the cat in the rat race

i'm in such good spirits after almost thirteen hours in the office! decent rum is one way to take off the edge. after yesterday's drama i started the day in a much better mood in spite of still feeling out of sorts. it might have had something to do with the perfect summer's day that was taking place outside:

oh, man - am i really on my way to work today? the sun's out after the rain and walking outside feels like when you pull the blanket over yourself a little more on a cool sunday morning...
- standing outside the metro, hesitating

in the office, machinations seemed to be gearing up in all directions. i kept myself safely in the eye of the storm and actually got a whole lotta shit done.

i witnessed an attempt to tear our qa manager apart and didn't feel that i could say anything without properly antagonizing the monsters - more than i have been already at any rate - and when he responded calmly and reserved and rationally they reversed themselves and behaved as if he'd been making the prior claims. i wish i'd been recording the ordeal, it was really pathetic and i felt bad for not being in a position to stop them.

...

tuesday's "talk" has been playing over and over in my mind. that dodgy bastard, accusing me of not working enough hours when i was in the office, sick, the whole weekend and where the hell was he? how come he doesn't do the hours he demands of everyone else?

---one positive part of the day was going out for lunch with newk'd and clearing the air after last week's mess. another was working closely and comfortably with darn's developers. the weaker one was feeling awful when i walked in because he was struggling with debugging his code... when the fault wasn't with his code. he's brutally overworked and i don't think he understood me when i told him to take a walk. i think he was shocked when i complemented his efforts - i don't think darn has anything nice to say even to his own crew. the stronger dude joined me and moonlighter for a technical talk in the afternoon and between that and the support i've been giving him of late i get the feeling that he's come to appreciate my attitude and the way i solve problems.

it's almost like trying to befriend a beaten dog. these are human fucking beings, and all their work experience is megamen and darns :(

---even moonlighter and i got along famously today. it was a stupidly long day that began with meetings and ended with solid grind, and although i walked away satisfied i was also exhausted and had a bit of a headache. so much for getting personal shit done :(

---while eating last night's leftovers (which i forgot to take to work for lunch) i finished watching reincarnated. aside from a bit of awkwardness it inspired to check out the album... snoop lion - reincarnated sounds much better in the documentary than off the album. bummer.

lucky 13

ah! the perfect snooze once again. it makes it very difficult to get out of bed.

my day began with an exciting email: it looks like we have a real buyer for our apartment ^_^

i sorted out an onboarding issue on the weekend so that it wouldn't mess up my morning, but walked in to find a new it guy... surprise! he didn't make a bad first impression, but aside from the onboarding distraction he walks around with a cloud of halitosis :/

---"why wasn't i invited to the meeting?" i asked myself as i walked past a pow-wow that really needed my input. it was one of a number of things on my mind when i sat down with megaman to discuss the office discomfort. what he told me was very surprising, and while i didn't agree with all of it i certainly can see things from his and darn's point of view.

first, it's good to know that darn's issue with me isn't personal, and even though megaman understands what i've been dealing with on a managerial level he cannot justify my lack of direct, tangible contribution to the project. if i have to prove myself, and it's by neglecting my other responsibilities, then that's what i'll do. the cards are all on the table and while i'm upset that the two of them didn't think to explain the situation previously i'm happy to report that their behaviour following our discussion was professional and even comforting.

even darn came by at the end of the day - after 10pm - and we had a respectful and frank conversation which put everything in line. there are some big issues that concern me, in particular with newk'd, and i don't know how to proceed and i think i might've handled him badly in the afternoon. the insight into the office politics that are slowly developing wasn't enjoyable either - we're relying on moonlighter and competing with him simultaneously :(

at the end of the day i have to get *my* shit together vis-a-vis the current project and i'll be damned if i let that slip.

i didn't leave until i'd made serious progress, and i walked out enthusiastic and confident after almost exactly thirteen hours in the office, most of which were spent sitting down in front of my monitor. i'd forgotten what that feels like, and my legs had apparently forgotten too 'cause they were pretty stiff and sore.

thirteen is pg's favourite number, and after a couple of years with her i've pretty much adopted it.

---no more vegan at l'artère?? i ordered what i thought was couscous, and a chicken pie arrived. i knew it was chicken because i looked at the board and realized that i'd read the salad section instead of the meal section when ordering the meal of the day. i figured it was my bad and decided to eat it, but was upset when i took a bite and tasted cheese.

i went up to the counter to ask if it was cheese, which wasn't listed on the board, and the waitress said no. i returned, wondering suspiciously as i slowly raised another piece to my lips... what is it, if not cheese?

the chef jumped out from behind a pillar to inform me that he'd overheard my conversation with the waitress and that she'd misunderstood. he said that in french, actually, so i had to ask him to repeat it, but he then offered to replace the pie and he did so with gusto. gusto being the couscous i hadn't ordered. so i had a salad with my salad, enjoyed the coffee, and listened to the chef explain that the vegan menu isn't gone, it's just being overhauled. overall he made a good case for returning soon to find out how that goes.

---good on you, boulder! sounds like a good fight for a green economy, and there's time for us all to pitch in a little.

colin stokes discusses education in culture and is nothing short of inspirational. give the man a few minutes of your time.

a week to reflect - i

let's see if i have what it takes to summarize this past week. it's been a bit nuts.

---work:

when the network goes down i become my own email.

