american city. plenty of culture, a strong music scene, an educated and
liberal populace, and a proper winter, in range of the whites,
adirondacks, appalachians, and
catskills - yeah, i could
handle that! 8-)
[2006/01/31] - i haven't really all that much to report, but it's been so long
since my last entry that i thought i'd better say at least a little something.
i'm going to switzerland 1-11 march. the trip is timed to coincide with fasnacht (you may recall i've been before). i'm looking forward to that very
much indeed, as you might imagine. it will be great to see my family and
friends again, and also just to be in switzerland, of course (my own personal narnia).
my job is - like most jobs, of course - a balance of good stuff and crappy
stuff; the thing with this particular job is that the good stuff is
really good, and the crappy stuff is really crappy. most of
the good has to do with the schedule; working three twelve-hour shifts per week
and having the other four days off suits me very well indeed, plus i get three
weeks' vacation a year, which is almost unheard of in the usa. the crappy
aspects mostly have to do with atrociously badly designed (and undocumented!)
software (which it's my job to oversee), absentee management (as in, "hands-off
to the point of anarchy") and stinginess (our equipment is junk, and antiquated
to boot). the salary and benefits are mediocre at best; it's true, though,
as one of my co-workers says, that in bush's usa (may he slowly be fed through a
wood chipper), we're lucky to have any jobs at all.
the absence of snow here at this time of year is really disheartening to
me. "winter" used to mean something here in new jersey; the fact that i've
witnessed such drastic ecological changes in my own lifetime is simply
horrific. such changes ought to be effected in geological time, not
human time. sadly, we humans are imbeciles as a species, and
we americans are the worst; i've no doubt it will take disaster of unimaginable
proportions before any change in human behavior comes about. the mindless
maws and bellies of the masses won't change their feeding habits until they're
forced to. i'll leave the possible disaster scenarios as an
exercise for the reader; i'm upset enough over this already.
[2005/08] - been very busy with work; severe understaffing has meant lots of
overtime. which is ok; after the past few years of unemployment, it's damn
good to be working again. it's also allowed me to deploy the pete-mobile
mark II - another new jeep wrangler, of course (pictures to follow
shortly). the job is, well, a job; nothing special, but not too bad, and
it does bring in the income, also welcome after four years of
poverty. i am keeping my eyes open, though, particularly for anything
which might come up in virginia, as a recent trip there to visit a couple of my
best friends reminded me how much more i like the place than new jersey.
[2005/05] - and so my assertion is proven correct: it's much easier to find a
job in the usa than it was in england or switzerland. no irrelevant
formalities - "how do you explain this gap in your employment history?" "how can
we possibly hire you when you haven't worked in this country before?" "when you
were five years old, what was your dog's name?" - just "can you do this
job?" a lesson the inflexible swiss employment system might benefit
from.
the new place deals with supplying market
data to financiers. my responsibility will be to ensure the validity of
that data and to keep it flowing. it seems like it will be fun, and the
guys i've met with whom i'll be working seem like a good bunch. oh, and,
like c&w, it's shift work (which i like; it helps prevent the job from feeling
monotonous and routine), which will allow me week-long intervals of time off
every couple months or so, in addition to regular vacation. this will
allow me to do a bit of traveling here and there, as i'd hoped to do before; all
that has changed is my departure point. so, if you're reading this - see
you soon! 8-)
[2005/04] - back in the ussa. f*** england; good to see the back of it.
as i expected, it's great to be among old friends and family, and eat some
decent chow again. more than that, it's great to feel some sense of
belonging, if not to the "culture," at least to this circle of good
people; no more social deprivation.
the aforementioned fine folks (you know who you are!) have seen to it that i've
been regaled most heartily in the past couple weeks with fine food, wine, and
entertainment of every description (including spending this past weekend at
baltimore harbor for the premiere of
frank and gina's movie,
which is amazingly cool), and there is (thankfully) much more yet to do before
i'm caught up! 8-D
i've got my stuff unpacked and some internet set up at the house, so once again
it's job search time. send me job offers or, at least, wish me
luck. 8-)
[2005/03] - at last, the arrangements have been finalized; i'll be flying back
to the usa on the 28th of this month.
