I’ve been talking for a while about recreating a rants page. Probably few that ever look at my current blog remember the rants page, but I know a few from back east still do. Once upon a time I had a flat html file that I basically free-wrote my thoughts in. I found some really light-weight php app for a ‘news’ page and a few of us started using that. Eventually the migrated into a custom php app a friend wrote that we called loftpost. it relied heavily on globals, and when I moved everything to the virtual host, i didn’t want to turn that on. At that point, I was headed for the west coast and life had changed quite a bit anyways, nobody expressed interest in wanting to put in the work to keep it around, so I let it die.
I’ve been maintaing a blogger blog hosted on my site for a while now, and it’s syndicated to the seattle wireless planet. Not wanting all this personal gook to end up on a geek blog aggregator, I figured I’d create something seperate. I almost just created another blogger blog, but I’ve been talking about switching to wordpress for a while and figured this was a good start. Alas, with my old company from back east weighed down with debt and noone caring for it, I’ll slowly pay off the man and get him off my back, clean up the server, keeping only my friends domains around.
I’ll warn those that are new to my ranting habit that I’m uncommonly, and possibly uncomfortably open when people ask. Of course, people really ask personal questions of me. I was told once, amusingly enough, that I came off somewhat intimidating. That’s particularly amusing today, which I’ll hit on in a couple paragraphs. Anyways, if you’re here, let’s consider that you’re asking and agree that you’ve been warned. I wear myself on my sleeve as they say, perhaps that’s not always obvious.
It’s been about fourteen months since I moved to Seattle and it’s pretty crazy looking back. There certainly hasn’t been more turmoil in my life in another period that I can recall. Perhaps possibly when I was a kid, before my parents divorced; but I’ve come to realize I wasn’t aware of myself emotionally at that time. When I moved out here, I was dating a girl I always wanted to be with but never fathomed I ever would. That experience seems to have affected me throughout, even if the changes aren’t discernable at this time. We’ve been apart for some number of months now, the actual number being grey enough to not even try to fudge one up. When I moved here I had expectations of being able to get a job pretty quick, but couldn’t even get interviews. After a couple weeks of that not working out, I realized despite my experience I had no credentials, and enrolled in a handfull of certification programs at a small private technical training school. After a couple months of doing that day and night, I went back east for christmas and came back with a couple CompTIA and Microsoft Certifications. There’s always been debate as to what certifications are worth, if they’re just paper or if they’re usefull for some degree of filtering. Regardless of your opinion, when I added those first certifications to my resume and reposted it, the calls started coming in. Against the recommendations of many close to me, I took a job offer at the school I had taken classes at as the Technical Manager; teaching classes, consulting and trying to organize technical things in general. In the end, I found myself working myself single, working all my waking hours, and unhappy.
And now, the tasks of going back and trying to sort through what’s happened. My quarter life crisis I joke. I quit my job (there’s a lot too that, ask sometime if you’re interested) and bought a motorcycle! Both were a long time coming I guess, so it’s not really a crisis in the stereotypical way, but the word crisis still fits well. Tough choices had to be made, and I’ve never been good at any choice I couldn’t research on the internet first.
I’ve got a new job now, a Systems Administrator position at a ‘real company’. I quote that as it was my goal when I moved out here to get a job for a large company, rather than being “the tech guy” at some small company. I’m finally working with a bunch of tech people, most of whom have a lot of interesting tech skills I can ask about. There’s 60+ people where I work now internationally and it’s growing. I managed to get back to a place where a big part of my job is hacking, as opposed to business, managing and selling. Which is where I really belong in the end, because it’s what usually makes me thrive. There’s not much that envelops my focus as much as hacking on a project than computer stuff. Although I’ve been known to have my head under a hood, or transmission; or driving a destination less adventure or on trailless hike. Just keep it new and keep the stress managable and you’ll keep me happy.
Yes, and it comes with vacation and a 401(k). Such “normalcy” is unheard of for me. I’ve never had vacation time in my life so it’ll be interesting to see where it goes from here. A old friend from the east coast said today when we were talking about me possibly visiting him in Florida when he moves there, “I can’t imagine you taking the shortest route to somewhere when you can do something like spend hours on a motorcycle driving there…” He’s right. It’s totally not like me. Maybe I’ve adapted, maybe it’s inevitable that I was happier with a more dynamic and open life. We’ll see. Certainly after the debt from moving out here and going to school is paid off though.
I’ve been more my old self lately. Certainly being less tied to my exgirlfirend and her more recently moving on has a lot to do with it. It’s a big set of questions on my mind: how much have I changed, how much am I going to revert, what’s going to make me happy now, with eveything that’s behind me. I try to imagine myself feeling lonely, as I did last night, but back in the ‘loft’, the apartment I built myself in the attic of my friends office/warehouse space. I can picture myself in my bedroom, painted but trimless, listening to Radiohead, but I can’t feel it. I do recall a feeling, almost a de ja vu, but I can’t help but feel that was not only another life and time, but another lifetime all together.
I felt today like the needed confidence and with it the ability to not just stand on a soap box but hold a sign with my beliefs at the same time is coming. Now that there aren’t so many expectations of me, and I get the feeling that nobody really cares how I act as long as I’m reasonably nice to them, I’m less confused and more focused on myself. As I drove around taking care of some errands today, I cranked up some old Everclear songs and yelled along and realy felt like things were changing even though I felt down.
It’s getting late, and I must be responsible and do the sleep bit. I’ll be using this site more, I’m sure of it. I got wordpress up today and the customizable k2 theme basically setup. I’ll toy with the css styles over time, especially to make sure there’s plenty of room for words, but maybe get the right links kicking around and some modules setup. In the interim, just follow the links on the about page if you’re trying to piece anything together.
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