One of the other milestones that I’ve reached with this trip is that this is the first time I’ve ever stayed alone in a hotel room. The first time. I’ve been on trips and I’ve been to conferences and so on before, but I’ve always shared a hotel room with at least three other people; when a bunch of us from UC Davis went to Santa Barbara for a computing services conference just last summer, we rented two hotel rooms but we all wound up sleeping in the same room. Of course, we were also all drunk and up to two o’clock in the morning watching reruns of I Love Lucy. And, of course, I’ve gone to science fiction and gaming conventions; and, of course, to sleep by yourself in a hotel room at such a convention is tantamount to blasphemy of some sort.         So I woke up this morning, fully twenty minutes before my six o’clock wake-up call; and the first feeling I felt at that first moment was panic. "Where am I? How the hell did I get here? Oh my God, I’m in Oregon! I’ll never get to the University in time for work!" And, of course, "Where are the cats? What’s happened to Jennifer?" Hi, Jennifer! I love you!         Which probably goes to show just how quickly I’m adjusting to this new job.         I’m finding that the past couple of days have seemed almost surreal to me. Most of that, I’m sure, comes from the culture shock. No, it’s not the shock of going from Davis to Portland (they’re not that different after all, despite how different people may think Davis is from the rest of the world — but then again, perhaps Portland and Davis share some sort of alternate universe); rather, it’s the shock of going from a huge bureaucratic institution — the University — to a tiny little startup. At the University, overtime was severely discouraged, especially since I was an hourly employee (very few departments at the University have the budget to pay out overtime; all of the overtime I did in my last few days at the University were basically volunteer, and I never even tried to claim them); here, as an exempt employee on a salary instead of an hourly wage, overtime is pretty much expected from time to time. It was good for me at the University, where I honestly felt like I was making good progress on a project. Here, though, I’m still learning. I haven’t had much of a chance to produce quite yet.         "Patience," my new boss advises me; "patience and flexibility. Your job here for the next two months is to learn as much as you can." Today I began seriously exploring the development environment and the directory trees, and began tinkering with the in-house middleware development tool.         I’m also not entirely certain that I’m fitting in well with the culture here. I am, for example, I seem to be the only one here who isn’t into fast cars. I went to lunch with my boss and the partner integration manager, for example, and listened to them talk Mazda Miatas, GT’s, and so on, and the ones that they owned. The inevitable question came up: "Richard, what kind of car do you drive?" Things got kind of quiet when I replied, "Uh, a 1992 Geo Metro." Though things perked up again a bit when I added, "But I’m thinking about buying a Saturn."         Yep, it’s a different world for me.         Oh, okay. I’m exaggerating. This place is actually pretty fun. I miss Jennifer, of course, and I’m a bit homesick, and, of course, overwhelmed… But I believe I’m getting the hang of all this, and I know that within a few weeks, I’ll have this job licked.         And now, work calls once again. Be well. Reply to this? Sign my Guestbook or send me mail! Richard copyright ©2000 by Richard S. Crawford

I owe a debt of gratitude to my friend "Frog" (not her real name, of course), who defended me against vile accusations from a certain someone that I am, in fact, a "nerd". In support of this accusation, Jennifer cited the following facts:

In opposition to these facts, Frog countered with:

Of course, she also followed that up with, "No, Richard is definitely a geek." So perhaps I don’t owe her that big a debt of gratitude after all.

At any rate, I started my new job at an e-Health company today. It’s a forty minute commute from my house to my new workplace, which, so far, is fine with me; and it’s going to be nearly an hour’s commute from the workplace to the new house that Jennifer and I are building in Dixon. It’s probably okay with me so far just because I happen to be listening to Stephen King’s Hearts In Atlantis on tape, and it’s a fascinating book. But when I’m done with that book, we’ll see if that commute is as okay with me as it is toay.

I’m really excited about this new job. While my job title is "Senior Web Developer" (according to my offer letter, the paperwork I filled out, and my new business cards — which I haven’t gotten yet), I was hired pretty much to do HTML and JavaScript coding, and graphics. However, a conversation with my manager made it clear that if I chose to hone my skills in Perl and other middleware products, the company would certainly appreciate that. So far I like the people I’ll be working with, and the product we’re developing has a lot of potential. And, of course, I fly up to Portland tomorrow for the first time tomorrow morning.

Yes, I will have my laptop computer with me. Yes, I will hook the modem up to the dataport in the hotel room, and I will write journal entries from the road. Yes, I will have my laptop at work and will use my brand new network card to hook it into the company’s LAN.

And no, of course this doesn’t make me a nerd.

