Yes, two posts in one week. Don't panic, everything is under control.
It's been a pretty shitty week, and today followed the trend. But rather
than vent about today, I want to talk about various good things I didn't
think to post last time.
I managed to pay off my car a couple of months early. Yay new year and
new budget.
I've gone almost 2 weeks without sugar in Château Innsmouth. No soda,
no candy, no cookies. I'm a horrible snacker, so why keep temptation in
the house? I've had a couple of sugar drinks while out and about, but it's
hard to say no to cherry limeades.
I received a metric oodle of ebooks from a Kickstarter I backed, the
dead tree editions will be here soon. So much Mythos.
Paul Naschy Fest is chugging along, on film 8 of 10. I'm really enjoying
these, high quality transfers, cheesy horror, and lots of fun
2 new Dark Adventure Radio episodes in hand. 'Rats in the Walls' and
'Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar'.
Also have an audiobook edition of my favorite S.M. Stirling novel,
'The Peshawar Lancers'.
I've joined the 21st century, and did my first online grocery order.
Worked out perfectly, but some of the items from Amazon are so/so in
quality. Not sure I'll keep using it or not though. Also going to try
ordering groceries for curb pickup, see how that works.
It's the weekend, 2 days away from the databases from heck
So that's 8 good things. Nice change from complaining about my mood. With
that I'm going to call this a post. Night all.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US. But I can't say the last week and
a half has made me terribly grateful. Carcosa Corp had a reduction in
force. My manager and his manager are gone, and much worse, one of my best
friends (and coworker) also got cut. There's also a major reorg in the works.
But not much in the way of details, other than I still have a spot on the
org chart for next year. To say I'm unhappy is a major understatement.
People got decent severance packages from what I heard, and I don't see
any of the people I know being out of work long. But I've got a case of
survivor's guilt, plus not knowing what I'll be really doing in 2 months,
plus trying to keep up with everything going on, and I'm a bundle of nerves.
Spent most of this week dealing with Sybase database issues that I really
don't know, though I'm learning a bunch on the fly. Working on Black
Friday, where I'll be doing a crash course in database migration.
On top of that, I've been feeling lousy, not so much allergies as I think
my BP meds are starting to have less affect on me. I'm going to the doctor
next week for a med check/blood work. So I'll ask about things. My BP
cuff says I'm about the same as always, but for all I know I'm using it wrong.
Pshrink visit showed my bp as higher than usual. Speaking of physical foo,
I sat wrong on my chair, and it slid out from under me and I hit the floor.
No damage. other than it ratcheted my anxiety up (and gave my elbow a good
whack). Depression is way up there too, I really need to stop looking at
the news.
So, that's all the bad...or at least all the bad I can stomach writing about
right now. So what's good? Well I invested in some blurays, 2 collections
of
Paul Naschy flicks (king of Spanish horror films). Most of which I've never seen, so
I'm currently having a binge of his flicks. Definitely better than watching
Sybase databases. Also lots of good books out, including a few signed books
*waves at Pete Rawlik and Sam Gafford*. My friends, as always, are awesome,
and I've gotten a lot of critter time recently. And I'm at least having
less anxiety dreams. Oh yeah, and in joining the 21st century, I had my
first grocery delivery. Not sure if I'll do this on a regular basis, there's
a lack of some of my staples. But compared to going to the store 2 days
before turkey day, it was amazing.
Long weekend plans? Tomorrow is sleeping in, then afternoon meal with
Amythest and clan, staying as long as my cope lasts. Friday is another
day at the office, with the above mentioned database migrations. Friday night
will probably be more Naschy flicks. Saturday is the annual Soup and Movie
fest, also at Amythest's place. Sunday will be chores and recovery and trying
to find the tentacles to deal with the upcoming work week. Since I'm working
on Black Friday, I'm off work the next Friday. Probably will be mostly a
down weekend, vegging and such.
So that's the state of the fox. Feeling a little better getting some stuff
down on virtual paper. Going to watch some more Eurohorror then head to
bed. Night everyone.
Rough week. I haven't slept a solid, or even semi-solid night since the
weekend. Patching prod Tuesday generated 2 overnight calls, and a similar
issue got me called on Wednesday/Thursday night. Last night I didn't get
called, however I woke up anyway at 3am. Tried to go back to sleep and
failed. Got up around 5am, futzed around, then got a little more sleep.
Then I got up, got ready for work, got to work...found out I'd left my badge
at home. Without my badge it's kind of difficult to get around Carcosa Corp,
so after I drove home to get it, I said screw it and worked from home.
Last night was rough. Finishing up the non-customer facing production
servers. And I had more problems with the last 4 servers than the almost
100 other servers. I ended up arguing with Nagios because the new version
added weird example templates, creating phantom hosts that obviously were
offline. Our cacti install just broke utterly, new version will not work
with the old database. And since I didn't want to spend half the night
fixing mysql issues, I rolled back to the snapshot I made before patching.
(I had a bad feeling, and oh I am so glad I listened to it). *shakes
head*
I'm really exhausted right now. I took a nap after I logged out of work,
well mostly I just lay there and listening to the white noise generator (beach
sounds). Got up again, listening to
The Black Stone right now, but I'll be going
back to bed soon. This weekend is a social get together tomorrow, and
Sunday is probably going to see 'Murder on the Orient Express'. Plus the
chores and stuff. Oh, in book news, I picked up something special. Many
years ago, my uterine sibling was given a copy of 'The Collected works of
Edgar Allan Poe' by a teacher. It was this epic gothic looking book, printed
in the mid 20's. It really does look like something you'd read aloud from
to summon 'something'. I 'borrowed' it for years, was how I got into Poe,
right before I discovered Lovecraft. I eventually gave it back but I always
remembered how cool it was. A few weeks ago, I decided to go hunting.
