peak to trough - part iii

[... continued]

i've just returned home from an hour and a half of non-stop chatter with vfmp.
1. my suspicion that he's gay was confirmed.
2. my worries that he'd see this as a date were allayed (i've been through that awkwardness enough).
3. i was pleasantly surprised to discover he's into shadowrun.
4. i was completely surprised to discover that he's studied literature, is an aspiring author and is into shakespeare.

meeting a vegan like-minded geek the same age as me at tristar? what the hell are the chances?! so i'll be joining him and his crew at a midsummer night's dream at la fontaine tomorrow evening ^_^

---friday:

it was a stormy day, and blessedly cooler. the workday was sensible and relatively relaxed! what a pleasure. megaman came by at some point to inform me that we'd acquired a few more cubicles, and i moved to one of the new window cubicles (!) to make room for one of the core developers who'd been left on the other side of the building.

scrapper's coming to visit on the 6th! i'm really looking forward to seeing him and introducing him to montreal. heavymtl: two two-day passes acquired ^_^

my new cubicle was the perfect place to see the weather suddenly flip from pleasantly cloudy to crazy storm replete with tornado warnings. after megaman sent an email warning of potential sharknados, the office atmosphere immediately switched to weekend mode. we would have gone out to happy hour, only the rain and the wind made that idea seem rather unattractive.

while debating venturing outside, i discovered that jock hadn't completed a task i'd assigned him and so i informed him that he would be finishing it before going out for drinks. it was only then that he made it clear that the instructions i'd given him had gone way over his head; i'm always surprised when an engineer(ing student) whose primary (academic) focus is logic and problem solving doesn't *get* something fundamental to software development. and this is jock, who has been teaching our qa manager the basics of software development.

huh.

i went into mentor mode and started at the very beginning. i taught him the principles of comment-driven coding and i introduced him to the art of deconstructing problems into their simplest component parts. knowing a programming language is not enough, one needs to know how to use it effectively.

i'm not sure if i've mentioned this before but jock's attitude towards the world is nothing short of inspirational. in particular his dedication to figuring things out under the gun. on a number of occasions i offered him the chance to go home and continue on monday - i knew that he was going to be driving a lot last night and i didn't want to mess up his plans. he refused, he was going to finish this. i was happy to oblige, and a couple of hours later we were done. he was done, i should say. and i was satisfied.

so was he. he was very grateful, filled with praise and insistent that i do what i did with him with every intern as they arrive. in addition to being flattered, two things really hit home during that talk before we left the building:

1. the interns, regardless of their academic tracks or their previous experience, will not be prepared for the level of work that i consider to be absolutely basic.

2. my academic qualifications aside, i have a lot more valuable experience than i give myself credit for. not in terms of what's on my resume - my resume is a vague summary that's too high level to really appreciate. what really counts is the generic methodology i've developed through the years, and what has become natural to me is actually counter-intuitive to most people in the industry and almost every new graduate.

jock's words combined with my mother and the cto both praising me on my patience and teaching ability this week have inspired me to create a blog (not anonymous, so i won't link here) to share my methodology.

it was a cooler evening and i walked into a cooler apartment, i spent the next couple of hours working on the blog (and the first post, but i need good examples before i actually put it up) and then i watched an episode of tng to see wil wheaton in action before going to bed.

---saturday:

a long wake from a mad epic dream involving a driver's license exam in an ontario swamp at 3am and being offered career assistance by a teacher with worse connections than i already had.

after posting the first part of this sequence i did some shopping, watched another episode of tng and some ufc before resuming with the second part. then i went to godmother's for dinner.

---godmother went for a run today with yin (who's healing well, she can now walk a block / run a block). it's the first time godmother's ever run in her life, and she was complaining about her muscles being sore.
"just stretch a little whenever it hurts, " i said, "it's your body adjusting to new demands."
"nah, if it keeps hurting i'll just take two advil."
that totally cracked me up.