i'm glad of it. when i had to leave switzerland, the blow was softened by
the thought that at least i could stay in europe; i felt that england was still
90% of the way to my goal, and that i wasn't really losing that much
ground... over the intervening year, of course, i've come to realize that
england is much more like the usa than it is like europe; in reality, i left
europe when i left switzerland. to be blunt, england sucks, for a
multitude of reasons; i have no use for it, and i hope never to see it again.
that said, though, i must also temper that sentiment with the admission that my
time here has served a purpose: the experience has allowed me to adjust
gradually, in increments, to my return to english-speaking "culture" (for i now
think of all english-speaking countries as minor variations on a theme, without
significant differences), a process i think of as analogous to the gradual
decompression of a deep-sea diver in a hyperbaric chamber which spares him the
shock of the sudden transition from one environment to another.
i'll never again think of the usa as home, but it will be good to be among
family and friends, eat decent food and have a bank account.
[2004/11] - well, then. bush reelected. quoting tbogg:
"four more years of american soldiers being used as cannon fodder.
"four more years of scientific decisions being made by people who believe in
a ghost in the clouds.
"four more years of debt that our children and grandchildren will have to
pay off.
"four more years of racists and lunatics for judicial appointments.
"four more years of looting the treasury and squandering it on corporate
cronies.
"four more years of making enemies faster than we can kill them.
"four more years of fear and darkness and racism and hatred and stupidity
and guns and bad country music.
"i look at the big map and all of the red in flyover country and i feel like
i've been locked in a room with the slow learners. we have become the
country that pulls a dry cleaning bag over its head to play astronaut."
----------
more bad news: the job i had here was the worst i ever had in my life,
liquor stores and burger joints included, so i've quit. it was so bad
that it made going back to land surveying in new jersey in a
bush-regime-controlled america look good by comparison. you'll just have
to take my word for it; if you feel the urge to second-guess me, just
don't. seriously.
i'll be heading back to the states in a few weeks, i guess; probably after
the Holy Day season, so as to avoid the higher plane fares. i will
be looking for another job here, but it's a thousand-to-one shot, and i'm not
holding my breath.
[2004/09] - wow. it's been a hell of a fun few weeks since the last time
i posted (and that's why it's been so long since i've posted!) - where
to begin?
at the end of august, dave and i went to zürich for a week and a
half. the ostensive purpose of the trip was to attend
sucon (the swiss unix conference),
but, of course, that was just my excuse for hanging out in switzerland for a
few days. the weather was perfect the entire time we were there, which
gave me ample opportunities for swimming in lake zürich; i got to visit
both my excellent cousins; i was able to go pay my respects to my
grandparents and meditate there for a while; dave and i took a day trip to
luzern; and, needless to say, the beer, bratwurst, and rösti industries
each had banner months.
i was also able to pick up a used laptop for a very reasonable price; it's the
same model as my old one (which has been acting flaky for some time), except
for a swiss-german keyboard, and it's in excellent condition. actually,
i'm writing this update on it - having fun trying to find where they've moved
everything! another fun story: a couple months ago, i lost my
mondaine
swiss
railway watch, which had been a gift from my mother and one of my most
prized possessions. needless to say, i'd been very keen to replace it, and
i did in fact do exactly that, within an hour or two of my arrival in
zürich. i was still upset with myself for having lost the original
one, but at least now i had one again. well, as you'll have guessed by
now, no sooner did i arrive back home in england than i found the old one - so
now i have two. 8-)
here are just a few pictures from the trip.
but wait! there's more! 8-)
a few days after we got back, we were off again, this time for a single-night
jaunt up to glasgow to see rush on their
30th anniversary tour, their first time touring europe in 12 years.
though it's true that their zenith is behind them, it was nonetheless great to
hear the old anthems once again and, of course, one never tires of neil's
playing, and particularly his solos (dave remarked at one point, "what are
those other two guys doing on the stage?"). some fun movies, a good
audience, good seats in a nice small hall - overall, the show was tremendously
entertaining, so much so that even dave (whose first rush concert this was) was
impressed and, believe me, that's no small thing! we kicked around
glasgow for several hours before the concert, as well, and that was quite
nice. dave tells me that glasgow is an industrial town, nothing really
all that special, and that i should see aberdeen and
edinburgh... wow! if that was nothing special, i can
hardly wait to see the rest!
otherwise: work is, well, a job, and the less said about that, the
better. it still beats the hell out of unemployment and having to go back
to the usa (aside to all american citizens: if you motherfuckers reelect bush,
i, and much of the rest of the world, will never forgive
you!). the suckass banks here in england are making it extremely
difficult for me to get a simple checking account, but they don't say why - i
don't meet some secret profile they keep, i guess. something to do with
concerns about "money laundering," whatever that is. compared with the
usa and switzerland, where banking is a service industry and the banks
compete with each other for your business, the banks here act as though you're
an annoyance and they're doing you a terrific favor just talking to you at
all. you have to prove to them that you're worthy - it's sickening
and (obviously) frustrating - i'll need that in order to get an apartment, a
car, etc. - but i'm sure i'll get it all sorted out eventually.
