Just got hit with one of my vegas migraines [okay, so it's really called an opthalmic migraine]. It starts with a small sparkly dot that expands to block a third to half of my field of vision...it literally blinds me. Then about 20-30 minutes later, the pain hits...whee.
[You know, typing is really interesting when you can only see one character at a time...]
Had to say goodbye to two good friends recently. No, it was nothing terribly dramatic, no deaths or disasters...just a severing of ties and a closing of doors. The details are for another time [maybe], but the result is that while I am saddened by the loss of the friendships, I am able to look myself in the mirror and know that I did what I could, that my conscience is clear, and that I am not compromising myself by accepting less than I give.
Does it keep it from hurting? No. It's never easy when you have to let go after allowing someone in beyond your barriers. But that is the way of life: paths cross, they run parallel, they move apart. The trick is making the most of the times they are shared, and learning from them when they diverge.
It's all part of the human condition. It's not always pretty, it's certainly not easy, but it's all we've got...and we owe it to ourselves to make the most of it.
Finance group outing to Napa today...shuttle leaves the office at 6:45a. I don't mean to sound ungrateful...I really do think it's cool that they are doing this for the group. But I'm going to have to work this weekend to make up for not being in the office today, I'm really not a 'group wine tour' person, and they are planning on drinking heavily [so much so that they have planned for sickness bags for the ride home, just in case]. Oh, and there are going to be games on the bus ride to and from, like "tell two true things and one false thing about yourself so the group can guess which is the lie". I'm not a fan of those forced socialization games and 'rah-rah' activities...it's hard for me to muster the right enthusiasm and interest.
I will likely end the day thoroughly drained and wiped out, the introvert in me struggling to keep up with the demands this type of social situation can put on you, with a serious need of recharging that won't be able to happen for a while. But the mask will be on, the smile will be firmly planted on my face, and I will end up having a decent time, I'm sure.
I hope.
They think they found the cause of the power outages in the server room: a loose wire in a circuit breaker that would cause it to draw incremental bits of power until finally it popped. I'm still paranoid and keeping an eye on everything, but I'm hoping that was the problem.
Had to rush into work before 7a this morning to deal with YADBO [yet another database outage]. I won't go into details, but it's all working now, and we are getting further along in the 'patch it, fix it, keep it from happening again' process.
But man, I'm tired. And stinky [no time to shower]. And grumpy.
Woe betide any who cross my path today... <insert evil yet tired laugh here>
Good times so far this weekend. Got to hang out with mi mejor amigo finally [no late night calls from the office about servers and databases going down]. Been ages since we've been able to chill with just the two of us...
We went to the movies and saw "10,000 BC", then "Never Back Down". Didn't have high expectations for either one, and ended up having a really good time. "10KBC" was a bit silly [okay, more than a bit], but after a willing suspension of disbelief, we relaxed into it and enjoyed it. It was quite beautiful to watch, very epic, with an amazing scope and scale.
"Never Back Down" was yet another version of a quite trite storyline, but was actually fairly well done. Oh don't get me wrong...it was fluffy and had its flaws, but some of the characters were very well cast: the asshole pompous dick who is way too full of himself, the frickin' adorable dork friend who just wants to be accepted [and actually ends up with a girl at the end], and my favorite, the chick that the dick is dating and is coveted by the hero of the story. She was a good character, and even better, she wasn't yet another rail-thin stick in a bikini...she had a lovely, real body, and she stood up for herself and didn't just let things happen to her, or wait for some guy to come along and "save" her. We had some concern about the fight scenes [the movie is about MMA, mixed martial arts, and L is a skilled practitioner], but they came through...they showed respect to the art, and according to L, the fight scenes were pretty realistic. A few kicks and hits that, had they been real, would have resulted in hospital visits or death instead of just a momentary knock out and the person shaking it off, but in general, good stuff. We were pleased with the evening.
Afterwards, we hung out, talked, caught up, and then played some "Assassin's Creed" [well, he played, whilst I oohed and awwed and holy shitted...it's a beautiful game]. Crashed on his couch around 3a, woke up around 9a or so...then watched part of "Appleseed: Deus Ex Machina", some incredible anime [I'm hooked...I must see more].
Made it home around noon, fed the cat, then napped...woke up, hopped into the shower, then met up with another friend for a very relaxing, lazy Saturday of music, food, driving around, movies ["Run Fat Boy, Run" and "Blazing Saddles"], a trip to Micro Center to check out power supplies for his tower, talking, geeking out, chilling. Good times...good times.
And now I'm kicking back, reading some of the comic books I bought at lunch the other day, enjoying life. It's been a good few days.
Server issues...power outage in the server room, no UPSes to help shut things down nicely, database closed dirty. Makes the week perfect, since Monday started with a dead database and many hours lost [in large part because the major users of the database didn't let me run maintenance on it a week prior, when it started failing consistency checks: "We have deadlines, we can't afford the three hours of downtime you are asking for." So instead they ended up with nearly a day of downtime, closer to the deadline...how's that working out for ya, huh?].
Running consistency checks now...knocking on wood, crossing fingers, circling thrice widdershins around the sacred oak [shout out to my FB peeps on that one, yo!!], visualizing success, bribing the silicon gods, whatever it takes to help make sure that I don't have to come into work *this* weekend as well.
Courtesy of Merriam-Webster:
catalyst, noun: an agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action
Been a rough morning...database issues, politics, servers running out of room, much joyfulness. In my last email to the people involved in the current kerfuffle, I recommended that they 'keep their fingers crossed, make their sacrifices to the silicon gods, knock on wood, walk thrice widdershins around the sacred oak, whatever it takes to keep the good vibes going'.
Then I changed my Facebook status to:
"Stacey is knocking on wood and walking thrice widdershins around the sacred oak."
Within seconds, this popped up [names changed to protect the guilty]:
"Bob is wondering what a widdershin is."
Then from another friend:
"Steve is a sacred oak."
So I changed mine:
"Stacey is walking around Steve. Thrice. Widdershins."
And just now saw this:
"Steve is getting dizzy from people circling him."
<grin>
