Not Much To Say

Which is okay since I can’t devote much time to blogging.

And Then There Was Silence
A lot of false starts on the workfront last week. Hoping this week proves to be more productive.

Feeling Better, Just Not About Work
As of yesterday I am back to just suffering from genetic deficiencies.

I spent the entirety of Friday on a couch, regrettably having to cancel my plans to go over to Betsy’s on Friday night. Poop. I did manage to watch a lot of things on Netflix in between my stints of sleeping. My “All Systems Shutdown” plan paid off because by Sunday morning I was feeling infinitely better.

Saturday was a day of bad turning to good. The highlight of the day was cooking a pork loin in a sous vide bath, though I wondered if I had cooked it long enough; the pork just didn’t seem as hot as ones I have cooked for similar durations. Why not add food poisoning to the illness i encountered on Thursday night, right? Thankfully it appears as if my fear of this was unfounded.

Last night I met up with Hank at Lucky’s in Brookhaven. I was hoping to “save” money by using up a $20 gift card I had won playing bingo at the now-shuttered Emory location. That plan lasted until I was informed that their POS (“point of sale”, but in this case “piece of shit”) was not processing gift cards. Dangen! It’s a good thing for Lucky’s that I like going there, so I will attempt to use my $20 gift card next time.

I’d Like To Strangle The Swift Community
I’ve held off learning Swift, a programming language introduced by Apple nearly three years ago, because I felt it wasn’t ready for “prime time” and with each release previously-written code was broken. Imagine trying to build a new car by learning how cars were built twenty years ago – “Oh, that’s not the way we build an engine any longer, you need to rebuild your engine using these new standards…”.

Apparently I haven’t waited long enough.

Yesterday I tried to work through a tutorial originally written in 2015, but supposedly updated to the latest version of Swift in September of last year. I spent nearly two hours working through the tutorial until finally giving up and throwing my hands in the air in disgust. If code changed this rapidly in the 1980s I would have never been able to become a programmer. If all the “hot shot” developers want to write in a Swift maybe I can find jobs working on “ancient” Objective-C code? I can be the modern-day equivalent of a COBOL programmer. One can always dream…

I will be back at it again today because someone needs to keep pushing this huge boulder up the goddamned steep hill.

Hope your weekend was good. Did anyone do Black Sheep?

Paulie [eatl/ga]

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25 Responses to Not Much To Say

  1. Barb says:

    good morning –
    did not Black Sheep, we spent ALL DAY over at Clifford & Lisa’s laying floor tile. Well, I didn’t do much more than help Lisa supervise, run errands when the guys determined something was needed, picked up excellent food (Savage pizza for lunch, Fox Bros. BBQ for dinner) to feed the hungry workers.
    They got about 90% done – at about 7pm the guys were toast.

    Saturday I had to work 8-3, which wasn’t much of a big deal as I had plenty of my own work to catch up on, as well as cover the Saturday freight. I usually give up my Saturdays to someone else, as we do get paid OT, but I decided I could use the time to catch up, and of course the extra money isn’t a bad thing.
    Then – went for a hike with a couple friends at Vickery Creek, and stopped in at North River Tavern for some beers & food. We had a brand new waitress, I don’t think she had any training, but by the end of the evening we had 2 other servers (1 being I think the mgr) and a few things taken off of our bill. It was almost comical how screwed up everything was. But – we had beers (eventually), didn’t have any place to be, so we just laughed about how crazy it was.

    • I am going to Fox Bros BBQ for lunch. Meeting my friend (and former coworker) Darren, who is ending his work hiatus this week. And, I have decided to opt for my mountain bike as my mode of transportation!

      • Barb says:

        I think I like Fox Brothers much better in person, thought it was CRAZY busy when we got there to pickup the To Go order last night. We did manage to find a parking place fairly quickly, which shocked me.
        It was tasty, but in general, I like food much better at the actual restaurant than elsewhere. (except Tasty China, it is just as good at home as there)

    • Jenka says:

      Whoever Clifford and Lisa are, they must live near me if you went to Savage and Fox Bros!

      • Barb says:

        Yes Jenka, I think so. They live pretty close to Avondale, not too far from the DeKalb Farmers Market. – I got to see all of your ‘hood – we went to WalMart, went to Home Depot, went to Kroger plus the food places.
        All in a fun day of doing flooring.

