All posts by Richard S. Crawford

I Should Have Been a Firefighter, Just a Day in My Life

On the Air (II)

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I have no idea where I am over the United States at this moment, but judging by that huge expanse of white down to my left, I’m guessing that we’re over the Great Salt Flats of Utah. I can see the highway that cuts through it. I’ve driven through that plain, about five or six years ago; it’s one of the loneliest and most desolate places I’ve ever been, save, possibly, for the Badlands in South Dakota. It was a strange experience, as I recall, driving through that area; so few cars, and so few signs of life. The Badlands, for their dryness and desolation, were somehow more full of life than the Flats. I remember spending the night outdoors on top of a mountain in the Badlands, and waking to a magnificent sunrise, which I have not seen the likes of since, and watchind deer play in the distance while my friends and I broke camp and packed everything back up into the truck.

Right now, it’s Saturday morning. I arrived in California on Wednesday night after being in Oregon for just a short week, and so I got to spend an extra day with Jennifer. Now I’m on a flight to Chicago, which I will leave twenty minutes later to catch a plane for Boston. So here I reach another first for me: my first cross-country business trip. I’ve always wanted to see Boston, and I’ve always wanted a job which would let me go there. So here I am. Granted, though, I’ll only be in Boston for four days, and I’ll be booked solid all four days, so I probably won’t get to see much of that city, but I’m hoping that I’ll get to see at least some of it. I had hoped, when I learned that I would be switching planes in Chicago, that I would get a chance to see some of that city as well; but I’ll only be in O’Hare Airport for about twenty minutes, probably desperately searching for the gate that my flight to Boston will be leaving from, so I imagine that all I’ll see of Chicago will be a bunch of people rushing from one gate to another all of them frustrated and impatient, as I’m sure I will be myself.

At the moment, though, things are relatively calm. We’ve been in the air for just over an hour, and probably have another two hours or so to go before arriving in Chicago. The Great Salt Flats — if that’s what they were — are apparently far behind us. When I look out the window now, I have no clue where we are; there is a lot of snow on the mountaintops below, and passing over the clouds reminds me of the way the Tule fog settles into hollows and valleys in central California at this time of year, with the trees and houses sometimes rising above the fog like islands rising from an ocean of mist.

I’m sure this journal entry will be long. I’m certain I’ll add more to it later in this flight, or perhaps on the flight from Chicago to Boston. We shall see.

II: So That Was Chicago

Some vague impressions from Chicago O’Hare Airport, which is all that I saw of that city (and not even very much of that). First, to get from Concourse C to B, you have to pass through what I had had described to me as the "Psychedelic Tunnel": an underground tunnel connecting the two concourses, with multi-colored neon tubes glaring overhead as you walk or take the walkway through the tunnel (I chose a combination, walking on the moving walkway, as I was worried about getting to the next gate on time), music reminiscent of chimes playing overhead — all in all, I was reminded of the concourse leading up to the main ride of Disneyland’s Space Mountain.

After the tunnel, an escalator leading back above-ground. At the top of the escalator, I was kind of surprised to see a little outlet from something called the Field Museum Store; I expect to see gift shops and fast food outlets at airports, of course (and was pleasantly surprised to discover last week that Portland’s airport has a branch of Powell’s Books, which I might even have time to explore before flying back to Sacramento this week), but not a Museum Company Store, or a Field Museum Store, or anything like that. But what surprised me even more was the full-scale replica of the dinosaur skeleton. Naturally, I was rushing through the airport, on the phone with our answering machine in California, so I didn’t get a chance to look closely at the skeleton or identify what kind it was (when I was young, I was, like just about every young boy in America, a dinosaur addict and I still remember many of the species that I built models or drew pictures of when I was ten or twelve years old). I glanced at it quickly, then spotted my gate and pretty much sprinted there to make sure I got there on time.

The last leg of this trip is on board a Boeing 767. Much more comfortable than the 727’s I’m used to on Southwest or the first part of this trip. In fact, this flight is only about half full, so there is no one in the seat next to me, which gives me a welcome chance to actually stretch out a bit and type normally on this computer without scrunching into myself to avoid bruising the arms of the person sitting next to me.

And here’s dinner!

Jennifer’s last experience flying United was apparently not a positive one, but I must admit that this, my first experience flying United, has been pretty positive. The flight has been on-time (early, in fact); this part of the trip is quite comfortable (for coach class, at least), probably because this flight was, oddly enough, undersold; and the food has actually been quite decent. The chicken fettuccini with was great, and the chocolate macaroon that I got for dessert was delicious. Perhaps that chocolate macaroon was what colored Jennifer’s experience; for all of her wonderful qualities and for all of the amazing things she does for me, she is unable to appreciate coconut.

On an entirely different note, I confess that I had no idea that Lake Michigan was so large. As we flew into Chicago, we could see the western shore of the lake, and we couldn’t see the far shore. The kid who was sitting next to me asked if that was the Atlantic Ocean; I told him that it was not, that it was Lake Michigan, but that I, too, was surprised by its size. We also flew over the Mississippi River, and I admit that I was kind of surprised by that as well; but with the River, I was surprised at how narrow it was. Perhaps it was just that one stretch of the river, but I’d always thought that it would be much, much wider.