Here I sit, on the last day of employment with the University. I haven’t been in this department for very long, so I know that it’s unrealistic to expect that they’ll throw me a party or give me a going-away present or something like that. When I left my last position, I received a nice gift from the department; but I’ve only been here a month, and while I did my job well while I was here, I didn’t really have much of a chance to get to know anyone at all.

My portion of the product has been successfully completed and transitioned to a consultant who will work on coding another portion of the product for another week until he, too, is moved off to another department and the product becomes someone else’s responsibility yet again. Add to that the server troubles, the data migration troubles, and all of the other problems that the department has been plagued with, it’s not very likely that the product will be ready for roll-out by the time the students need it. Still, miracles happen every day, I suppose.

There’s a part of me which feels bad about leaving this department. I know that if I were staying here, I’d be buried at the moment; after all, it wasn’t unusual, over the past two weeks, for me to put in 12 to 13 hour days constantly hammering away at Cold Fusion, JavaScript, HTML, and SQL, trying to get the thing to work. And it does work. And today it’s on someone else’s desk, and even when I offered to go over the code one last time with the new developer, I was told, "Richard, this is really good code and very well-documented. There’s no need to review it further, I understand it perfectly." And when I quizzed him a bit — "Can you guess what this function here does? Or that query?", he replied, "Oh yes, it does…" and he told me exactly what it does. And why it was a better choice than what he had in mind. While I’m thrilled to think that I might be a decent programmer after all, it’s kind of sad that I’m not being given any last-minute desperation projects. Which means that after three insane weeks of long hours and packed days, there is nothing for me to do here now.

And so here I sit, with ample time to reflect and write.

I hate being bored at work. Particularly here, where there is no one standing over me giving me assignments and asking me for continual updates. I suppose that normally, there would be, but since I’m only here this one last day, no one figures there would be any point. I feel like I’m cheating the University, in spite of the long hours that I’ve put in already.

Ursula K. LeGuin had a good name for this condition. Ethica Puritanica Laboriis, she called it; the need to work, to produce. I don’t normally think of myself as suffering from this condition — in fact, I’m pretty certain that I have a very healthy sense of procrastination and denial, and I’m sure that there are many people, including an ex-girlfriend or two, who would be happy to testify to that. But in this case, just sitting here at my workstation, listening to Switchblade Symphony and writing up this journal entry just feels wrong to me. But, at the same time, there really is literally nothing for me to do here, and that just feels… weird.

My job here did not require me to work as hard as some other people I know; Jennifer’s job works her a lot harder than mine worked me, and I have to admit that I feel a bit guilty about that. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, though. 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. But working hard, particularly on something that I enjoy, is good for me. I like it.

But days like today encourage me to think randomly about random things. For example: watching Survivor on television the other night for the first time. I know it’s a cultural phenomenon, but I’ve been trying my best to avoid it, just like I successfully avoided ever watching a single episode of Miami Vice or 90210. But yes, I watched Survivor. In my own defense, I have to say that it was entirely Jennifer’s idea. It was Jennifer who said, "We really ought to watch it at least once in our lives." And so it happened.

It was a strange and somewhat disquieting experience, watching Survivor. Each contestant acts nicely toward all of the other contestants; but they plot against each other behind their backs. In a way, it’s just like human society in microcosm; though I admit that I like to think that people aren’t always plotting against each other. What I’m most intrigued with regarding this show is how the winner will be decided. What happens when there are two or three people left on the island? How will they decide who gets voted off and who stays? I suppose I might have more interest in it if I were one of the ones on the island…

Also on my mind: my car. My car has been making an ominous squeaking noise — Jennifer has called it "a miffed mouse" type of noise — and today I took it to the Geo dealership to have the brakes checked (squeaking noises almost always mean bad brakes to me). Nothing wrong with the brakes. Or the CV joints. Or the axle. The squeak probably comes from the old suspension. Nothing that can be done about it, since the car is getting old, and it’s not an urgent repair job, so it won’t be addressed. I’ll live with the squeak. But in a way, I’m kind of disappointed: I won’t be able to afford the new car I wanted for a few months yet, until I can build up a decent down payment — something I’d rather do on my own without help from anyone else, if possible — so that my monthly payments will be somewhat manageable (a few financial mistakes I made a few years ago still haunt me in the form of higher interest rates). But if my Geo Metro, Spiff, were terminally ill — well, then it would be much easier for me to talk myself into believeing that I can afford the higher monthly payments. As it is, it appears I’m stuck, for the time being, driving this beer can with no air conditioning and a driver’s side window that doesn’t roll down (in the Central Valley, with 100+ degree temperatures, no less!). If nothing else, though, this car really lets me prove my manhood: air conditioning and safe cars are for wimps! Give me a hot (literally hot!) Geo Metro over your wimpy-ass Volvo or Saturn any day. Ha! I laugh in the face of uncomfortable danger…

Still, though… That Saturn SL2 I looked at last weekend really looks awfully appealing… But even with my new job with its 75% pay increase, those are still some distressingly high monthly payments. And leasing a car is just not something I want to do.

