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The saga of one man's quest to achieve Microsoft Certification and live to tell about it...but he failed, so now you can read about his regular life instead |
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McDBAs of Our Lives
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Friday, February 28, 2003
This is how much I love having a job: I stayed 2 hours unbilled overtime, and I'm an hourly employee, just to hang out and chat with people working there! OK, one person. And I surfed the web a little, but I was actually doing LEGITIMATE RESEARCH! I'm not kidding! Stop staring at me like that!
19:15
Thursday, February 27, 2003
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Stir Fry! I finally got to use the wok I got as a gift from mom years ago. Veggies, chicken, and some Pasta Roni angel hair parmesan something or other, ate almost two helpings and there's STILL some left over, gonna make a nice meal tomorrow, maybe bring it with me for lunch! :)
Source Control RULES! And I haven't even really started using it yet, and I'm already trying to automate it.
18:47
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
OK, Majel Barrett/Roddenberry can't act. I mean, she's so bad in that episode you can see the other actors practically cringing. It's a shame, she was actually pretty good in some other scenes, but she can't do anything where she has to cry. It's horrendous. Shatner is Olivier or Geilgud by comparison. She's probably crying at her complete lack of ability to do crying scenes.
17:56
Here's me in glass-half-full mode, remember it, it may not come again for a while :) Since I've been out of work for so long, I lost a lot of my bad habits and attitude about things, for instance: SOURCE CONTROL. I never would've used it at Nextel, and today I played with it for 5 minutes and fell totally in love! I may actually become a professional coder now!
Turned in my notice to vacate to the leasing company :) And found out that they've lowered their rents on the apartments here :( So now the $200 a month bargain I thought the new place was is really the normal market value :( Oh well, maybe in another year and a half it'll go down even MORE.
17:44
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
I had a headache THIS BIG, but I took 2 bottles of Excedrin, and it's gone! :)
FINALLY FOUND the lease, on top of papers I must've picked up and looked through 10 FUCKING TIMES without opening the envelope they were actually in! And it does end on April 30, so I'm within my 60 days! WOO HOO! Don't need the extra month!
Nor-cross Geor-gia here I come!
18:12
Monday, February 24, 2003
So they had a board meeting today and the CEO had sent out an email on Friday that all the guys had to wear a tie. Well, they didn't have me on the "Everyone" email list so I didn't get that email. Luckily I happened to wear a dress shirt and slacks today, more or less because I had no other clean laundry. :) Of course, everyone was asking "Didn't you get the email?" Sooooooooo close to Office Space.
Glad to see that my instincts are still sharp: after a whopping 3 days of actually WORKING on the assignment I'm supposed to be working on, I found that it will almost certainly transfer over very smoothly, without much more work than I first thought, and maybe even LESS. If all goes well the whole thing could be done in 2 weeks, even though it will actually be done in a staged rollout. :) WOO HOO!
17:56
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Forgot how bad some of the first season episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation were. Although I do miss Denise Crosby. mmmmmmmm
13:09
More proof that advertising is hypocritical, AND that I really need to find better things to do with my time:
I'm cooking some noodles and the package says to "use butter or margarine, but we recommend "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!""
OK, so now they want me to use a product that is DELIBERATELY LYING to me, and being completely up-front about lying to me. Then they want me to believe, "Don't worry, we're lying to you, but we're so good at it we'll convince you otherwise". Mmmmmmkay. Sorry guys, but if it was really that good, and you yourselves were convinced it was, you'd have picked a title like "I Vehemently REFUSE To Believe This Is Not Butter!" or, more colloquially, "This Shit IS BUTTER, Goddammit!"
BTW, I used real butter. :)
12:48
I love how the ads that appear on this blog page are for DBA services, and none of them are for MY services. :) Gotta talk to the guys posting the ads about getting kickbacks. Although, that's assuming they actually WANT the customers they get from reading this blog, which is highly doubtful. Also assumes anyone but me actually reads this thing, which is highly doubtful too.