We’ll be landing in Boston soon, so it’s time to turn off all electronic devices, including this laptop. I may write more from the hotel, or I may wait until tomorrow. Either way, have a good day.

I Should Have Been a Firefighter, Self Absorbed Whining

Blind Man's Bluff

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There are those who have expressed to me their disappointment that I have been averaging a single update every two weeks now, instead of the nearly daily schedule I had at the height of my journaling career here. I guess that’s understandable. I can only say that I wish I had time to update more often.

In one of my previous entries, from August 4, 2000: Odds and Endings, I wrote, "As I begin my new job next week at a new company, and as I build up my skills over the next few months, I’m certain I’ll be longing for days like today, when I didn’t have eighteen different projects due right now." I didn’t realize at the time how prophetic that statement was. Only two months into the job, and I’m feeling completely overwhelmed.

This job has been quite a learning experience for me, but not quite in the way I imagined. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to build up my programming or database skills (although I’ve become proficient enough with Unix and PL/SQL to be deadly to any Oracle database that lives on a Sun server, given the proper permissions). I’ve learned a lot about how the software development process works. I’ve learned about the rift that can exist between data migration staff and programmers, and about the often bitter conflicts that exist between development and QA. I’ve also learned how to smooth over some of those conflicts and differences by focusing on each person’s style of communication and learning how to translate to someone else’s style. And I’ve learned from one of my co-workers some of the myriad ways of scamming extra chocolate chip cookies from the staff of the Double Tree Hotel in Portland.

Mostly, though, what I’ve learned has been about myself. I’ve learned, for example, that when there are a lot of changes in my life all at once, I can become immature and whiny, even if those changes are all positive. My new boss pointed out to me that the biggest stressors in a person’s life are: (a) marriage; (b) new job; (c) moving; and (d) death of a spouse, and that in the next year I’ll be going through three of those. Then he laughed and called me a "stress monkey". And, of course, we’re not just moving; Jennifer and I are building an entire house.

These are all great changes. I can’t imagine being happy without Jennifer in my life; the house we’re building is going to be beautiful; and the new job is going well. But when I get stressed and overwhelmed, I’ve found, I wind up focusing on the negative parts of my life. In this case, it’s been an unwarranted focus on the less than positive aspects of my job and my career. For example: instead of appreciating the opportunity I’ve been given and the fact that I am involved in building something new which could potentially make life a lot better for thousands of people, I’ve focused on the fact that I’m not learning everything I’ve wanted to learn; on the working hours (which, because this is a startup, can sometimes hit 17 hours per day); on the fact that all this travel is starting to wear me out and that I don’t get to see Jennifer nearly as much as I want to; and so on. And over the next three weeks, our jobs will take us separately to Portland, Boston, Seattle, Atlanta, and Andover; we determined that in the next three weeks we’ll have something like three days, total, to spend with each other. As the house building heats up and the plans for the wedding get more and more involved, we’ll probably get more and more stressed, though we’ll probably at least be able to spend more time face-to-face with each other — so that we can take out the stress on each other more appropriately. I’ve learned that while Jennifer is the most amazing and wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, an overabundance of stress can lead me to appreciating her less than I ought to.

I’ve also learned that I wasn’t as prepared for this career transition as I thought I was. When I was with the University, I bemoaned the fact that I hadn’t made it into the private sector, even though I had "broken the clerical barrier"; now I find myself occasionally wondering if perhaps I should have stuck it out with the University just a while longer. But, then, I knew that this transition was going to be a culture shock, that I was going to be drowning for quite awhile (sipping from a firehose is the metaphor that our general manager uses) before I really felt comfortable here. I hadn’t realized how big a step it is.

But, then, I remind myself of how far I’ve come (thanks to a whopping head blow from Jennifer, whose grace under pressure and ability to remain calm keep me in a constant state of awe), farther than I had thought possible just a few months ago and farther than many people make it in their lives (though I have no doubt that just about anyone could — I’m no smarter than anyone else, after all). I remind myself of where I was, and where I am, and where I’m headed, and even if the path ahead of me is still hazy and unclear, it’s starting to come into sharper focus; for example, I find that my interest in web development is continuing to shift from straight front-end design and usability concerns to the presentation of dynamic data, customized for the user and for the presenter of data. Which means, of course, that I’m finding myself learning more about PL/SQL and Oracle and Perl than I had originally planned to, and that I am also now interested in building my programming skills in XML and Java. The company where I am now may not be the company I’ll be with a year from now — then again, it might be after all, if the learning and development opportunities that I am building are present.

When I jumped into this ocean, I wasn’t doing it entirely blind; but I was, partially, playing a game of Blind Man’s Bluff. I’ve still got a few more rounds of this game to go before I can see clearly where I’m going. My challenge now — and for some reason this is a challenge I’ve rarely been up to, though I am doing my best to rise to the occasion now — is to enjoy the ride; to seize the day, as I wrote in my own journal a few months ago, and to throttle it.

