gigamatic

ok... everybody knows my moods are swingin.

sometimes it hits me at the worst times. like when i'm workin.

of course, i'm also having trouble focussing. focusing? each seems wrong. i'm not going to take the time to look it up. i'll sit here and obsess instead. at least till my obsession moves to the next thing, which ought to be right about...

now. ok. on with weekend crap.

1) bought tivo for bedroom. yes, lame. bad decision, sure, because that means i/we will never leave the bed except to go to work or get food. or potty.
2) buying new USB turntable. will encode my vinyl and then give it to my dad, probably. or buy him one, depending how much i like it. (ion iitusb i think).
3) work. sucks. cant get my brain around it. totally feel defeated. had 2 project extensions and generally hate it all.
4) fuck. i need to program tivo (the first one) before i go to bed! else i'll miss sopranos.
5) flowers. planted some.
6) alumni website. falling behind. again.
7) rediscovered music blogs.
8) must get music hard drive. most of my files remain burned to cd, and not usable.
9) dr appt tomorrow (sinus), advisor appt tomorrow afternoon (bachelors program).
10) must call my old college tomorrow re: Assoc degree.

Posted by gigamatt at 8:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

last night i finished a redesign of the radio alumni site I work on. Oh, it was beautiful. Between my screwed up eyes, lack of sleep, and my fading brightness monitor, I really screwed up the color, which I had to quickly fix this morning.

of course, i also was trying to catch up on 6-10(!) designs needed for work. i realized a lot of them looked alike and needed more variety, so, I get an extension till Monday, which means I'll be working my ass off, because my meeting is scheduled immediately after my 8am dr. appt. (sinuses)

i've had a headache all day. and my sinuses have been really bothering me. i wanted to just go home and sleep. But, I got the figures mailed out today, 2-day with delivery confirmation. Woohoo.

Oh, and I get a JCN/Bonobo tablet pc to play with for a couple weeks. So far, I find it difficult to install Windows on because of all the special drivers (incl. ethernet), and it seems slow, but there are some optimizations yet to finish.

And, of course, there was this gem in the vending machine.

Eww. I dont even wanna think how far removed from the real thing that is.

Posted by gigamatt at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

goddamn i hate our vendors, with a hate that starts deep down in my gut.

oh, no, everythings windows.
lie.

oh no, we dont need any ports open.
lie.

oh no, we dont use ftp.
lie.

oh no, you cant import a list of data. you have to re-key 1100 vendors and 800 items.
lie.

oh no, it's just easier to re-key.
lie. maybe if you dont know how to make an ODBC connection. (let alone know what one IS)

why do companies send their "techs" out in the field when the "techs" dont know SHIT about how the product works? I seriously want to scream. I just got snapped at by the "tech" who didnt even want to give us the data format to put it into. (why are we uploading via fixed-width ASCII file? why arent we creating a transformation package to pull it in from one db and table to the other? *sigh*) this is the "tech" they sent us last year who couldnt tell us if they were using ASP or PHP for the "fully configurable web store".

Go back to Canada, eh? (And quit staring at my crotch, Pervy McHeadupyourass.)

Posted by gigamatt at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

so, last week was pretty hellish at work, what with two of our 5 staff out on vacation and the three remaining staff in seminars for 3 days. it was fairly impossible to do anything but maintain systems.

on to other news... other cooler news.

1) the group of radio alumni whose site i run is transitioning into an official university alumni group.
2) as part of the transition, another alum and myself are attending the big university alumni conference next month.
3) the following week, i'm driving south again, to hang out with the current station staff.
4) friday night, i went out with a group of local alumni, where we discussed everything from housing, to the state of Maine, to station news, to how my generation intimidates younger folks.
5) we realized the need to "meet" more often -- whether over drinks or not. bi-monthly scheduling is tentatively in place.
6) we hate it when our friends become successful -- young music critic acquaintance and former station music director becomes music editor of the Village Voice, starting today.

Yeah. Oh, and I'm working on getting Gallery installed and integrated with our Message Board system on the alumni site. One of these days. If I better understood the table-structure, I might do better. Instead I may just look for API calls and see if I can do things that way instead of full integration.

Also, in the middle of 6 site designs for work, and am currently tweaking one of the six for use on the alumni site. Problem? Color pallette killing me.

ALMOST FORGOT! Probably the most important thing that happened last week? My coworker, whose custom bachelors degree program I'm piggy-backing onto, got final approval. This means I have a goal to work toward, not just taking classes anymore! Must set up an appointment with my advisor.