OK, time for the wayback machine: if you remember Patty Smyth from the group Scandal in the 80's, and she went solo in the early 90's, she was something of a hottie. Well, she married John McEnroe for some stoooooopid reason and is, unfortunately, taking that old saying that married couples start to look like each other a little too seriously, which is really a shame. You'd think McEnroe would've picked up SOME of her looks, but I guess he dropped them before putting them on or just didn't bother.
I guess Tatum O'Neal lucked out by getting divorced from him before it was too late, although he did have some influence on her looks.
Makes ya wonder if McEnroe was ever married to Medusa. Sure would explain a lot about BOTH of them.
10:22
Friday, February 21, 2003
Sort of weird vibes at work today, nothing really upsetting, just odd. Like someone saying "You need to get your car fixed!" and then not allowing you to bring it into the shop, nor allowing the mechanic to come out and fix it...???? Maybe if I was better at lateral thinking I could figure out a way to do it under those circumstances.
STILL no signed copy of the contract. Even better, I only actually started working on the stuff in the contract yesterday, even though I've been there for 2 weeks. :)
18:12
Thursday, February 20, 2003
YES!!!!! Signed the contract today!!!! WOO HOO!!!!! Although I don't know if THEY signed it yet, and I haven't gotten my copy either, but still, that's the last step.
OK, here's a question: you buy a frozen jambalaya rice bowl at the market, and the instructions are: 6 minutes microwave, 50 minutes in the oven. Hmmmmm, which one, which one? Oven? Microwave? Does this strike anyone else as the quintessential no-brainer?
Now, it actually gets more interesting: if you buy the jambalaya mix that the SAME COMPANY makes, add your own sausage or whatever and cook it on the stove top, it takes 20 minutes vs. 30 minutes in the microwave! ????? WTF? And the portion is twice the size, yet takes half as long as the oven! And you can't tell me that's because it's frozen, because it takes 5 times as long to make it in the microwave. I'm sure there's a logical explanation for it, but I don't want to hear it.
I hate encrypted SQL, BTW. Stooooooooooooooopid billing app vendors. Half the time they encrypt code that I wouldn't steal even if you gave it to me for free.
16:50
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
I FILLED OUT THE CONTRACT TODAY! Except for the required signatures. :( Maybe tomorrow....
Oh yeah, yesterday was the six year anniversary of my very first day at Nextel. And it's been about 1 year and 1 month since I was paroled from same. YAY!
16:43
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Man, it's hard to work when you didn't get enough sleep and your brain is completely non-functional, AND you're trying to write SQL code. I don't recommend it. Get a good night's sleep before you write SQL!
Actually saw a CONTRACT today...only it was blank. I could've signed it I guess, but then I would've had to ____________________________ for the Company while they __________________________ me and required that I _______________________________ at periodic intervals, and I didn't feel like having to do __________________________. So we'll wait until _________________________ gets sorted out and then I'll sign it.
19:23
Monday, February 17, 2003
It's nice to catch up with old friends :) Met Ava and Len today (Ava is a fellow Nextel parolee like myself, Len is her hubby) they were visiting her mom and sister. We went to Hooters for dinner. :) Len and I had a GREAT time, and Ava did too but she won't admit it. She could work there if she wanted to...oooops, did I say that out loud? Also spoke to Donna this past weekend (Donna is my best friend Mike's girlfriend) And as cool as that is, I need to go to bed because now that I am working I seem to be staying up later and later and sleeping less and less.
22:51
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Diane Lane is a very damn fine looking woman! If you haven't seen Unfaithful yet, you're in for a treat. Not only is she gorgeous and sexy, she's a great actress too. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
19:55
Well, I didn't get fired in my first week at work, and I feel confident enough about it that I shut off my email notifications from Dice.com and Monster.com! Now I no longer get emails about all of the available jobs that I apply for but don't get a response! Nor do I feel guilty about not applying for a job I could get but really don't want to apply for cause it sounds like a loser! Ahhhhh, the simple pleasures in life.