[2004/07] - it still hasn't really sunk in yet that my wandering in the desert
is finally over. after 3 long years, it'll probably take a while before i
really fully accept it and get used to it.
but - so far, so good: my first couple weeks are behind me, and all seems well
thus far. cable & wireless (my new employer) is by far the largest
company i've ever worked for and, at the risk of sounding cliche, it's a new
world for me. so far, i like it quite a lot: the atmosphere and the dress
code are pretty casual (for a big company), the schedule is to my liking and
reasonably flexible, and i'm going to have learning opportunities in abundance.
other than that, i'm working on getting all the bureaucracy sorted: national
insurance number, driver's licen[c|s]e, residency permit, bank account,
toothbrush certification, etc. after a couple years in
switzerland... ...well, let's just say that the turning of the wheels of
UK bureaucracy is rather less than awe-inspiring. i'll get it all sorted
eventually, though. i'll be glad when the day comes when i've nothing
left to do but get on with my life - that will be a welcome day indeed.
[2004/06] - i finally have a job! it couldn't have been
closer. i'd reached the end of my resources and realized that i had no
choice but to return to the usa. i decided on a date on which i would
telephone my mother and make the arrangements... ...when, finally, the
opportunity arose (thanks to dave) to interview - on that exact date.
the interview went smashingly well, needless to say, and i was offered the job
the next day; i didn't even attempt to hide my eagerness as i immediately
accepted.
it's not just any old job, either; the position might as well have been tailor
made for me. most importantly, it is in the IT field; i once again
have a future in my lately chosen profession. this is tremendously
important, because i'd dreaded that i might have to return to the dead end of
land surveying in new jersey. the schedule involves shifts and irregular,
unusual hours, and will allow me a full week off roughly every month. i
hope to take advantage of this arrangement and travel a bit, first within
europe, and eventually further afield as well. finally, the salary is
quite a bit better than i'd been prepared to settle for... those who know me
know that material possessions aren't important to me, but i am relieved to
know that, at my age, i will be able to start preparing for my retirement.
now that i'll finally be able to resume having an actual life, i'll have more
to report, and updates to the site will become more frequent again; i also have
lots of nifty ideas for things i want to do here, so hopefully i'll be able to
start adding some of that before too long.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! 8-D
[2004/02] - welcome to sunny england! i apologise (hah!) that it's taken
me this long to get a news update posted; it's taken a little while to get my
computers set up here so that i could do so. without further ado:
dave and i made the trip as planned; everything went off without a hitch, and
here i am in england. the trip was tremendously enjoyable for me; we
drove from dietikon to swindon, crossing the channel by car ferry, and i loved
every minute of it, particularly the indescribable beauty of france.
england itself seems much more like the states than like the continent; ugly
houses of brick, frame and sheetrock built in housing developments, food that's
generally unfit even for farm animals, unattractive and unfit people, political
correctness, thoughtless (and sometimes even downright stupid) design
everywhere, imbeciles loudly working on their cars at one in the morning, etc;
all sorts of things i'd been so happy to have left behind in the usa.
it's a bit of a conundrum to me how england - a EUROPEAN COUNTRY situated RIGHT
NEXT TO FRANCE, for god's sake - can be so un-european... though i do
have to admit that the beer is good.
and then there are the things which are particularly english, like driving on
the left side of the road; not used to that one yet. and, speaking of the
roads, it's my impression that straight lines are outlawed here; though the
land is quite flat, the roads inexplicably wind and twist as though ascending
tortuous mountain passes. to make matters worse, every single tiny little
intersection has a "roundabout," a tiny little traffic circle which has to be
navigated. this has the benefit of eliminating a lot of traffic lights,
but you're forever turning this way and that. between that and the
crooked roads, three minutes of driving and my sense of direction is hopelessly
confounded. then there's the silly money - the notes are fine (unlike the
ugly euros), but the coins are positively amusing; (at least) eight different
denominations in common circulation, as opposed to four in the usa and seven in
switzerland (is a two-cent coin really necessary?), and all very
dissimilar; very unlike anything to which i've heretofore been
accustomed. and the weather: the cliches are true; a sunny day is one
where the sun pokes through for 15 minutes, and you might get that three times
a week, if you're lucky...