Twoo Wuv

The Lion Sleeps

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A few weeks ago, the good friend who had introduced me to Jennifer in the first place asked me how the two of us were getting along.

I hesitated for some time, not looking directly at him.

Finally, he said to me, "Not that good, eh?"

To which I replied, "Oh, no, it’s not that. I’m just trying to figure out how to say it without descending into disgusting mush that would make you sick."

"Oh, lay it on me, Rich. I can take it."

So finally I said, "Well, it’s like this. Jennifer fills a Jennifer-shaped hole in my heart that I never even knew was there."

Well, so there it is. Sometimes a person fits with you so completely that you can’t even conceive of not having that person there in your life with you: like two picture-puzzle pieces that fit together so perfectly that you can’t even tell that there is a seam there at all. It’s hard to describe such feelings without getting mushy and goofy.

I’ve known Jennifer for over two years at this point; and during that entire time, I’ve been attracted to her, and thought she was one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. I even remember thinking, on the day that we met at a Dungeons and Dragons game, "That’s the woman I’m going to marry someday.

Of course, two years passed before anything happened. At times I was involved with someone else; and at other times, she was. There were times when we were both single, but neither of us was ready. But when Jennifer and I got together in April, and when we got engaged in May, it was right; sometimes, these things are. I’ve never doubted, for an instant, that Jennifer was the perfect match for me.

Other people did have doubts, though. I remember that her parents were concerned when they heard the news; after all, they had only met me once prior to our breaking the news to them, and that had been three weeks before, and I had been introduced to them as Jennifer’s "friend" — which was true, since on that night Jennifer and I weren’t anything more than friends. My own parents were a bit more prepared for the shock, having met Jennifer at least once before in the context of us being a "couple" (actually, this is a misstatement — when they heard the news, my mom shouted, "YAHOO!!" and my dad said something along the lines of, "It’s about damned time!").

Jennifer and I have never had any doubts. But to help others around us who might have had any doubts, last weekend we attended an Engaged Encounter weekend, a weekend designed for couples like us who are planning to get married. We went in prepared for some hard questions and difficult discussions, some serious examination into our own relationship. We thought we’d discussed all of the issues, we thought we were pretty well-prepared.

We still do. The weekend held no surprises for us; during all of our intense discussions, we found ourselves facing questions and issues that we had already faced before; both of us are people who like to have plans, who like to know what issues are going to come up and how they might be dealt with. So none of what we discussed at Engaged Encounter revealed anything new to either of us; we’d discussed issues of long-term career planning, finances, family, religion, end-of-life issues, and more.

This is not to say that the weekend was valueless to us, though. In the midst of our insane schedules, it was important that we take some time away from our computers, our cell phones, and our jobs to make time for us. We both agree that this relationship is our number one priority in our lives, and nothing should get in the way of that. But more importantly, it was good for us to be with other couples who were discussing the same issues we were discussing, and to share some of our experiences with them, and to gain some insights into some of their own solutions to particular issues. We settled the question of finances over the weekend, for example, with some help from another couple that had worked out a good solution that we think might work for us.

Love is probably blind. We’re trying to enter this with our eyes wide open, though; I think one of the reasons we’ve been able to make this work is the full knowledge that things won’t always be perfect. There will be times when we fight, when we get frustrated or angry with each other, and so on. Every marriage, they say, has its good years and its bad years. What’s more important for us, we both figure is not that we try to make every year a good year, but that we know how to deal with the bad years (and we both know that if we make it all the way through this coming year, we’ll be able to make it through anything).

But what it really boils down to for me, and what, ultimately, is the only thing I need to know, is that I love Jennifer. More than anything. Whether we’re speeding down the highway, late to Engaged Encounter, laughing hysterically as we sing along with Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, or dancing clumsily in the computer room to "The Lion Sleeps" by the Nylons, or planning our future together, or being grateful that we both are inheriting wonderful in-laws, or simply holding each other late at night, the love I feel for Jennifer never falters and never wavers. Marrying Jennifer makes me the luckiest man alive.

There’s that hole in my heart that I never even knew existed; it was made for Jennifer, and now she’s here to fill it. How could it have ever been empty?

Just a Day in My Life

On the Air

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I love this laptop computer. I can sit here on this airplane — Southwest Airlines, Greyhound of the Skies — running my laptop on its battery, and write this journal entry. And I love flying, still; especially now that the summer travel season is over and the plane isn’t as insanely crowded as it has been. There is actually an extra seat empty between myself and my co-worker who is flying back to Sacramento with me; it’s almost luxurious, actually, and for the first time since I started this weekly trip to Portland, I feel like I have the room I need to open up my laptop and get some work done while flying.

Not, of course, that what I’m doing at the moment even remotely counts as work.

