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Archive for April, 2006

From Bad to Good

Friday, April 28th, 2006

Yesterday started off really poorly. By the end of the day things were going really well though

It all started off with the student loan people and the goverment messing me over as usually. About a year ago they integrated two of my student loans into a single loan. Well, that sucked. I had to reschedule payments etc. Recently they de-integrated the loan back into two individual loans, and they didn’t tell me :p I wasn’t aware of this until I applied for a line of credit and it got turned down because of some outstanding payments needing to be made on one of the sperated loans. The part that really drives me up the wall over this is that I have the money in the bank to completely pay off the whole loan, but it has already marred my credit it seems.

I had to take a day off work and spend hours on the phone getting it all sorted out. At one point I literally spent 23 conescutive minutes bouncing around their automated phone system.

The good points of the day were very good though. When it was over with the student loan people I went back to bed for a couple of hours. I decided it was an order-in night and ordered in some pizza which was pretty good. Then in World of Warcraft our raid group got our first Nefarian kill! To top it all off he dropped the Breastplate of Wrath, my 8th and final piece for my Wrath armor. After all of that, when I got fully buffed and used all of my trinkets and abilities I broke 15,000 hit points

15366 Health

Posted in Life, World of Warcraft | 1 Comment »

Everything is Beautiful in It’s Own Way

Monday, April 24th, 2006

Don’t let me hold something so delicate
Shattered with a word
Don’t say a thing
As we get closer and closer
Damn this is gonna hurt

- Closer by Cauterize

I see everything differently than every one else. I really don’t know why. I don’t know how I came to see things the way that I do.

Part of me wishes that I didn’t see the world the way that I do. That I could see it the same way that everyone else does so that I could fit in better. At the same time, I love the way that I see things. I think that the world is a lot simpler to me in many ways.

This has just sort of been becoming more and more obvious to me lately. I’m hanging out more with my friends both out here in Vancouver and online in World of Warcraft. The more I hang out with them the more that it dawns on me how little I really have in common with most of them. My views on humanity, society, beauty, happiness, life, friendship, honor, love, right down to my taste in movies tends to be quite different.

I’m not complaining about the friendships. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I’m glad to know all of these people. I think in some way these diverse friendships fill a void in my life that I’m not fully aware of.

I’m not exactly sure what the proper word for it is, but I have always been whatever that word is. I am someone who gives you what you expect out of me.

If you expect me to be a great listener and a great friend, then that’s what I am.
If you expect me to be an amazing programmer, then that’s what I’ll be.
If you expect me to be the uber 1337 tank in WoW, then that’s what I’ll do.
If you expect me to be an asshole, then I’ll do my best at it.
If you expect me to be a risk taker, then I’ll take risks.
If you expect nothing of me, I don’t know what you get. Maybe that’s when you get the real me. Whoever that may be.

Rest well this night.

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I, Bugsmasher

Thursday, April 20th, 2006

It is what I do. When I go to a new place I always find errors in their systems. The teams generaly don’t believe that it is an error in their code. I can relate to that. There is a general “I wrote that. It has to be perfect.” arrogance that seems to go with the programming territory.

Myself, I don’t really care. If something is going wrong I always check my code first. I know I make mistakes. If you see me do something wrong, or you know a better way to do something, please, I beg you, let me know. How else would I ever learn?

Just three weeks into my time here I found an error in some of the core code shared among many titles. A farely big bug that tramples memory under fairly common circumstances. It took a week for them to verfiy, accept, and find a solution for the error.

I love it though. Hunting for bugs and smashing them. Sometimes I think I should start a consulting company that specializes in finding and fixing errors in software solutions.

Most consultants write custom software solutions or adapt current solutions to a companies specific needs. That kind of work really doesn’t appeal to me though. Mostly because when I see something that is wrong I am compelled to fix it.

When I was working at my last job I honestly felt like I was becoming a worse programmer every single day. Like I was degenerating. I am very happy to find that was not the case. I just wasn’t challenged in any way there. Now that I have a challenge things are clicking again. All of the ability and knowledge is still there. The hunger to learn and improve has been renewed.

I’m really happy here so far. Although I still have to say that my dream job is being able to work from home or wherever I may happen to be at any point in time. I like the idea of being able to set my own schedule. If I wanted to stay up until 3 am and start at noon the next day there wouldn’t be any repercussions.

Maybe I need to sell off the bulk of my posessions. Hole up in some tiny apartment. Take a sabbatical from this “work” thing and finally write that damn book. That elemental sinew of creativity that keeps pulling me inside out.

The little voice in the back of my head that keeps whispering “There must be more” just never shuts up. No matter how far I go, how much I do, or how much I get; it is always there whispering. Telling me not to stop. A greedy little id have I.

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Moved In

Monday, April 17th, 2006

Well, I’m moved in to my new apartment now. By moved in I mean that all of the boxes and furniture are in it, I have cable and internet hooked up, and I have cooked at least one meal there.

It was really nice to sleep in my own bed again this weekend. It made for a lot of lazy sleeping in.

I got my phone number changed this weekend, so if anyone tried to call and couldn’t get a hold of me; that’s why.

This morning was the first trip to work from my new place. There really isn’t anything amazing about that. I had to take a bus though. People who know me, know I hate buses. It went better then I could have hoped. I believe that since it is Easter Monday and a lot of people have it off that the transit system wasn’t very crowded, so it was a good day to start. I didn’t even get lost, which is what normally happens.

I’m really liking my neighbourhood. I’ve already found a great restaurant where I will be taking anyone who visits. Much like I took everyone who visited me in Montreal to Villa du Souvlaki, or at least tried to. There is a place here called Stepho’s that everyone tells me I should go to if I like souvlaki. I’ll probably check it out this weekend. I’ve been missing my Sunday souvlaki. The Saturday Korean BBQ has been a good substitute though. Certainly the conversation is always entertaining.

It seems that living next door to a grocery store is every bit as convenient as I ever thought it would be. I think I’ll be stopping by there every day on the way home from work to pick up various odds and ends. They have some great chocolate milk that comes in the classic glass milk bottles. Stylish, trendy *and* tasty.

I brought some friends over to show them my place after lunch on Saturday. In typical “Sean” fashion I am way out of my league in my building. As I took my friends in and we were walking through the lobby one of them while looking around actually asked “Do I have to wear a suit when I come and visit you now?” Haha.

That is all for this random update.

Posted in Life | 4 Comments »