in spite of all that, though, i'm feeling better than i have in a long time,
thanks largely to the unflagging good nature of my excellent host. it's
doing me a world of good to have human (and feline!) company after the
isolation of dietikon. the futon he's got here is the most comfortable
bed i've slept in ...well, ever, and we made a trip to ikea for some of
those same "ivar" modular shelves (i'm not generally a fan of ikea, but these
things are just so versatile and useful) that i had in the states, so i'm
pretty well settled in here, at last. and, thanks to dave's having taken
up fencing recently, i've been able to tag along to his club and start doing
that again, as well, and i can't overstate how much i enjoy that. all in
all, an auspicious start, i think. now that i'm settled in, the work of
looking for a job begins afresh...
[2004/01] - well, this is it. the arrangements have been made; i'm
leaving at the end of the month. i'm not happy about leaving switzerland,
of course, but frankly, i need out. more than that, though, i'm actually
pretty psyched about the UK. the more i think about it, the more i feel
it might just be the ideal compromise for me; it's europe and close to
switzerland, while also being english-speaking and having a reasonably
well-developed IT industry.
dreamer that i am, i've already started imagining all sorts of nifty plans, and
how great things could be if everything (finally) comes together. i'll be
having ian anderson over to my secret
base under the false volcano where we'll have tea and discuss cats, poetry and
music or, perhaps, dave, pierce
brosnan and i will get together for a bit of fencing practice.
alternate weekends, i'll stalk about the moors of scotland with an enormous
curved meerschaum pipe, wearing a kilt and solving mysteries which didn't even
realize they'd existed. romanticizing? well, obviously i am; but
dreams are fun and healthy and good, and i don't think anybody would argue
that.
p.s. and on the topic of dreams - i've also realized that i need to climb
kilimanjaro in my lifetime. it's not at all an unrealistic dream, either,
as the approach can be done without technical climbing skills, which i realize i
may be a bit old to start learning now. it's been a longstanding dream of
mine to climb at least one REAL mountain in my life (as opposed to the hillocks
of the united states' east coast). then, recently, after a conversation in
which hemingway's celebrated story
"the snows of kilimanjaro"
came up, i started doing a bit of research on it and learned that those very
snows are rapidly receding and are expected to have disappeared entirely by
2020 or so. as if that wasn't incentive enough, a bit of further research
revealed that the final waypoint before the summit is called
"gilman's
point!" well, that settled it for me; if i can ever manage it, i'm
going there one day.
[2003/10] - with the economic situation here showing no sign of
improvement in the foreseeable future (and since my mother and uncle
have said that they intend to sell the family house i've been living
in), it's time to cut my losses and move on. while i can't feel
happy about having to leave my personal paradise, i confess that after
two years, i've had more than enough of inactivity, and am keenly
looking forward to a change.
the silver lining and ray of hope is that, luckily for me, dave has
generously extended the offer of his hospitality for a time; the plan,
therefore, is that i'll go visit him for a bit and see if maybe there's
work to be found in the UK. as a swiss citizen, i have the same
rights as a member of the "european economic community," namely, to
live and work in the UK without the need of further permits or visas.
my thinking is that, in the UK, i'd still be close enough to
switzerland (it's less than two hours flight time from heathrow to
zürich) to try to come back some day, when the economy here has
rebounded; in the meantime i'd be working, keeping my skill set
current, pulling my own weight, having a life, and all that good
stuff. besides, i can certainly think of much worse fates than
living in the UK - i can easily imagine liking it enough to settle
there for good. even if nothing pans out there, at least i'll get
a chance to visit dave and maybe do a bit of sightseeing. we'll
see; anyway, that's the plan.
meine zeit läuft ab.
