[The Most Loathed] learns....slowly

[The Most Loathed]

Food was pretty good yesterday. I was working pretty hard (despite not qualifying as "billable hours") and skipped breakfast. This was offset by Laura asking for ice cream so we went and got some delicious, delicious ice cream.

 

We know that we should be packing right now but we just feel like we have so little to pack and just moving a few miles it seems like it'll be easier to take more, smaller trips than trying to box everything and haul it in one truck load. It should make Saturday pretty smooth because it'll mostly be our handful of pieces of furniture.

 

Yesterday I got assigned to a process improvement group and we had our first meeting yesterday. It's going to be a pretty great opportunity for me in a bunch of ways. They're looking for someone to help teach the testers how to use Excel, to design and deploy macros, and just help speed up how people do work. It's not Python scripts or anything but I really like doing this kind of stuff, helping people work fast but also easier. So I'm excited.

[The Most Loathed]

Super important decision to make, what will I call my wireless networks after we move?

I plan to have 3. There will be the guest network which gets throttled and has a trivial password. There will be our private network that I'll put Laura's and my phones and computers on. There will also likely be an Internet of Things network. The last one will have our wifi enabled scale, my Magic Mirror and any other things that I want to let talk to each other wirelessly. I've been thinking of them as three concentric circles with the IoT on the inside and the guest network on the outside. I'm trying to think of names that imply that like: Id, Ego, Superego or names that invoke Sci fi tropes like: HAL, Multivac, and Skynet. 

 

any suggestions?

[LouCarJo]

On 19/07/2017 at 8:24 PM, The Most Loathed said:

 

I didn't hit my hours today. I got like 1.5, 3 if count sitting on phone calls, in before little things started to pop up that interrupted me. They were work things but they weren't really doing work. It was things like fighting with DBAs that I need access to their data. If I was consulting, I'd definitely bill those but for the purpose of the metric, they don't count.  8 billable hours, even being generous about what "billable" is isn't reasonable. I wouldn't last a month at that job.

Yep, it's a large part of why I left.  Today for instance: how would you record the hours I spent saying/thinking my head hurt from having to think too much and then the 1.5 hours I spent feeling proud of myself once I'd got the hard piece of work done?!

[The Most Loathed]

So much stuff. This will be a long one. Some good, some bad, a lot optimistic.

 

07/20/2017 - Thursday

Not my finest day. I got nowhere near my billable hours but I got a lot of little annoying crap done. Getting access to date here is stupidly hard and not because they have a difficult but well reasoned process. No, they have 100 different people controlling 100 different data sources, each of which have a slightly different process and most of whom believe the only real process is to hassle you until you quit asking or they are fed up enough to give you access. I sometime think about changing roles in the same company just so I can have one data source to worry about and not have to deal with little tyrants. I'd get bored though so I keep working away.

Thursday evening Laura and I were having a typical conversation where she gripes about work, both her job and the grand scheme of careers, and I acknowledge that it sucks and thank my lucky stars for the stupid turns of fortune that landed me in a pay grade that I don't think I deserve. For whatever reason that rubbed her the wrong way, which happens sometimes but not most of the time. Her reaction set me off too. I knew however that the move was starting the next and I had 0 desire to get into a fight. I also figured stress about the move was planning a role. So I took a walk. A long walk. I didn't really explain myself either.

Laura texted to confirm I was ok. I let her know I was taking a walk instead of fighting it out. She had, understandably, mixed feelings about this but was overall supportive. I walked a ways and on the way back went past the second run movie theater and saw that they were about to start a showing of a movie I've wanted to see but Laura doesn't. Also I was still pretty grumpy. so i texted her that I would stop and see the movie and come home.

I liked Guardians of the Galaxy 2. I don't think that I can make a case that it's a well made movie in particular but I enjoyed it. Then I headed home. Oh, also, had a medium soda and popcorn.

We sorted things out pretty quickly at home and the night actually ended well, all things considered. I'm not terribly happy with myself for my solution but in this case I think it did play out for the best

 

07/21/2017 - Friday

We got up, had breakfast then headed to the apartment to get all the last minute stuff done like getting our keys, getting a storage locker and so on. It went really smoothly. I took Laura back home, loaded the younger dog off to the kennel for a day and loaded the car up to head back to the apartment. 

By the time I got my one load to the apartment, took care of a couple other chores and reloaded the car, Laura's half day was over. We went back over with a lighter load and took the older dog to check out the new place. She was understandably stressed. She's 18 and doesn't do change super well. We walked her around a bit then headed back home

 

07/22/2017 - Saturday - moving day

The dog got me up early so I gave her one last, long walk around our neighborhood. Once I fed Laura and I and cleaned up the kitchen, I started organizing things for the move and loaded another car load. We ran that over and went to pick up the truck by 10.

