Got my haircut this past weekend. No, for you hippie haters out there, I didn't get it cut short. I mean, well, it's certainly shorter, but it's not, you know, the "accepted by the masses" short. Hippie power! Make love not war, you filthy republicans! Yeah, um, I may have slightly derailed there. Here're some pictures, to tantalize and toy with the eye. Or to scare away the mice and serve as the new backdrop for your dartboard. The choice, my dear friends, is yours to make!
I had my first work from home day today. Not bad, not bad at all. It'll be MUCH better once my computer gets here. See, laptops are provided to us at work, and, naturally, they're what we do all of our work on. They are our work computers when we're at work and our work computers when we're at home. At work, though, they have a nice docking station so that one may reap the benefits of a full sized keyboard and a delightfully medium to delightfully large display (in addition to the laptop display - dual screens baby, all the way!). Until I get my computer, however, I'm stuck with just the miniscule and teeny tiny laptop screen. In comparison to my monitor at work (which I run at an eye-squinting 1600x1200 resolution), I see practically no code on screen at a time. It makes it hard (in comparison) to decipher the flow of the code when you can't even see the full scope of even the smallest of nested statements (ie if...then...else...end if). But you don't have to take MY word for it... Okay, mebbe you do, lol.
In other news, the details of the move have finally been hammered out, and my stuff will be picked up from my apartment on Friday (maybe Saturday) and delivered some fourteen days later. Amazingly enough, I found it to be cheaper to pay a company to move my stuff for me (poor Thea had to pack it), then it was to rent a U-haul and do it myself. In fact it was over a 1000 dollars cheaper, and that's not even including gas! C-c-crazy!
I got a new guitar. Well, I don't have it yet, but soon, SOON I will have a new guitar. Yeah! You can see what it looks like over at
this site.
K, actually Thea and I just purchased a new car and, as you may have seen in advertisements, all new Volkswagens come with guitars. How unusual. lol And the guitars can plug into the stereo, effectively using the car as an amplifier.
So we got a new Rabbit. It's a cutie. It's green. A nice gray/green green. Mmmm. gray/green green. Well, or so I'm told. lol I haven't actually seen the thing yet in person, but I DO have these pictures to spur me on (yeah, spur me on to making the payments!).
Wanna see somethin' crazy? Yeah? Okay, check this out:
Yeah, so let's just say that last Friday was somewhat of can only be called a bad day. Apparently there's a Federal Regulation (
descrpitively named 'D' ). Well, Reg. D states that one must only make a maximum of 6 transfers, either to or form, one's savings account within any given four-week span ONLINE. That's right, one can make UNLIMITED transfers via atm, teller, or automated phone, but ONLY SIX ONLINE per 4 week period. If you make six in one week, well, you better not do anything online for another month.
If one were to, say, I dunno, make more than one's allotment, what would happen? Well, the bank *might* get a warning from their auditor. Or the bank *might* be forced to increase their reserves. So... let's charge 60 dollars AND make a person close their account (Oh! and place a 100,000 dollar hold on the account - just in case!). Wouldn't want to, I dunno, WARN someone that this could happen...
Well, consider yourselves all warned. lol
Iiiiiit's Tuesday! And that means it's blahgin' time. Yup, that's right, look for updates each and every tuesday. yay.
I guess I'll officially explain what it is, exactly, I do at my new job. I am classified as a Software Developer in the IT Department. For the past few weeks now, and continuing on for a couple more, I have been working on the redesign of and web page cryptically named xt_notify. Basically, the online university I work for advertises at different places in the world wide web. Though each site is a little different, they all capture essentially the same information about potential students. These potential students are refered to as leads. Now, all of the leads from all of the various sites are aggregrated by a couple of outside vendors, refered to as master vendors. Xt_notify, then, is the doorway through which leads pass from a master vendor to our prestigious database. Currently it is written in a scripting language which has been found to be poorly lacking in the area of error handling. That is, basically, leads are being lost and we are paying for it - literally. Therefore, it falls upon my newly christened coding shoulders to rewrite the same (or even enhanced) functionality into a more robust, error-handling savvy language.
Cool.
Also, whenever users of our various systems encounter errors (whether they be students, teachers, employees, what-have-you), emails are generated and tickets are sent. Today I started in on my first of what I'm sure will be many tickets. They're not bad, but they do not nearly approach the joy a rewrite (and redesign) holds.
Anyway, hope that helps better define the scope and vision of my humble new beginnings.