Traveling is a lot of fun; I really enjoy being up in the air, staying in hotels, "living out of a suitcase"; but I’m certainly glad that I’m only doing this four days a week. There’s nothing in the world to me like the feeling that when this plane lands in just over twenty minutes, Jennifer will be waiting at the airport to pick me up and take me home. There’s a lot of anxiousness — not bad anxiousness, but I’m really excited to see her again, even though I saw her just four days ago.

So I’m enjoying this lifestyle, and this job. It’s frustrating much of the time, and the amount of time I spend working on a daily basis can be annoying — but, all in all, I feel good about this, and about the decision I’ve made.

In a way, I’m facing quite a quandary. I’d like to have a job which involves even more travel; but, at the same time, I want to stay at home with Jennifer. She and I have joked that the two of us could form our own consulting firm so that we could travel together — she could do the back end development, and I could do middleware and UI — but that doesn’t necessarily seem like the wisest plan. I’m not certain how to go about pursuing a career that would increase my travel time without driving me insane, but I’m pretty sure that if I set my mind to it, I could find it. In a sense, I sort of missed the window of opportunity; if I really wanted that kind of job, I should have done it years ago when I was single and not engaged to be married to an incredibly wonderful woman. That, in essence, is my quandary.

The plane is reaching final descent, and it’s time to shut off all electronic devices, so this journal entry is necessarily shorter. I won’t get to upload it until I’m at home and hooked up, and I won’t make any changes to this page (except the necessary linking). This page is entirely on the air. When I fly out to Boston next month, I’m sure the journal entries that are on the air will be much longer.

Until next time.

I Should Have Been a Firefighter

The View Is Worth It

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I really wish I had a digital camera with me right now. I’d love to take a picture of the view from my hotel room window and upload it to this journal. I’m on the 4th floor of the hotel, and from here I can see the Columbia River, and beyond that, Mount Hood. Between the river and the mountain there are lots of trees. And at the moment, the sun is setting to the west, painting the clouds purple and pink. There is no snow on Mount Hood, but the view is still incredible. Each evening this week I’ve come home from work and stood at the window of the room and stared out at the window. It’s a great way to relax after a long day at the office up here.

Things have gotten just plain crazy up here. The original plan was that I would be up here through the end of September, but it’s starting to look like I might be here for a bit longer; possibly through the middle of October, when I fly out to Boston for the first of the trade shows. And between getting our own development environment up to speed, beginning to completely revise the product, preparing partner integrations, the implementation of an entirely new data model, interviewing candidates for our webmaster position, getting our new Perl developer ramped up, reading up on project and software management, and documenting the hell out of everything, it hasn’t been unusual for me to spend a full eight or nine hours at the office followed by another six or seven hours spent on-line in my hotel writing, developing code, creating new graphics, and chatting with co-workers on AIM and exchanging ideas.

This job is very different from any other job I’ve ever held; of course, most of that is because most of the jobs I’ve held have been with the huge bureaucratic institution that is the University, while this company I’m with now is a startup. The University was about nothing if not legacy systems that have been around for a decade or two; while here we’re playing around with new technologies and getting in on the ground floor with lots of different tools. At the University, employees had to pretty much beg for training or opportunities for advancement; here, constant training and education are pretty much expected. The pay is pretty good — not great — but it’s good, and the opportunities I can see coming are really exciting.

But right now, after nearly two solid weeks of these 15-16 hour days, I’m beat. The weekend in Washington was Jennifer was refreshing, as any time I spend with Jennifer is; but I really wasn’t built for this sort of work schedule.

I was warned about this sort of thing when I was first considering this job, and I certainly don’t regret the decision to take it. Though I admit I wasn’t expecting to be "on" 24/7. I was expecting some downtime during the week. The week of Labor Day was a short week — only four days — but I still managed to put in close to sixty hours that week.

Sounds like I’m complaining, doesn’t it? I’m not, though. I’m enjoying the pace to a degree; I thrive on working hard, on putting long hours in on a project that I know will end up working out well. But some of the other things I’d been hoping to do with my time right now — writing, reading, spending time with friends or exploring Portland — are definitely on hold for the time being.

My boss tells me that once we get our development environment implemented in Sacramento, along with our own instance of the database, things will calm down and we will all be able to enjoy normal working hours. I certainly hope so.

Meanwhile, though… I’ve got Mount Hood watching over me, and the Columbia River to guide me along.

Self Absorbed Whining

It's Called Puddle City for a Reason

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Sunday night here in Portland. I just got back here after spending a weekend with Jennifer, her sister, her brother-in-law, and her niece in Washington. And now here I am, back in Portland, in a different hotel than I normally stay in while I’m up here, and it is raining. Not that hard, but it’s wet everywhere around here. It rained most of the time that we were up near Seattle, which is fine with me. I like rain. I like walking in rain. I like listening to the rain on the roof. I like watching the rain come down. I even like sitting in a hot tub while the rain comes down on top of me.

Unfortunately, I never really got to learn to like driving in the rain.