...

ceh caught me when already really tired and droned on and on about things that don't interest me to the point where my vision blurred and i was struggling to stifle my yawns. all i wanted to say was "i don't actually care, can we just finish with the work?" but he's a bit nuts and i didn't want to upset him. the cto already complained about walking past his cubicle and finding him repeatedly and violently slamming his keyboard on the desk...

...

we have a new front-end developer who lacks in experience and education but makes up for it with enthusiasm. unfortunately, that cost me a good hour or so trying to explain how svn works. it was emotional.

during happy hour yesterday we were playing lunch money and really enjoying it. one of darn's developers asked for suggestions when playing a "humiliation" card. we'd gone with pantsing and a wet-willy before, the last thing we were expecting was for the new guy (creeper) to ask "how about fingering his asshole? that'd be pretty humiliating!"

we were all stunned. he's tying with ceh on inappropriate things to say to co-workers.

...

last week we said goodbye to our interns and one of our star players; i handled the exit interviews. it's nice to close a term on a positive note in both directions!

...

at one point during the week i needed to get stuff done and was told to work from home to avoid distractions. unfortunately, that meant leaving darn in charge and that's a recipe for disaster. what actually happened, though, was that i spent hours at home trying to decipher one of darn's developers' code (he's a great coder, but not into readability) while unable to use our software or development tools because mac.

i have been suffering my macbook since february and i can't believe i've lasted this long. i returned to work, interrupted darn sharing his opinions on a technical issue he wasn't familiar with, and spent a few hours configuring a new windows machine. i'm now off mac, all that's left to do is wipe it properly and return it to the company. the new machine has shitty battery life and i'll miss mac's touchpad, but otherwise it's perfect and lets me get shit done!

...

overall this past week has been unbelievably frustrating and demotivating. darn has not only been a right prick (i've actually felt like hitting him on more than one occasion) but he's been sidestepping me and keeping me out of the loop. he and the two developers megaman brought in have done a bang-up job of forming their own private team. moonlighter and the cto are still into secrecy and merging surprises into our codebase. i don't have the energy to deal with this kind of shit.

newk'd has been disappointing of late, considering that we're friendly out of the office i felt bad dumping on him when he didn't perform. having said that, it's not like he's not trying and there are some things he does very well. when i told darn to get him to do one of those things, darn responded with "he's not credible". not only was that absolute bullshit, he said it in front of a new intern and that's not cool at all.

during crunch, there were days when i was in the office for more than eleven hours. in order to train and spend time with scrapper i was going in early, and there were a couple of late nights. since the arrival of darn and the institution of arbitrary deadlines i've found myself entirely uninterested in investing more hours in the office. it's actually become quite depressing. yesterday we demonstrated our progress and everyone was very excited, but leaving the office i found myself thinking about how disconnected i feel and wondering how much i've actually contributed to the current project. the hours i spent on development were mostly spent struggling with the environment and not actually coding, and most of my input has been in advising others or working on the tool chain. darn's developers are good even if they're not amazing, and they're at least getting shit done.

not only is this all not particularly fulfilling, but it doesn't amount to much when quantifying my involvement in the project. i'm not satisfied at all.

[continued...]

second-hand nightmares

i suddenly remembered one of the weird dreams i had this morning. my forearms and hands were constructed in an alien fashion, human-shaped and fully functional but with a lot of gaps, kind of like a crustacean's exoskeleton but with less meat keeping everything together. i woke up soon after becoming frustrated by insects that were flying into the cavities i couldn't scrape them out of and being forced to bang my arms on corner surfaces to get rid of them as if emptying the contents of a tin of beans.

---our project manager (darn) was a bit shaken up this morning, and i had to get the whole story. we began with confusing excess political correctness, as he felt so uncomfortable saying "handicapped" that he used "special" instead. he proceeded to explain that he'd been travelling on the metro when a mixed group of mentally handicapped and blind people filled the car he was in. one of the mentally handicapped threw up on the floor right next to him, and he wanted to get out of there but didn't want to seem like an asshole. i think that it's perfectly alright to leave if you feel uncomfortable, but he felt guilty. someone working with the group came over with a towel and cleaned up so he felt a little better about it... but then they arrived at his station and began shuffling out.

he tried to quickly slip through a gap in the doorway, and as he stepped outside heard a sickening noise. he turned around to discover that he'd tripped up one of the guide dogs, and in turn caused a chain reaction that resulted in a whole group of the blind falling on the floor. they were all lying awkwardly, very confused, and he felt terrible and ashamed. while their helpers set about picking them up... he ran away as fast as his legs could carry him.

---today was a pretty good day, although there were a few incidents with the network. hopefully it'll all be over soon. we have a contractor helping us out with our backend, and i was embarrassed to show him a piece of code that moonlighter had written that was causing weirdness. i explained the fix and confirmed that we were ready to put that kind of thing behind us...

a very strange and sad incident occurred today: aota made a mistake and the cfo dressed her down disproportionately harshly. this is the man who called me out for my tone of voice when dealing with cam2's incompetence? apparently aota didn't say a word, and the cfo was so embarrassed when he calmed down that he left early.

i understand he's been stressed of late, but damn.

---my father was a complete bigot, totally racist and a hardcore homophobe. i once tried to convince him that i was coming out the closet with "dad, my boyfriend's nigerian so i'd appreciate it if you dialed back the racism a notch".
there was a moment of dead silence, absolutely ruined by my mother's laughter when she realized that i was talking shit.