---it was a perfect summer evening, punctuated with occasional unpleasantness that peaked with my uncle proudly expressing his bigotry and unable to understand why we were all upset. just before i left, he goaded me into button-pushing: i told him i'm an ordained pastafarian minister. i think godmother and yin thought i was talking shit, but either way their attempts to change the subject were so synchronized that they couldn't have been planned better.
"hey! look at the moon! it's so beautiful!"

godmother and yin had made me rather self-conscious about wearing my sunglasses at night. not that i needed their help, but i left feeling so stupid that instead of wearing them i tried just keeping my eye closed. i hope i didn't squeeze to hard, because i was specifically warned about that and squeezing becomes automatic when you're holding only one eye. after getting off the bus i discovered that my eye's not quite as good as it's been the past week. i'm a bit disappointed. or perhaps my eye's just tired or something.

speaking of which, i've spent far too much time in front of a screen today and i've got a big day planned for tomorrow. it's time to crash.

---meytal cohen's slipknot - duality cover is a lot of fun to watch.

peak to trough - part ii

[... continued]

so after a long day i was tired to the point of feeling ill, and slightly wired to boot. i babysat the cto through a big two-part integration, with the second part being delayed until the following morning. i got a ride from our qa manager because a crazy thunderstorm was brewing, and all i wanted to do when i got home was crash.

unfortunately, i had laundry to do. i kept myself occupied with stargate sg-1 and jackass 3 while it ran, but then had a problem: it was too hot and humid to sleep. seriously. i've been living in the middle east, the ultimate hot and humid, for twelve years and this here felt way worse.

i guess i'm a winter person now.

to my mind it's plausible that a part of the heat came from within: even hours after my laundry came out the dryer it was still piping hot. perhaps i have it the other way around. whichever.

---i'm picturing a future civilization figuring out how to play an unearthed copy of jackass 3 and treating it as a cultural artifact representative of the times. if it's a choice between jackass and cartoons, the cartoons would make me proud of my species. they're kind of the same, only one's a little more focused on bodily functions.

---thursday:

after a sleepless, uncomfortable night i got up at 6am to complete the integration. it took an hour and wasn't at all fun*, plus i pissed him off because i made a comment about some badly written code and it apparently wasn't my place to do so.

* although i was praised for my patience and my ability to teach

i did manage to pass out for an hour after that, which made dragging myself to work all the tougher. as i stepped outside the building i found myself refreshed! if the apartment's worse than outside, i need air conditioning.

the quote of the day came from newk'd: "the internet connection is up and down, and i've come to accept it. it's like i've been born into poverty".

i was super-busy in the morning, i had a lot of hands to hold and some big decisions to make; at noon i needed to put my eye drops in before heading out to the clinic for my follow-up appointment. at noon i was called in for a surprise urgent meeting with the cto (who was supposed to be on holiday, which was why we did the integration at 6am) to go over a bunch of things we've already gone over three times. i was not amused.

---technician: "oh! what happened to your eye? that doesn't look so good."
me: "actually, i like it."
technician: "ha, ha! you're very funny!"
me: "no, seriously. it's grown on me! i'm going to be sorry when it gets better."

i don't know why she thought that was the funniest bit. afterwards i saw the surgeon, who asked me how i feel. "so you're good? and you've just come to confirm? excellent."

i began reading wil wheaton's just a geek using the kindle app and i gotta say, i'm quite surprised at how entertaining it is. he's basically done what i wanted to do with all of my army posts. erm. with his own blog posts, i mean.

i had some personal meetings with a few developers in the afternoon and it became a good boss day for me: i'm sorry i didn't do this before. i learned some very important things, in particular i discovered a monumental miscommunication between megaman and one of our remote workers that changes our game significantly!

i entered an email time warp, slowly catching up to the present. jock was kind enough to take me to the walmart - he needed something and i wanted an a/c. walmart was a total failure, not just because they were all out of reasonably-priced units but because comms were down for the area so it was all cash only. we then went to canadian tire, where the units either required permanent installation (heck, no) or were way more expensive than i'd like for something i'm hoping is only short term. i eventually walked out with a window fan, which isn't the same at all but it's still pretty cool. it also makes a loud humming noise, which i find helps me sleep better :)

i had a long chat with my mother in the evening, and it looks like we're both managing well lately. this is good!

late night shopping wearing sunglasses is weird.

hovek olam - star sounds orchestra popped up on my playlist and i had to share the smile. i haven't heard it in a looooooong time...

i was a much better night, i declined posting in order to get into bed quickly.

