Journal Red Warrior's Journal: Above the below, and below the upper [Long. Boring.] 2

What's RW been up to lately?

Homefront:
I went to the Mariners game Thursday (Military Appreciation night = free tix) with AL. T'was fun. Spent last weekend with my son -went to the Museum of flight, and spent an afternoon at the YMCA pool. He's finally making some progress in reading, which is good. Went to a MMA cage match a two weeks back with Talinom. It was fun, though the venue was really small. There is another one tonight at the Rose Garden in Portland. But I'm not willing to drive that far.

Recently got some good news on the parental unit front. Both my mom and stepdad have lost significant weight over the last several months, with the health improvements that flow therefrom. My mom's boss was fired, so my mom quit. This is good because she was highly stressed, and working several levels above her "pay grade" due to loyalty to her boss. She's gonna take a month or so off, and then get an nice low-stress job. One that doesn't involve commuting from Auburn to Seattle, too, I bet. There is some more good news, but I don't know if it's appropriate to share in this venue. In any case, my mom is happier and healthier than she has been in many, many years.

Military:
As I mentioned before, I was finally officially promoted to Major and moved to the IRR.
Well, effective the 29th, I joined a new unit. Didn't hold out all that long, on account of I'm fool enough to think it's important to serve. But not all sanity has deserted me. My unit drills online. No, that doesn't sound quite right. MY. UNIT. DRILLS. ONLINE. Yeah, that sounds about right. I did my first staff meeting a week or so ago. In my boxer shorts. Heh. I've almost finished my first drill weekend as well. As it turns out, I'm entitled to the full fiscal year's drills (12 months worth) minus the two weekends I did with the National Guard.

It is an actual unit, and does actual work. You just don't need to go to some central location to do it. Nor do you need to tightly couple most of what you are doing with what anyone else is doing. It is a "schoolhouse" unit, and my position is an instructor. My annual training this fiscal year will consist of going to a "how to teach the Army way" course, which will make me a qualified Army instructor. Next fiscal year's annual training will be one of three courses that will get me blessed as an "offical subject matter expert". Then starting, probably in FY08, I will be teaching a course each year as my annual training. Drills consist of routine briefings (online!), common requirements (annual briefings, common tasks, physical fitness test, weapons qualification - obviously, not all of these can be done, and I will need to partner up with a local unit for some of them), coordination, maintaining proficiency in the subject area (i.e. "studying"), and potentially teaching courses (this would involve doing the "drills" all together over a week or two).

Funny thing, I was actually going to rejoin the Guard for a particular unit that I wanted to join, and that wanted me. This being the same unit that my old outfit wouldn't release me to. However, the recruiter who needed to fill out the paperwork for me to sign appears to have had a higher priority (probably a nap) for the last month or so. The Reserve unit, however, upon hearing that I MIGHT be interested in joining was all over it. Hooah! More time with my son.

As an added bonus, it is a TDA (Table of Distribution & Allowances - i.e. "We're a garrison unit, and don't deploy") unit. Oh, and one of the prime customers for our classes will be the Guard unit I was thinking of joining. The plan is for me to be their local "on the ground" point of contact. (The LTC I was dealing with there seems a pretty stand up guy, and I don't think he will hold my "defection" against me) :-P

Mensa:
In honor of April Fools day, I revived my Mensa membership. Yes, I had been a Mensa member once upon a time. Yes, I am again. Yes, I am aware that this means I score well on a particular type of test and nothing more. However, I have always found it funny that their membership year runs April 1 - March 31.

Martial Arts/Fitness:
Oh, and I got the second stripe on my purple belt on Wednesday. I'd hoped to test for my belt early this month. It is more likely it will be late this month or early next. The instructor is being a jerk about insisting on quality bag work & sparring. Which is both a good and annoying thing. It means more when you know you earned it. Last night, after 2 hours of training (1 hour bag work, 1 hour traditional), I hung around to watch some junior students test, and to get volunteered as the test dummy for one of them. I've been trying to move from one hour a day (four days/week) to a minimum of two hours a day (three days/week) - a class of bag work/ pad work/sparring, followed by a "traditional" class in order to build up some endurance, and to make it harder to keep good form.

Addendum - A clue struck last night. For the last few weeks, I've had an intermittent rash on my checkbones for now good reason I could think of. No new shaving cream, etc. During last night's practice, I noticed that when I focused on pulling my hands back to guard my face after punching the bag, they come right back to the exact spots where the rashes are. I had to get new gloves a few weeks ago, as the seams burst on one of my old gloves (and incidentally let out about 2 years worth of concentrated stink). So.. either these new gloves haven't worn smooth yet, have a naturally rougher texture, there's something in them that I'm mildly allergic to (which I doubt. It would be my first allergy), or I'm bringing my guard closer to my face than I used to, and the face hasn't acclimated.