We got the truck back to the house and I started to stage a few things by the truck while I waited to see who would show and began to do my worrying for the day. @Sloth the Enduring, Brian, and Tonu came by to help and thanks to them we go the truck loaded from noon to 1:30. I suck at loading moving trucks. I can haul stuff all day but the art of getting all the things in, in the best possible way, I don't have it. Fortunately they did. 

When I rented the truck I picked the one I thought I would need, then went up one size higher just to make sure. It's a good thing that I did. They call the trucks by their size (10 foot, 15 foot and so on. I did not think about the fact they 15 feet is a measure of the exterior of the truck including the cab. The inside the truck was maybe 10 feet. Again, thanks more to my volunteers than to me, all our crap got loaded and on time. 

We got to the apartment building 10 minutes early so I took the guys up to see the apartment initially. Everyone acted duly impressed. I'm not sure what the privacy settings on this video are but here's a link to a video shot from our balcony.

When we got downstairs to move the truck and start hauling some delivery truck pulled up and took our spot and our elevator. I was able to go retrieve the elevator but we had to haul from the back of the parking lot twice before they left. Laura was starting to panic at this point because we had burned 25% of our allotted time but hadn't got anywhere near 25% of our stuff up.

The delivery truck left, we moved the moving truck into place and got our system down. Brian unloaded the truck while Sloth and I took it up stairs and unloaded it. We got it done in the time we had left. Sloth wanted to go for a bike ride so I didn't make him hang around for pizza. Brian said we'd catch up later. I was grateful because I was feeling a little overwhelmed with my apartment crammed full of boxes. 

We took the truck back and made a sweep through the house to make sure we had everything in place for our final stage of cleaning out.

 

07/23/2017 - Sunday

We headed back over to the house to do clean up and get Laura's clothing which we deliberately didn't worry about on Saturday. We got our yet another bagster. I think we've used 5 of these throughout the last couple years as we worked on this process. We threw away some rugs that we couldn't , and didn't want to, move. We cleaned out everything else from the garage and other random place that things accumulate, leaving behind some things we promised to leave for the new owners. Then Laura went to pick up the younger dog at the kennel while I did some kitchen clean up and took care of the older dog.

Last night was a little bit of light pick up and a ton of time wasted on the phone with our internet provider (Comcast). I can't log into our wireless. They, of course, made me reboot the modem which meant that neither they nor I could find it digitally. After a bunch of wasted time my computer could see it again but I still can't log in. They are sending a technician tomorrow which annoys me. It seems like there are always problems with this service.

 

07/24/2017 - Monday

The day is still fairly young but I did go down to the gym this morning and set the treadmill on 5% incline and walked at 3.6 mph (if I recall correctly) for 30 minutes then did about 10 minutes of stretching. I need to workout out what my mobility routine is going to be. I'd like it to be at least 15 minutes and as many as 30 minutes. My walk to work took by about 20 minutes total

Tonight we need some groceries and we have one more trip back to the house before we're 100% done. 

 

So far, we love the new apartment. It's smaller than the house and doubly so now with all the boxes in it. We're both anxious to get all the boxes put away. Being so high we get an amazing breeze. Even when it's a little warm down on ground level, 200 feet up in the air it's comfortable. So we've been leaving the windows open rather than running any climate control. 

I loved being able to do a light workout this morning and then come back and clean up while Laura was getting ready for the day. That was impossible in the house. We're also loving how much more light we get. We have barely been using lamps and lights. As winter gets here and the sun sets a 4, we'll obviously have to use them but we get a lot more hours of natural light now than we did in the house.

The dogs are still adjusting to the new arrangement. They don't know what to make of the extra ambient noise from us leaving the windows open. They don't really like the elevator. We think they'll be fine in a couple weeks. Although we need to get some obedience training for the younger one. She can pop out of her collar if she wants and there's very little margin for error if she gets out in the streets this close to downtown. 

We don't yet have curtains hung so it's brighter at night than we're used to but we're doing ok and we'll take care of that. The kitchen is smaller, at least in terms of storage but we seem to be finding places for everything, more or less. Laura continues to want more furniture than I think will work for the apartment but we'll work that out in the coming months and years. 

So, overall, we'rel really happy with it a few days in.

[Sloth the Enduring]

It's a swanky place. It's amazing how little stuff you two have. What did you name your networks? I'd have gone with Ginger, Mary Ann, and Lovey, but that doesn't seem like your thing.

