Too Long... Sorry.

I just realized, that I haven't posted in more than a week. Too many things have happened in that time frame. It's been too long... Sorry. I have good reasons though.

My last post indicated that the IT department had just been cut in half. Well we just lost another third. My direct supervisor, (head of the IT department) announced last week on Wednesday, that Monday, July 31 would be his last day here. That's tomorrow, folks.

I've been selected to run the IT department (all 2 of us), so this is a bit of a promotion. I'm happy I still have a job, but it doesn't make me happy to see the direction the company is going. I'd feel much better if we hired 2 more people into the IT department and began training them into backups of the 2 remaining full time members of the department. The company would collapse inside of 2 weeks if anything were to happen to either of us and that scares me immensely! It doesn't look like the owner cares about the IT department at all, however and in fact sees IT as nothing but an expense.

I need to do what's best for my family and to that end, I'm making sure that no opportunities pass me by. That being said, I'm NOT going to quit until and unless I find something better at a bigger, more stable company. Anyone know someone who needs a good Sr. Sys Admin? :)

Anyway, in WoW, my character has graduated to level 25 and is doing pretty well. I'm told that I'm moving along at a pretty good clip. That would make me feel better if I could actually catch up to some of the other people I play with. I think I'd do better if I hadn't chosen some of the things I chose with the character earlier on. Oh Well! That's life I suppose. Anyway, I'm taking suggestions for the name of my pet cat (in the game). It's basically a large black panther that advances along with me. The game names it "Cat" be default, but I can select a name myself. Of course, once I select a name, it's final. So... Anyone have any suggestions? :)

We're getting REAL air conditioning! It'll be installed on August 10 and the Swamp cooler will be ripped outta the house! Silly Utah folks stilol believe swamp coolers are useful. That means I'll have to relocate a few things out in the yard and I'm NOT looking forward to all the digging it will require. Such is life, eh? :)

This post brought to you by the letters A, C, and the number 10.

Mixed Feelings

I now have mixed feelings about my company. About 3 weeks ago, the controller of the company left abruptly. I had thought I was becoming pretty good friends with this guy, but then he left under less than favorable circumstances. Apparently, there had been some financial details that were slipping past him or he was missing or something and it turns out that the company wasn't doing as well as we all believed. Suffice it to say that once the real data came out, it was clear that we owed the Feds some money and we weren't doing as well as we had believed. As a result of this, some rather unpleasant events occurred.

The lay offs began in the IT department first. Half of the staff of 6 was let go in the span of an hour. The lucky ones with a job after the smoke settled were my boss (a developer), a developer (and scripter), and the sys admin (me). I'm lucky in that my boss, the guy who had to implement the lay offs, went to bat for me and made it clear to the owner that without me, the computer infrastructure of the company would collapse in pretty short order. He tried to save another of the unfortunates, but could only get so far with the owner.

The IT department wasn't the only department affected. Another department has to cut its hours in half, 2 other departments are losing 1 member each with the possibility of one department losing 2 members. Have I mentioned that I work for a rather small company and that losing that many people is pretty significant? As far as I can tell, that's approximately 20% of our workforce in one fell swoop. I hope we can pull out of the dive it feels like we're in.

On the positive side, I still have a job, I've been told by the president of the company that I'm critical for the company's continued health, and I got the backups to work correctly finally. This week has definitely been filled with mixed feelings when it comes to the place I work.

I'll live and I'll get through it. I'll also update my resume just in case. I'm so jaded...

This post was brought to you by the letters P, I, N, K, S, L, I, P, and the number 3. Please excuse the duplicate letters, they requested to be allowed to do so.

Stupid.

What is wrong with people? Why can't people live up to their end of agreements? The previous owner of the house we're living in has still not completed his end of a legal, binding contract. He was supposed to arrange the installation of an AC unit, a gutter, and get a furnace inspection by the end of June. It is now the 17th of July and none of this has happened. I've attempted to contact him with little productive response. I suppose I'll have to sue him. I don't want to do that, but I might not have a choice. The temps have been near 100 degrees recently and the "swamp cooler" that Utah residents are so fond of just can't "cut the mustard" as it were. It's been mid- to upper-80s inside the house with the cooler on full bore. I keep just handing the girls glasses of ice water to try to keep them hydrated.