I've been sick pretty much all this week. Had the sniffles Monday, couldn't hardly think on Tuesday (didn't even get dressed until 4 PM), pretty crappy on Wednesday (but I did go to work- see below), so-so on Thursday, Friday, and today. It's been worse in the mornings, until the accumulated crap works its way out of my system. I actually wouldn't really mind it all that much except that 1. I burned up sick leave, that I don't have a lot of, 2. My weight loss has been stalled (no gain or loss) for over a week now. 3. I added a Sun/Tues/Thurs (structured) lifting element to my fitness plan this week. I got through Sunday's lifting, and about half of Tuesday's lift. I didn't try on Thursday. It just means that I restart the program tomorrow, but still. Grrr.

Weekend Squire:
The spring bug is kicking in. I was gonna mow the lawn, but it's raining. :-)

I bought myself an electric ignition self-propelled mower a few weeks back, and contacted a contractor, who happens to be the son of a coworker, to fix my yard. In this instance, "fix" means tear out existing turf, but in sprinkler system, Hydroseed. He was supposed to come by on Tuesday to give an estimate. Cancelled about 1 hour before & rescheduled for Wednesday. On Wednesday, was able to give me a quote on the hydroseeding and a truckload of topsoil (I have a "trench"[no, it serves no drainage purpose, though it may have in the dim past] that runs the length of my front yard), but not for the tear out of the old lawn or sprinkler system. Called later Wednesday night (the "software" was going to tell him the cost of the sprinkler system) - turns out that he needs to know my water pressure/flow rate (which I'd mentioned to him while he was there...), according to his buddy who would actually do the install. So, we set up for him to come over Thursday, which he and two other guys do, in order to dig a hole so they can tap into the water main and use their whatever to measure the flow rate. Oops I have copper pipes. They were expecting PVC, and "don't have the right adapter" and will need to come back Friday. Exactly as they don't. He leaves a message on my cell on Friday, but doesn't return my calls on Friday or Saturday. On Sunday, I fill in the hole. He finally calls on TUESDAY, and gives me a spiel about liability issues, etc. Bottom line: He wants me to hire a plumber to make the copper to PVC adapter piece. Now, this may well be necessary. However, a competent contractor would ADD IT TO HIS ESTIMATE. After all, I am paying him in an attempt to NOT HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT MYSELF. Sheesh. Is it really that hard a concept? Oh yeah, even if the contracting in only a part time gig, return customer calls in a timely manner.

Needless to say, he didn't get the job. I will likely pick an upcoming weekend, recruit Talinom (because some lifting will be involved somewhere along the line :-P), BBB ('Cuz he has experience in and/or knows people with same in all those practical skills that I don't), RedHeaded Kitten (same) and do an old-fashioned work party. After I hire a plumber to do a copper to PVC adapter thingy.

Also up on the list of spring/summer - new deck (and I'm thinking of one of those roll-out roof thingies), rose garden triage, new kitchen cabinets (maybe), Cherry tree triage, Gutting the workshop, and taking care of the plants along the front & side of the house.

My weight room is starting to take shape, though a little more work needs to be done.

The Daily Grind:
The job continues to be good but unexciting. Of course, it is not required that a job be exciting, only that it doesn't suck to too great a degree. I ended up going in at about noon on Wednesday because one of the contractors sent me an e-mail to tell me that one of the project managers had expressed concern that I didn't feel that I was challenged enough (true, but irrelevant) and that there was a rumor that I was actively trying to find another job. So, I came in for the express purpose of letting my boss know that I happen to like my current job, and am not actively looking to bail. Which is true. I am remaining aware of what jobs are being offered out there, and wouldn't hesitate to jump ship if the perfect one came along (which I ALSO told her), but I am smart enough to know when I've got it good. My frustration levels are nowhere near high enough to go into job finding mode anytime soon.

The current bug I'm working on is actually a 30-minute fix. But I will spend at least 2-3 weeks on it. The actual change required is trivial (display X field from the message, instead of Y field from the message - both of which are returned currently). However, we are using it as an opportunity to do some refactoring (in some of our early transactions - such as this one - we use XMLSPY generated code to consume the XML from the message bus. This is...brittle. We are replacing it on an "as touched" basis with some custom OO classes which are much more robust) across all levels of the application - messaging, data, business logic, interface, and presentation (browser). It also, just coincidentally, will be my first application change that will require me to work across all aspects of the application. The person who assigned it to me could make the changes in a day or so. Of course, if he did so, I (AKA the maintenance programmer) would still have no experience in making such changes in the application. Nor would I have experience with setting up a new message and actually working with the enterprise people who are in charge of same. Nor would I have any experience working with our mainframe. I would be cool with that last, except that it really is necessary to have some knowledge of the mainframe, and how to program on it in this position.

I also found out this week that I will likely be in "the cave" through the end of the biennium (June 07). The cave is the contractor room where I am currently. It is one of maybe 6 rooms in the entire building that have no windows or access to natural light. Grrr. Unfortunately, it makes sense. It keeps me sitting with the contractors who wrote most of the application, and makes knowledge transfer my easier and through.

This month, I will become permanent in my new position & get a 5% raise.

Misc. & Etc.:
I take the written test to be a volunteer firefighter next week.
I bought a day planner many months ago with the goal of getting organized and "getting around to" everything. Over the last two months, I have started actually using it (as opposed to just carrying it). It works much better when you use it. ;->