I’ve reached another first this week: I’ve never before rented a car. After we drove back from Seattle-ish (actually, a tiny town about thirty miles from Seattle) in the rental car that Jennifer had picked up, we went back to the rental car headquarters, dropped off her car, and picked up one for me. Normally, the company I work for wouldn’t spring for a rental car, but this week, for some reason, all of the hotels in downtown Portland are booked solid, so we wound up having to rent rooms in another hotel, located several miles from Corporate offices. And since I’m the first one from the Sacramento office to arrive in Portland this week, it’s my job to rent the car.

Driving in a strange city is always nervewracking for me; I’ve never gotten in an accident and I’ve never even gotten lost, but I’m always afraid that I will. So, if driving my own car in a strange city makes me nervous, imagine how nervous I am driving a rental car in a city I’ve never driven in before, in a state — actually two, since the route from the airport to the new hotel loops up briefly into Washington — several hundred miles from home makes me feel.

And doing it in the rain makes it even more fun.

But here I am. I made it. I didn’t get lost, I didn’t crash the car, I didn’t even make a wrong turn and have to backtrack. The only problem I had was mistaking one hotel lobby for another and ending up at the wrong counter. And even that wasn’t that bad; the clerk at the wrong hotel gave me very clear directions to the right one, which happened to be just a few hundred yards away.

The hotel I’m in this week is much nicer than the one I’ve been staying in downtown. The room is much bigger, the bathroom is nicer, there are even more channels on the television to choose from (not that there is anything good to watch, of course).

So here it is, the beginning of a new week. A month into this new job, and the intensity level as we build a new company is really rising. Even though last week was a short week because of the Labor Day holiday, I still managed to put in nearly sixty hours of work. New migrations are being implemented, new data structures, new processes, and so on. I’m finding myself drifting into the murky realm of project management, but I’m not doing nearly as much coding as I would like to. I’ve been doing website mockups in imaging programs, but not designing the HTML behind them as I would like to, nor am I delving into SQL or Oracle as much as I had hoped I would be at this point. These will probably come soon, though; we’re in the process of hiring a webmaster, who will probably end up being tasked with design finalization while I step back from front end UI and start doing some more straight coding.

Portland is, as I’ve said before, a beautiful city. When Jennifer and I drove around Washington, we discovered that the entire Pacific Northwest is gorgeous (actually, Jennifer already knew that, having been up in the area several times already). We actually began to think that perhaps we had made a mistake in deciding to build our house in the Greater Central Valley of California, where things get so hot and dry in the summer time. But, of course, where we’re building is much closer to our families, and that is very important to both of us. Of course, we also realized that the way our careers are going, it’s possible that we will be, within five to ten years, in a situation where we can consider purchasing a second home. We’ve decided that, should we reach that point, we’re going to buy in the Pacific Northwest somewhere. Probably near Seattle.

I’m still experiencing career angst. Yes, it’s ludicrous; I have an opportunity that very few people ever get. I’m learning a lot in this job, not just about web development but also about project management and Oracle and database development. I have an incredible boss that I really enjoy working for, and co-workers that most people would kill for. And I have the feeling that even over the next year, I will probably move upwards very quickly.

But at the same time, the resentment that I’ve felt is still there. I’ve reviewed some of the career goals that I’ve explored over the past few years, and I’m amazed that the career that I’ve been pursuing over the past few months and which I’m in now has nothing at all to do with the goals that I had just a year ago — heck, back in December, I was pursuing a goal that was more HR-related than IT-related. I’m not sure what it is that made me decide to move into this new career, but here I am. And I think I’m much better off; and in less than a year, I will probably be in a position that I wouldn’t have even dreamed of just a year ago.

So why the angst? I have no idea. Jennifer has been more patient with me than I probably deserve as I fuss about this, and very inspiring to me at the same time. She gave me more encouragement to seek this new job than anyone else, and this is much closer to where I want to be than I was just two months ago. I suppose it’s all rooted in the fact that if I had started pursuing this five years ago, I’d be much better off than I am now; but, at the same time, who knows?

The rain has stopped, but the weather reports say that more is on its way. Streams of water are no longer falling out of the sky, and streams of consciousness are no longer flowing from my mind and onto the keyboard. So, until next time.

Just a Day in My Life

Two Drips and a Drip

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It had been going on for nearly a year, Jennifer told me: the drip in the hall bathroom faucet which had, by the time I started moving in, turned into a steady stream of water. Because the water in the city we live in is so hard, this steady stream had resulted in the basin of the sink becoming encrusted with gritty green hardwater crud. It also provided an alternate source of drinking water for the cats; for some reason, cats seem to prefer toilets or stagnant water in sink to their regular drinking bowls. Then, once they’ve imbibed of the sink, the cats like to come up to their humans and nuzzle them for attention.

So, recently, Jennifer decided that it was time to do something about this leak. To that end, on Sunday afternoon, after we moved four crates of books and some furniture from my house to her house, we stopped at the hardware store and bought a new faucet and some plumber’s putty, and set out to repair her leaky faucet — after another stop by my old house, where I was pretty sure I had a pipe wrench and some other tools that would be useful.

