Correcting for my present flexible schedule, my chart would be very different.

I think Monday would be a spike, Thursday might be the peak. Friday - starting to feel the weekend. Saturday would be the least stress being able to goof off without guilt. Sunday starting to feel like I need to get weekend **** done and prepare for next week.

I just watched this, I thought it was good. Almost has a Hitchcock feel to it in some parts. Thanks for the rec.

Yeah, this used to be the case for me too. Somewhere along the way it changed from that into what is going on now.

I've been thinking about something for a while. I feel like things went downhill when I got a boss that I disliked. I posted a long tome about this a while back.

However, it was also around this time that I stopped smoking pot. I wonder if this was sort of like an anti-depressant for me. Or maybe it helped turn off my obsessive brain. I smoked pot every day of my life from around 16 until around 45 and although I had ups and downs I never experienced what is going on now.

I constantly crave it now.

I dunno, just thinking aloud.

Why did you stop smoking?
Have you thought about ADs?

I mean if the brain chemistry is out of whack, then it is out of whack and talking/changing jobs ain't gonna help. And in this world there are plenty of chemical substances that do change the brain chemistry. The thing is to find one that has the most advantages and least side effects for you. It can be that a state without any meds/drugs is optimal for you. You stopped with pot for a reason. I think the key is here to be as open minded and as solution oriented as possible.

And one possibility to see whole thing is: Pot had put you in a more letargic state, so that you could tolerate more BS than without pot. It can be bad that you are now more stressed, but you can see it also as something positive. Since you suffer more, you could be more inclined to take steps to change your situation.

P.S. I wouldn't give you more than 40. ^^

I quit because my connection moved and I figured I'd give "sobriety" a shot to see if it change anything. Not that anything was wrong but I always wondered if I would be more productive if I didn't smoke (I'm not). Also I was too lazy to find someone else.

I have a "thing" about any chemical meds. My dad ate them like candy as a substitution for doing anything else about his issues. Never say never but I pretty much have refused them from any therapist I've seen.

I met Rob today. He had all of the change orders completed. The fire marshall "stuff" ended up costing me about $250. I can deal with that.

I also paid the draw for completed inspections. They actually aren't completed but I'm fine with that. The HVAC and plumbing is done. The electrician is there working now and I'm not concerned about that. Javier is finishing up a bit of framing and they'll have that done this week.

They should begin tiling and sheetrock next week.

Rob called and told me that the leak from upstairs is still a problem. I talked to the plumber that was supposed to fix it and I assumed it had been taken care of.

Grrrr....

Movie update(s)

I saw The Game quite a while go, in theater I believe. I really liked it. 4/5 stars for sure.

If there is no payoff to you then I don't know what to say, it obv isn't for you at all lol.

Yeah, there are certain types of movies that I struggle with. If it's totally in a unreal world (let's say minority report), I'm ok with any inconsistencies. But if it sort of tries to be in a real world but ventures off into unreality I struggle with it. But yeah, I realize a lot of people really like it and I don't disagree. Just not to my taste.

Mike called (haven't talked to him in a while) to ask about my dryer. This is really causing them trouble. Apparently they need to "box in" the vent? I'm assuming they need to build a frame around the entire dryer vent and fireproof it. They needed to know the specs on my dryer for some reason. I know the brand but that's as good as I could give him.

I checked out the condo this morning. The electrician has done a lot of wiring but he still has quite a bit left. None of the cans were put in. Javier filled in the concrete around the waste plumbing and put liners in both showers for the pans.


Here are some pics.

Hanging wires.



The office wiring. The area you see will be my (granite) desk. Two plugs above and two below. Those 2x4s in the middle will be the brace for the TV (in the living room).



Guest bath shower pan. Hard to tell here but this will be a decent sized shower.



It's even harder to tell here but this master shower is pretty damn big.

Just think this is funny

The condo office finally called me back and left a message. There were at least 50 "ums" but between them they said they are still trying to get hold of the owner and/or tenant. This seems strange because Rob told me Javier already talked to the owner. Not sure what is going on.

I've sort of been in this work zen where I know that all I need to do is go in, do a bunch of stupid stuff, then leave. It's been good.

But.............. my boss just finds new levels of stupid to throw at me. Our tech lead, who should be running the entire company, has one foot out the door and all the stupid that has been thrown his way is starting to come my way. Just got to me today.

Meanwhile, our genius upper management has devised an entirely new strategy for software development that they found somewhere in a book. I read the entire power point and understood almost nothing. But there were a lot of cool buzzwords.

Here is a pictoral representation of the strategy. I'm not making this up - it was really in the powerpoint. I think the bottom line is if the user needs a car, we'll give them a skateboard. Makes sense.

^^
Pls, don't be mad at me that I do find it pretty rational. I think that the idea is that if you have a big software project, you start by building a smallest part, that is still functional, instead of spending many 100 man hours without being able to test it somehow. The advantage is that you can debug it, run
some tests just after a short period of time.

Basically the idea is: build something small functional, and then based on that go bigger instead of build a small part of something bigger and then grew it unless it becomes finalized product.