[2003/03] - still no good news. the swiss and global economies have
continued to weaken, and the usa's imminent war is hurting even more. my
time is almost up, so i'm basically fucked. my mom, whose generosity has
kept me here this long, can't afford to keep me here indefinitely, so, barring a
last-minute stroke of luck, i'll be forced to leave switzerland and present
myself as a charity case upon the doorsteps of my friends. needless to
say, the thought is hateful to me.
through the years, when i would speak of my dream of living here, people would
try to discourage me, telling me that any place is more or less the same as any
other, that my idea of switzerland was an impossible, romanticized fantasy, not
really the way it was. "if you lived here, you'd think the usa was
wonderful," they'd say, or "it's not the utopia you think it is."
they were wrong.
i love this country; i can't overstate, nor adequately explain, how much.
i'm in love with it; i want to lick it, i want to snuggle with it, i want to
bring it a hot cup of tea when it's feeling out of sorts. you know how you
get inured to the things around you, how you see them so much that you stop
seeing them at all? well, that hasn't happened to me - i've been here
more than a year, now, but my sense of wonder has not only not diminished, it's
actually increased. every day - every single day! - i find myself looking
at things through the eyes of a child, marveling that things can be so
beautiful, so sensible, so right. i'm always touching things; the
walls, a bench at the train station, a railing of a bridge - a bit like pinching
oneself to make sure it's not a dream.
i'm not a religious man, but i'm as capable as anyone of feeling reverence,
exaltation, humility in the presence of the sacrosanct; that's what i feel
here, not once a week on sunday morning, but every minute of every day.
this is my church; this is my heaven. it is
everything i wanted it to be; it is everything i imagined.
i have so many dreams: i want to skateboard down the poststrasse, play in a band
(or several!) and set switzerland on its ear with my american-grown funk, break
my first bone ever, paint my own fasnacht mask, greet these good people in the
street and tell them sarcastic jokes in swiss-german, backpack in the alps, wait
in the road while some sheep walk across, learn how to ski, visit every corner
of this amazing beautiful place and learn its people, its ways, its history...
cruel twist that my one chance to move here has had to coincide with the worst
economy of my lifetime; really bad bloody luck. imagine you want to jump
across a gap: you look at it, gauge the distance and the height, prepare
yourself, stretch out and limber up, take several steps back, and finally do the
run-up - but just as your trailing foot leaves the near side, the far side is
suddenly pulled further away - that's how i feel. no place to go but down.
[2002/10] - there's still really no news to report, and i write here more
to reassure everyone that i'm still alive than because i have anything to say.
the job market here is dead in general, and in IT in particular,
reflecting the state of the economy (in zürich's tages-anzeiger one day this past week
the front page main story headline was: "the swiss economy is
stagnant"). the classified ads (which only run on tuesdays and thursdays
to begin with) carried about three pages of IT ads when i first arrived a year
ago; recently, they've carried between one and three ADS. not good.
on the other hand, my german is getting rather better. the experience very
much reminds me of the way rain looks on a windshield: at first, there are only
a few raindrops; one here, one there, and so on, each one distinct and separate
from the others. as the rain continues, though, they get closer and closer
together, until they're so close that the very next drop which hits connects two
others and the one after that connects two more and so on and then all that's
there is water and you can't count the drops any more. it's like that,
learning a language, at least for me; i'd been learning a word here, a
grammatical rule there, and so on, but i seem to have reached a point where the
new ideas i learn connect other ideas i've previously learned, and rather than a
disconnected number of individual bits of knowledge, i'm starting to see pattern
and order in the whole thing; it's a very rewarding feeling. i used a word
(ausgewählt) the other
day which i'd never read or heard before, but i just knew must be right,
by virtue of having used similar constructions elsewhere. i guess it
probably sounds pretty trivial, but for me it was a very exciting moment, and
i'll never forget that occasion and that word. 8-)
"champs elysees
champs elysees
i was out walking on the champs elysees"
punk song, exact attribution unknown
----------
[2002/07] - good news; i have more time to try to gain a fingerhold
here in switzerland. despite the fact that we don't always see eye-to-eye,
my mom is exhibiting generosity above and beyond the call, making it possible
for me to stay on here; probably the single best thing anyone's ever done for
me, and i am sincerely grateful.