[The Most Loathed]

3 minutes ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

It's a swanky place. It's amazing how little stuff you two have. What did you name your networks? I'd have gone with Ginger, Mary Ann, and Lovey, but that doesn't seem like your thing.

I haven't even gotten to naming them yet. We have a WutangLAN nearby but a lot of people haven't even bothered. I tried to see if the one ring from LotR had a name but it doesn't. I thought about naming them after the three magical warrens in the fantasy series I am reading: Galain (Darkness), Thyrllan (Light), and Emurlahn (Shadow). I'm looking at them now and realizing that they all have LAN in them so I may have to go with that.

 

Unrelated. Today I had to take my phone in for repairs. The guy looked at me like I was being a total jerk when he asked for a contact number and I explained to him that he had my best contact method in his hand and it'd probably be easier if I just check in in a few hours. What does he think I do with my phone?

[Bearlee]

18 hours ago, The Most Loathed said:

I haven't even gotten to naming them yet. We have a WutangLAN nearby but a lot of people haven't even bothered. I tried to see if the one ring from LotR had a name but it doesn't. I thought about naming them after the three magical warrens in the fantasy series I am reading: Galain (Darkness), Thyrllan (Light), and Emurlahn (Shadow). I'm looking at them now and realizing that they all have LAN in them so I may have to go with that.

 

Unrelated. Today I had to take my phone in for repairs. The guy looked at me like I was being a total jerk when he asked for a contact number and I explained to him that he had my best contact method in his hand and it'd probably be easier if I just check in in a few hours. What does he think I do with my phone?

If you're like other people you would just use it for selfies and leaving angry comments on Facebook and Twitter. Who talks on a phone anymore. Luddite!

[Bearlee]

Potential names for your LANs LANcelot (King Arthur legend), LANnister (Game of Thrones family name), and AsLAN (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe book). Though I myself would call them Stark Industry, Stark Resilient, and Stark Works but you may not be a big Iron Man fan like myself.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[The Most Loathed]

2 hours ago, Bearlee said:

If you're like other people you would just use it for selfies and leaving angry comments on Facebook and Twitter. Who talks on a phone anymore. Luddite!

busted

1 hour ago, Bearlee said:

Potential names for your LANs LANcelot (King Arthur legend), LANnister (Game of Thrones family name), and AsLAN (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe book). Though I myself would call them Stark Industry, Stark Resilient, and Stark Works but you may not be a big Iron Man fan like myself.

You're good at this.

 

 

Yesterday we wrapped up the house. It took a little longer than we wanted but everything is out, Laura vacuumed and mopped and I washed out the fridge. We ended up leaving our car packed full overnight and will unload it over the next couple days. We're officially out of the house and glad to be do. Now we just need to actually get into the apartment, we're in but we still have boxes everywhere so it doesn't feel like home yet. We keep chuckling over both how little stuff (relative to many peers) we have but also how much stuff we have. We miss nothing we've gotten rid of, or very nearly so and while we have a few kitchen and clothing items we'd really like to get unpacked, for the most part we aren't missing a whole lot that is packed. 

 

This morning I hit the treadmill again then some light stretching and mobility. Tonight is supposed to be Kristjian's first trip to the apartment to work out. I'm a little dubious that she'll want to do it but we'll see. Regardless I plan to train. Then I need to get back to unboxing. Tomorrow I plan to do something other than treadmill in the morning. Tomorrow I will be working from home as well, just because. 

[Bearlee]

Found this and thought it applied to your current issues.

[The Most Loathed]

4 minutes ago, Bearlee said:

Found this and thought it applied to your current issues.

Ha! Always. 

[The Most Loathed]

I'm a nerd. I signed up for a full day of training called "Applied Artificial Intelligence" in which we will use Python to implement Google's Tensor Flow to recognize handwritten numbers and letters and I'm super excited for it. It's not until late August but I'm excited right now.

[Elastigirl]

Glad the move went well. Your apartment sounds great. Last night I had a dream where we (husband and I ) had decided to move in to an apartment. I was looking around the apartment, thinking it was nice, and wondering if we had made a good decision or not.

[Rooks]

On 7/18/2017 at 7:31 AM, The Most Loathed said:

So, now I'm working on pulling down apps. I haven't been able to find a great sleep hygiene app, that dims the phone late at night. I feel like those were all the rage years ago but everytime I search I just get a bunch of apps that want to track my sleep quality. I'm not convinced that I need or want that or that I would know what to do if I had it. 

 

I was going to suggest f.lux, but that might be only for Mac OS X. I know the OS X came out with Night Shift not to long ago (props to @Sloth the Enduring for mentioning it already) so I'd go with that route if it's on the iPhone.