[continued...]

level up

LEVEL UP!

ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG. after three months of hard work, i finally made it to the next level in boxing! now i *KNOW* i have to get my mouth guard sorted out.

is there a way to emote :D with a missing tooth?

---i almost missed my stop this morning because i was so into my comic script. why does it take me forever to get around to something i love so much?

there's nothing less professional than having to explain to a client that nobody in your organization has any idea what's going on with your product. our build automation was on hold, there's no backwards compatibility for what we needed to showcase and the latest code (thank moonlighter) is full of bugs. our network was up and down and our showtime developer didn't have access to our file server* so by the time we entered the meeting we had zero experience with what we were going to teach the guy. and then we discovered that the code he had wasn't just incomplete, but contained a showstopping bug.

* i made him send out an email to all the other developers repeating how important it is, lines-on-the-blackboard style.

in addition to all that, we went out for indian food to welcome a new guy and i ate so much that i was falling asleep during the meeting :$

...

it was not a good work day. it ended alright, however, as moonlighter gave us what was missing from our tool chain at the end of it (so we can now control the builds again), research that jock was doing for me came up positive and the world didn't come to an end. even though montreal lost power for a while and everyone thought it was going to.

---it's been a while since i left the office last. the power outage had disabled the metro so aota offered to give me a ride home, and we detoured via walmart where her daughter helped me find exactly what i was looking for! i now have a cheap equivalent of rash guards. very cool.

i arrived home with a lot less time before training than i'd attempted to engineer.

1. why the hell does rockst*r "punched" taste so damned good?! it's weird to enjoy the flavour of an energy drink that's essentially good for you (it has guarana, b vitamins and ginseng in addition to the caffeine and taurine).

2. as i was walking out the caretaker's wife served me with a rent increase notice. boo!

i arrived late for the boxing warmup and joined another guy doing 50 pushups and 25 burpees. it was humid as hell and we started class feeling like we'd just stepped out of a swimming pool. the floor was slippery and by the end it was ridiculously difficult to gain traction for anything.

i cannot describe in words just how proud i was when the instructor came up to me to quietly invite me into the advanced class. i am deeply satisfied today.

scribbles i

damn. i don't want to write posts anymore because i don't feel like i have the time. but i can't not, with my info ocd.

---wednesday:

1. birds singing, wrapped in sheets and re-dreaming [dreaming dreams i've dreamed before]

2. sleeping on the metro to tool - reflection

3. botswana demo crisis: again. how is it this man doesn't learn not to come to us with a malfunction just as everyone's leaving the day before a morning demo? this one averted by agreeing with megaman that we don't respond.

4. walking into jock's cubicle just in time to catch him saying "i hate you" to his phone and put it down. i couldn't get my hate poem out of my head for the next two days.

5. what on earth reminded me of spot the braincell? [this link is to a version slightly different to the one in my head, but that's because i memorized my brother's audio collection]

6. ringworm paranoia after the previous day's training: ever since my mma partner told me about it, i've been itching all over. i'm pretty sure it's psychosomatic, as i don't see any signs of anything. i've been looking to purchase rash guards, but i can't figure out what the right style is for me.

7. i spent the day knocking off items from my to-do list that have been accumulating over the past couple of months. it was incredibly cathartic!

8. mason made contact, apparently he'd lost his phone. later he sent me a draft for the cover, and it's good.

9. tracking my intake with fitday has helped me get into a routine; i'm now consuming a lot more calories and my protein intake's averaging double!

