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Stuff |
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Office PoliticsAs you may or may not know, I moved to Arizona because a friend had offered me a job. Things were going well, but then I found out the CEO for the company we both worked for wasn’t mentally stable! He wanted employees who could help improve the company but didn’t want free thinkers. Unfortunately, my friend was a free thinker and thought the fact that he greatly improved the company would keep the CEO at bay. He was wrong! Shortly after the company paid to fly him all over Europe for two weeks they sacked him. They then dumped part of his workload onto me and gave me a direct report employee based in Europe. Problem was, they never told me I was now a Manager or indicated I would be getting a pay increase to compensate me for the increased workload. To make matters worse, we also got stuck with a newly hired project manager. This guy knows shit about technology yet that doesn’t stop him from making decisions that effect the rest of the IT dept. About five weeks ago, I was called into the head of HR’s office. She told me she had gotten numerous complaints about me. The examples she gave me were total bullshit since they were all from the project manager covering his ass. She said based on them that my last day would be three weeks from the date of that meeting. Basically, I was being fired without being given a chance to answer the complaints or even given a probation. I was advised by friends to make sure I get everything in writing, why I was being fired, what benefits/severance I would be getting, etc. HR refused to give me anything in writing! At this point, I’ve applied for numerous jobs. Definitely more opportunities here in Arizona than in Florida or Pennsylvania so I have that working in my favor. I did have a great interview on Friday that I’m waiting to hear back on. My friend is also interviewing, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to work for him again if I can’t find something on my own. Good times…at least it’s sunny and warm here! posted by WarWolf at 5:19 PM 0 comments Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Kayna!As some of you may or may not know I've adopted a six month old puppy from the local animal rescue. She is a German Shepard/Shar-Pei mix and I've named her Kayna. Over Labor Day weekend there was a marathon of the Dog Whisperer and It's Me or the Dog on the Animal Planet channel. After watching that for a few hours I realized how much I wanted/needed a dog. I'm still playing catch-up on bills so I'm back into the routine of working, coming home and not really doing much beyond that. I've started putting weight back on also, which sucks. I figured with a dog I'd be more likely to get out of the house and go for long walks and just be more active in general. Also, the companionship was another major factor. I went to the animal rescue on Sat. and checked out a lot of dogs. It was tough because there are so many I wanted to bring home! Kayna was really energetic and barking when we passed by. She also was pretty damn cute doing it! I was hesitant because I didn't want a dog that barked a lot. So I continued to look, but found myself coming back to her pen more and more. I finally decided to ask for a test walk from one of the staff. Kayna was transformed once that gate opened! She went from high energy to super timid. When I was finally able to hold her she was shaking a lot and just wanted to stay in my lap. After about five minutes I could tell she wanted down. Once on the ground she hid behind my chair for a minute. My friend Amy and her three year old daughter were in the enclosure with me. Next thing we knew Kayna just exploded with energy and was running all around us! At that point I decided she had to come home with me. Unfortunately, they won't release a dog unless they are spayed or neutered first. Which meant I'd have to wait until Monday afternoon. DAMN! Even though my friend was down from San Francisco for the weekend and we had fun all I could think about was bringing Kayna home. Finally on Monday that happened and I was pretty happy! I had decided I would crate train her so I had purchased a crate and had that all setup for her arrival. I would only lock her in when I was at work since I don't trust her to hold it until I take her outside. Needless to say Kayna wasn’t all that excited when she saw the crate. Luckily Amy’s kids helped Kayna get comfortable.
Luckily/unluckily I wasn't feeling the best so I used a sick day on Tuesday so I could spend the whole day with Kayna and getting her comfortable in her surroundings. She was still pretty timid around me and I attributed a lot of it to recovering from her operation. I had purchased these dog treats I thought she might like. They are sterilized bones filled with a meat paste. Sure enough Kayna was in heaven for a long time gnawing on that! Pictures don’t lie!