...

okay, so maybe i didn't say it as cleverly as the way i just quoted it. either way, thanks, mom.

---israel brain gain? a representative tried to contact me and i checked out what appears to be their mission statement. if they want skilled israelis to return to the country, perhaps they ought to work on making the country an attractive place for smart people to live?

just saying.

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.

meeting seating

i woke up today with my leg hurting even more than yesterday. locking up and burning, but not a skin sensation. considering it was worse than the day before, and the bruising is black, i decided that i needed to take it to a doctor. i wasn't panicked because the black skin is warm to the touch, but i'm unable to know what's going on a few levels down.

i didn't want to be the first person who was kicked so hard his leg came off.

i caught megaman to address any potential issues so that i could arrive late, and headed to the clinic. when i registered i was told i'd need to wait about 45 minutes, so i went out for coffee. my inability to answer a simple french "how are you?" from the barrista made me uncomfortable. the lack of internet access through the wifi even more so, though after friday's experiences i'm almost certain it's my macbook and not them.

i returned to the waiting room and proceeded to wait another hour and a quarter before finally being called in to see a doctor. a nice man, he was pretty thorough and after five minutes had determined that my leg's healing well and that i've got nothing to worry about.

i was satisfied to hear that, upset about waiting two hours to hear it.

---our cto was in, and i spent the next six hours with him and megaman in various meetings. the weekend misunderstanding was glossed over and everyone was cooperating despite some disagreements about our corporate road map. i think it's all going to be fine.

i spent some time with moonlighter, who'd been given instructions by the cto that didn't fit with our requirements. i'm *sure* he'll remember to discuss things with me next time </sarcasm>

---kickboxing was great, in spite of my being paired with the guy who the instructor doesn't feel comfortable kicking out of the advanced class. as sweet as he may be, he's definitely not advanced in any way but the zim way, but he's been in the class since before our instructor took over from the previous guy...

i haven't done a lot this evening... yet... short of talking to my mother, hearing that the company that wanted me could only take me as a canadian citizen, and performing a couple of menial work-related tasks... also getting high off house: ron hagen & pascal m. - take you there (1999) lead me into a large pool of classic uplifting tracks.

but the real thing i need to do is node.js. there's no time to get coding done when you're managing.

social sonnets

inspired by the social network, i went to bed envisioning a conspiracy theory involving mason running off with my ideas to pen the comic without me - possibly instigated by moonlighter. [dammit! why did i tell him his name?]

i hope i'm just being ridiculous, but either way i've just found myself losing sleep over it and that's not how successful projects begin.

my email:
Hi mason, I hope you're well.

It is with deepest regret that I send you this email. Your unwillingness to communicate with me after I have entrusted you with my discovery and my documents is both hurtful and not at all in the spirit of collaboration.

I cannot understand why you are doing this but this is something so important to me that I'm losing sleep over it. This is not how I envisioned embarking on such a wonderful, world-shaking and potentially lucrative project, and although I really like you and I love your illustration I cannot see how this could possibly work.

If you are interested in pursuing, at the very least you could discuss with me whatever concerns you may have. As I said before, the first part of the project is to figure out a process for collaboration.

If you are not interested, I would greatly appreciate it if you'd let me know. I sincerely hope that that's not the case.

Yours faithfully,

totalwaste

ugh. now to try and sleep.

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.

driving rights

it's a good thing i like soda water, because by the time i got to the supermarket they were all out of anything else. the water on the island may or may not have been contaminated, so everyone's being extra careful...

---those health issues which i'm still struggling with seemed to have abated, only they haven't. yesterday morning i woke up with difficulties; on the way to the dmv i had to wait a while for a bus and i was in major discomfort. not cool, biological shell, not cool at all.

---i arrived at the dmv on time, and they sent me through to wait for about half an hour. still uncomfortable, not as bad. the dmv was a mixed bag of humanity, and shared that same sense of bureaucratic strangeness as does every other one i've entered.

when my number flashed i went to the desk, where a very pleasant woman was impressed by how organized i was and responded in kind with efficiency. i was surprised when she told me that my israeli license is valid for use for six months from my relevant entry! i was surprised when she told me that i shouldn't take any lessons that require a learner's license, because once i have a learner's it will render my israeli license unusable here. i was also surprised when she told me that she didn't have a "hazel" option for my eye colour, and would have to choose between green and brown. i told her that my eye colour changes depending on my mood.
"well, they look green to me."
"then today's a good day."

i hope my license is never examined on a bad day.

the final surprise came after she handed me a medical declaration form. in israel i can drive a car without restriction but i do have to wear glasses for a motorcycle. when i asked her, she took me for the eye test.
"you've got truck driver's eyes," she informed me, "you don't need glasses even for a motorcycle."
i don't know if that first part was a compliment or not.

after all that (which didn't take very long), i was sent to be photographed and to apply for the theory test. that was all handled very quickly with almost no waiting. i took the test, which was much easier for my having practiced with the online sample, and only failed a couple of questions because they were frustratingly tricky and without context. anyway, it was quick and painless.

the only thing left to do was sign two documents and get out of there! that's when they caught me for forty five minutes of sitting and waiting for my number to come up again. what the hell? is there an approximate amount of time that each person must be in the building, and they stretch out the waiting to make sure that nobody messes with the statistics?!