10. it's grand prix week, and a few of us agreed to meet up at crescent street to partake in the celebrations. i rushed laundry, shopped and snacked before heading out. i was falling asleep waiting for horseman to show up, but a good cup of coffee took care of that. before meeting up with the others the two of us walked around talking music and rapping: he's setting his digs up as a studio this summer and wants to get busy producing. i'm all in!

crescent street was still being set up, although it was filled with beautiful locals. we went to peel instead. my dinner, once again, was beer and fries (it's becoming a thing, and i like it). we all had a great time, and i was amused when jock's friend asked who i am and he didn't know how to respond.
"he's my... boss? he can't be my boss."
i am, but i'm glad that i don't set off the traditional "boss" flags. one's team should feel comfortable sharing everything, in my opinion, while still respecting one's authority.

two of us almost missed the last trains, but fortunately we ran quickly enough. i was quite tipsy; i spent the entire ride working on memorizing preacher.

radio silence

i can't tell you i'm not concerned that mason hasn't been in contact since an sms response last night. i wouldn't be that concerned if he hadn't told me that he'd start working on it today and would try to be in contact as much as possible. otherwise, i've been ridiculously excited about everything!

aota warned me against it, but i couldn't resist informing moonlighter that i found someone - he told me that he actually had an illustrator he thought would be good for me, but who's swamped with his own stuff at the moment. he was kind enough to offer to proof-read for us, and that's kind of useful coming from a comic publisher.

---yesterday i had trouble getting out of bed, today i managed to get up but i was completely exhausted. it was so bad i even found it difficult to get through my morning coffee.

positive work day: problem solving is my game, and it felt great to have the cto agree with my plan instead of stepping around me as he's been doing for the past couple of months. additionally, i finally managed to restore a critical system that he and moonlighter broke a while back. it actually felt strange to see it operational and correct, and heartwarming to get congratulatory and grateful emails from my team :P

---jock told a great story that i have to share:

a former employer of his, when faced with a stack of resumes will throw half of them out without even looking at them. because he doesn't want to employ anyone who's unlucky.

it makes sense, it's completely wrong, and i find it highly amusing.

---jiu-jitsu training was excellent, and would have been much better if my partner hadn't put the fear of ringworm into me. apparently it's a thing when wrestling. not cool.

i helped out with the previous kickboxing class by volunteering to even the class out for conditioning, continued with their cool-down exercises and went straight into the warm-up of the beginners' class. it was a good class, and the advantage of being the most experienced was being used for demonstrations and getting important personal corrections that might have been missed in the intensity of the advanced classes.

cooling yet warmer

the day began with a lot of snoozed alarms while the cool rain pattered along to my dreams.

monday pre-coffee mayhem lasted over an hour and a half, but i was calm and collected... or dispassionate... and eventually things started to make sense. i had one important job to do and nobody let me alone long enough to do it until 5pm, and by 5.15 i was out of there to meet with mason.

---a friend of megaman's started working today, and he's the guy i interviewed a while back and quite like. there was something really suspicious about seeing the two of them talking non-stop in megaman's office for ages. i know they're friends, but the sense that he's putting together a private team and an inside takeover is hard to shake.

---as a soldier i was once asked where my extra weight is hiding when i told a cook i was over 80kg in order to get an extra portion (i've maintained about 85kg since i started taekwondo in 2000-2001). i was talking to jock about weight today and he asked me the same question in the same tone; a short time later the right answer struck me:

it's in my ego. *my* soul weighs significantly more than the 21g everyone else carries around.

