Cycles of Life
patrick — Mon, 2009-04-27 14:17
I'm sorry for waiting so long to type this up. I've been thinking about this for a while and something that happened this weekend prompted me to sit down and type.
Recently I was able to talk to an old high school friend of mine. We discussed what we'd been up to since the last time we'd talked and while it lasted longer than it should have (got to love questions for detail and then complaints about the discussion lasting too long ;)) we discovered that both of us had been going through some crap at about the same time. He thought my ordeal was worse, but on the flip side I wouldn't want his troubles.
The question he asked of me though was, did you ask God why you were going through all of that
. As Phillipe [Matthew Broderick] said in Ladyhawke, ...the truth is I talk to God all the time...
. On the other side of that I never asked about my ordeal - the part that bothered me wasn't necessarily getting fired, it was that someone I trusted stabbed me in the back due to their insecurity about their job. Either it was my fault for being too trusting (this isn't the first time something similar has happened) or God was simply reminding me that people are human.
However, I think what my friend was more worried about has been my erratic career
. I think the best thing my consulting career has taught me thus far is that no job is permanent
. And looking back to several times when my dad was worried about his own job, even government jobs are not secure
. Plus, I'm not sure that my goal has ever been to have a safe, secure, permanent job so it's not been something I've worried about.
We should all be familiar with the basic principal of the circle of life. We're born, we consume, we die, and are consumed. Everything in nature has it's part to play in the circle of life.
The Peoplehood of Mini Cooper Owners
patrick — Sun, 2009-03-01 23:06
I got my Mini Cooper last October (about 4 months ago). While I thought I realized before getting one that they were an enthusiast car, apparently I had no idea...
Sure, growing up we went through a couple of VW Vanagons and we'd get a wave every once in a while when we were out on vacation... In almost any car driving down back roads running into the occasional farmer will yield a wave or a hat off. The only other recognition I think I've gotten from other people as I'm driving down the road is when I had my really sad and pathetic '95 Saturn S-1 - people had a tendancy to give me the finger <sarcasm>telling me I was #1</sarcasm>.
I think about 80% of the other Mini Cooper drivers I've come across have waved or nodded at me... After realizing it wasn't because they thought they knew me, I've started waving back. I've not waved at people since... well, as a kid in the back of the Vanagon when I'd also pump my arm at tractor trailer rigs to get them to blow their horns.
Goodbye Old Job, Hello New
patrick — Tue, 2009-01-13 01:19
After a recent lunch (a couple weeks ago) with my fellow dev co-workers from Spidertel at the China Star Super Buffet we grabbed the customary fortune cookies and headed on our way. Granted the fortunes are printed en masse and completely random, sometimes they're quite interesting.
You will never need to worry about a steady income.
Pics of the '05 Mini Cooper
patrick — Tue, 2008-10-28 00:33
Several people have asked me for some pics of my new Mini Cooper. Unfortunately the only pics I currently have are the ones from the dealership... And the dealership removed the the page from their website when I sent them my deposit... So good thing I downloaded them myself.
My New Car - '05 Mini Cooper
patrick — Mon, 2008-10-27 23:38
I've been doing a lot of car shopping since the accident, but I've been too busy with work stuff to do enough looking. It's been about a month, car rental from insurance only lasted about 2 weeks I think, & the rest of the time I've borrowed a car or stolen car rides... I had been doing some car shopping prior to the accident, but it didn't turn into a top priority until after the car wreck... I was still a couple of months away from having the money I wanted.
Car Wreck - 2008-09-24
patrick — Wed, 2008-09-24 13:13
So I'm on my way to work this morning heading southbound and stop at the signal light at 103rd & State Line Rd. The car behind me didn't stop... I'm not sure whether he didn't bother to attempt to stop or whether he hydroplaned into me.
Since I was already on the other side of the intersection I pulled into the JiffyLube to be out of the way of street traffic.
The cops showed up and took care of everything - yay cops.
As for me - I went to the message therapist and chiropractor last night and felt much better after I left... Now after the car wreck my lower back hurts and I have a migraine.
Pic gallery attached
Jobs, Jobs, & More Jobs - Part 2
patrick — Fri, 2008-02-01 03:13
St Joseph, Mo, Take 2, HJB, beginning of December to beginning of January -
I finally found another job that would give me the excuse to get away from the previous job. The consulting agency that had found me the job down in Tulsa had found something for me up in St Joseph, about 1.5 hours north of Kansas City. They gave me the url for the website and I wasn't sure if they were for real.
I wanted to be sure of what they wanted. It looked liked Ma & Pa had done it themselves, hired a nephew to do it, or something similar. It looked like a business reject site from the mid-90's back when nobody had any idea what they were doing. I was wondering if they handled enough business to even be able to pay me and if they were able to pay, would they?
I was told that they realized that their site was not what it needed to be and needed a complete redesign. They had a bunch of different websites and all of them needed work. They needed somebody to completely take over their websites - they wanted a webmaster
. At that point I was willing to talk with them. On the 1 hand I was kind of excited to be completely in charge and on the other hand I was kind of worried.
Jobs, Jobs, & More Jobs - Part 1
patrick — Thu, 2008-01-31 12:06
Back in September of last year I wrote a post about my job hunt in No More Vegas and an ending note about the jobs in Kansas City. Where else to start except at the beginning (of the end?). To protect the names of the innocent (and the not so innocent) I won't mention any names.
Downtown Kansas City, Take 1, RCS, beginning of October to end of November -
I ended up with a job in Kansas City at a marketing agency I'll call RCS. It had started years ago as a print media company and as the internet blossomed it started adding web sites to it's list of offerings. The business started at about 66%/33% print/internet and now they're about 66%/33% internet/print - their business has completely shifted. Their initial web offerings was limited to static web pages, later they outsourced dynamic
pages to a ColdFusion developer, & finally they ended up with their own in house development staff.
When I went through the interview process I asked certain questions. Maybe I didn't ask the right people the correct questions because after I got started I found a completely different picture than what I had thought had been painted during the interview process. I had asked about LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), source code versioning (subversion, cvs, etc), development cycle, OOP, a framework or at the very least a library of code, and several other things. It sounded like it was a good match - they did inform me though that they did have two Windows servers which were required for the legacy ColdFusion and ASP code. I figured no problem, I won't have to deal with those unless I have to mess with some of the ColdFusion or ASP code. I especially thought this was a good match not only because the lead developer programmer/server admin liked Gentoo (even his desktop was running Gentoo) and disliked Windows, but the long-time owner of the marketing company was a Mac person and very anti-Microsoft (she also owned the Mac store down the hall which is also certified to do Mac repairs!)
And then it all came crumbling down...
Viva! Las Vegas! & other Jobs
patrick — Thu, 2007-09-13 23:25
I've had a busy week & hopefully I'll get to sleep in tomorrow :)
Since my last project ended Aug 31 due to lack of funding I figured I'd come & fix a couple of my parents' computer issues, including setting up the new file server. While in Kansas City I got several emails & phone calls about a couple of job offers.
Monday I had barely left KC before I had to stop & wait for a phone interview with River City Studios (here in KC). After that I finished heading back down to Tulsa & spent the night.
