Thunder of Wade

Those with weak stomachs will want to skip this one.  You’ve been warned.

I was working on my jack-o-lantern (more on that later) last night when my room-mate approached me and showed me his stomach.  The area around his hernia scar was dramatically more distended than usual.   He was supposed to see his home-nurse today so we sort of dismissed it for the time being.

Around 9:45, after his shower, he called to me in a panic.  The site had opened up and was draining.  And based on what was coming out and the horrible, horrible smell – we figured it was an infection.   He needed to use the bathroom and was hoping it would reduce.  I told him I’d take a shower while he was doing that and we’d decide what to do next.

I got dressed after my shower and came downstairs – and found he was much worse.   The pus was dripping all over the kitchen floor and the smell was, if anything, worse.  He ran out of paper towels trying to keep it contained.  I got him an old towel to hold in place and we headed to the hospital.

I dropped him off at the door, parked the car, then tracked him down.   The doctor saw him fairly quickly and got his medical history.  They pulled the towel away and it somehow even worse.  Thick and brown discharge – just really horrible.

They took him for a CT scan and the doctor told him that they would either put in a tube to drain it or do surgery to make sure they got the whole pocket of infection.

I called and updated  his brother and then stayed with my room-mate until 1 in the morning – then headed home since there was nothing more I could do.

When I got home, I had to clean up the kitchen.  Not a fun task.   I didn’t get to sleep until about 2:00 am and I am dragging ass this morning.

My room-mate called me this morning while I was on my way to work to let me know he had been moved to a room and reminded me to call his home nurse and cancel for today.  He also told me I could tell his brother and one of his sisters where he was, but not the other one because she would just call and pester him.  So, added bonus, I’m expected to get in the middle of a family squabble.

Tired and cranky.  Not a great way to start the day.  At least it’s Friday.  And I’ve got a kick ass pumpkin waiting on my front porch when I get home.

I’ve been in the market to buy a house and have had a strange set of set-backs even before I’ve really even gotten started.

Started with the pre-approval.  I called my bank, told them what I wanted to do and made an appointment.  I showed up on time and got handed off to another staff member – who couldn’t help.  She had to call their loan guy.   So, I sat there in her office and talked to the loan guy who was pretty insistent that I have already picked out a house before I did the pre-approval – even though my realtor told me the opposite.   Finally got through the paperwork and figured, well, I’m new and I don’t know what I’m doing.  Fair enough.

My realtor – who’s also the wife of my co-worker – and she got my list of parameters and sent me an online search of about 250 locations.   I narrowed those down to 30, she narrowed them down again to those that were still available and we had a really great meeting and started planning looking at places.

And then she sort of resigned – not enough time to devote to the scheduling and sort of outside of her territory.   She handed me off to her mentor to help me go forward.   I was a little disappointed, but I understand this can be a time consuming process and it could be difficult to do this and get their photography business off the ground.    Or further off the ground – they’ve already done some amazing work.

So, talked to the new realtor and made plans to meet with her on Saturday.   Then she called again today and said she reviewed the houses we were to look at and didn’t like 90% of them.  So, she’s scrapping the list and starting fresh to get houses with a better resale value.   She also raised the price range to uncomfortable levels and the radius from my current job further than I wanted.

I need to email her and sort of lay down the law on my parameters.  I don’t want to extend my commute that far and I will need a new car at some point, so I don’t want to break my bank.  Also, I’d like to eat from time to time.

It’s frustrating, but I’m trying to keep an open mind.  The tour of homes on Saturday will include about 30 locations – if nothing really jumps out at me I may need to go to plan B.  Or is that plan C?  D?  I don’t know where I’m at right now.

At this point, moving under my desk at work is looking pretty nice.

When we remove a website from our servers, we make a back up and put it on a CD.  Since we’ve done this a lot, we’ve got a lot of CDs – but we rarely get requests to track things down and recover them.

This week, we got a request for a website and I started the task of plowing through the CDs to track this folder down.   None of the CDs in the archive had this folder name as part of the label, but we knew it had to be somewhere.

I eliminated a few right off the bat, but then I noticed one CD that had  /foldername/   – /foldername/

Which was odd.  All the rest listed the contents of the CD pretty well spelled out, but the “-” implied that it was a range instead of a list.  And I recognized the folders and realized they wouldn’t fill a CD.  And the folder I was looking for would have alphabetically “fit” between those two folder names.

I popped the CD into my computer and in seconds I had the files.

It felt good to make that intuitive leap – and it saved me a massive amount of time.  I copied the files onto a new CD and delivered it to the requester.

So, I saved the day.  Does that mean I can go  home early?

With the main site down at work pretty much all week, I decided to do something nice to try and balance things out.  So, I invited my room-mate and my FRM’s mother and grandmother out to lunch for today.  We were going to meet at their place around 11:30 and then go to the Olive Garden to get a bite to eat.   I figured my room-mate would appreciate getting out of house and the ladies are always fun.

This morning, I got a voice mail and a call from FRM’s mom – she wasn’t feeling well and had to cancel.    About that same time, my room-mate had a melt down.

He was throwing up, having bowel issues, nosebleeds, stomach cramps, chills, and the shakes.     He was in no condition to go anywhere – so, I stayed and looked after him all day.