---i met up with nocence and mason at the metro and we sat down at a cool little coffee shop where mason proceeded to blow me away with his drawings and we discussed the details of how we're going to proceed.

we're beginning at the beginning, with the cover art (one of the most important aspects, funnily enough), the inscriptions (more interesting than you'd expect), and the first three panels. i can't tell you how excited i am to see this fantasy of mine taking its first steps! and it seems to me like he's pretty damn quick, and that i was right to think that collaborating on the design decisions would be optimal.

boxing was tough and fun tonight, i've been productive this evening and as i go to bed fitday reports that i'm actually net positive on calories and have consumed a greater than satisfactory quantity of protein today. and the clock reports that i'm going to bed a lot later than i should be. but i'm super-stoked so that's alright :)

weekend flash

back to the rest of thursday:

discovering that jock's "mixed" (i think "mulatto" isn't politically correct) was a bit of a surprise: he really does come across as the all-american (even though he's canadian) caucasian ideal. cool.

so, training was hardcore. i actually winded myself towards the end of the endurance / power training in the ring; my partner had already kicked me so hard during his turn that even with a giant pad between us it was the same as conditioning and i was hurting. the man's 49 and a tank, when he asked me my age he made me feel as if in reality our numbers were switched.

i don't think i'd agree to spar with him. not unless i level up a few more times. he told me, and he's right, that i need to learn to pace myself better.

instead of eating dinner, i went downtown to meet aota for drinks. we sat on a loud sidewalk nursing pints and fries, and aside from very loud drunks wandering out from the beer festival it was a cool evening.

nocence messaged me about a potential illustrator - i didn't want to get too excited, but it was certainly positive news :)

---friday:

i woke up feeling the previous evening: it was totally worth it. that *good* semi-hungover bright morning sunlight streaming in while slowly getting ready for work in a daze.

i had a very positive experience with amazon web services, not hurt by my demolishing a delicious vegan-friendly dessert aota had picked up from the bakery while i was working on them. the weather was fantastic, and my lunch break walk outside was highly enjoyable. i got all excited when i found a protein supplement called hemp pro 50, but learned very quickly that it's the foulest-tasting thing on the market! it tastes like licking a dirty handrail in a cowshed. i managed to get down half of it, and then spent the next hour trying to forget the taste.

happy hour: i read preacher to the group because jock's comments about lupe fiasco had inspired it, only megaman was there and i think he was shocked by my language. i usually don't curse in my poetry, but the voice in the poem isn't mine. only i didn't think to mention that.

newk'd, jock and i played pool for a while. really good pool, it was a lot of fun!

it was hot and i was sweaty when i got home, so i had a quick shower and couldn't figure out what i wanted to do. only, i knew that i wanted to be outside. so i put on my running shorts, strapped on my iphone and activated zombies, run! for the first time in ten months. my knee is still a little sensitive so i'm trying to improve my form. that's why i'm not going fast enough to be chased...

i watched the raid redemption (excellent! similar feel to dredd) and then got stuck into fitday. fitday freaked me out when it informed me that on average i'm consuming 1500 calories less than i should be. i don't know what made me think that posting that information on facebook was a good idea. it would take me until this morning to find a reliable source to make me feel like i'm doing alright.

---saturday:

urchin finally responded to my hails, and what she had to say blew me away. she's currently in the middle of a half a year of pretty severe cancer treatment and she's had nobody to talk to about it - she's even kept it a secret from her family. i kind of understand why, but oh my gods (O_o)
at least she's finally talking to me about it...

i didn't manage to stop thinking about that for most of the day, except during the two hours of magic that was to come. i met up with nocence at l'artere and we waited for mason, but due to a miscommunication he was waiting for us at cagibi. no matter, it was a short walk on a nice day. the introduction was comfortable and although my explanation was all over the place, he didn't just follow but actually participated in what became a discussion about where this is all going. he knows enough to follow what i'm doing, and his art style is detailed and dark which is absolutely perfect. we're meeting up tomorrow after work to see if we can produce something ^_^

i took a walk to fbdm (the montreal comic festival) stopping for a sandwich at la casa del popolo to try and get my head around the meeting that had taken place. i was so excited! but after i left i began to feel the oppressive heat and my stomache got irritable and my bag weighed down on me... even so, la fontaine park was a wonderful experience - it's my new favourite place in montreal! masses of all sorts of people doing such very different things, most just relaxing on towels as if it's a beach. very cool :)

the comics tent was too crowded for my state of discomfort and i returned home to crash on the couch, eventually waking up feeling like i had heatstroke. i definitely spent a lot longer in the sun than i'd intended... but i was feeling good, kind of, so i guess it was primarily dehydration which i sorted out quickly enough.

it was so hot that i had to shower twice, the second one being a shockingly cold one. hello, summer!

i watched star trek iii, which was a lot of fun, and then two hours of highlights from 2012's ufc fights.

by then it was very late. i'd done laundry and forgotten to replace my sheets, but now that it's summer and i've packed away the duvet that wasn't such a mission.