And the last thing on my mind today: the theme for the wedding. Yes, Jennifer and I have picked a theme. I’ve listed a few possibilities on the sidebar to this entry; see if you can guess which one is ours? Bearing in mind, of course, that the real theme may not be among the list I’ve presented.

What happened was this: last Saturday I showed up at Jennifer’s parents’ house, after Jennifer had been out and about all day with her mother, looking at patterns and plans. Jennifer came up to me and said, "Honey" — in that tone of voice which I’ve come to associate with impending doom, or at least with an impending strange new idea for the wedding, the same tone of voice she used when she proposed the procession of circus animals — "we’ve found the perfect dress for the bridesmaids and for our mothers." So, she showed me this dress. She and her mother and her sister all burst into laughter when they showed it to me because they all thought it was hideous. I admit, though, that I thought it was pretty attractive. Granted, only three or four women on the planet can wear such a dress, and those three or four women are probably simultaneously anorexic and more silicone than flesh, but it can look good. My mother, upon seeing this picture, affirmed that it would be nice; and since she already had one, in DayGlo orange, she was all set for the ceremony.

Sometimes, there are simply things about your mother that you had no idea at all about. I had no idea my mother had such a dress. Perhaps I’ve just never gone anywhere with her fancy enough for her to wear such a thing.

But now I’ve been presented with actual work to do these last 101 minutes of my tenure with the University. Mappings to validate, DNS changes to make, development files to upload. So this entry needs to be cut short.

Be well. Enjoy life!

Because my asthma is a permanent, high-maintenance condition, I’m practically on a first-name basis with the entire pharmacy staff at the local Long’s Drugs. At least once a month I’ll come in; the pharmacist — or one of the staff — will greet me, saying, "Welcome back, Richard! What will it be today, the usual? How about some Serevent, that will really open up those ol’ bronchial tubes like nobody’s business!"

Well, okay, it isn’t quite like that. But sometimes I really feel like it is. When I call up to place a refill on a prescription, the staff member who answers the phone almost always knows my voice, and frequently can guess what medication I need.

Yesterday I went in to pick up some of the usual meds: two inhalers, an antihistamine, a painkiller for my shoulder. One of the staff members who knows me by name — and who also happens to be a part-time bartender at one of my favorite local music venues, The Palms Playhouse — was there as well. She wasn’t actually working at the time; instead she was picking up some medicine for someone else in her family: Rupert, the bearded dragon.

I had never thought that you could pick up some veterinary medications at Long’s Drugs (on the other hand, it’s probably good information to have, since when I marry Jennifer I’ll essentially be marrying her seven cats as well). Of course, I had never really thought of a bearded dragon as an animal that you would take to the veterinarian either; then again, where else would you take it when it got sick?

"Amanda" (not her real name, but I need to call her something) had brought Rupert with her, so I got to look at this creature. He was about fourteen inches long, from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. I’m guessing fourteen inches; he was in a Tupperware box, and his tail had to bend a little for him to fit into it. He was a mottled dark brownish-green color, with rough skin and sharp, beady eyes. Along his chin were lots of tiny spines, which is why he’s called a "bearded dragon". Looking at this animal, who was waiting with his owner for some antibiotics to help heal up an abscess for which he had just had surgery, my first thought was that he was emaciated and sickly. It turns out that yes, he was a bit thin, but bearded dragons have a tendency to flatten themselves out in order to capture more heat in certain environments.

Don’t you think that it’s amazing that there are such things in this world? It seems like every time I turn around, there’s something curious or strange waiting to be seen, and such things sometimes appear in the strangest places. A pharmacy is not a place I would expect to find a creature called a bearded dragon, any more than a Dungeons and Dragons game was a place where I would expect to meet my soulmate. But this sort of thing happens; strange and wonderful things pop up in unexpected places — and, furthermore, I’m convinced that this sort of thing happens all the time.

I know that when I was a kid, my mom sometimes got frustrated with me when she took my sister and I on walks. While my sister would run on ahead, I would constantly fall behind, caught up in some insect or rock or bug or piece of litter that caught my attention. I think I might have acquired this trait from my grandfather, who would frequently frighten the passengers in his car with his ability to say exactly how many cows were in the field beside the road, but not necessarily what was on the road ahead of him. I like to think that I’m a bit more attentive to the road than that, but I still find myself drawn to the world around me and all of the wonderful things that crawl, ooze, climb, and slime.