my uncle hanspeter felt I was too stressed out, so he invited me to accompany
him to paris on an unscheduled business trip he had to make recently. i
was only there one day, but i made the most of it: i started at the arc de
triomphe; from there i walked along the champs elysees all the way through the
tuileries to the louvre. i then doubled back to the hotel des
invalides and napoleon's tomb, and then to the eiffel tower. while waiting
in the queue at the tower, i met a very pleasant american girl on holiday in
europe; it was nice to have someone to speak with, and so we ended up hanging
out for the rest of the afternoon. we went up the tower, of course, being
the good tourists that we were; and afterwards took a boat ride on the seine,
finally disembarking at the cathedral of notre dame. with the line at the
tower, that accounted for the whole afternoon, so i took my leave of my
companion in time to meet hanspeter, finished with his work. we stopped
briefly for a coffee (him) / beer (me), and then went to my last stop for the
day, the bastille monument. finally, we wrapped up with some dinner and
headed back to the hotel.
all in all a very pleasant interlude, and one which went a long way toward
recharging my psychic batteries, as it were. a strange, beautiful place,
to which i very much hope to return one day.
"i thought i was lucky.
i thought that i'd got it made.
how could i be so blind?"
- genesis,
many too many,
"...and then there were three..."
----------
[2002/05]
- i've been putting off updating the news here in the hope that i would have
good news to report, but it's just not working out that way.
i've finished my german-language lessons, and can indeed speak a bit of
german, at a simple level. i "feel" it more and more every day, and
i'm absolutely confident that time and practice will bring fluency.
the question is whether i'll ever get the chance.
my efforts to find work here have thus far been fruitless. my german,
while progressing, is still pretty limited, and there are still my comparatively
short experience in my new field, my age, and the depressed state of the IT
industry at the moment working against me, as i've mentioned before.
the raw truth is that this experience is turning out to be one of the most
difficult periods of my life. with the single exception of my wretched
winter in boston in 1990, i haven't been out of work for more than a week or so
in 15 years, until now. not supporting myself, depending on others for my
survival - having my destiny in other hands than my own - has had and continues
to have a severely detrimental effect on my sense of self-esteem. i'm
finding it very difficult to have faith in myself. my stress level is
through the roof; i haven't slept properly in months. i feel as though
i'm trapped in a bubble in paradise: i can see everything i want, arrayed before
me - but i can't participate. i don't belong, i haven't earned the right
to stay.
i'm so close! but my dream remains ever beyond my grasp.
[2002/02] - it's been a while since my last update, largely because
there's not much to report.
i'm still attending german language lessons. i'm feeling increasingly
frustrated, though, because i can't learn as quickly as i'm being taught; it's a
bit like trying to read signs on the autobahn at 200 kph. i'm confident
that i could learn the language eventually - i *am* making progress - but i'm
ever more fearful that i won't be able to do it quickly enough, and that i'll be
forced to return to the USA to find work. that scares me a lot, because at
my age i don't guess i'll have another chance.
the ray of hope that keeps me going is that lots of people tell me that
english is the primary language in most of the IT departments here. i'm
hoping that i'll be able to find something where i won't have to rely on my
german-speaking ability, so that i'll have more time to develop it.
----------
of course, the day after i finally got off my *ss and posted the preceding,
i scored 92.5% on a sample test, so maybe my outlook isn't as bleak as it
sometimes feels after all. as
mr. smarty-pants
is always telling me anyway.
[2001/12] - i've been here in switzerland just about two months
now. the whole thing still feels surreal; every day I find
myself looking around at everything like an astronaut on another
planet or a child in a wonderland.
the german classes are coming along. i find that i'm able to
grasp the concepts quite readily, but because of the relentless pace
of the course, i have difficulty remembering everything all at
once; i can't internalize it as quickly as they throw it at me.
this will undoubtedly improve with repetition, of course, but in the
meantime the experience is a curious admixture of exhilaration and
frustration.
dave came to visit for a couple
weeks; it was nice to have some company. we generally hung
around and even managed to fit in an adventure or
two.
and i got a haircut.
[2001/10] - it's been an incredibly busy couple months for me
since my last entry here. while i didn't find a job during
september's switzerland trip, i did get some encouraging feedback to
the effect that i likely could find work if only i spoke German...