I really love this dog! So much so that I’ve become one of “those” people! :) As proof I present Kayna’s very own Dogster page: posted by WarWolf at 6:24 PM 0 comments Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Bad LuckSo my luck for the most part has been pretty good the last few months. But now all of a sudden things have started to get bad. First, my bike is finally in need of major service.I have a leaky head gasket which in turn is causing the bike to overheat at the drop of a hat. Since the temp has been in the triple digits here that means I can barely make the ride to/from work before things get ugly. My next bad luck moment happened this morning. I have been trying to eat healthier lately so I can shed some extra pounds. So I was cutting some carrots for snacking at work. I put the knife down and next thing I know it starts to fall. My first instinct was to catch it, which I succeeded in doing. Sadly, I missed the handle and caught the very sharp blade! This left a very deep gash on my right ring finger. Since I rarely get hurt I didn't have any first aid supplies at home. I ended up wrapping my finger in paper towels and scotch tape so I could make the ride to work. I also had a old surgical glove that I cut the thumb off of to fit over my wrap job. That way the blood wouldn't soak my motorcycle gloves during the ride. Once I got to the office I found the first aid kit and a band-aid. I had to stop the bleeding all over again first though. A few hours later people started to arrive and the receptionist helped me do a proper bandaging job. She really thought I should get stitches but by that point it was too late. So we bandaged it as well as we could. So I take the bike in to get fixed tomorrow finally, and I go to bed tonight hoping my finger doesn't fall off. Good times. posted by WarWolf at 8:37 PM 0 comments Sunday, April 20, 2008
Birth DaySo it was my birthday on Saturday. This is the second birthday I've had since my mom died. She died shortly before my last birthday. She was pretty much my main link to her side of the family. I had a feeling that once she was gone those ties would be broken. Normally I would get at least one or two birthday cards, but this year I didn't get any. I didn't even get a phone call or even a simple text via Messenger. Ah well. On Friday a cute chick at work made me a Banana Cream pie. We had talked about birthday cakes and stuff a few weeks prior and I mentioned that I really liked Banana Cream pies more than cakes. That was pretty awesome that she made that for me! On Saturday I woke up and realized I really didn't have a family anymore. So I sat around feeling kind of depressed for a bit. I then realized that the bike was working great again. So I mapped out a trip to explore Arizona. It wasn't a long trip, I just ended up traveling northeast for about 30 miles to get outside of the main Phoenix/Tempe city area. I took my mom's digital camera with me to snap some pics of interesting things I might see on my trip. I found an interesting spot I could pull over to take some pictures but as luck would have it, the batteries were low and I could only take a few. They also didn't come out as well as I would have liked. After taking a few pictures I hopped back on the bike and rode for home. I ended up riding through town to check out things around ASU. I have to say I really do enjoy Arizona so far. While during the day it is usually as hot or hotter than Fort Lauderdale, the lack of humidity makes it seem cooler. Anyway, here are some of the pics I took during my ride:   Labels: Life, Motorcycles, Travel posted by WarWolf at 10:55 PM 0 comments Saturday, April 19, 2008
Bike Tune-Up!Ever since I moved to Arizona my bike has been running poorly. Something about the altitude, dry air and other mystical factors combined to rob my bike of power. It was so bad that I was afraid the bike was going to shut off or die on me every time I rode to work. I thought I finally needed to have the valves adjusted since I have 16k miles. But the two shops I talked to all suggested I go see Mark. They said Mark was the guy to see to have a Power Commander installed and the bike dyno'd and remapped for conditions here in Arizona. A Power Commander is an electronic box that plugs into the existing wiring harness and can adjust the fuel/air mixture of the injectors. I took the bike to the shop on Friday morning and by noon it was a whole new ball game! I had regained 6 lost horsepower! In a car that isn't much, but on a bike it makes a BIG difference. The bike idles smoothly now, accelerates harder, everything is great! Thanks Mark! Here is the before/after readout. Notice how much smoother it is now.