---sunday:

the thunderstorm that began the night before was still lingering in the morning, and that broke a few of the plans for the day. which worked out well, actually. i went to walmart to buy a fan, had lunch and slapped on sunscreen to return to fbdm. i was scheduled to meet with nocence and mason there, but when i arrived at the mont-royal metro station i received a message saying they weren't coming after all.

i didn't really feel like going alone, and nocence invited me to jean talon market to show me a couple of health stores she recommends. good call! i bought a whole box of clif builder bars and one of these. i probably won't buy those in bulk because they're not as good as the builders protein-wise, but my gods, it's an exquisitely delicious chocolate bar that's vegan and has a decent amount of protein in it. who needs mars bars or snickers?!

seriously, it's crazy good.

i went for another run when i got back home because i didn't have time to go to the gym as i'd planned, and i got back certain that my sunscreen had stopped working too early. i'm not burned, but i definitely got more colour than i wanted.

i headed to godmother's for dinner. it was perfect weather for a barbeque and to eat dinner outside! absolutely lovely. we ignored my uncle's bad behaviour and had a jolly good evening, the food was good and i ate *just* too much... and i've been invited to go over for cooking lessons if i can only figure out how to time such a thing.

when i left it was 9.15, twilight, and the weather had cooled down to "just right" - perfect for a stroll to the metro station. the walk was nothing short of grand! although... two cute girls rollerbladed past me and they looked like they were struggling. when i caught up to them a few minutes later (they'd stopped for a rest) i asked if they were beginners, and when they answered in the affirmative i explained to them that they need to bend their knees and lean forward: advice i give to anyone who doesn't do it. only, i think i should have sugar-coated it a little. like "you're doing well" or "you're looking good" before offering not-necessarily wanted advice. i hope they didn't feel as awkward about it afterwards as i did.

it's been a simple evening online, mostly posting this while being distracted by all sorts of other things (like fitday), and now i do believe it's high time that i get myself into bed.

willpower

and i don't mean the power of shakespeare, although i have some of that, too.

yesterday was a very relaxed friday. in addition to all my usual distractions, i had one job to do and that was to get one of the previous interns' projects to work. now that i've finally gotten it fixed, i find myself even more disturbed by this third year engineering student's complete lack of logic. also, he overcomplicated everything. but i suppose that can be put down to a lack of experience.

happy hour was quite funny and a little embarrassing; one of the guys (imperieux) had just enough to drink that he hopped up to play on the piano. this was funny, although he was actually quite good, but embarrassing because there were plenty of other patrons and pianos don't have volume controls. one girl had to move away to continue her skype conversation... i felt partially responsible.

after we were done, jock, newk'd, imperieux and i made use of our cafeteria pool table for a couple of hours. jock introduced us to cutthroat when newk'd left, which was so much fun that i was overjoyed when i won the final game. jock joked about me being a bad winner, which did shame me a little...

anyway, after a really enjoyable evening i returned home, made dinner and tried to decide if i was going to hit a trance party downtown. eventually i figured that it would be better to rest just a little bit more, because i really want to be in fighting shape as soon as possible!

...

i woke up around 7am this morning, and i'd slept enough. i finished reading chris beckett - dark eden and i cannot praise it enough! i'm now ready to face a day wherein i see a couple of movies that i'll regret not seeing on the big screen...

---on my way home i was thinking about the possibility that my feeling horrible this past week might well have been a purely psychological thing. the demotivation from work hit me hard, and i shouldn't be letting bullshit get under my skin.