...so i'm back, thanks to the support of my family and
particularly my mother. i've once again taken up residence in
the ancestral home in dietikon, and i've begun intensive german
lessons which are to last half a year; then my excellent cousin brigitte is to marry on 1 June 2002,
so i'll be here at least until then... ...and if i can find
work, i'll stay here permanently.
so my last several weeks have been spent making the necessary
arrangements for my sojourn here, and seeing as many of my friends in
america as i could before i left. thanks to all of you; i owe
you all so much, and i know i couldn't have done this without
you. i will do my earnest best to justify your faith in me.
the next several months will be an amazing time for me. i'll be
studying german and unix, of course, but beyond that, and ultimately
more importantly, i'll be reinventing myself. i've been wanting
to take stock of my life and myself, to reassess, reprioritize, and
all that... so much has happened to me in the past six years or
so, and i've been changed so much by it all - it's time to step
outside for a while and figure out who i am, who i want to be, and
where i want to go in what remains of my ever-decreasing span.
now, i've been given the chance to do just that, and mean to use it to
its fullest.
[2001/08] - i've arrived in switzerland, where i'll be spending the next
few weeks seeking employment. as i type, i'm in the garden behind the
family home in dietikon; it's sunny, not humid, about 70F, and the air
smells wonderful... i can't adequately explain or describe how it feels
to be here; maybe if you have a special place of your own, a place you feel
most... ...yourself... ...you can understand. for me,
this is the only place i truly feel at home, as though i belong here, i fit
here. i've spent most of my life and all of my adulthood in the usa;
nevertheless i have always felt swiss, skin to bone. it won't be easy to
overcome the obstacles i must face - the language barrier (for, although it was
my first language as a child, i've long since forgotten my schweizerdeutsch),
my lack of a degree, my relative inexperience, my age - but of course that
won't stop me trying.
my internet connectivity is kind of hit-and-miss right now, but I'll try to
post updates as they're warranted.
[2001/07] - just as i've got the slacking out of my system, updated my résumé, and started looking for work again in
earnest, another possibility has presented itself to me - why not seize the
opportunity created by this layoff to look for work in switzerland? after
all, hasn't it been my single fondest wish for many a good year to
repatriate? so that is what i am doing. it's a longshot, and
nothing may come of it (this time), but since i have the chance, i'm pursuing
it. wish me luck! 8-)
[2001/06] - my foray into the world of corporate america has rewarded me
with my first layoff; keybridge has
released a substantial percentage of its work force (myself included), the
consequence of the time-honored tradition of a company growing too fast and too
early in its development (due to the unfortunate megalomaniacal empire-building
aspirations of their cto, doug drake [whom i've mentioned
here before]) and subsequently buckling under its own weight. i've
enough to get by for two or three months, but i fear that my relative lack of
experience will be a tough sell given the current state of the job market in
the industry.
with my release comes a tremendous sense of relief; my stress level has
plummeted in the wake of my newfound freedom from drake's crude, petty,
small-minded power struggling maneuverings, a feeling widely reported among
those let go. the consensus is that his inept, heavy-handed, draconian
mismanagement will inevitably drive the company into the shallows, and that
it's best to be off the sinking ship.
[2001/05] - finally i have a chance to update the site. work was
extremely demanding these past two months, as i scrambled to complete the linux
web server design and implementation; that's done at last and so my schedule
returns to something more closely resembling normalcy. i'm thinking
vacation will not be too much further off; i'm about due.
sadly, my oma, my swiss grandmother and last remaining grandparent, left
town within the past few weeks. for the first time i've been deeply
affected by the death of someone i knew and loved, and the experience is giving
me much to think about on a deeply personal level. although the occasion
was sad, it was very good, very heartening to see my swiss family; they give me
much to be thankful for and proud of.
in my free time i've been getting more and more into fencing. having
completed the beginning I and II classes, i've moved up to "intermediate"
level, and i've chosen to specialize in épée. i fence at least one day a
week, almost always two, often three, and sometimes even four - not that i have
any delusions of ever being any good at it! ...but for whatever reason, i
just enjoy the hell out of it.
...and - i finally feel more at home here in virginia than i do back in
jersey - it's a good feeling. 8-)
[2001/03] - this month's entry can only consist of a repeat of last
month's, i'm afraid. work work work and more work; i confess i like it
this way, as i really am learning a tremendous amount, but of course i wouldn't
wish it to go on this way unabated forever. there'll be time for rest
soon enough, though. i've begun the next round of fencing lessons, hmm,
what else; i've had two colds in the past two weeks (coughing in a fencing mask
is very low indeed on my list of pleasant experiences, i can tell you); i've
been having fun expanding my little network here at home (more about this
soon); and i'm biting my nails down to the knuckle waiting for my thinkpad to
ship... that's about it...