---google maps sent me the long way around to the metro station, so i got to work much later than planned. so i haven't been to muay thai yet... i was going to leave early for it but then felt bad about a three hour workday. as it was i wasn't very productive, because i spent ages going over moonlighter's code and commenting / fixing some really amateur stuff... only to discover that i was working in the wrong place. when i found the right place, i discovered that he still doesn't get how to use the svn... and i had to junk all my changes.

*facepalm*

...

how is it that the (physically) heaviest shopping i've done is the lightest on my wallet?

training was good, the best part being at the end: last night was the first conditioning in which i took a few good punches like a man! i use the word "man" in as gender-neutral a sense as possible, though, because one of the girls in our class is half my size and takes shots twice as hard without even flinching.

not being able to use tap water is very limiting, so dinner was even simpler than usual. i ate it watching bill burr - you people are all the same, and he's funny and has a few really good points.

---i went to bed early and woke up slowly; it was a good night's sleep, but i'm still not feeling amazing...

revisiting: tuesday

i'm splitting these up. it's been a crazy week.

---tuesday:

i awoke to stomache troubles. i'd be surprised at the end of the work day to be informed that i wasn't the only one in the office ("there's a party in my stomach," he told me), and the two of us weren't the only ones not feeling well. by the end of the day i felt terrible, and i've decided that last week's worries about over-training were misplaced and that what was actually happening was that i was beginning to come down with something.

i watched strip search before leaving, and watching monica in the elimination round made me feel terrible. that's two eliminations in a row where mike is verbally abused, and i know that the context is shaped by the editing but i consider it really bad form on the part of the contestants. these are the guys! these guys are penny arcade, and they're awesome and they do so much and care so much, and yes they're fucking with you but it's all in good fun and what the hell?!?

it was sunny and 5°, perfect rollerblading weather. i took it easy, but felt out-of-sorts nonetheless, and graham boulevard and i had a disagreement over reasonable paving. my front right wheel caught on an uneven strip, and although (or perhaps because) i wasn't going very fast i lost my balance and came down on my right knee and hand. the good news is it was a well-controlled fall and i didn't so much as scratch my skin. the bad? my kneepads were under my mr. price specials and they ripped right through.

i would've preferred a bit of my skin scraped to that, to be honest.

well, i did need to obtain a sewing kit anyway. i found a little african dollar store around the corner and bought a great one.

the work day: i felt like shit the whole day, i had to make non-stop manual tweaks to our server because moonlighter never thought to make an interface for it (he really does love doing things the hard way), my plate was otherwise full and i just wanted to be nursing my disorientation anywhere else.

i seem to have impressed megaman by asking the interns to rank all our tasks according to how confident they are in tackling them before assigning them. once i was done with that, i said goodbye, strapped on my wheels and rolled on home. i cannot provide a rational explanation as to why i didn't just take the metro, but the roll home was much better than the way there. maybe it was the wind direction or something.

i sewed until i came up with a good plan for the evening, then took the metro to the health store to pick up some things. clif bars are good, the builder's version are better! i did some regular shopping, then returned to eat dinner and watch hours of the it crowd until i almost passed out on the couch with a cup half-filled with water in my hand.

revisiting: monday

i'm splitting these up. it's been a crazy week.

---monday:

i mentioned winter coming back for a visit - my windows have been open since the temperature began to rise, and in the middle of the night i woke up feeling frozen.

later i'd wake up absolutely exhausted. it felt appropriate to walk through the rain with folk and blues accompanying me. i was also accompanied by a little trepidation, because i'd received authorization for my south african holiday but megaman did express concern as company policy is not to take more than two weeks consecutively and not to take any holiday prior to CES.

as aota said, though: if it's been authorized, then that's that. i guess in my head i'm still under military conditions regarding holidays...

one of the interns invited me to go white water rafting this weekend - i wonder if it'll materialize? it does sound like fun...

there's nothing i dislike more than crazy last-minute fixes, and being informed that with the amazon server we now have access to metrics and that these metrics show our server operating at 100% cpu after we've already hit showtime... i was not happy. it didn't take long to find the source of the problem, an infinite loop that moonlighter wrote. funny story: i had trouble trying to find a way to perform the same logic using interrupts instead of constant polling, and after a lengthy search discovered that he'd overridden the default operation of the function he was using so that it specifically wouldn't use interrupts. by the time i made that discovery, made the change and tested it, it was too late to put it into production.

not - happy...

to make matters worse, the office had been going completely nuts right until the end of the day, and i was about to pay the price for bad delegation. i asked cls, who'd helped me test my fix by making an important fix on the client, to send out the email to inform megaman and the cto what we'd done. unfortunately, cls misunderstood and thought that we were modifying our production environment to match the testing, and the cto spent the next few emails (spanning a couple of hours) shouting at us for something we weren't planning on doing. no matter how many times i explained. he wasn't reachable by phone. the whole thing was pretty infuriating.

i wasn't feeling great, so i spent the evening cleaning up a bit and trying to write posts. copywriter, my mother and overclocker all made that last bit really tough.

1. copywriter told me, in a rather circuitous fashion, that making the sacrifices that i'm making in order to establish myself as canadian is the right thing to do. on the one hand, i didn't need him to tell me that. on the other, i did need someone to tell me that. by sacrifices we're talking about things like not studying right now, and not going to burning man, and not really focusing on my comics. that sort of thing. essentially, the sacrifice of working full-time as opposed to freelancing and owning my schedule.