His siblings, incidentally, were all at a football game.

I also worked on my Halloween costume and pretty much finished it up.   Which is way early for me, but it was a good way to pass the day.  I’m hoping to get a pumpkin or two tomorrow and carve those.  Maybe a little cider too.

As productive as I was, I still feel like I wasted the day.  That’s what I get for planning, I guess.

It was getting late last night and I decided to get in a little Minecraft time before going to bed.  I was exploring a new area, found some cool stuff, then dug a little deeper into a cave.  It was dark and I hadn’t put a torch up yet.   I went around a corner and heard:

“THWAMP!”

The sound of an arrow being shot at me from the dark.  A skeleton was in the cave with me.

I literally jumped in my chair and my heart skipped a beat.  I scrambled out of the cave, drew my sword, then ventured to the cave entrance and reach around the corner to flail at the skeleton until it was dead.  Or dead again, however that works.  Then I sensibly turned down the speaker volume my computer and headed back to a region of relative safety.  Then I saved my game, logged off, and went to bed.

It’s just a game, Anthony, just a game.  But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t considering leaving on a nightlight in my room.  Just in case.   And the sword?  Right next to the bed.  Again, just in case.

I was fixing myself some dinner tonight and once again, under estimated wasabi.   I had some noodles and tuna in a bowl, added some soy sauce, and then a bit of wasabi to give it some kick.

Except that I had added perhaps a bit too much wasabi.  And the noodles were still hot enough to produce steam.  So, as I mixed the noodles and tuna together with the wasabi, I stirred up some wasabi laden steam.  Which wafted right up into my eyes. There was a moment of “oh, this is weird” – which then directly turned into “uh-oh” – which then became “holy shit!”

I moved away from the steam, tore my glasses off, and rubbed my eyes until they stopped burning.

I had, essentially, maced myself with wasabi-steam.

Lesson learned.

On any given day, if asked how much I make, I couldn’t tell you.  I could give a rough estimate, but the exact hourly wage doesn’t really garner much attention from me.  I know it’s enough to pay my bills and put away some money in my savings – beyond that, it’s just a number.  And although the salary of my fellow state employee colleagues is a matter of public record, I never felt the need to look that up.

I figured it would just piss me off.   And I was right.

There has been some discussion of a union on campus and to help stir people up, the supporters of this project have posted a link to this document in some easy to access areas.

So, I looked myself up – and my immediate co-workers.

Mistake.

I’m fine with someone that works harder or does a more complicated job making more than I do – or someone that has been here much longer than I have.  Unfortunately, I’m the lowest paid person on the team.  I’ve been here longer than most and I work much harder than the highest paid of my co-workers.

Am I going to protest or make a big deal of this?  Am I going to storm into my boss’s office and demand a raise – or just storm out in a huff?   No, of course not.

Am I going to work my ass off for the rest of the day?   I think not.

Knowing me, I’ll most likely be over this tomorrow – provided I delete the note I made to myself with the hourly rates.

Just keep reminding myself that I like my job and that there are so many people out there that aren’t employed at all.

Still… grumble.

The main website where I work has been up and down – mostly down – for the past three days.  Things here in the webteam office have gotten pretty grim and our software vendors are essentially at a loss.  We can’t update the site at the moment – one of my main jobs – and even the live version is unstable at best.

We’re all quieter than usual, very subdued as we try and work out what’s wrong.  Or more likely the combination of things that are wrong.   I’ve still got other projects I can work on, but a couple of the guys here are essentially on stand-by.   Not a good week for the webteam.

On a brighter note, I had a meeting with a colleague in another department yesterday.  I’m not normally a fan of meetings in general, but this colleague is super smart and very pleasant to work with.    We got everything covered and assigned homework and were out the door in no time.   As I was walking her out through the maze of our building, I told her that our group  – collectively – was very glad she was part of UA.  She does marketing for one of the colleges and through her efforts their website has improved dramatically.

She was pleasantly surprised at my comment and thanked me – saying that she sometimes wondered if she was making a difference and I assured her that she was.  So, I think I made her day.

The other day, while I was walking up campus, I saw an origami crane on the ground.  I picked it up, noted a different fold than what I do, and took it with me.

The next day, I reversed the folds to figure out what they’d done, and just as importantly – why they’d done it. The extra fold would make it stand up easier – but was not as aesthetically pleasing.

It was weird to see this so familiar- and significantly different- version of something I’ve done literally thousands of times.  (And can do one handed or with my eyes closed – but not both.)

Today, while cutting though a building on campus, I saw a half-finished bird module on the ground.  From that point, I could have turned that into a bird, a dragon, or a flower.

And though I’m known for leaving these little treasures where-ever I go – these weren’t mine.  So, someone else on campus is a folder – and I have no idea who.

This may be the first time in my life I’ve actually considered littering.   Making a bunch of cranes with messages and leaving them to the wind.   Would they catch the eye of my fellow folder – just as their creations caught mine?  Could I make a connection?  What would I say?

Feels a little magical – a communication through art and chance and wind.   Like a message in a bottle – only less certain even than that.

I’ll need to give this some thought, but I’m intrigued.