"Here There Be Dragons", the old cartographers used to warn, on maps that were necessarily incomplete: "Sail beyond the known boundaries of the world, and you will encounter deadly monsters." But the world around us is always incomplete, isn’t it? Keep your eyes focused on what’s directly ahead, and you’ll miss everything that’s going on beside you, where there are some pretty astounding things from time to time. And dragons aren’t necessarily bad things; dragons can also represent the strange and delightful oddities that populate this world like sprinkles on a cake.

Keep an eye out for that sort of thing. You’ll see exactly what I mean.

I wound up going home sick today from work, with only seven days left at my current job. I had awakened with a bad headache and an upset stomach, but figured it would pass quickly. Unfortunately, I was wrong about that, and both the headache and the stomachache got worse as the morning wore on; finally, around 10:00, my office mate reminded me that if I didn’t use up my sick leave now, I’d never get a chance to — the University will cash out my remaining vacation time when I move on, but not my sick time. So I copied a bunch of Cold Fusion code onto a Zip disk and went home with the intention of going through the code, cleaning it up, and thoroughly documenting it.

On the way home, I stopped at the video store, as I usually do on days like today, and rented both Fight Club and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (yes, I do love horror films, even the cheesy ones). But my intention to revise my Cold Fusion code never really became anything more than Good Intentions. I reviewed code for about two hours while Hellraiser played in the background, remembered that I had to leave Personal Web Server running on my computer in order to get the Cold Fusion server to work, and then undid all of the changes that I had made, since not all of them really worked. Backup files are a good thing.

But all the while, my headache and stomach ache were just getting worse. Finally around 1:30 or 2 I gave up, popped in Fight Club (an excellent film, by the way — I recommend it highly), and lay down. Then I slept for about three hours. When I woke up, the fever was gone and so was the stomach ache, but the headache had stormed in with full fury, to the point where I could barely move my head. Even now, it hurts. I get migraine headaches from time to time; this is a grand doozy of one. Bright lights bother me, and so do ambient noises, and so do the drumming of the fingers of the people sitting next to me at the cafe right now. (Yes, I’m feeling crabby; so sue me, I have a migraine.)

But no, I did not spend the whole day griping and feeling miserable. Besides, as Agent Cooper suggested in Twin Peaks, "Every day, give yourself a gift: it doesn’t have to be expensive or fancy, just something you like and enjoy. A really good cup of coffee, or a chance to watch a beautiful sunset."

Today, I gave myself the thrill of faxing in my acceptance of the position with [the new place of employment]. The first two months of this new job are going to be spent up in Portland, Oregon, learning about the company and how to use their in-house suite of application packages. I’m excited about that: I’m going to be learning a lot, I’ll be meeting new people, I’ll get to see what my new co-workers will be like, and so on.

The hardest thing for me to adapt to and accept with regards to this new job is the pay increase. It’s not quite going to double my income, which had been my goal for the year, but it represents an 83% increase over my salary with the University, which is close enough. Last night I dragged Jennifer with me while I went and test drove new cars; and it was such an odd feeling looking at the 2000 Honda Accord SE and realizing that I can now afford this car, instead of taking what someone else was willing to sell to me, a used car with "issues". It’s a marvelous feeling.

I didn’t buy the car last night, of course. For one thing, I haven’t gotten any paychecks at all from [the new place of employment] as of yet; and, for another thing, I’m going to be in Portland for two months starting on August 7; and what’s the point of buying a new car if it’s just going to sit in front of my house? [the new place of employment] will be flying me back to Davis on the weekends during that time, and Spiff will be just fine for me until October or so, when I start the daily commute out to Roseville. Then, I’ll probably buy the Accord.

And now I feel like I’ve completed a series of transitions in my life which began just about a year ago. I’ve transitioned from being single to being engaged to the woman of my dreams; the process of moving from my duplex with two housemates to a large custom-made home with a beautiful wife has begun; I’m finally leaving the University after having been there since 1986 in some capacity or another. And, most importantly, I’m moving from a existence which is essentially aimless and directionless to one which I feel like has a purpose and a direction.

All in all, a pretty good day for me.

It isn’t a great day for everyone, of course. My best friend continues to have problems with his own career (though I like to point out that if I can make this kind of transition, then he will be able to as well); my good friend Ivymoon was disappointed to learn that she did not get the job of her dreams; and Jennifer has ended up having to put in long hours at her own job yet again. And, of course, my boss in Information Technology is still left with the problem of finding someone to replace me (I still feel guilt about that; especially since I had to go home sick today).

So, with all of these transitions nearing completion, I find that it’s easy to relax and think, "Now things are settled. I don’t need to do anything more, now that all of my goals are met." Of course, nothing is further from the truth; I’m rebuilding my life now, making that fresh start.

Not to say that my life was boring or dull before, but… Now is when a whole new set of challenges and excitements begin.