Wow

Last week was an absolute nightmare. I was tasked at work with getting 3 pieces of hardware up and running. Unfortunately they needed to be updated to code that is still currently in development. the engineers that read this will appreciate that I must have pissed someone off to get this assignment. I started Tuesday, hit a couple of bumps…then Wednesday rolled around and the shit hit the proverbial fan at an alarming rate. I hit wall after wall, some of them were brick, some concrete, some even had spikes on them. I spent all day Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday talking to every developer, tester, team lead, pet code monkey that I could find to try to get at least one system up and running. Friday afternoon came around and I was preparing myself for the worst, to work the weekend. At about 5:30 on Friday, all 3 machines updated successfully. I was amazed, but still wasn’t going to start breathing quite yet. I wanted to give them a day to settle. I was almost sure they would bomb out and then I would have to skip church on Saturday to go in and fix them again. But they seemed to be stable enough and so I called it good. Then Sunday came and I helped Josh and Katie move into their new house. A lot of people showed up to help and it was good because Josh’s minivan started acting up. Don was able to scrounge up some bolts to bolt something back on. Not sure what it was, but it’s fixed now. Here is a great pic of the moment.

I then stuck around and helped them unpack and get settled in their new place. It was a really long day but it was well worth it to see Josh and Katie and their kids in their new house. Even if it is all the way out past BFE.

Kick butt weekend

I had a really kick ass weekend this weekend. It started Saturday night when I went out with a friend. I haven’t hung out with her in a long time, and it was really good to catch up and just “shoot the shit” as it were. We met for dinner after church at Outback, and we sat on the patio. It was a chilly night, but they had space heaters once the sun went down. We had a great meal, served by a great server (Eric) and we had great conversation. We had a leisurely dinner and then we moved into the bar so Eric could get off. We then hung out with him as he ate dinner. After that Eric and the Outbacker’s were going to go down to 4th Ave and I planned on going with them. But unfortunately I went home and laid down and promptly fell asleep. I woke up just in time to not make it anywhere. Sunday was uneventful, played WoW most of the day. Then last night, when everyone celebrated St. Patrick’s day (yes I said celebrated cause it was actually on Saturday see here for more) I actually made it out! We ended up going to several places I have never been, which was even more fun than the old standbys. We started at the Auld Dubliner for some Harp, then we walked down to 4th Ave to O’Malleys. We hung out there and then went to get pizza at Brooklyn Pizza. I have to say, that was some really good pizza. Then we went back to O’Malleys and then eventually to Plush. All in all it was a really good time.

Sweet spot

I have to start this post off with an admission. I didn’t want to go to church today. I am not sure why, but all day I was thinking how nice it would be not to have to go, and I had to stop myself from thinking of ways so that I wouldn’t have to go. But in the end, I went. It was an interesting sermon having to do with personal “sweet spots” in church and profession, life in general. As Josh was sermoning (I am aware this is not a word so just deal) I thought to myself what my sweet spot was. The answer I came up with is really not what I expected. I feel that I have fallen into the trap of doing things because there is no one else to do them, even if I am not the greatest at them. I see a need, a desire for something to happen, and I want to see that fulfilled. What would happen if I just kept to my sweet spot? Would people be disappointed?

Branching out

This weekend was the first of hopefully many opportunities that I take to branch out of my comfort box. Eric, one of my good buddies, has a lot of interesting colleagues. Friday night after hanging out with Jen & Ryan for beer and video games, I went out with Eric and his co-workers to the Shelter Lounge. Now any of you that have been to the Shelter in the past should go again. It is a calm atmosphere and now that there is no smoking inside, it is a lot more fun and relaxing. We hung out there and I met some crazy people. By the time anyone realized it, or rather before I realized it, it was already 2:30 in the morning. I usually am sound asleep at that time, so I was pleasantly surprised that I wasn’t yawning my face off. Then Saturday night, after church some people went out to Chuy’s for dinner. I had gone to dinner and hung out with Chris and Melissa and of course Randy, but Scott and Pam were there along with Kevin and his family. Unfortunately, we sat at a long table (they don’t have circular tables) so it was almost impossible to converse with Kevin. After everyone left there I was totally thinking of a nap. But when I got home Eric gave me a call and I went to his house to hang. Well, we decided to put in an “appearance” at Olive ‘r Twists, a local sports bar. So we drove over there and got to chatting with all the people and once again I was surprised to look at the time and see that it was 2 o’clock. Well, I had planned on getting a better nights sleep, but that plan was so shot. Fortunately, I was able to sleep in on Sunday as I did not go to small group. Then Randy, Eric and I went to see 10,000 BC, but I’ll post about that later. Suffice it to say, it was freakin’ hilarious!

10,000 BC

I am really excited about this movie coming out this weekend. It looks really good as far as visual effects, but that isn’t the only reason. I am going to drag Eric to go see it with me. Now, I do this not only cause we are friends or have pretty similar taste in movies, it’s because he cracks me up with some of the things he says. He is an archeology professor at a community college here in town, so he is really smart. I was there when he saw the preview for this movie the first time. I think he called it ridiculous because, “there wasn’t monolithic architecture in the same time as major fauna.” (or something to that effect) Basically he said that during the time of saber toothed tigers and mastodons, people didn’t build temples that big. It will definitely be a fun time just hearing what he has to say about the movie once it’s over. Here is the official site.