Day: 19 May 2003

Stuff & Stress

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Have you ever had a bad day? Of course you have. Have you ever had a bad day, but were unable to talk to most people about it? That is today for me. Hectic things going on that I cannot go into. I am bursting at the seams to, but I can’t. It has been a day where I should have been able to give good answers to problems, and was unable to. It was a day where you think you setup something to work well, and then under pressure you find minor errors totally screw up the results you were looking for. Enough self pitty. I am in a highly stressful job. I am dealing. Just some days nothing goes right, and other days things hum perfectly. Today was the former type of day. One thing I keep thinking about is the saying that whatever does not kill you makes you stronger. That may be true, but it is not a consolation prize.

One thing I am realizing is that I keep adding to my list of to do’s and I am not taking things off that list in the same fast pace. Not a good trend. I did get some stuff off my task list before hell broke loose today. I sent out our proposed network diagram to our telecom integrator. They will build our system off that basic model.

I have my Database staff asking for more hard drive space on their development and QA machines. Even though last week they said they probibly didn’t need this space. I need to get money approved for that, and then juggle the new deployment of that hardware. Getting money approved is a chore, but I am beginning to get used to it. Almost lke it. Why you may ask. It sharpens my debate and reasoning skills. If I can explain to my management why we need something, and get them to agree I probibly can sell anything:) Well maybe not, but it is a feat to get the OK to buy stuff at my company. I keeps me honest, and proves the need for anything we do actually purchase.

I showed our CEO the new Thinkpad T40 laptop today. He liked it but had some issues with it. I am going to give it to him for a few days to see if it grows on him. We don’t want to stay with dell.

How lazy can we get?

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Ok so I tried out this fresh direct. It actually was really good. They came within a half an hour of when they said they would. And they apologized for being late! I even cooked up a steak I ordered from them. it was good. This begs to question how lazy can we (i) get? I don’t even have to goto the grocery store if I don’t want to. Is that a good or bad thing? Food shopping is ok to miss out on. But what about regular shopping? I spent about 2 hours with my dad today shopping at best buy. he wanted to look for DVD’s. Waiting on line all I could think about was how we could have just gotten DVD’s off amazon. The scary thing is that he would have probably gotten 50 times the selection off amazon also. So do we shop because we need stuff, or do we shop because it is a social thing and we need stuff? I am getting philosophical, but I took a class in college that focused on post WWII American culture. One aspect we covered was the mall culture. People actually spend the day at the mall, buying things is optional. Is the mall culture dead? Is the online buying culture alive and well? Probably not yet, but I have narrowed down the number of things I need to goto a physical store for by allot. I think there are less things I need to go out to a store for than there are that I can order and have shipped to me. Don’t get me wrong. I like to shop if it is for the write stuff. I actually liked spending time with my dad shopping. I don’t get to spend that much time with him so it was cool, but I avoid the mall now a days. I used to go just to go. Weird world we live in where I changed my entire perspective on something in less than 3 years.

I think I decided on what apartment to get. I will probably pick the first one I saw. The second one looked nicer, but I just had a not so good feeling about it. Even though the real-estate agent is expensive, it is not much more than doing it myself. The guy I would deal directly with wanted me to kick back his friend. The amount he wanted didn’t save me anything, since his rent would be higher than the other apartment.