2. my mother and i have established what's wrong with me! well, one of the things that's wrong with me, anyway. i have information ocd. that explains why i can't not update my blog, why i need to present myself (and you) with all the details of my days that normal people would simply gloss over. and why i feel terrible when a conversation goes one way without going the other, or why i have to get the whole thought out or prevent you from continuing your story without clarifying things that i can't assimilate. <see asperger's>

i made an enormous salad, grabbed a beer and settled down to watch loads of the it crowd. i needed the beer. i was just about to get into fixing my wraps when i got blocked: it appears that pg took the sewing kit i bought and left me with a different one, one that didn't have any needles in it :S

---something that occurred to me on saturday while listening to stories about our forebears travelling through the desert (for forty years): people who travel through the desert would have to become nocturnal, which would nicely explain why the jewish calendar is lunar, why the jewish "day" begins in the evening and why unlike most cultures jews consider the moon to be masculine and the sun feminine.

it's also easy enough to imagine that the whole blood libel story might have stemmed from the passover retelling of the painting of blood over the doors to ward off the angel of death. but let's ignore the blood libel aspect and return a couple of thousand years to when the jews emerged from the desert and into the land of israel. how quickly did they return to being collectively diurnal? would their enemies (or neighbours) not have found their nocturnal behaviour strange and begun to believe them to be nosferatu? could this explain their miraculous conquest of canaan?

just a thought.

revisiting: sunday

i'm splitting these up. it's been a crazy week.

---sunday:

i slurped down a monster energy drink and headed downtown; it wasn't hard to find the place. it's actually the last club i went to with yang, only now i have an idea of what it's called (kim foo's, only it's not) and where to find it. i walked on in, bought a bottle of water so i'd have change for the coat check, and entered.

aside from about half a set all told, the following five hours were filled with grinding, styling beats.

SO...montreal has a proper trance scene. and it's beautiful! it was so nice to see the sunrise from the right side again, even if my hearing was out and my feet hurt. that was one heck of a stomp, and some of the locals were just as much fun as chromatone! the crowd was great, too :)

"my best sleep is between 7am and noon. when i sleep those hours, it's the best sleep i get and it's just enough". i say this a lot, and it's very validating whenever i actually do it and find that nothing's changed. i woke up to a call from godmother responding to an email i'd sent her about tickets to south africa: the prices were going up, she said, and i should get on that.

i spent the next while researching tickets, eventually going through flighthub because kayak's site wouldn't operate properly in chrome or firefox: it cost me a couple hundred more but in addition to the site actually working my flight includes a day and a half in daylight stopovers in london - plenty of time to get into the city and meet up with friends ^_^

i'll be using my full three week package, and i've decided that if there are any work-related issues with my visit to see friends and family, be at my niece's wedding and usher in 2014 in the traditional manner, the latter will most definitely be trumping the former.

i had a lengthy and positive chat with pg about the apartment and then headed out to meet horseman; we found an awesome vegan bar / coffee shop (that does live performances) called cagibi and were having a great talk about shakespeare and his sonnets before sidetracking into the political when he discovered that i'm israeli. the conversation was uncomfortable, but he heard what i had to say. it was a long walk to the metro and we got into personal traumas - the man may be a reformed criminal but i find it hard to see past "gentle giant".

the evening was a bit chilly - winter was on its way back for a visit - and the sunset was gorgeous.

i got home with a list of things to do, and i got everything except fixing my wraps covered. moonlighter contacted me towards midnight for another long work session...

revisiting: friday

i'm splitting these up. it's been a crazy week.

---friday:

on thursday morning a mail went around the office linking us to our ceo's twitter feed, and i "followed" using mine. on thursday morning i went to sleep worried by a message that he'd signed on to follow me... what bothers me about that is that my feed links to my blog... oh, well.

i slept the sleep of the dead, and woke up to some good emails:
1. moonlighter sending an email praising my efforts (i think he's realized that i'm not just all talk now that i've gotten my hands dirty)
2. pg sending me a valuation for my (and my mum's) apartment that's not disappointing!

work: there's nothing cathartic about discovering that you'd done something right the first time and that it didn't work because you were testing against the wrong thing. the previous afternoon i finished configuring the amazon instance and the reason we couldn't get it to work was because we were using the wrong ip address! for some reason, the management console provides two urls and an ip, but the actual ip that you need to use to access the server is embedded in the first url and not mentioned anywhere else. wtf?!?!

partially relieved, i joined aota and another co-worker for indian food. usually i order spicy and it's just good, but this time? i was crying, my nose was running and i had to take breaks! the funny thing is that even while suffering it was so good i couldn't stop eating :P

...

i went to the saq to pick up a bottle of wine for my uncle. the foxy girl i asked for assistance described the bottle in question as particularly good to go with meat; in particular, very bloody meat. there was something in the way she said it that made me blush.

on the way to godmother's, there was something magic about the slight drizzle blowing through the vent in the roof of the bus.

my uncle was very pleased with the wine, and i think he thinks we're friends again. dinner was pleasant, although he was on form and some of the things he said to and about his kids was pretty distressing :(

i had to wait quite a long time for the bus to the metro, and it was drizzling and cool. not cold, not until just before the bus arrived, but that cool, breezy, rainy night that coupled with the old-school house like josh wink - higher state of consciousness took me back to waiting in the line for unity to open; we were so fortunate to experience the cape town super-clubs...

when i got home i got an email from SxS, and i spent the next hour or two trying to plan a trip to visit him. flights are expensive! so i'm now waiting to hear if i can join him and his SO for a weekend a little closer to home.

revisiting: thursday

i'm splitting these up. it's been a crazy week.