We started with some confusion about where, exactly, the water needed to be turned off at: at the valves under the sink? We tried that, but it didn’t seem to work out. Jennifer made a call to her father, who kindly informed us, with a minimum of patronization, that we should turn the water to the house off at the main valve in front of the house. We fussed a bit with some different pipes until we finally found the main, and shut it off. Then Jennifer crawled underneath the sink and disconnected the pipes to the faucet. At that point, she decided that I needed to take over.

So there I was, on my back, under the sink, in the little cupboard, working a wrench into a strange angle to reach the bolts that were not really meant to be undone by any human being, getting myself splashed by water that was still in the pipes in spite of the main having been shut off, Jennifer laughing the whole while. Okay, yes, it was fun. Jennifer and I joked at each other about how nauseatingly domestic the entire situation was, and how it was good practice for when we move into our house in Dixon. Jennifer even asked me if I was enjoying performing my "husbandly duties".

We fixed the faucet. It stopped leaking, and we turned the water main back on. Jennifer took a butter knife and used it as a chisel to get rid of the hardwater crud that had encrusted the sink. The cats had to revert back to their own water bowls and the occasional open toilet for drinking water. And the annoying leak that had been keeping Jennifer awake at night had finally stopped.

I had never done any sort of home maintenance task quite like that. Having lived in rentals all my life, it has been far too easy for me to simply call up the landlord and say, "Can you replace the roof?" or "The pilot light needs to be lit." But when Jennifer and I move into our custom-made home, there will be no landlord that we will be able to call upon to make these repairs. It will be just the two of us facing those challenges together.

And, honestly, I’m looking forward to those challenges. Jennifer says that if she has faith in anything, it’s in us. I feel exactly the same.

After we finished with the sink, we walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner, still joking about the domesticity of it all. I squeezed her hand as we walked, and teasingly asked her how married she felt at that moment. She squeezed my hand back and replied, "Very. Very married."

Eleven months to go. But who’s counting?

Self Absorbed Whining

The Other Demon

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Warning: Not for the squeamish or for those who wish to harbor any ongoing delusions that I am a "Nice Guy"TM

In my last entry, August 25, 2000: A Dream of Stephen King, I spoke of a demon called "Impatience". Impatience is always a struggle for me, but now there’s a demon of another sort bothering me: Resentment.

Those two or three of you who have been following my journal since the beginning probably remember an entry from March or April where I spoke of my plans for an upcoming two-month solo sojourn through Europe. I’d set up my 403(b) account with the University and was regularly stuffing 30% of my monthly income into it in order to save up for the trip; when the time for the trip came the plan was, I would take out a loan against that account and begin paying myself back upon my return.

The plan was going well. When I proposed to Jennifer, she asked that I not postpone my trip just to accommodate the upcoming marriage. With some prodding, I agreed, and began to plan out my itinerary, I began calling around to check out ticket prices, and making some contacts with people in Europe that I could hook up with while I was there. The first leg of the trip was going to take me through the British Isles, especially Ireland and Wales — places that I had always dreamed of visiting.

But plans come and plans go. When my job at the University became unbearable, I knew that I had to leave that job and that I would face a very difficult choice: either move on and make my job change and start heading on a career path which I knew would be a lot more rewarding but sacrifice the Europe trip, or stick with the unacceptable job but keep the trip. In the end, I chose to change jobs and sacrifice my European trip. I suppose that I could talk to my new manager and tell him that I’m going to take two months off in April and May, but I doubt it would go over well, since I’ll have been with the company for less than a year at that point. Probably not the best of plans.

So I sacrificed the Europe trip, but with very little regret because I knew that the career change would serve me much better in the long run; and while I will probably never again have an opportunity to spend two months backpacking in Europe, either solo or with someone, the career change was, I felt, worth it.

Now the company that Jennifer is currently assigned to is talking about sending her to Milan, Italy, for two months to work on the project there. She won’t be able to go because the time frame they’re talking about is right about the time that construction on the house will be heating up and we’ll both need to be around to work with the contractor to make decisions about things like faucets, electrical wiring, and so on. While a part of me is glad that she has been offered this opportunity, there’s another part of me — a disturbingly large part — which isn’t, and which is glad that she won’t be able to go. I’ve spent much of the past two days — between moving, plumbing, sorting and organizing books and CD’s and coping with incoming housemates and financial complications — soul-searching and trying to figure out why I’m feeling this way.

The answer is, probably, resentment.

I first conceived of my trip to Europe about two years ago, shortly before I even met Jennifer. I began saving money right away, first putting it into a savings account, and starting some early planning, back in 1998. In early 1999, I wound up with some medical expenses and other financial emergencies which required large amounts of cash — just the amount that I had in savings, in fact, close to $1200 at the time. So my savings were wiped out, and I had to begin again. I saved a few hundred dollars before having to start over again. Then I began the 403(b) account, and I now have close to $3000 there; if I’d stuck with the University, I would have close to $7000 by the time I left for Europe, far more than enough to pay for the trip and for the costs that would accrue back home while I was gone (e.g., a month’s worth of rent, and so on). Of course, since I’m no longer with the University, no more money is going into that account, so the money will sit there gathering light interest until I get to transfer to the 401(k) with my new company.