Why do people have to be so stupid? Why couldn't he just do what he said he would? I suppose I was the stupid one for believing the guy would actually live up to his word. Now, Karen, Sara, and Rebecca have to suffer for it with me. Such is life I guess.

This rant was brought to you by the letters U, G, H, and the number 100.

H-O-T!!!

It was 103 on the Fahrenheit thermometer at one point today. That's too hot for my tastes. So far I'm not a big fan of the Salt Lake Valley in Utah, but I haven't really given it much chance, though days like this one don't help it too much. Anyone else want to weigh in on this one? What do you think of the Salt Lake Valley. I'm not a fan, I'd rather be in Virginia or Ohio, or anywhere that is lush. Yes I know that means humidity, but I grew up with Humidity and a good AC unit can work wonders when it comes to humidity.

Too bad people around here don't believe in AC, instead they use "Swamp Coolers" which work by sucking air through water soaked filters that cool the air (and humidify it in the process) that is then blown into the house. The biggest drawback is that once the ambient humidity hits a certain level (I'm not sure what that level is, FYI), the system is no longer effective in cooling the air. Basically, when you really need to be cooled off, a "Swamp Cooler" can't do the job. I can't stand to be hot, when I get overheated, I have pretty bad problems. It's almost like I'm having a continual case of heat stroke/exhaustion when I get hot.

We're supposed to have AC in our house. The former owners agreed to install it in order to get us to buy it. Unfortunately, we haven't heard anything about when that will happen. It was supposed to happen by the end of last month, but it hasn't happened yet. If it doesn't happen by the end of this month, he'll owe us $100, but I'd rather have the AC unit than the money.

We'll see what happens. I'm going to go attempt to cool off a bit.

This post was brought to you by the letters W, O, W (yeah, I know it repeats), and the number 19.

One more day.

I've decided that the weekends need one more day. And every weekend needs to be mother-in-law free. Basically, part of each day of my weekend was burned because of my mother-in-law. This leads to the feeling that one's weekend was wasted. I won't get into details because it's not necessary, but I want to be completely done with her for a while. She is such a drain on my time and emotions, that I feel older than I am when I have to exchange more than a few sentences with her. Nevertheless, The weekend could use another day.

On to brighter things... My Night Elven Hunter is now 17th level! Pretty soon she'll be able to find better armor and weapons. If you don't know WoW, just ignore the previous sentence as well as this one. I'm trying to find some good coupons from Dell so I can buy Karen a good laptop. I keep finding some pretty good deals, but the coupon codes have a limited number of uses (in this case 4000) and then they expire. It SUCKS! Basically, once the general public finds out about it, the ebayers have already used the coupons up. I don't blame them, but Dell needs to do away with the limited uses and they'd have quite a few more sales. I'd have made a purchase by now if that were the case. :)

Anyway, it's time for me to go enjoy WoW now, so I'll post again later! :)

Tonight's post was brought to you by the letters A, F, K, and the number 17.

Explain, Please.

I'm sure there are a number of you who read my blog (even if that number is 0 :) and wonder why I pick the letters I do when I do. Usually, I pick letters that are significant to the blog entry, but occasionally, I'll just pick random letters. Sometimes you just have to know me in order to pick up on it. :) Once you find that you're picking up on the significance, you should call and arrange an appointment to your local head shrink as you'll have no doubt delved too deeply into the enigma that is me. HAHA!

Anyhoo... That's my $.02 worth. Please feel free to salt and pepper to taste so that you can swallow the explanation.

Today's post was brought to you by the letters P, I, K, and the number 4. (Put the letters of these last 2 postings together in order and you get my nickname. :)

WoW Addict!

I'm now a WoW addict. I made the joyous mistake of purchasing the game. It's a boatload of fun, folks!

It other news, I haven't been posting as much the past week and I'm sorry to you all for that. I'll endeavor to perform better in the future.

This posting will be brief as I have a killer headache and will probably go take a nap under a fan to try to make it go away.

This post was brought to you by the letters I, S, E, and the number 11. Words are Bob's deal. :)