Posted by gigamatt at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

so... today i found out about a big alumni-group gathering at my old college in about a month. it's a whole weekend devoted to running alumni groups.

and, by default, it looks like i'll be going. alone. hopefully someone will pipe up and decide to go, too. preferably someone outgoing and someone already involved. my reasoning is totally selfish, i know. i don't warm up to folks easily. and, i really dont want to share a room with someone i dont know (rooms are double occupancy only, unless you pay $80/night more x 3 nights.) at $200 to cover a whole 'nother person's registration, it'd be cheaper to get a friend (or acquaintance) to attend.

plus, if they were coming from cowtown, we could carpool. save some gas money.

oh, btw, one of the other alumni sent me her pictures from last weekend. see them all on flickr. there's even one of me that i dont cringe when i see.

Posted by gigamatt at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

took my teenycam out of my bookbag and snapped a couple more photos to upload to flickr. yay. darth tater. spud trooper. my action figure corner (which grows weekly.) I want my artoo potatoo figure!!

this has been a long day. even my lunch break wasnt long enough. i got a haircut and paid my car payment. woo.

so much left to do this week. i'm so behind.

Posted by gigamatt at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i've spent a good chunk of time today working on tracking down orders for computers and other equipment by my vacationing coworker at the beginning last week. they were ordered, and PO's were sent via our handy dandy central faxing server. only, in at least 2 cases, the faxes never got there.

oh, how this sucks for me. the system says they were faxed, and with confirmation, to the correct numbers. the system lies. a lot. apparently, if it faxes to an actual machine, they go through. if it faxes to another computer system, it always reports that it works, but fails. so, everything my coworker ordered last week (that mattered), is now a week late. of course, three computers are still sitting in limbo, waiting on a second phantom fax. with any luck, it will arrive in the next 45 minutes. if not, i'll have to ... i dunno, actually. you see, the system allows you (for security reasons) to only print/fax 3 times. after that, you're screwed and have to do it all over again. the order i mean. you have to cancel that PO (and order) and do it all over again. it's totally screwy.

on another note, i got my "reimbursement" check today for my trip to athens. of course, it was taxed by 40%, apparently, meaning I got (in my pocket) gas money, but no meals. meaning, i was double taxed. i was taxed on meals. i was taxed on gas. and then i was taxed when work paid me back for it. shitty. Super shitty. No use complaining, though, I suppose.

Posted by gigamatt at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

no, she's not dead yet. but, with all of us so widely distributed, it is good to get the planning done ahead of time. to that end, the grandchildren are being contacted regarding the memorial service.

i responded to my mom today. everything i said was said with respect to my cousins. something should be done so that those who need closure get it. whenever it is done, whether right after her death, or at a planned family gathering. consensus was that travel will be a hardship for some. also, it seems, one cousin and i are the two grandchildren who our parents are worried about. i think my cousin will need it more than i will.

my mom made a good point about the memorial service... she thinks it should be for more than just family. gram had made many, many friends over the years, and perhaps the grandchildren should hear more about their grandmother from people other than her family. my aunt feels otherwise. i see the benefit of both scenarios and think it might be wise to do both. one, for everyone, and one for just family. that gives us the insight of others and then also the time to share and process as a family.

i realize every family has its quirks, but mine, i feel, is sometimes beyond quirky. i do not understand the fighting amongst siblings about things that really shouldnt matter. i also do not understand how they cannot do what i see as being their familial duties when it comes to siblings.

it's just messed up, and if you see me in person, i might go into detail.

Posted by gigamatt at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

well, seems there's some disagreement in my family over whether there'll be a service/memorial at the cemetery with her ashes for closure. the decision has been made to leave it to the grandchildren. i've been asked to weigh in.

i've tried to decide, and what it comes down to is, I'd like to have one, but if they still want to have a huge reunion in august, i'd rather not fly back twice. i think the same could be said for the cousins, as we are all scattered far and wide, and most with families.

i'll support whichever decision, but i hardly want to be the deciding (or dissenting) vote.

the second part of this that makes me nervous (no matter which time they decide to do it...) is that I would probably want Nala with me. I've often thought I'd be such a mess that I'd need him around. Not that I'd want that to be the way he's introduced to my extended family, sure. But, I wouldnt want him so far away (again) like he was during the goodbye-ing a couple years ago.

My dad is always there for my mom, now. I dont think she'd ever go back alone again. With him, she has an excuse to extricate herself from any crazy badness. He also acts as a voice of reason, sometimes heavy-handedly so, coming from outside the family. One who can break ranks and just say what's really going on.

I worry about needing that. I hate that I need that, but family means so much to me, I dont want to lose what little ties I have by blowing my top or worse.