In other words, the trip had been planned and postponed several times. And each time I cancelled it I did so with some regret, and each time I restarted the process it was with some glee. But this time, the cancellation was final, and there is no real hope of rescheduling any time within the next couple of years.

My new job offers some travel. For the rest of this month and probably through the end of next month I’ll be spending the majority of my time here in Portland. In October, I’ll be headed out to Boston to attend a trade show. In November, I’ll be going to Atlanta. And in December, Los Angeles. After that, though, the travel will probably taper off. And with this company, there will never be international travel. And, being realistic, my skill set probably will never call for any sort of international travel, since UI can really be done from the comfort of one’s own home (part of the reason why I’ve decided that I really need to start making another shift and start building up some back end and programming skills, especially database skills). Conceivably, I could get myself into a situation where I would get to do some international travel while still using the skills that I enjoy; but, realistically, it will probably not happen within the next few years, if ever.

So this is where the resentment comes in. I gave up my own international travel plans for a career which will probably never offer the opportunity for travel; and Jennifer’s current assignment will get her going overseas, if not for two months, then probably for some brief periods of time. I’m happy that she has these opportunities, but at the same time I feel upset and angry and even hurt. It’s nothing Jennifer did and I hope to God that I don’t wind up taking out these feelings out on her (and I’m sure that she’ll let me know if I do), but these feelings have colored my mood all weekend and are really gnawing at me this morning.

Last night, I dropped Jennifer off at her local office so that she could take care of some business while I ran some errands of my own. After I finished up my errands, I went back to her office to pick her up. I found myself getting depressed while I was there. It reminded me that while I’m closer to where I want to be, career-wise, I still have a hell of a long way to go, and the feeling is daunting and intimidating. There’s nothing anyone can do about these feelings except for myself, and the only thing I can do is to continue building my skills and keeping an eye out for new opportunities and challenges.

I’m a lot more optimistic about my future than I was just a few months ago. But, still, these feelings — the intimidation, the resentment, the anger, and even the hurt — still remain.

Just a Day in My Life

A Dream of Stephen King

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Last night, I dreamt that on the flight home from Portland, Oregon to Sacramento, California, I wound up sitting next to Stephen King. Now, I’m not sure why Stephen King would be flying on the Greyhound of the Skies, but hey, it was a dream. Who cares about that sort of detail?

 I am an aspiring writer — okay, granted, I don’t write nearly as much as I used to, but I still churn out something every now and then. I’m not as productive as I was just six months ago, when I was regularly putting out a thousand words a day working on a novel, but I have hopes that I can regain that sort of productivity again soon. In my dream, I remembered that there’s a part of me that wants to be a bestselling horror writer, so sitting next to Stephen King was a great thrill for me. And at the end of the flight, we got off the plane together, went to a coffee shop, and sat and chatted for a long time. I even got to introduce him as a friend when my parents showed up at the same coffee shop.

So Stephen King and I sat and chatted about life, the universe, and everything. Of course, I really wanted to ask questions and get his insights into writing as a career, about what to do when you’re stuck on a novel, about how to track down an agent, about how to cut down on bloated verbiage (okay, so maybe Stephen King isn’t quite the right person to ask for advice on that problem), and so on. But did I get around to it? Nope, of course not.

It’s a good thing that I don’t feel the same way about my writing career as I do about my web development career! While I’m quite content to let various ideas and stories fester in my mind and set down notes and develop them later and turn them into publishable books and stories a few years from now, I have an overwhelming impatience with the state of my development career. I love my job right now, and it’s definitely a step in the right direction (although, as I’ve said before, I would like to learn more programming and PL/SQL). But I can’t shake this feeling that says that this is where I should have been five years ago. If I’d been here five years ago, then today I would be where I want to be now: project management and director of development, or something like that.

I keep reminding myself to have patience. Five years ago I was in a completely different place in my life, and my priorities were completely different. Five years ago I was giving no thought at all to my career, and I just wanted to go to work, punch in, do my thing, punch out, and go home. As long as I was getting the money I needed to survive, I was happy.

At the time, I also had a vague sense that I was interested in Human Resources. And when I actually settled down at got a "Real Job" I ended up doing Human Resources, primarily by pure accident rather than intent on my part. And found that I didn’t really enjoy it. And now I have a new job in a new career which I actively sought out and got on my own, which is something that most people never get a chance to do. And with this new job comes a paycheck which, I recently discovered, is well above the median household income for people my age. But where I want to be is still far in the future; and there’s still a part of me that is angry that I’m not quite there even yet. How absurd is that?

To be honest, none of Stephen King’s books have ever really scared me that badly. I enjoy them because I think, when he’s at his best, he’s good at using horror as a metaphor to explore human emotions. I think that perhaps he could write a really terrifying novel about a demon called Impatience, which causes its victims to, oh, get so insane from impatience and envy that they go nuts and, say, go out and become killer clowns or something.