---thursday:

the extra half hour's sleep was perfect! i woke up curious about overtraining, but considering that i'm still feeling good after training (even if i'm completely exhausted) i don't think i'm quite there yet.

it was my uncle's birthday on thursday. what's a good birthday gift for an uncle one doesn't get along with? does laughing at his inappropriate jokes count? k-twang's response to my question made me laugh: "one of those bags people without colons use... with a feedbag attachment". a rather literal take on a figure of speech our uncle is wont to use :P

things vegans in training get excited about: jsk pumpkin snacks. delicious (like peanut brittle), high protein and better value for money than dairy protein bars? no way!

i was asked to interview another guy who's worked with megaman before, and i was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of common ground. not just experience-wise, but attitude-wise as well. how many rollerbladers are we going to have in one office?

out of three interns, two are excellent. one is... well, he's certainly better than any of the previous ones, but his english isn't very good and he makes bad calls.
*sigh*

moonlighter's gifts just keep on giving: it's like he created our database with a book in hand explaining all of the mistakes one can make, just so that he wouldn't miss any. once i'd dealt with one of the issues i felt like i was running away to train as opposed to running to training.

jiu jitsu was hardcore, i was with a guy who's twice my size and not much more than half my age who spent most of the session patiently explaining what i was doing wrong. unfortunately, it took until the end of the session to really start getting it, but there was definite progress made :)
and lots of sweating done.

kickboxing was rough - though not as rough as tuesday - and i returned home broken and in need of a rest. i was appalled at my inability to finish my dinner: i knew i needed it but i couldn't swallow another bite! i felt awful turfing the last bit out :(

i didn't want to but i really had to work on thursday night. it involved collaborating with moonlighter, and he was much more pleasant to work with than usual. we got through the urgent stuff in about two hours, and it didn't take me long to fall asleep after that.

revisiting: wednesday

i'm splitting these up. it's been a crazy week. it's 2am on a monday morning and moonlighter and i just decided to call it a night...

---wednesday:

it's crunch time, and moonlighter and the cto are working nights so why shouldn't the rest of us? what's a couple of hours of sleep time?

...

three 'n one - reflect and cj stone - in your mind were part of a good start to a sunny morning.

i settled in to get focused, but ccl was bothering me. she keeps forgetting her passwords. this time, on a system where we don't have a method of resetting a password... that blew only five minutes of real time while i figured it out, but an eternity of aggravated time...

after ccl there was a general state of madness. a few of us had lunch at l'artere and aota and i somehow ended up discussing my previous relationships, which somehow led to a discussion about work incentives, unemployment, skills training and career switching which i believe deserves a post of its own.

i wasted some time and totally lost my cool because our wiki refused to accept "/etc" in the document text: at first i was lucky because i'd copied all the text to the clipboard before previewing because i'd written a lot... but while trying and failing repeatedly i got distracted and at one point pressed "save" having overwritten the clipboard data... i was *very* grateful when pressing "back" had the desired effect of restoring all my text.

i decided i needed to block out the world, and blasted good trance with my headphones on. it totally worked! except for one incident when an intern came to ask me a question and laughed at me because i was completely absorbed in what i was doing but dancing in my chair at the same time. the blockout, however, was a great success! i was really excited about having migrated to amazon cloud services even though everything else was going to shit. that's when i decided to take my leave.

i stopped to pick up shirts at walmart, and the queue was really slow. i was upset because i had to shop before doing laundry so that i could put the shirts in, but by shopping first i wouldn't have time to do laundry before training. on the way home it struck me that as long as i can put my things in the dryer before i leave, i can pick them up afterwards... i just need to confirm each time with the caretaker that nobody's going to throw away my clothes.

boxing was killer, and my arms felt properly overworked. enough that i'd be concerned about over-training... i watched it crowd over a huge dinner, found myself entirely incapable of working and went to bed.

a punch to the gut

i began my day chatting with pg: it was good to see her online.

i bladed out into a cool breeze, and it seemed that the day was slowly warming along with my core temperature. by the time i got to the office i definitely needed a shower.

it's an odd shower setup, very much like a nice bathroom one would find in someone's home. i guess i was expecting dorm / barracks-style. my tiny towel was *just* enough, i'm glad i brought a spare shirt, and there was something strange and pleasing about having my first cup of coffee at my desk after a shower. and something even stranger about talking to people on the way and wearing my rollerblades, which just look like cool hi-tops when the wheels are off.

i resumed facepalming over moonlighter's code, and was horrified when megaman came over to inform me that we're going to need to put in longer hours and get the new interns to stay late too. you see, i don't think i'd be against it if it wasn't because the cto had committed to something even more absurd than usual, and the feeling of hopelessness is dramatically demotivating so i just don't want to do any more.

as it was, my priorities had to flip to a dangerous shortcut, and i couldn't simply make the switch because i was halfway through securing something that would break what i was working on if i didn't finish it. on the one hand, i'm very glad i got it done. on the other, i was super-tense when i received a second phone call from our guy in panama who basically shared how irresponsible he'd been and how he'd managed to break something in his rush to get everything ready for a big presentation tomorrow.