But then, I think that experienced team can decide this things for themself. After two years of coding professionally, people usually know what works for them and what doesn't.

Maybe this concept works in theory. But there's a lot more to it.

First of all, that idea isn't anything new. Defining scope and scope creep have been around forever.

The problems with this are complex.

When this concept becomes "the thing" then every single decision or discussion centers around "the thing" and everyone loses sight on reality.

The next problem is the administrative overhead trying to implement this will be outrageous.

9 times out of 10 when you deliver the skateboard you'll stop there and never get to the car.

The biggest problem is that our organization will waste years trying to make this newfangled thing work and by then there will be a new buzzword thing.

Checked out the condo. It doesn't look a lot different but work has been progressing. The electrician is "done" but it looks like the inspector found something. Also, they didn't put a ceiling light in the guest bedroom. I specifically asked for this. I emailed Rob.

It looks like they have done some work on the leak. At least it looks to me like those clamps are new. I dunno. I asked Rob to verify.



They drilled a hole for the dryer vent.



Can lights up.




Inspector note




More work on shower pans.






They got some metal for various framing. Not sure why.



They boxed in that conduit with said metal

The script has run into some serious headwinds.

I feel good about almost every scene. There's one minor story line I'm debating on removing but everything else is set.

I'm now tweaking dialogue. This is tedious and there is a ton of second guessing. I'm not enjoying this at all and I'm doing a lot of procrastinating.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned the whole rating process where I work. We are assigned goals by our vp and his henchman. I probably need names for these 2 because they are root cause of all that is bad. Dr. Evil and Mini Me? Too cartoonish but until I think of something better....

Anyway, we have a list of goals that we are rated on every year.

These goals:

1) have little to do with what we actually do
2) are measured in ways that are out of our control
3) are impossible to see how they are actually measured

So, everyone voiced their displeasure at the suckiness of the entire process so our manager has had multiple meetings about it. I think she's sincere about trying to do something about it but somewhat clueless that she has any control over any of it. But, we spend hours and hours on them and they are discussed in every 1 on 1 we have. Ultimately they haven't changed and never will change.

But today, I discovered what really happens. Turns out, none of it matters one bit. It's somewhat genius on Dr. Evil's part. After our manager does her rating she has to meet with the dynamic duo and they do this.

They actually spread everyone's ratings according the this scientific bell curve. Genius I tell you. Genius.

I'm assigned to lead a project to replace a system that is pretty bad. I think I've mentioned this several times. There's quite a political struggle between my manager and another group over who will actually do this rewrite. The other group has had a successful implementation of something similar and would like to do this. I could write a war and peace novel about all of this but I'll stick to the part that affects me.

The other group took 3 years to develop their application. This is fairly long to do that but reasonable given the way this organization does things. My manager's manager wants us to do it a different way using a mishmash of technologies that nobody in the company has experience with. No doubt we could learn and be successful but it will take time. It's realistically a 2 to 3 year project.

Even though we haven't even started he is targeting a completion date of 3rd quarter this year and hinted about working nights and weekends to achieve this.

I had my 1 on 1 with my direct boss and told her that this was "delusional to the 10th power". My exact words. I also let her know that there is no possibility that I will be working nights and weekends if this is the expectation.

We had a serious come to Jesus about just about everything. I was ready to walk (yet again). We'll see how this turns out.

Better to say like it is now, than to work on a project with unrealistic time line in bosse's head.

This is me every time I have to talk to my manager.

dialogue is incredibly difficult, just about everything I've written I'm convinced won't sound as natural when actually spoken. I don't think there's really a way to know how something will sound unless people actually act it out.

Yeah, I sort of try to imagine people saying it and I'm always torn between, yep that sounds pretty good an nope that's ridiculous.

I remember seeing an interview with either Damon or Affleck where he talked about the two of them talking out most of the dialogue while they were writing Good Will Hunting.

I did my weekly condo check and much to my surprise almost nothing had been done since last time. I haven't heard from Rob in about 2 weeks. Actually, since I gave him the last draw check. The last check was supposed to be upon completion of all inspections. He assured me it was just a matter of tying up some loose ends. The inspection paperwork is on the work table in the condo and those inspections had not been done.

So, I sent Rob an email indicating my concern. He called me back fairly quickly with, of course, bad news.

Apparently, even though the plans were signed by the city and the fire marshall ok'd everything, the inspector rejected the ductwork. He is insisting that we box it all in with drywall. And they want fire dampers everywhere. This is fairly significant. Rob said they have been negotiating (yelling actually) with the city to get this resolved.

Rob also said that even though their original plan was to come back after the fact and make a closet in the office, they no longer want to take that risk. I'm actually ok with this. I'll just have them install built-in shelves and maybe some cabinets.

But, back to the matter at hand. I'm not sure what will happen. The worst case will undoubtedly cost a lot of money and I'm not sure I should be liable for the cost. We'll see. But on top of that we are way over the estimated finish date (this month was the original) and we may not get this done by the end of April. I'm paying much higher rent now because I'm on month to month and I'm still paying a monthly storage fee. This is all starting to add up. Not to mention I'm really ready to get out of this apartment and in my own home.

Quite frustrating.