  2. Stacy says:

    Okay, bad customer service, Lucky’s. They should have manually accepted that for you by treating it like cash and figuring it out in their system later. But, like you said, you like the place so no harm done. I’m going to try it out later this month with friends; it was my turn to pick the place and I chose Lucky’s based on how many times you go there! Can I name drop you by now? Surely they must know who you are. 😉

    Worked a double shift on Saturday and I can safely say I will NOT be doing that again. I signed up for it just to see what it was like….and now I’ll leave that kind of thing up to the young whipper snappers who can take it. Sure did increase my appreciation of REAL wait staffs who have to pull this though.

    Sunday morning I did a Beltline bus tour, which took us on entire 22-mile route. I’d done it two years ago: it was cool to see how much has been done since then. The westside is looking great! Plus, the mystery where the new Monday Night Brewing location will be is solved: they’re adding a second location right on the Beltline, keeping open the first.

    • How you like Lucky’s. Expect blank stares if you drop my name, as I am an invisible soul. Perhaps say, “You know, that guy that hangs out with Hank. You know the two straight guys that hang out together a lot”. 🙂

  3. HamWithCam says:

    Glad you’re feeling better.
    I think I’d chalk up your malaise to 1) pollen, 2) climate change, 3) Trump, 4) Russians.

    “If finding a job was easy, then anybody could do it.” <— think about it.

    A quick review for those just tuning in:
    – Make Three Lists.
    – Reach out to your List #3 with a brief "I've just recently…" email.
    – Follow-up and network, network, network.
    – Network some more.

    (Has anybody receive one of these coveted (and highly collectible) "I've just recently emails from ITP?" Anybody? Anybody?)

    The job you really want is not going to come via some job posting, job board, etc. Those are useful for research, even a starting point. The idea is to differentiate yourself from *everybody else* just posting a resume, applying online, etc.

    Ideally networking with hiring manager first ("Mary? I got your name from John…."), *then* a call from HR for screening, etc.
    (HR is in the biz of screening *out* folks, not hiring…you.)

    Another job search platitude:
    "Resume gets you the interview, the interview gets you the job."

    You know a lot of folks. Put that to work:
    – "Hmmm, who do I know at XYZ?",
    – "Who do I know that knows somebody at XYZ?"
    – Repeat.

    There are, no doubt, hundreds of programming jobs in the ATL. Especially for somebody that's not green.

    From where I sit, these are your strong points:
    – solid skills
    – experienced
    – track record
    – plays well with others
    – clean up nice

    It might be time to test the water for contract roles?
    "Hey, this is JG over at XYZ, yeah I need a couple of iOS guys. Yeah, experienced, senior. Yeah, 3-6 month stuff. Could lead to permanent. Blah, blah, blah $$/hour. Flexible work hours. Who you got?"

    I can get you the names of a few pimps if you are interested. I'm betting your network can too.

    We have not managed to make it up to Gibbs gardens this year. Scheduling conflicts and the weather have conspired against me. So here's a shot from last year:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/hamwithcam/25216870614/

    We did make it over to the Atlanta Botanical Garden where the tulips are on the verge of exploding:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/hamwithcam/33097449002/in/dateposted-public/

    Make it a great day everybody,
    JG/HamWithCam
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/hamwithcam/

  4. Steve says:

    What HwC said… I’m still waiting on my copy of your resume, so you networking skills need some work.

    Cleaned house- a major accomplishment!! While cleaning, Brownie started barking (which I thought odd) but he shut up, so I moved on. When I went out to feed the horses about 10:30, imagine my surprise as the horses were feeding themselves on the grass in the backyard! Maybe Brown was trying to tell me something (look dumbass, the horses are loose!).

    20 miles on the CX bike before meeting Debbie to drive her and Phinney home.

    Sunday was breakfast at HH and lumberjacking. I kept thinking I would quit- I glanced at my watch at 1:40 and finally wrapped it up at 4:40. There was this one tree that wanted to stand up, but finally laid down. I”m thinking root systems are no longer dormant and hanging on tight.

    Barb, ask your husband to check his email, please.

    -FP

  5. Rachel says:

    I work with student programs in the recruiting department at GTRI. I have no idea what kind of programming you do, but GTRI is often looking for all kinds of programmers. Email me your resume to the address that I left this comment with. I’ll network it with people that are looking for experienced professionals.

    Rachel (B*tchFork)

  6. Paulie [eatl/ga] says:

    Good idea: eating Fox Bros BBQ for lunch
    Bad idea: trying to extend your bike ride home after doing so

Comments are closed.