December 2004 Archives

Today is the first day I’m back to working for Iodynamics full-time again. It’s like an old shoe.

What does that mean, anyway? That it’s smelly and has holes in it? That it doesn’t look like a new shoe anymore? If old shoes are so good, why is getting new shoes such a perk to most people?

Well, in any case, it’s like getting back into something that’s comfortable but doesn’t smell, have holes, or look dingy.

I’ve had more time to digest my experience at Guru Labs. All in all, I’m extremely grateful to Dax and Bryan for the priviledge of working there. Not only did I get to do some great work, I learned a lot of stuff I never really knew before.

Plus, it was an opportunity for me to observe a couple of different operating and management styles. I learned a lot from watching Dax and Bryan operate their successful company. Of course, I got to see some good and some bad- but overall, the learning experience was a very positive one.

Perhaps more than anything else, I realize I need to keep myself educated. I’m going to try to really immerse myself in a new technical topic every week to learn new things. That was a big bonus of working at Guru Labs — getting my hands dirty in a lot of different things I may never have touched otherwise.

I’m in Logan today. Came up to upgrade some servers at a client’s office. I’m probably going to come up again this week and do some upgrades on other servers at other clients’ offices as well. It’s a good time of the year to do stuff like this.

Ahhhh... the day after Christmas. I guess I’m happy it’s a Sunday. It always bothered me how everyone rushes out to the stores to return stuff the day after Christmas but since it’s Sunday, there’s probably not as much of a mad rush.

We had a good Christmas. The kids were, overall, happy with what they got. Maya was hard to read at times because sometimes she was sulking and complaining that she didn’t get anything she wanted. Other times she was saying this was the best Christmas ever. But... that’s Maya.

Christine’s brother Jay showed up at the Christmas Eve party in Hyrum and at their parents’ house in Roy on Christmas with a “girlfriend” named Jennie-Anne (not sure exactly how it’s spelled). Apparently, they’ve been seeing each other for a couple of weeks and met online.

I’ve been itching for Monday all day today. Friday (Christmas Eve) and Saturday (Christmas Day) was enough relaxing and celebrating for me. I was ready to get back into the swing of things already.

Hmmm... I’m in a bit of a bad mood.

Abrupt Contraction

Dax walked with me out to my car today when Iw as done with work. He told me Guru Labs won’t be needing my services anymore because January and February are their slowest months. They’re going to have several instructors in town during that time so they won’t be needing me.

There’s nothing really wrong with this. My 3-month contract is up and Guru Labs simply chose not to renew it. I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with is that he broke the news to me so abruptly.

I asked Dax and Bryan a month ago if they thought they’d be interested in renewing my contract when my 90-days were up. They said it depended on how the workload looked. I think I was also asking for some kind of advance notice of whether or not I’d have a job when my current contract was up.

The timing of all this — two days before Christmas — doesn’t help either.

The good news is that Iodynamics has had a very busy month and has some work on the horizon. I think I’ll be fine, at least for the next 30 days or so. That gives me some time to pursue some other contract work as well.

That all said, I really have enjoyed working at Guru Labs. I felt I was learning something new every day. It was only a stressful job when I felt like Dax was looking over my shoulder and questioning everything I was doing and how I was doing... but I suppose that’s healthy. His comments on stuff were usually very helpful and steered projects in the right direction. He just has a tendency to come off sounding like he thinks you’re an idiot for not thinking of things in the first place.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Apocalypse!

I’ve tried to pay attention and to not let Christmas sneak up on me, but alas, it has. There’s a lot of stuff I was hoping to get for people for Christmas and here I am on 23 December with a lot of stuff unobtained. It doesn’t help that I feel less liberal with opening my wallet. I also don’t know where half the gifts I have bought are at right now.

I’ve lost track of a lot of things these last few months just because I’ve been working non-stop.

A new way of looking at things

For Christmas, I asked for a new digital video camera. Christine and I (eventually) agreed we should wait until after Christmas to do this because prices would probably be better but then I looked on EBay. A Sears liquidation outlet was auctioning off display/open-box models of the video camera I was hoping to get and it looked like I could get one for a lot less than retail. So, I bid... and won... and got a Samsung MiniDV video camera for about $100 less than retail.

When I found out I won, I ordered a firewire card for my computer and got ready to transfer the video from the Sons Of Nothing show at DV8. Unfortunately, the video was a big disappointment. Dan — the lighting engineer we hired — did a horrible job lighting the stage. It was too dark most of the time. Solos were rarely lit enough, if at all. To top it off, my new camera was having serious problems with tapes recorded on one of the three cameras. I suspect either the record head in the camera we used was dirty or there’s just a general incompatibility between the signals recorded on that camera and what my Samsung will read.

So, that was a big disappointment.

