mildly confusing

i haven't really looked at this in over four years, and on a random whim, i discovered that i had posted something on january 21, 2016.

odd, because as i stated, i have not looked at this in quite some time and my last post was from nearly four and a half years ago.

so, i've removed it and now i'm writing something here for the first time in a very long time.

what is not mildly confusing about the above matter is that i did not post it, i've updated my passwords semi-recently, so i'm just all around confused. whatever. what isn't confusing is after 12 years, i've been transferred to the office of redundancy. placed back into the free agency market. in short, i was laid off. it sucks, genuinely. it was actually expected so the fact that i was being laid off wasn't a surprise, as much as the when, which was the surprise.

i'm not exactly sad to be gone, i'm more sad at the fact that i didn't get much chance to do it in a graceful manner, with people wishing me good luck, and all that other bull. actually, that was the least of my concerns. i went quietly, kept my head up throughout the short process. packed up a box of stuff, and need to go back for the rest. turned over keys, badge and laptop. grabbed my box, my laptop bag and lunch, and walked out of the office that had been part of my life for the last 12 years.

reflecting on it at this moment, it occurs to me that it was around this day 12 years prior that i had my interview there.

anyways, i have lots of thoughts on everything. most of which will never be written down, be it good or bad. i'm just not that prone to writing, and maintaining a blog was clearly not a priority in the last few years. being able to step back, i can see the signs that my end was near, and i'm left to wonder that this could have happened sooner, rather than when it did. hints that could be true were sprinkled in that conversation that brought my career there to a close. but the last month had been pretty much hell with failing backups (the NAS ran out of space, the only way to fix was to reformat) and had that not blown up, might my time there have been cut shorter? i'll likely never know, i'm not going to ask, and i'm fine with that.

do i agree? not with the timing, but i've learned a few things since then that helped clarify things. it is just a business decision. that was said several times. they did not need a network admin in that office. so, i was expendable. external resources were now available, and that is the direction they are going. i have no illusions of my importance in the last few years. once the merger went through, i was a hired gun, with deep knowledge of the existing systems. once a new direction was found, and new resources became available, i was no longer needed.

i get it. i really do. does it hurt? yes. and i'm actually trying to really face it for the first time as i write all this. i've talked things over a bit with M, and we are moving forward, onward to better things. but i don't think i have yet stopped to really think about the current situation. it's a great deal of deflecting at the moment. trying to wrap my brain around the situation. trying to wrap my brain around what i want to do. what do i want to do? it's a question that i'd like to answer. do i want to stay in this field? do i want to try something completely different? if so, what?

all good questions. some that may not get answered.

i enjoy my life. i love my family. i love my boys. i love my wife. i love my friends.

where life takes me next, as long as my family and friends are there, i'll be fine. and life will be good.

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*tap* *tap*

this thing on?

well, i've left this alone for pretty much an entire year now, favoring the micro-blog stylings for the attention deficit disorder generation known as twitter (see feed on the right side)

i've started thinking that i'll resurrect this as a longer form (duh) place to brain dump as while i don't mind the periodic dump of whatever brain fart i have on twitter, there are times when i'd like to have a longer forum to expound on whatever that brain fart is.

i realize that very few people read this, fewer still that may actually know me, and fewer still that may actually care about what i have to say, but that's just fine with me. i'll continue to use twitter (altho i'll prolly effectively shut other the few other blogs down and just use this)

so, in a quick and dirty snapshot of my life, i bought a house, am getting married (or am i?), still have a job and for all that i may complain about some things being boring, my life is actually busy as all hell these days so it's that wonderful concept of so many things to do, so little time. those words are becoming an absolute truth in my life these days, and it won't be long before they really are an absolute.

in the meantime between the periodic brain dump, see my daily pictures and see what amuses/interests me on a daily basis (clicky-clicky on the twitter feed is easiest, or if you are a friend on facebook, you've probably seen them). not whoring anything, but it's something that i am finding interesting and periodically challenging so it's been enjoyable.


oh, and i am officially going to be an uncle.

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the glasses situation

not that anyone cares, but here's what happened - tuesday night M&i were at the gym. i was on the treadmill listening to music, and rather than stare eyelessly at the tv, i'll sometimes take my glasses off and put them in the little holder thing. this way i can stare eyelessly at pretty much anything and it will be a pleasant blur.

while i have shitty eyesight, i can make out shapes and recognize people if i know what blurred colors to look for. i spotted M moving across the gym and decided to see what machine she was headed for to determine how soon she would finish relative to how much time i had left on the treadmill. so i grab my glasses and flip open the right temple (as i have done countless times in my life) and *pop* goes my temple. thankfully i didn't drop my glasses out of surprise and promptly step on them.

so a quick stop the treadmill, survey the situation, recover the temple and off to find M i go. we wrap things up and head home. thankfully, i had suggested she pick me up rather than meeting her at the gym, so after dropping me off, quick shower, in go my contacts and out the door i go.

fortunately, 13 minutes later i pull into the parking lot of the pearle express i had bought them from originally and i walk in. there isn't anything they can do at that time and i discover (to my dismay) that the maker of my frames last year made some changes to the way the sunglasses connect magnetically which means they may not have the parts to fix mine. so i leave them for someone to look at the following day and after lunch i call to find out what the skinny is.

he had just been called and told that parts for my frames were not in the warehouse (somewhere in the west coast time zone - he couldn't call until 11a as they weren't open) which left me with a single option. fortunately, the lenses i have will fit into the 2008 model of my frames (that wasn't redesigned - just the temples/magnet bits) so the only thing i could do was order a set of replacement frames. i was hoping that they would come in yesterday, but no call was made to me, so i have to wait until next week.

the upside is that my eyes have adjusted to full time contact wearing (which is a good thing) so i'll actually wear my contacts more now. usually in the winter i'll back off wearing them as it is really dry, but the last few days haven't been as bad as i had expected. today could be interesting as it started out at 39 degrees (according to my little weather station) and is expected to fall into the teens with wind. recipe for eye clawing.

and the other week when i flipped rooms in my apartment, i found my previous pair of glasses and last night i figured i would see how they work, knowing they aren't my current prescription, but they seem to do ok. they work better if they are on the end of my nose which isn't comfortable, and i won't drive with them (unless absolute emergency and no time to put my contacts in) but for the moment, i can actually see. closer is easier, farther away isn't as good, but for milling about w/o my contacts in, they help.

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