We will see if this firmware update is the real solution or just another diversion.

I finally sold my old car.  Praise to all that is holy!  The old monster was taking up precious driveway space and crapping transmission fluid since August.  Chalk up another win for Craig's list.  I actually paid $30 for a three week ad in a local auto-selling publication.  All that got me was one phone call and a bill for $30.  Suck it, old media!

The kid who bought the car was fresh off a slow boat from China.  He's a grad student at a local Uni and knew nothing about purchasing a car.  I had to tell him how to get insurance, drive him to the bank to get the check, drive him to the DMV and help him fill out all the forms.  I even had to put his plates on the car because he didn't have a screw driver.

He's lucky he didn't buy a car from a car dealer.  He would have gotten screwed with a capital Naïve Chinaman.  VF: IT flunky by day, international diplomat by night.

One of my co-workers has a couple of kids; one of each kind (boy and girl).  He and his wife actually boughtadopted them.  Whatever floats their boat, I guess.  The boy is still a few years away from adolescence but he's already on a rebellious streak.

The latest mishap involved him being dragged home by the cops at 4am.  Apparently he thought it would be a good idea to go ride his bike in the middle of the night.  This wouldn't be a concern is east cow-country, but they live in the city.  The kind of area where a few blocks means the difference between manicured lawns and crack houses.

I predict more misadventures in the years to come.  I just hope no one ends up dead/maimed/pregnant.

Office politics sucks.  I've been working here long enough that I'm starting to get sucked into people's petty bullshit agendas and alliances.  It's like high school but with more money at stake.  Right now there's only two people I actually trust to not back-stab me, and one of them may be leaving soon because of the nonsense.

In a related vein, I got a verbal slap from one of my bosses.  He was having difficulty configuring access to our intranet server.  He came over to my desk and started asking 52 rapid-fire questions about how the server was configured.  Meanwhile I'm trying to do an on-the-fly context switch after working on another unrelated project all morning + the last 6 months.

The fun part:

Him: how do I connect to version control?
Me: $program
(five minutes later)
Him: how do I create a repository?
Me: you need to log into the server
Him: how do I do that?
Me: you need to connect with Putty
Him: where do I download that?
Me: i don't remember the site but you can Google for it
Him: (angry) i'm starting to get upset and disappointed in the level of documentation for the system.  IT needs to manage all of this and know how it works.  You need to put the interest of the company ahead of your own interests.
Me: I gave you and $otherboss printouts of the documentation and it's on the fileserver
Him: where?
Me: in the documentation directory
Him: (walks away)

Jebus H. Christ on a pogo stick.  Meanwhile, he did this in front of the rest of the office so I look like some slacker who's not doing his job.

I think I'l be in Raleigh, NC during Thanksgiving week.  I have relatives in VA who I plan on visiting and friends in RD who I plan on staying with.  The main purpose of the trip is to scope out Raleigh for possible future inhabitation.  The IT job market in my current locale is abysmal so I need to have a potential escape location for as early as next summer.

Well, almost no one is in the office today, but I guess I should do some work.  Work, sleep, hide the bodies, GOTO 1.