What a BuzzKill

… okay, more like I’ve got A fever.

I ended up leaving work early yesterday because I was starting to feel feverish and achy; the typical signs of a flu. I went straight home and started resting.

This morning I woke up feeling hotter — the thermometer verified this to be true — so I called in sick and decided to sweat it out. This is a tactic I’ve used to fight fever since I was a teenager: If my fever is 101° or lower, I’ll try bundling up in multiple blankets and sweating it out. If it’s higher, I’ll try Tylenol or Advil (or their generic equivalent) and/or a cold shower to bring it down, then try to sweat it out. I’ve never put much thought into it, since I only continue to do it because it has worked so well in the past.

Christine gave me a call to check on how I was feeling and I told her about my methods. It struck me as odd that I had never really investigated the reasons for a fever and why the body does what it does, so I decided to look it up. I now share this knowledge with you:

Fever – Wikipedia
A kid’s guide to fever
Fever – How Stuff Works

Seems as though the reasoning and logic behind my fever-fighting methods are pretty good!

I’ve kept this quiet for a variety of reasons, but I ended up getting laid off at the new job I found. 2 weeks after I started, they lost a major contract and the loss of it caused the owner to let 3 people go 2 weeks following the incident. Being the lowest on the totem pole, I was obviously one of them.

Luckily my friend Christine is an amazing job placement professional, so she went right to work in finding me opportunities to apply for. Less than 2 days after I was unemployed, I had a phone interview, and a day later I had an in-person interview with the same company. They put me through a test, which turned out to be ridiculously simple. I got an offer the following Tuesday, countered on Wednesday and got the job. So I was out of work for 9 days … not too shabby!

Today is my second day with this new company and I’m already contributing. We went to 3 client locations yesterday (Monday) and I ended up finding the solution to every problem we encountered. It felt good.

So now the cat is out of the bag, as they say. Moving right along …

Client quote of the week: “Norton didn’t seem to like it, so he dropped the Google!”

A friend of mine recently purchased herself a new camera. She’s really enjoying it and decided that her old camera needed a good home, so she emailed me and offered to let me have it. I couldn’t pass it up.It isn’t a major upgrade, since it’s the same resolution (3.2 MP), but it has a much better lens and a 10x optical zoom, plus a macro mode. I’ve only snapped a few pictures so far and they’ve turned out pretty good. We’ll see how much I can get out of it as time goes by.

This entry just keeps plodding along.

… that I have nothing to say.

Okay, that isn’t entirely true.

My mom emailed me with some very bad news yesterday: One of my cousins was in a car accident and her 3 y/o girl was killed as a result of the accident. I can’t imagine the pain she’s going through right now.

The new job is going pretty well so far. Some days are a bit slow, but I’m told that it isn’t unusual, especially since I’m new and don’t have any regular clients assigned to me yet. I have taken on 3 new clients for the company since I started, which feels good. One of them turned out to be the mayor of Tustin, CA. He and his wife are very nice people.

Let’s see … hmm … while driving to a client’s office I witnessed traffic come to a complete halt and people rushing out of their cars to come to the aid of a mother duck and her ducklings trying to cross the busy multi-lane road. I couldn’t help but smile while I watched a mixed group of soccer moms and businessmen give them an escort.

This entry doesn’t know what else to say.

Can one truly believe the world as it has been presented to them by their parents or the media? What about your own two eyes? How difficult is it to earnestly look at things on your own and come to your own conclusions? Why is the world so caught up with celebrity and scandal? Isn’t their own existence enough? If it isn’t, why don’t they do something about it?

Get up. Get out. Seek the truth yourself. Don’t bother spouting off at the mouth about what you’ve read and heard second-hand. Everybody lies. Find the answer for yourself.

This entry cares not for titles and accolades.; Put up, or shut up.

Friday was my last day at Orange County United Way. In lieu of a mushy goodbye email, I decided to send out something a little more my style. Here’s what I sent to staff:

Well as it turns out, the Simian Protection Society caught on to our recent monkey problems and have decided to press charges against us for the attempted starvation of an Internet monkey. Seeing how it was my idea in the first place, I took full responsibility. They decided that this was fair and I will now serve as their scapegoat to further their anti-broccoli (with cheese sauce) propaganda. Of course this means that I can no longer remain here with you without putting you all in risk of great peril. I do this for the benefit of all those at OCUW and their respective family and pets. Cry not for me and continue carrying the flag of honor high in my stead! For you all are the chosen ones. The elite masters of the nonprofit world. Higher you shall climb until you all reach a level of greatness usually reserved for biblical figures and polka music. Remember the wise words of the great amnesiac as he said, “I did what?” and toss back a couple pints of your finest ale!

This is not a “goodbye” … it is merely a “what were you drinking?” combined with a little “go get ’em and break-dance”.

I have to say, that’s pretty odd, even for me.

This entry is too strange for words.

This weekend was a blast! I won’t go into detail, but here’s a list of some of the more interesting things I encountered/saw over the last couple of days …

• Garter belts
• A trapeze
• A woman stuffing herself into a human-sized balloon
• A crazed man on a pogo stick wearing a glitter-stuffed speedo
• A go-go dancer
• A woman wearing a black pleather trench coat, a black eye patch and speaking in a fake Russian accent
• 2 midgets
• 9 dead gay guys

Yup, that was fun!

This entry was highly entertained.

I read this fascinating article on the Central Connecticut State University website. It argues that a typical hybrid (they used a Toyota Prius as an example) car — yanno … the ones that are supposed to be so environmentally friendly — are actually more damaging to the environment and costly to own over their lifetime than a Hummer. If their figures are right, then the public has been quite deceived! Who would have thought?

This entry doesn’t want to ever own a Hummer or a Prius.

Well it’s official: I’m changing jobs.

After working at the same place for 9 years (and always making below the low-end for my position) I finally decided to start looking for another job. My friend Christine has some mad skillz in this arena and helped me out more than I can say. After a few months of no-pressure searching, I found myself on a couple of interviews with some companies. One of them went very well.

In two weeks I’ll be starting with a computer consulting company that provides IT solutions. It’s a nice bump in position/title, with a decent increase in pay to make it worth all the hard work I’m expecting to be doing. My official title will be Network Engineer and it’s looking to be a position that will challenge me and help me grow in experience. The folks at the new place all seem to be good people and I got along with them from the start. I’m glad they could see my potential and found me to be a good fit for what they were looking for. I’m really looking forward to this!

I must admit that I’ve got mixed feelings: I’ll miss the people I’ve worked with for so long. It’ll feel strange going to a different place in the morning than I have been for the past 9+ years. It’s also very exciting and full of interesting challenges!

The whole process has been a series of new experiences for me. Most of all, I feel a lot more confident about my future — and most of all, about myself. We’ll see how it goes!

This entry is moving on to bigger things.

I swear, I love this woman. I read her blog daily and find myself often agreeing with what she’s writing about. Her non-nonsense approach to dealing with the world is refreshing. With so many people filtering what they say to seem “politically correct” it’s nice to be able to read somebody’s real thoughts about things in life. Sure I might disagree with some of it, but most of the time I’m right there with her.

Today’s topic about lying made a lot of sense to me. I’ll be telling Rece the same thing her father told her. Check it out for yourself.

Do/did you like Super Mario? What about the classic FPS, Doom? If so, check this out!