Or, who knows? Maybe some day I’ll write it myself.

Twoo Wuv

Slaves of the Volcano God and Other Amazing Adventures

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Every year, for several years, my parents have given me strangely-titled books for Christmas as stocking stuffers. The quality of the books haven’t mattered so much as the title; this is how I’ve managed to end up reading books such as Bride of the Rat God and The Generic Science Fiction Novel — a thin book with a plain white cover imprinted with the words Science Fiction in bold black letters. But the best find my parents had, by far, was a series called The Cineverse Cycle, by Craig Shaw Gardner. These three books had the most amazing titles: Slaves of the Volcano God, Bride of the Slime Monster, and Revenge of the Fluffy Bunnies.

Needless to say, these books were wonderful. I devoured them in a week, and they quickly became some of my favorites. But alas, I loaned these books to an old friend of mine, who soon thereafter vanished, taking these great books with him. I’ve searched for new copies since then, haunting the used bookstores and libraries; but I was unable to track them down anywhere. It looked as though these books were gone forever.

Hang on; I’m going somewhere with this, I promise.

So far, I’m really enjoying my new job quite a lot. My co-workers are great; I like my boss; and there are times when I find myself amazed that I’m actually getting paid to design and create web pages. I have to say that I wish I were doing more straight programming and database development, but that will come with time. Right now I’m enjoying the time I’m spending here in Portland, and learning how the company works and what the development environment is like.

And the much-prayed-to employment gods have also apparently heard my request for a job with some travel as well. I’ll be in Portland for a few more weeks; then in October, I’ll be spending a few days in Boston; in November, Atlanta; and in December, Los Angeles. These are trade shows and conferences which are related to the e-health industry and to our company’s particular medical specialty. My boss tells me that he wants me to "feel the doctors’ pain", which I think is probably a good idea; but I’ll also be serving as technical support at these shows and conferences.

But the job has its down sides as well. Putting in ten- to twelve- hour days is not unusual. I was up until about one o’clock this morning helping to QA a data migration, and I was up very early double-checking things and sending out e-mails. And I admit that I’m still feeling overwhelmed and sort of "in over my head". But I’m starting to sort things out here, and I’m starting to make sense of it all. I know that I’m looking at some more long hours and heavy projects, especially since I’m apparently being moved into project management, and I’m looking to really build up my skills in many other areas.

The worst of the downsides, of course, is that I’m spending far too much time away from home and away from Jennifer. For nearly two weeks, I haven’t seen my own house at all for more than a few minutes at a time, usually on my way to or from somewhere as I pick up some more clothes or some medicine or a book. When I am in California, I am almost always at Jennifer’s house. I’ve started giving out her phone number as an alternate "home number" for myself. I’ve even listed her address in a couple of places as an alternate address for me. It’s almost as though I’m living with her when I’m in California.

But the point, really, is that when I’m in Portland, I miss Jennifer. A lot. I miss hanging out with her. I miss spending time with her. I miss going out to dinner with her, or snuggling up with her on the couch watching a movie.

In the time that Jennifer and I have been together, I have never had any doubts about the two of us. But if I had ever had any doubts that Jennifer is the one for me, they would have been completely removed with the gift that she gave me prior to my first departure for Portland. She came to my house — one of the last times I was there — to pick me up for dinner or some such event, and as we drove away, she said, "Can I borrow your books in the glove compartment?" I assumed, at the time, that the books she was talking about were the same books she’d had in there for some time, so I said, "But they’re your books."

"No, they’re not," she replied. "Open it up and see.

So I opened up the compartment — and there they were. Slaves of the Volcano God. Bride of the Slime Monster. Revenge of the Fluffy Bunnies. The entire Cineverse Cycle. Jennifer had saved a conversation that she and I had had via Instant Messenger months ago, and had managed to track the books down on an auction site. And I’ve been having great fun here in Portland, re-reading these favorites of mine, and smiling when I think about how I got them.

Jennifer and I have taken the next logical step; I’m beginning the process of moving in with her this weekend. I’ve lived with significant others before, but she never has. This is a big step for me, but it’s an even bigger one for her. I can’t take that lightly, of course, and this wasn’t a decision that either of us made on the spur of the moment. But it’s right.

Jennifer is a marvelously practical woman, and has begun the process of cleaning and rearranging furniture in her house even while I’m up here in Portland, reading silly books, working hard at this crazy job, and thinking of her. She’s charming, funny, intelligent, bright, and witty; one moment she’s planning out investments and going over our house plans with me, and the next she’s sitting beside me gluing together a working clock made out of cardboard or hunting for a stone dragon with me. I can’t help but love her.

So if Jennifer ever were to be enslaved to a volcano god, or forcefully wed to a slime monster, or threatened by a horde of vengeful fluffy bunnies, I would certainly be there to help protect her (not that she couldn’t take care of herself, of course, but you know what I mean). She hunted down a trilogy of strangely-titled novels for me on the basis of an IM conversation that she and I had months ago, that I barely remember; how can I help myself?