posted by WarWolf at 7:47 AM 0 comments Sunday, March 30, 2008
Burning SensationWell I'm in Arizona! I know, I haven't updated since I got here, sorry. It's been pretty hectic getting settled in. Between work, new city, etc. I haven't had much "me" time. I had Direct TV install since my buddy already had the dish on the roof. Turns out they upgrade the dish for free to give you more HD channels. Also the DVR they supply lets you record two shows at once! Sadly, that means no more Tivo, but ah well. I've been hooked on HD tv ever since. Especially FoodTV in HD. I made one recipe I saw on the show today. This was a Mexican Chicken Stew and it tastes awesome! But as you can see from the ingredient list it has some hot peppers. Of course I couldn't just stick with regular old jalapenos! I ended up using a blend of serrano, jalapeno, and habanero peppers. I want to grow my own eventually, so I was putting the seeds into cups to dry. This meant I was handling the peppers a LOT! By the time I finished, my finger tips were burning. Even now a few hours later they still burn. I've washed my hands a few times, washed a ton of dishes, and nothing has quenched the burn! Of course I've also made the mistake of touching my eye, nose, etc. But hey, the stew turned out great and spicy hot, so it was all worth it. Of course next time I'll probably wear some latex gloves during the pepper phase. posted by WarWolf at 6:44 PM 0 comments Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Roof Cargo RackGot my Thule roof cargo rack today via FedEx. As I was checking it out I noticed these warnings in the manual:
As you can see you shouldn't put the following in the unit:
Well, shit! Everything on that list was what I considered an essential item I needed for my move to Arizona! Labels: Technology, Travel posted by WarWolf at 4:51 PM 0 comments Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Car Repair = Ouch!I've finally taken the car in to be repaired. Because of the crappy pay from my last few jobs I've never had the big chunk of change to get the repairs done. Last time I had it at the shop was to repair the broken power window and a few other minor items I could afford. I thought I would still have about $1000 worth of stuff left to fix. I have enough due to money my aunt had lent me and from the relocation money from the new job. Or so I thought! I took the car to the shop today to get a 75K mile service and to fix any other major issues they found. Well they found a bunch! Here is the list of what I remember:
All told, the final bill will be around $2100! After I ship the bike in a week or so, I think I'll barely have enough for gas to get to AZ and to survive until my first paycheck arrives. Ah well, it'll be nice to use the car without worrying whether or not it will be dying and leaving me stranded somewhere. posted by WarWolf at 1:33 PM 0 comments Friday, February 22, 2008
Ironic JourneyThe trip to Arizona is going to take over 30 hours if I drive straight through. In anticipation of such a long drive I knew I would need two things. Tunes and GPS. My last Sirius satellite player had died awhile ago because of the heat inside the car all the time. It was also a cheaper model, so that probably didn't help much either. In terms of GPS I used to use my old Dell Axim PDA with a GPS receiver attachment but it was a pain in the ass. It would struggle to reroute if I missed a turn and took forever to get a satellite fix. So with that in mind I set off to find a new GPS unit. I settled on the TomTom One 3rd Edition. I didn't need a real high end unit and even those this is their cheapest unit it shares a feature with all their other units I think is critical. That feature is Map Share which in a nutshell lets maps be updated a lot quicker than every other system. I decided to go to BJ's since they tend to have things priced cheaply. Unfortunately, the store I frequent only had Garmin units. They aren't bad but it wasn't what I wanted. I walked a few stores down and checked out Target, same deal...only Garmins on the shelf. It was around 9:30pm at this point and most stores were closed. But when I set my mind to something I want to get it down ASAP! So as I was driving home I remembered there was a Wal-Mart open 24 hours up the road a bit. As I was driving up the highway I got off on the exit I thought was correct. I was wrong! But I knew Wal-Mart was at a major intersection and I kind of knew the road I needed to be on. So I figured I would head West and then cut North when I found the road. Ten minutes later I was on some dark deserted roads by some airport and had no clue where the hell I was! It was at this point I started laughing thinking how ironic it was that I got lost trying to go purchase a item to keep me from getting lost! posted by WarWolf at 7:35 AM 0 comments Thursday, February 21, 2008
It's Official!It was confirmed today that I got the job in Arizona! So I'll be starting to toss out all my extra crap, and packing up the stuff I want to keep. I'm still waiting to get the money back from my current landlord so I can start the process of moving. I am really excited at this point. For the first time in a long time I'm pretty happy. I am also pretty nervous. So many things to get done before I can move. Prior to the job confirmation my buddy took the time to fuck with me. He sent me a message saying there were "some issues" to deal with. The way my luck has been going, I thought for sure that meant the job offer was off the table. Luckily, he was just messing around and didn't care that I had developed an ulcer in the few minutes prior to his call with the offer! Labels: Life posted by WarWolf at 12:19 PM 0 comments |
