Chillaxin’

Well, I am technically unemployed until Tuesday… :) My last few days at Goodrich were uneventful, everything went smoothly with the design review, and my last day came and went with little fanfare. I wasn’t very emotional leaving on Friday, I said goodbye to everyone and carried the last box of crap out to my car after turning in my badge. I felt good leaving, so I guess I made the right decision after all… :) I’m really looking forward to starting anew on Tuesday, so we’ll see how that goes.

Friday Night, Aaron was in town, so I hung out with him and Tim. They started at Goodrich as co-ops the same day I started working there, and Tim came back to work there full time after graduation. It was a strange bookending that Aaron just so happened to be in town on my last day at the company. Tim’s brother and another friend from RIT was in town, so we all grabbed dinner and drinks, meeting up with some other friends.. Saturday morning I headed down the NJ to spend the weekend with my Fam. I’m driving back to Boston Monday morning after lunch with an friend from Hopatcong High.

Hawkeye’s Angry

On the way home from work yesterday I had another flat tire… Fortunately, this time around I was able to get it off the car myself and replace it with the donut spare. By the time I got home all the tire places were closed, so I was forced to take care of it this morning. Unfortunately, I had plans to meet up with some of my family at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome.. It’s a 3 hour trip over there, and the air show starts at 2pm, so I just don’t think I can make it now.. We’ll see when I get out of here, though… But that is likely impossible now, as I am still sitting at the tire place and they are doing the alignment now (it was needed for awhile now). I had them replace the other two tires, since one went a few months ago and one went yesterday, I didn’t want to have to worry about the other two. Thank god for free WiFi at this place…

I can’t help but think that Hawkeye is jealous that my new job will cause me to require less of his services… One week left at Goodrich, this week was tough. The Critical Design Review for the project I’ve been working on for the past year is this week, and so everyone is scrambling to polish off documents, make slides, and make sure we are well-researched for any questions that come up from the customer. Even though it will suck to have my last few days at Goodrich spent in meetings, I feel good that supporting the team through CDR and then leaving is a clean break. All of the documents for my software are in order, including requirements, design, and interface control specs, so whoever is assigned to pick up where I left off. I would feel better if they let me know who was taking it over so I could transfer some knowledge personally, but I’m not going to worry too much about it. My design is pretty comprehensive, not only specifying the software architecture but the individual algorithms required for each calculation, I did my best to hold the programmers hand (mostly because I’ve been thinking about leaving for quite some time and was hoping that I wasn’t going to be that programmer :P).

What surprised me the most about the past week was that while “short time” status always stinks, the worst part has been the commute. Traffic wise, it has been the same as the past 2.5 years. But since I almost drive past my new job 3 miles into my commute, it really punctuates how much I hate the remaining 24 miles until I arrive at Goodrich. But I got my September bus pass in the mail yesterday, and after 5 more days the commute will be much more bearable.

Update: Damn, there is some abuse of the language in this entry… I guess it was a combination of anger, sleep deprivation, and writing in a mechanic’s waiting room… I leave it as-is for posterity…

New Job

Well, it’s official now: On September 5th I will begin working for Snowbound Software as a Software Engineer. I’ll be working on their Java imaging tools and SDK. It’s a small company, but one that is profitable and has been around for 10+ years. It is also in the next town over from Brighton, so my commute just dropped from 55+ miles a day to 3. I guarantee that this reduction will help both my lifespan and my bank account… Between gas and maintenance, my car was killing me… I also think this new position will be much more challenging and give me some more responsibility. Anyway, I’ll be blabbing more about this over the next few weeks, but I wanted to give y’all a heads up!

The god of renovations finally smiles

The bathroom is finished! Well, the contractor is finished, at least. and I have some small work to do ourselves (like baseboard and door trim, painting, light sanding, etc. — stuff that is easy for us to do but would have cost alot to have them do). Anyway, I took a shower in my own home this morning as opposed to having to shower at work, so I’m a much happier camper.

Anyone know what’s going on with the CSH systems? I can’t connect to anything, and really need to check my mail, I’m expecting a very exciting message.

Bathroom Update

got a call from the contractor a few days ago asking her to be home at 3pm yesterday to sign off on the bathroom. Corinna and I called bullshit on this right away, looking at the work left to be done in the bathroom. I advised her to call the company before she left work so she didn’t waste any of her time. When she did, they were “running behind, but should be done around 6pm”. I left work a little early so I could be home at ~5pm to have a word with the contractors. When I got home, the owner, site manager, and plumber were there, surprised that I came home.

They started off saying they hadn’t finished, and that they’d have to come back to finish the access panel for the water shutoff as well as the radiator. I took this opportunity to add the chase they were on contract to install to box out the steam main. They looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears. My temper flared instantly, as I knew they had convieniently forgotten about this work. I calmed myself down (“He took a duck in the face at two hundred and fifty knots”) and pointed them to the original sales agreement which specifically mentioned either moving the steam main into the wall or boxing it out. I was originally concerned when I saw the plaster guy doing the walls but not boxing in the pipe, but I remembered someone mentioned they usually use some kind of panelling for those tasks. But I honestly think they were trying to not do the work, which pisses me off.

I’ve continued to updated the photos of the job, but don’t be fooled by the titles, “Day 15” is not elapsed time, but worked time. This wednesday will be the 4 week mark since the beginning of this job. “Day 15” doesn’t count weekends or the several days (one stretch was 4 days in a row) that they didn’t do a god-damned thing.

I am, as always, an asshole

and I went to the Hippie Mart ™ to pick up dinner tonight and as we were walking in an employee was setting up a display of Crocs, otherwise known as “the most unattractive shoes of modern times”. Corinna remarked at how high their price was, and I commented that they should pay you to wear them since they make you look like a complete douchebag.

It was at this point that I noticed that the customer two feet in front of us was wearing Crocs.