 

On 7/18/2017 at 9:25 PM, The Most Loathed said:

Today I turn 38.

 

Sorry I'm late. I was on vacation all last week and stayed clear of the phone for the most part. Happy Belated Birthday.

 

On 7/18/2017 at 9:25 PM, The Most Loathed said:

Billable hours

I started to play with this last week but it really didn't stick. This week I've had a lot more success with it. In my job I spend A LOT of time doing things that don't progress anyone's agenda, checking email, listening to people tell me about some gripe, even taking a walk (which is a mental health break I often need). I decided that I needed to set aside to to just go totally heads down and work on something technical. That means no check NF or email or even much of the Googling that takes up a lot of my programming time. This is time where I set a timer and just work. If I hit a bump I get something close enough and move on but make a note to come back and explore it.

I've found that I can do about 45 minutes at a go before my brain starts to want to wander. If I give myself from 15 - 30 minutes to do all the distracting things mentioned above, I can come back and hammer out another really solid 45 minutes. I'd need to repeat this cycle a little over 5 times (4 if I run a little long a couple times, 6 if I cut things short for bathroom breaks or whatever). 4 hours of completely heads down work doesn't sound like a lot for an 8 hour work day but it's more than most people get in. I'd say the 2 - 3 is a common number, 6 is pretty tiring but maybe after I practice more I can get there.

 

This is fantastic. I love it. I feel like I would have a very hard time reaching 4 in my job currently as I feel like I end up doing a lot of the trivial junk that no one else wants to do, just to make sure stuff moves forward. But for the most part I'm fine with that as it seems to make other people happy. Makes me feel a bit lazy, but if other people find it useful, I guess I'm doing something right.

 

Otherwise, props on the move. Sorry again about not getting down to help. I really wanted to come, but it just wasn't in the cards just getting from vacation. That messed with kiddo's sleep schedule so we were all zonked on Saturday and Sunday and then I got bit sick on Monday. 

 

Based on that video of your apartment, I'm curious where you work if it's a 20 minute walk. I'm switching gigs in the next month (just accepted their offer last Monday) and will be working right across the street from Surdyks. We could maybe do lunch some day if it's close enough.

[The Most Loathed]

@Rooks, I'm at US Bank Plaza. Are you across the river at Hennepin and University? I could definitely Nice Ride it over there some time.

 

No worries on the move. We survived.

 

I'm finding 4 "billable" hours tough to do. I'm trying to decide if I need to back down the number or if I need to broaden my definition.

[Rooks]

Very cool. Yeah new place is right up there on Hennepin and University. I won't start there until August 21st as I'm working the situation to get some of my daughter's health stuff on my current insurance before having to get re-approved on the new insurance. Overall, that's not too far of a hike. Mile walk down to the Pourhouse which is right near you. We'll have to do it sometime.  

[LouCarJo]

Congrats on the move.  Sadly the only thing the video link seems to allow me to do is FB stalk your wife!

[The Most Loathed]

51 minutes ago, Rooks said:

Very cool. Yeah new place is right up there on Hennepin and University. I won't start there until August 21st as I'm working the situation to get some of my daughter's health stuff on my current insurance before having to get re-approved on the new insurance. Overall, that's not too far of a hike. Mile walk down to the Pourhouse which is right near you. We'll have to do it sometime.  

btw, congrats on the new gig. I know you've been considering if where you were at was right for you for some time now.

 

3 minutes ago, LouCarJo said:

Congrats on the move.  Sadly the only thing the video link seems to allow me to do is FB stalk your wife!

I wondered if that wouldn't be the case. Just imagine the best then ever.

[LouCarJo]

5 minutes ago, The Most Loathed said:

btw, congrats on the new gig. I know you've been considering if where you were at was right for you for some time now.

 

I wondered if that wouldn't be the case. Just imagine the best then ever.

I think I already saw your link for the apartment itself.  Imagining away...

[The Most Loathed]

Last eve ended up being pretty unproductive. A storm rolled in and we had so much fun watching it happen from our apartment that time just kind of passed. Also, I was just really tired. This morning the girls got me up early so I took them out to do what they need to do then went back to bed for a few hours.

[Elastigirl]

12 hours ago, The Most Loathed said:

Last eve ended up being pretty unproductive. A storm rolled in and we had so much fun watching it happen from our apartment that time just kind of passed. Also, I was just really tired. This morning the girls got me up early so I took them out to do what they need to do then went back to bed for a few hours.

Sounds like a pleasant evening even if  it wasn't what you planned. Sometimes that  kind of  break is what's needed.