*sigh*

i actually thought of throwing in the towel during my blade home, but i guess i'll stay and hope for the best. seriously, though, i can't see myself staying with this band of jokers longer than is necessary to acquire resident status. there are plenty of other companies in this town just as desperate for talent.

i'd left later than i'd intended, and so had to rush to get to training on time. kickboxing killed me, but it was awesome and i'm super-stoked that i went!

special moment: during conditioning, i was fighting back tears from a few shots to the solar plexus. the instructor took the opportunity to come over and demonstrate *precisely* where to strike... my only consolation, the next guy to have it explained to him writhing on the floor, wasn't particularly consoling.

mma is teaching me what i'm made of! whatever it is, it's soft and squishy and filled with nerve endings. but i'm totally loving this shit ^_^

weekend heat

friday:

strip search has totally broken the reality show format and remade it beautifully. friday's episode was so exciting and cathartic!
***SPOILER ALERT***
for those who've watched it: did anyone else enjoy the pun in "come from behind victory"? it would have been good if either of them had won…
***END SPOILER***

dress code! that's broken too. i was all stressed about it, but i decided that friday was the perfect day to test my colleagues. i wore a t-shirt and my 1999 mr. price specials (black baggy trainers with excess laces and pockets), and everybody was happy with it. none were as happy with it as i was!

ccl brought in vegan treats as a goodbye gift to the leaving interns, and they were delicious. but horrifically crumbly.

---i began the day with the cto, excitedly embarking on a rescue mission to restore the missing (and vital) segment of our codebase. that excitement was soon crushed, however, during an urgent meeting with megaman in which i was informed that our cto has once again taken on the role of an entire marketing division in selling (to a huge corporation) software that we don't have, under a deadline so outrageously unrealistic that all we can do is grind while praying for miracles.

---on thursday i convinced aota to seek medical help - she's been feeling awful ever since we returned from panama. on friday afternoon she returned from a battery of tests and informed us that she's been hit with hepatitis, which one specifically she didn't say. firstly, i'm really glad she listened to me. secondly, i'm kinda a little concerned that i might've been hit by the same thing - although i strongly suspect that that's not the case as my own health issues are unrelated and i've been feeling much better since i started training.

---back to work: my new primary assignment is to clean up moonlighter's mess while he focuses on something else...

at 4pm we upped and left for happy hour, and we walked out of the office into a perfect summer day, replete with crowds of smiling people dressed like they were off to the beach. it was wonderful! the drinks began awkwardly but as the guys relaxed they got more social. as i got up to leave (early, to get to training on time) i banged the back of my hand on something (the chair?) and it became rather tender. i worried about it until class began when i discovered that it made no difference.

i managed to get to the bank, and the teller explained to me that i qualify for an account upgrade. whoo hoo! i haven't been this financially stable in... ever.

---the boxing lesson was good, and tough as hell. the toughest part was my learning that i simply shouldn't train with girls. after the previous night's amazonian incident, i was set to sparring (body shots only) against a girl at least a head shorter than me and with large breasts: i literally couldn't see past them. so i was pretty much guessing for most of my shots, which seemed to be okay until she eventually stopped to glare at me and ask "are you aiming for my tits?!"
i explained that she was giving me too much credit, and was very embarrassed.

not only that, but she's much faster than i am so overall she beat the crap outta me.

i stayed behind to watch a couple of the guys sparring with full gear, and explained to them that i'm far from being ready to enter the ring. i'll go in when i have some idea of what to do with my feet and i've developed useful responses to strikes coming my way. at the moment i'm simply a reluctant sponge.

---on an arbitrary note, dilbert's translation to an animated series is surprisingly good.

---saturday:

i got up a bit later than intended, ate breakfast, slopped on some sunscreen and slapped on my blades, and headed to the office. it took less than an hour to get there and back without pushing too hard, and most of the route i picked turned out to have a bicycle lane! an unmarked bicycle lane on a long boulevard. very cool, montreal, very cool.

i finally got it together to return my snowboard today, and at 1.30pm i called to find out poubelle du ski's hours. today was their final day before closing down for the summer, and they'd be open until 2pm. so i'll have to return my equipment in august...

---i spent the afternoon reading, resting and shopping. it was on my way back that i began to stress about having dinner with my uncle. the man is so unpleasant, and i suddenly realized that i don't need that shit in my life. i suddenly found myself wondering how pg ever went back at all; i didn't want to go and i didn't want to tell godmother why not because that wouldn't be fair to her.

so my day went from awesome to ugly and stayed that way until i actually arrived. once i was there it was okay, and my uncle and i ignored each other for the most part. i get the feeling that the feeling's mutual... at one point he told me that i do stupid things, to which i unashamedly responded that he thinks everything i do is stupid, so whatever.

at least the worst-case scenario that'd been playing in my mind didn't happen, although i can't say that it's off the table. it's that point at which he performs like he did last week, and i let him know precisely what i think of him before getting up and leaving. i grew up with a father who made me feel like that, and life's too short to let jerks who don't matter make you feel like shit.