13:26
Friday, February 14, 2003
Scary things happening at work. Not only am I beginning to understand the database and can therefore actually contribute something useful to the company, I'm even beginning to use Microsoft Outlook to manage my time!!!!! First diagrams in Powerpoint and now useful task scheduling and invoicing in Outlook! MS is truly an evil corporation! They're beginning to make me like their most hated products! ARRRRRRRRGH! I even dipped my toes into playing around with MS PROJECT!!!!! I can feel it...soon I will be using Interdev, and then...and then....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...I might actually start to use FrontPage....NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
18:56
A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's an erection for?
04:37
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Hehehehehehehehe, I didn't have anything to blog about for a year, and now that I do it is the most boring mundane shit anyone could possibly write about! :) If you've got any paint drying in your house, pull up a chair and watch it, you'll enjoy it more than this blog.
Wonky VB code doing things a database should be doing instead, writing SQL code to do such things and realizing that *maybe* it should be done in VB :) and working on migrating an entirely different database to a new structure without having looked at either one was what kept me busy today. And will probably continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Still didn't sign the contract yet. :) Everyone who has to sign it, besides me, was out of the office or swamped with work. Ahhhhhhh, there are some things that are exactly the same in every corporation.
19:13
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
February 12, 2003
Day 2 of being employed again! WOO HOO! Actually did some real work today, only on something that will probably never be used by anyone else on the planet because they know better: getting Powerpoint to generate database diagrams. For anyone reading this who doesn't know, trust me, this is the DBA equivalent of getting kicked in the balls. Repeatedly. With a steel toe boot.
Also experienced Day 2 of eating Asian food for lunch. Yesterday was sushi/sashimi, today was Vietnamese soup. Pretty damn good, both of them! Of course, I slobbered all over some nice American burgers and chili cheese fries from Checkers for dinner. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. My heart is about totally clogged right now, but I may not have to eat for the rest of the week.
18:05
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
February 11, 2003
An entire year has gone by since I last blogged. Whoopee. I'm SOOOOO lazy. But more important than that:
I NOW HAVE A JOB!!!
And I didn't even need a certificate to get it! Which is good, because all I did today was cut and tape together a database diagram. I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't insisted that you need a cert to do even THAT. Yes, they let me have scissors and tape! Who knows what evils could've been committed! (And let me tell you, Frankenstein's monster is a damn sight better looking than this diagram) Alas, I behaved myself. A year plus of unemployment and the suprising lack of money it brings has made me cherish a job. How many people can say that they've ever CHERISHED their job? Porn stars and Penthouse photographers don't count.
It's nice to be working again! And no, I don't miss being a welfare leech on society. It surprises normal people to hear that someone DOESN'T enjoy sitting on their ass and getting paid to do it. Trust me, the money's not that great, and your ass only gets fatter and harder to fit through doors and into bathtubs. And I've got GARDEN SIZE tubs...
I'm not too sure I'm even gonna miss surfing for porn for half the morning either. I spent 2 days transferring 5 CD's worth a few weeks ago...AND THAT'S LESS THAN HALF OF WHAT I HAVE ALREADY! My apologies to all the horny nympho teen lesbians who want to fuck me via webcam...I just don't have the "drive capacity" to accommodate you anymore. :( Besides I never paid for web porn, so you're only losing someone who was stealing from you anyway! :P
Nor will I miss browsing the news: New Evidence that the Shuttle Disintegrated, Saddam's Not Cooperating, Shuttle Photo Reveals it Disintegrated, Saddam's Flipping the Bird at UN, Last Shuttle Transmission Reveals Saddam is Not Complying with Inspectors So He Winged a Bullet at the Shuttle.....not much variety going on there. It's pretty scary when announcing the Oscar nominations is not only the best news around, it's the only news anyone is actually looking forward to.
OK, I gotta stop complaining! I HAVE A JOB!!!! I LOVE IT!!!! :) I almost don't want to buy a lottery ticket, cause if I win I'll just quit and go back to sitting on my ass all day. No more!
20:30
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