I'm going to answer that "yes, i think there ought to be SOMEthing so that whomever wants to or needs to, can come. but, i think, if it happens sooner than later, attendance at both that and the family reunion should not be expected. Unless, of course, they become tied together."

I said my goodbye, such that it was, two years ago. Others have not. They thought it was too morbid... that it was wrong to tell her we loved her and say goodbye while she still knew who she was and who we were. She knew there was no turning back. She knew it was time. Others seemed disaffected by the whole thing.

Meanwhile, I sit here, affected. Totally. Affected and conflicted. I care, yet, I'm beyond the weepy wailing that will surely come. Or will it? How is it that my family can remain so stoic about what supposedly are the most sacred of bonds withering away? How is it that I am, externally, but internally I cry?

Am I cold-hearted? Is this the way I'm going to be at every death of a loved one? I keep thinking so. Privately screaming and crying -- publicly the stoic frowner, wondering if any other stoic frowners are just as torn up as me. As we all suffer silently.

Posted by gigamatt at 8:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

been going gung-ho on everything this week, and still in a go-go rah-rah mode from the alumni weekend. last night, i realized i was having trouble doing my taxes with the Tubo-Tax online thing... and freaked because I couldnt find some paperwork it said I needed (at least not without digging.)

I ended up giving up, and staying awake another hour and a half, just to finish some things on the alumni website. got em done only to find out (today) that they broke some things. so then i had to fix the broken things.

fun.

work is work, and changing by the day. in less than two weeks, I'll have a carpooler riding along with me. Felix. yay, felix! new adventures await us both in our new, crazy organization.

that said, apparently i have a new title. and, i laughed to myself when i heard it, because it's so absurd that it actually matches what I went to school for.

the sun is shining into my office, on the back of my head. it's baking my brain, and i feel, at least temporarily, like everything is ok.

give it 5 minutes... i'm sure some insane coworker will make my life hell.

Posted by gigamatt at 2:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

sorry folks -- been trying to catch up on some work and some web dev outside of work, and I was out of town for a couple days.

most of you know I was involved with a commercial student run radio station back in my early college days. this past weekend was the 35th anniversary of the station, and so many, many folks came out. i run the alumni web site, and i'm guilty of letting it slide while the world keeps chugging along... so this week is catch-up week. there's an upgrade to the board software that needs deployed (after i back up the database), and then a security patch... and then, I also need to upgrade movable type, and then the layout of both board and main site need redone. and quickly, before i lose interest.

it was a great weekend, and one that made me proud of the current execs. i'll be returning next month to take photos of their new space in the new student center, as one of only 2 non-student members of a planned tour. The other: the founder of the station, who, despite his age, remains just as articulate as ever.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled boredom.

Posted by gigamatt at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

today, i bought a 15$ crap camera. it has usb connection and windows drivers, but only bsd drivers for mac, which require a complicated set of driver compilations to work. i'm still taking that as a challenge for this week.

i also dug out the audio recorder i bought a year and a half ago, only to find out it'd been replaced by a much cheaper, platform independent model, and had absolutely NO drivers for Mac. luckily, it has a line-out, and my desktop mac has a line-in. i'd also been thinking about getting a USB audio adapter for my laptop.

one more bit of tech i might buy this week - target had SD card/mp3 player "bonus" packs for cheap, which supposedly work for both Win/Mac. this would get me my own mp3 player, as well as a spare SD card for whatever camera may come my way in the future. perhaps i can find a review online.

the time change has me all messed up. it's 10, and i'm not even close to being tired. I'd work on one of the designs for the site, but i'm totally against trying to do graphics work on a knee-supported laptop in bed.

Posted by gigamatt at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

watched half of desperate housewives, 10 mins of sopranos, and mostly spent the evening gathering electronics/computer equipment and software to take to work tomorrow.

earlier today, i found 2 computer bags, one big and one small, which actually seem to hold all my crap. i'm not thrilled with the smaller one, but it has much more padding for a laptop than my old one, and still holds more books than the old, frayed MTV one. the other is a swiss army bag, which holds a ton more. i'll give it a try for work as well, but i'm thinking it may work best for an airline carry on.

saw a few dream stoves at the appliance store today. fridges too. i guess, as i was telling nala, i'd better win the lotto on tuesday.

no word on the grandmother. next weekend is the radio reunion, and i forgot to call about transferring my hotel room. gotta remember to do that tomorrow.

at work, i have to hang the shelf and continue development of the intranet. and, once that's done, test the text editor for our content management system. and this week i need to have 2 designs done for our new site. TWO. ack. and two the next week, and two the next.

Posted by gigamatt at 9:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)