---after dinner i felt over-fed and drained so i promptly returned home. i've spoken to my mum and to a fellow poet (horseman) who wants to know what's got nocence so excited. as i've said to them both, i'm happy to share it with him but i'm not going to invite him to join us unless we can work together as a team. it's my project, and my project is to keep the work as close to shakespeare's vision as possible while making it as accessible as possible: this is a fine line to tread and it'll be all too easy for multiple cooks to spoil the broth.

somewhat good friday

friday:

it was a slow, easy morning. i was still feeling arm strain from my first push-ups in a while and my neck was mildly uncomfortable, which would irritate me for the rest of the day. seeing the squirrels frolicking in the streets put me in a good mood, though, and made me think that perhaps i'm ready to enjoy the spring :)

it was a good good friday, most people were on holiday and everything was accordingly relaxed and jovial. even moonlighter came in (to say farewell to the coo), and in a pleasant chat with him and the new director it was settled that he's replaceable and that he himself would like to work less. the sad thing is that the cto is now our principal developer and moonlighter his second-in-command; if we don't wrest control things are going to be weird.

i'd intended to leave early, but only made it out at 5pm. i thought i'd get some cleaning done but a) i didn't really have it in me and b) i was surprised to find that the apartment's not in a bad state overall. i'm used to israeli quantities of dust, and here it's a different level entirely.

i watched a lot of the xxx sequel, which is kind crap in spite of the cast, and had dinner watching legend of the drunken master which i remembered enjoying thoroughly. yep, still excellent :)

i was starting to fall asleep when i received a call from yang, and i met up with him for drinks at the cock 'n bull. i was completely turned around last time, but i won't get lost again!

we walked down to a really great and super-dodgy club, where the music started at funky minimal and moved through actual dub (seriously! it was amazing) into dub-step. by that final stage i'd been offered an opportunity to do something i'd forgotten i don't do in public (specifically; i don't do it at home either) or in normal doses (i've always been a light-weight), and all i could think of afterwards was louis ck telling the story of his experience smoking with kids in a parking lot after a show. my blood pressure dropped so low i couldn't stay standing, and the evening went from great fun to mild suffering. the deep, deep bass made my brain feel good but produced the sensation of liquifying insides, and as soon as i'd rested off enough of the effects i took a taxi home.

what a bummer!

---
saturday:

i *had* to take the morning slow. when i eventually got out of bed i recalculated my budget, took a couple of items to the dry-cleaners and walked along the sunny highway entranced by the similarity between the noise from the traffic and a day on the beach with strong waves crashing constantly. i was walking along a highway with my body while my brain was at the beach.

i found the gym with the help of some guys leaving it (the only sign on the building is a poster for a ballet studio). after a quick tour, i signed up enthusiastically: i dropped a lot of cash on a three-month trial membership, but overall it works out really reasonable per month for all-access!

VERY pleased.

i wasted an opportunity to go snowboarding because i went to the bank; i didn't have some information i needed, so i gave up and came to the-office-favourite indian restaurant for a delicious meal. now i'm ready to spend my afternoon chilling.

signing off on the wrong long weekend

this is fucking negligence: moonlighter has now achieved full liability status. we waited half a day for a half-assed, unplanned and untested fix to an issue that i simply cannot believe had not been dealt with as part of the original design. as in, there was no original design. the cto is supportive and defensive of his behaviour and that's caused me to lose all faith in him.

this little trip has been a complete perspective flip. i have gained insights into our company and our product that i might have glossed over if i'd been back at home base. well, maybe that's not necessarily true: the past couple of weeks have been extremely off the mark and frustrating.

i have been familiarizing myself with this company and its practices for most of the past half a year and actually working for about a month and a half, and i am shocked and amazed that a company with so much potential can be so badly mismanaged. if we can pull the present delivery off, we might be able to get things on track and i'd be really happy to be a part of that. but if we can't, well, then i guess it'll be time to go looking for greener pastures.

the relief comes in the form of discovering that if my employment is terminated for whatever reason, i can still remain here legally until my current permit expires and so go through a relaxed job search before re-applying for a new work permit as soon as i find other employment. i'm disappointed that i'm even thinking about this stuff so soon after getting started.

on an amusing note, all of this is happening and i haven't yet signed the contract. this is the second time i've been in such a situation (my previous engagement as a freelancer was also sans signatures) and that means that there's less chance of my being taken advantage of.

---aside from an extremely unpleasant start to the day, the rest of it was quite comfortable. aota and i were taken out to lunch and later to drinks, and on all counts the food was exquisite. also, panamanian rum is exceptionally good! panama is beautiful, the people are friendly and i'm glad we're getting at least a little time to enjoy some of this trip.

questionable standing

it's 7am and i'm waiting in line for the bus. this is not entirely unheard of, but i've never done it after getting home rather drunk at 2am.

i know i was drunk because i got properly lost finding the metro station and had to take a (rather expensive) taxi.

the night was really fun, and i think i've lost my voice after shouting over the band at the cock 'n bull. we all talked a lot, including the random strangers who joined our table.

...

there was a weird moment on my way home from work when i was lost in karnivool - deadman and the words DEADMAN WALKING appeared behind the window in front of me (theatre poster).

did i mention that spring is here? it's palpable, even through the cold. it was totally refreshing to walk out at 6pm and still catch the sunset - the morning's weather was so perfect that it was a bummer going indoors!

the day was long and involved lots of phone calls from the cto: the last one was as everyone (including me) was filing out, and when the phone rang and i saw the caller id i could only respond by throwing up my hands and yelling "NOOOOOOOO!" at the ceiling. there were laughs and there was some concern, but i performed some placating gesticulations as i answered.

good news! it seems that moonlighter found his mistake. clean-up time.