All I remembered was the cover, and the approximate time it was published.
After a few google searches I had the publisher, and looking on Amazon I
found a copy for $20. Needless to say, I bought it. It came in today.
And it's in amazing shape for a 90 year old book. Spine is pretty tight,
no loose pages, a little browning, but all in all it's just about perfect.
So it's sitting with some other treasured books of mine on my desk, next
to my epic fancy editions of HPL, and other weirdness.
So that's this week in Vulpineland. Now, I'm going to fiddle around with
some things, and probably make it an early night. Ciao.
Oh by Dagon's scaly scrotum, tonight's last few server patches were more trouble than all the other servers I've done this round. Nagios upgrade broke our nagios setup, adding hosts in templates and other goofy crap. I was able to fix that without issues, but still some minor stuff is goofy, will be working on that tomorrow. Cacti updated to some rather big change, which the database setup for it could not handle. Rolled that one back (yay listening to the voice in my head saying 'this one is trouble'), or I'd be up half the night teaching myself mysql magic to fix it. I'm calling it done. Going to eat a snack, read a book, and go to bed.
And if I get called again tonight...well, I won't scream at anyone, but I'll be a tad pointed to the people involved.
Cthulhu grant me more dreams of fencing, and/or squidgirls, or even the epic dream bookstore I can't seem to find in real life.
Night hominids.
And since we covered the downs a minute ago, here's what's up in
Château Innsmouth. Work is going good, busy but good. I'm actually
working tonight, prepatch work on our Windows servers before the Corporate
Windows group does the actual updates. Unlike last time, I'm probably not
staying up to 3am just in case. It's just easier for me to get up early
tomorrow and check things. I've also gotten most of my usual chores done.
I'm reading a bunch of good books, 'Bond: Unknown' probably the purest form
of Spies vs Shoggoths. A history of Pyrrhus of Epirus (where we get the
term Pyrrhic victory, among other books. I've been bouncing between
subjects, a small lack of focus. So many books, so little time.
(Time passes...)
Chores are done, well done for today. Need to go to the store tomorrow,
and I need to put up the dishes once they dry out. Went to pick up some
dinner, came home, snagged a quick shower and going for classic Vincent
Price movie, since my other picks today were less than spectacular.
But I can always count on Vincent Price, especially in period horror flicks.
Windows snapshots are being taken. Not sure what I'm going to do when it's
done, and 'Tomb of Ligera' is done. Maybe another classic horror flick, or
hide in one of my books. I don't know. Probably go for the movie. Well
a movie.
Not much in the way of plans for upcoming stuff. Friend's spawning day
party next weekend, but that's about it. Next year I'm hoping to make
some changes. A trip or two, probably moving out of Château Innsmouth 1.0
to a bit bigger (and better laid out) apartment. Been snagging pictures
of ideas, floorplans and study/library shots. Of course, to be honest, I
just need a place for a bed, a closet for clothes, kitchen, bathroom, etc
and a desk for the shoggoth wrangling, the rest will probably be bookshelves.
That's my style, Late Biblomaniac.
And on that note, I'm running out of words. So I'll catch you next time.
*waves a tentacle*
Well this week was a lot more ups and downs. Lets get the downs out of
the way. It's official, I'm not doing the magnetic treatment, seems that
'we figured out the insurance problem' actually meant 'oh what the hell,
lets try again.' How am I doing about that? Resigned. I intentionally
kept my hope to a minimum. Pshrink visit went ok, all things considered
I'm handling things alright, so same meds, come back after the holiday
season, unless stuff changes. Which given the silly season is their
busiest time. I also had a case of unexpected sadness earlier this week.
Got a wild hair to look up where my uncle's name was from, and I found
his obituary from 2011. I knew he'd passed, I thought I'd mourned when it
happened. But seeing his face and hearing about the good he did in his
community, well I started crying. And the next day I wrote something
about it on Facebook, and the tears started up again. Guess between losing
my friend's dad, and seeing my uncle well, opened up the waterworks.
Otherwise it's been anxiety and feeling down a good chunk of the time.
I'm rather down right now. News, worries about people I care about, and
my anxiety spiking up randomly. I was going to try to work on cleaning
up some of the clutter in the the areas that are out of sight...but I
don't have the tentacles for it, so I'll do it another weekend.
Coming very soon, a more positive post.
Not been a good fortnight and change. We lost a friend of mine's father
last week, and it's been hard. Not just seeing someone I care about hurting,
but I had my own relationship with him. And I really haven't had much
time to sit and process. I also have a feeling the TMS treatment is back
off the table, as all I've heard from my insurance was 'denial, review,
silence' and from the provider 'silence'. I have another pshrink visit
on Wednesday, which means it's been a month since this got put back on the
table. At least I'm not also trying to go off seroquel as well at the
same time. Allergies still suck. Not much to say about that though, Texas
is hell, and we're coming up on cedar fever season.
There are positives in life. Work has been busy, between database issues,
patching, and schedules with my fellow admins. Averaging about 10 hour
days, but that's ok. I've worked harder for people I like less. My boss
is talking about sending me off for database training (probably virtually),
in part due to the issues we had. Which, given my general lack of knowledge
about databases would be good. Books are still my friends, even if my
ability to focus is all over the place. I've started a bunch of books,
but only finished a few, mostly those of favorite authors. On the movie
front, I did go see the latest 'Thor' this last weekend. It's a very
funny movie, the kind I wish more comic book movies would be like.
(that being said, 'Black Panther' doesn't look to have a bunch of comedy,
but boy does it look awesome).
No big plans coming up. Mostly I just want to take care of myself and my
friend, and see what comes up after the New Year. And on that note, I'm
going to call this a post. Catch you all later.