[2001/02] - my life these past few weeks has centered almost entirely
on work. keybridge, being the
startup company it is, is struggling to bring itself to a point where it has a
service to offer, and so there are schedules and deadlines to be met. i
don't mind it a bit; in fact, i rather enjoy it since i'm being paid to do the
same thing i do at home anyway. i've become "the linux guy" in my group, mostly by dint of the
fact that i've been the only person there who expressed an interest.
suits me fine; for whatever reason, i find linux easier to grasp than
solaris. eventually, of course, i'll reach a point where i'm as adept in
one as the other, and the differences will seem trivial, but for now it makes
my life easier being able to focus on the one. the work is demanding, but
the downsides are few, and i'm having fun and gaining experience.
my one pursuit outside work right now is fencing. i've been lucky
enough to find the virginia academy of
fencing nearby - a surprisingly large school which is run, staffed and
attended by some of the nicest people you could imagine; there's a real sense
of community there, and i've only been going a couple months so far. it's
great fun, and i get a little bit of exercise, always important for a man
getting on in years. ;-)
[2000/12] - holy cats, have i been here half a year already?
things are settling in a bit at keybridge, not as quickly as i'd like, but at
least there's discernible progress. the unix stuff is beginning to
coalesce in my tiny little brain; as usual, i'm learning slowly, but very
thoroughly. i think i have a tendency to require complete knowledge of my
subject before i feel comfortable with it, that is, i'm compelled to UNDERSTAND
rather than simply to KNOW. thanks to my constant study and also to the
generous patient tutelage afforded me by my truly excellent co-workers (thank
you john, david, joe, seth and hannibal) i am beginning to feel a sense of
"having a handle" on what I'm doing. another 6-12 months of this and i
should be able to hold my own.
other than that? well, i miss my friends, and i still wish i could find a
decent goddamn deli here in this cookie-cutter corporate chain-store culture,
but all in all i'm generally happy. in my usual cantankerous,
curmudgeonly way, of course. ;-)
[2000/11] - gts is done with me, and i now work for a startup firm
called keybridge. eventually i will be doing the same thing i would have
been doing at gts, but for the moment it's a crazy hectic mess of
everybody-does-everything here; at present they're asking me to do all manner
of things which fall far afield of my job description. i guess this is
the nature of a startup, but it's really weird that i've been here (in
virginia) almost half a year and have not yet been called upon to do a single
thing having to do with unix, and i confess I'm feeling rather
uncomfortable. further compounding my unease is the fact that i'm being
asked to do things at keybridge far beyond my as-yet-limited expertise and
experience, giving rise to fear that i will screw something up thus wrecking my
hopes of a career in the industry. hopefully the settling-in process at
keybridge won't take TOO long.
more pleasant is that i've secured the domain name "p3t3.net," which
supersedes the (well-liked but cumbersome) "grace-under-pressure.com"
domain.
[2000/10] - i'm finally starting to feel a bit less like a martian on
vacation here and a bit more at home. the gts retreat continues; they'll
be done with me at the end of november, but new employment (with yet another
undeserved increase) has already been secured. more news on this
later. and, worst of all, i've taken up the bass guitar again. just
when my financial situation finally looked stable! ;-)
[2000/09] - the sky is falling at gts. the stock has hit record
lows; in the past month the ceo has resigned and most of the heads of the
hosting group of which i am a part have followed suit. furthermore, gts
is pulling out of the states and retreating to europe to lick their wounds;
consequently the lot of us are being let go (unless we wish to relocate to
europe to work in a hosting group without leadership). i am confident,
however, that things will work out for the best, and that i will land on my
feet. and if worse comes to worst, i still remember how to survey!
;-)
[2000/08] - got a new jeep wrangler sahara. so far i like it a
lot except for the godawful factory stereo that came with it - but it sure is
great to have a reliable car again.
[2000/07] - i've moved to virginia and taken a new job. my job
title is "noc engineer," and the company i work for is called gts (global telesystems). we'll be
doing web hosting when our new facility is complete.
the whole thing came about thanks to my friend and new boss jOHN jENS, who clued me in
about the openings at his company. the opportunity to leave new jersey was
a welcome one, too, and so far i really like my new home in virginia (although
the gulag archipelago would have been an improvement over new jersey).
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