Still, it was a good learning experience. :-) Next time (and I really hope there will be a next time), we’ll have complete control of the lighting situation and we’ll have time to rehearse the video crew and the lights together. Oh, and we’ll do a better job of actually getting people to come to the show. *sighs*

Speaking of Nothing

The band (aka Sons Of Nothing) has three shows locked down in Colorado in late January. We’re all very excited about that. Meanwhile, they’ve been working on new material for the album coming out this next Spring. It’s sounding, to borrow a term from Jennie, AWESOME!!!!.

If you’ve heard Mr. Serious, you’ve only heard the tip of the iceberg (or is it “the skin of the tomato?”) of what is to come.

I’ve also been privy to some news that the band is working on polishing one of my favorite Floyd tunes that they’ve never played before. I about died when I heard about it because I never thought they’d play it.

The plan

Tomorrow (Christmas Eve), we’re heading up to Cache Valley for Christine’s grandparents’ party and then visiting with my sister for a bit. Then we’ll be heading back to Salt Lake to hang at my parents’ house and eat some of my mom’s delectable and scrumptious clam chowder.

Maybe I can find some time in there somewhere to go shopping for those few last-minute items.

Saturday (Christmas day), we’ll be heading up to Roy to hang with Christine’s parents.

A couple weeks ago, my parents said they found a black and white photograph from when I was 1 or 2 years old. They showed it to me. The photo was very badly faded, curled, and had numerous scratches and other blemishes. I asked if I could take it and scan it and they said sure.

I’m no professional image processor by any means, but I think I did a decent job (with the help of my friend The GIMP).

I believe the photo was taken in a field by our house. My sister is shown sitting on “Dotty.” My brother is standing behind with our mother. My dad is holding me.

The Barton family, circa 1974
(Click on it for a bigger version!)

I think my cold is getting better... which surprises me somewhat because I spent a good deal of time last night working in my (temporary) office in the basement. I had the space heater on, which helped, but it was still chilly. I was going to try to get to bed early, but I got caught up trying to get my Epson scanner working with Fedora Core 3. Ran into some udev/hotplug issues, but I was running an older kernel and older versions of udev... so we’ll see how it works later.

New HP zv5000v kernel

Red Hat has released a new kernel package for Fedora Core 3 and I have consequently released a new modified kernel package for the HP Pavilion zv5000v laptop.

Read all about it over here.

Well this dang cold isn’t getting better! I’ve been dragging all day today. I’m still fairly functional, but I just feel worn out.

Christine is taking Eli to the doctor again tomorrow because his cold hasn’t really subsided and it’s been at few weeks since she took him in and got him some antibiotics. He took all the antibiotics and got better, but it didn’t seem like it really went away completely.

Aside from being sick, I had a pretty good day today. Went to church, went to my mom and dad’s, had dinner, came home, and read scriptures with the family.

Official update

My brother and I got two walls in the office finished on Friday. I finished the other two walls on Saturday — the big pieces anyway. I’ve only got to do above one doorway (going into the storage room) and around the main door. Pretty easy stuff.

My brother talked like he might be coming out Monday night to work on the ceiling. If that’s the case, then all the drywall could be done fairly soon. Then comes the part I hate: mudding and taping. *sighs*

I think I’m a lot better at it than I used to be.

I hope I’m up to doing some work. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve had this cold for the past few days and I’m concerned it may be getting worse and not better. I’m taking pseudoephrine, and ibuprofen to keep from being overwhelmed by the symptoms.

Thanksgiving

I just realized I hadn’t written anything about Thanksgiving. We went to Christine’s parents house. Her siblings, Jay, Emily (and husband Paul), Laura (and husband Jeremy), Daniel, and Aaron were there along with their parents.

After dinner, we visited for a little while and then left Eli with Christine’s parents and took the girls to see The Incredibles, Pixar’s latest computer-animated feature film.

It was, well... incredible. For me, Pixar never really disappoints.

Then we fetched Eli and zipped down to my parents’ in time to have dessert with my brother, sister, and their kids (the ones who came, anyway).

It was a good Thanksgiving.

Holy sheets!

Tonight, my brother and I are going to hang gypsum wallboard (commonly known by its trade name “sheetrock”) in my office in the basement. It will be so nice to get that room finished up so I can have a warm place to work. I’ve been avoiding the basement altogether the last week or so, choosing instead to work wirelessly on my laptop in the kitchen.

Stuff for my office is strewn about everywhere in the basement, it seems. The kids think nothing of exploring the innards of every box that might be sitting there. It will be so nice to have everything in cabinets, drawers, and shelves again.

X marks the spot!

... in roman numerals, anyway.

Christine and I are coming up on our tenth anniversary (coming up in a couple of weeks). Right now we’re figuring out what to do. Ten years! Wow! I was real worried about that seven-year itch thing. I think the seventh year might have been one of the hardest for me, not because of any temptation to venture outside of my marriage, but just because of what my sister and her ex-husband went through and because I feared that seven-year cliché establishing itself.