[The Most Loathed]

On 7/26/2017 at 8:35 PM, Elastigirl said:

Sounds like a pleasant evening even if  it wasn't what you planned. Sometimes that  kind of  break is what's needed.

 Thank You

 

07/26

I ended up working from home because we needed that cable guy to come and deal with our internet. It turned out that had I been more patient in the room that I initially plugged into it would have never been an issue. Because I moved the modem to the living room and the jack out there was bad that we had to call in help. I'm kind of surprised that the helpdesk didn't ask me to try a different jack. 

Per the cable guy, for apartments, they usually run one coax into each unit then split it in each room (behind the walls) to serve the whole thing. This was not the case in ours because the building was built prior to it being serviced with cable. Because of that they tend to run the coax down the HVAC which if vertical. He was able to confirm that our living room is on the same line and four floors above us so now he's coming back on Monday to try and fix all of them because they are all presumably without a good cable connection in the living room.

We wrapped the day up by signing up for YWCA memberships. It's right around the corner from us and they have classes for Laura and bumper plates for me. The gym is really empty and just had a pretty significant remodel so it's really nice. 

 

07/27

we got up late and went out for a nice breakfast in Uptown. Then we went and signed our house away. We're now houseless. They did trade us a nice big check for it so we took that to the bank and deposited it. We then wandered back to our car and headed home so Laura could head to work for the second half of the day. I headed over to Micro Center to spend some of the money that I was given for my birthday.

I have never been to Micro Center before and I'm not entirely convinced that I'll go back. I wanted to go because I try to support stores that do cool things rather than just buy the cheapest of everything online. That said, I'm not sure that something that looks like a combination of a close Best Buy and a closed Radio Shack is really worth the effort. So I may jut buy online going forward from one of the handful of companies that specialize in these kinds of things.

In the meantime though, I bought a soldering iron and associated tools. I bought a timing board and an accelerator board. I bought a Raspberry Pi 3 and a Raspberry Pi 0. I spent a little time today setting up the 3 so that I can now access it on from my laptop as an extra window.

We went over to the Y for Laura to have a yoga class. I went down to their bumper plate area and played around a whole bunch. I did some deadlifts, squats, pull ups, TRX. I'm not really going to bother to list it as a workout right now but it was nice. I'm excited to do more there. 

 

Tomorrow is normal work. That's going to be rough after a WFH day and a day off and knowing that the weekend is about to start. I'll make it though  

[Rooks]

1 hour ago, The Most Loathed said:

That said, I'm not sure that something that looks like a combination of a close Best Buy and a closed Radio Shack is really worth the effort.

 

Perfect way to describe Micro Center. I wouldn't feel too bad about not supporting them. I've never been happy about or pleased with service I've got there. Usually takes a long time to find someone willing to help me find what I'm looking for and they are overpriced compared to online retailers (no big surprise there).

 

1 hour ago, The Most Loathed said:

They did trade us a nice big check for it so we took that to the bank and deposited it.

 

[LouCarJo]

It's Friday, you can make it!

 

Also, cultural difference question: you got a cheque (check) for the proceeds of your house?!  (Here you get a completion statement, which sets out what you're paying for and what you are receiving, all the fees etc and then whatever balance you have to pay/will receive is all done by bank transfers.)

[The Most Loathed]

5 hours ago, LouCarJo said:

It's Friday, you can make it!

 

Also, cultural difference question: you got a cheque (check) for the proceeds of your house?!  (Here you get a completion statement, which sets out what you're paying for and what you are receiving, all the fees etc and then whatever balance you have to pay/will receive is all done by bank transfers.)

They do a statement like that here but yeah, shockingly, they handed us a physical check. I can't think of any reason for this but it's how they do it. I also so that the realtor got paid with a physical check which boggles my mind. She uses this title company all the time, why don't they just settle the books weekly, fortnightly (that one's for LouCarJo), or monthly?

I shouldn't be too surprised. I worked for a title company for a short time many years ago. My job was literally to retype documents that were already typed. To be clear, I don't mean that they were typed on paper and I was making them digital, not I had to look at a digital copy and type a digital copy which when then printed for closing then scanned for archive. They used the retyping as a QA process which, when you think about it, was actually the only way to introduce new errors into the system. 

 

9 hours ago, Rooks said:

Perfect way to describe Micro Center. I wouldn't feel too bad about not supporting them. I've never been happy about or pleased with service I've got there. Usually takes a long time to find someone willing to help me find what I'm looking for and they are overpriced compared to online retailers (no big surprise there).

It's sad to think that my experience was typical. I spent a good chunk my time looking but I spent at least 20 minutes waiting for someone to unlock the case with the Raspberry Pis in it.