Crazy Whovian Spedulation

You'd think my first "post job" post would about about angst and agony, wouldn't you?  Nope, save all that for later.  Too much to do before I get all Mr Angst (as opposed to Mr Snark - there's always time for Mr Snark).

I'm late to the speculation table for this season's Dr Who.  And there are plenty out there that probably already know what is going to happen.  Even more are convinced that they do.  Some think that it will destroy the show (and proclaim it gleefully because they don't like Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and/or Steven Moffat).  Some of the things I've been thinking are likely already out there in the blogosphere but I don't spend a lot of time looking for it.  Spoilers and all that.

However, here is my roundup of thoughts/speculations on this next season, of which the second episode airs tonight.

First:  who is River Song?  This seems to be obvious right now.  I'm guessing it's Amy and Rory's daughter.  She will be the reason (ultimately) that the Ponds will leave the TARDIS.  I doubt that she will wind up being the Doctor's wife or anything like that - but that playful banter?  She gets that from her mom.  She may even carry the torch that Amy did (can torches be passed across generations?  I wonder what chromosome it's carried on).

Plenty of other questions about her - why does she know ancient, high Gallifreyan?  Why does she know the Doctor's name?  I'm currently leaning towards a theory that the Time Lords do return at some point (chastened by their experiences in the Time War?), the Doctor has her brought up there.  Or possibly, just because of his deep loneliness (i.e., no Time Lord return - being the last of his kind - he tries to pass it on to her.
Or of course, they could just be love bunnies and the Doctor had a fling.  Doesn't seem like him, but there are plenty in the "Moffat/Smith hating contingency" that want to believe that is where it will wind up being.

Who did she kill?  My money is on Rory.  It was likely for the right reason (or what seemed like the right reason at the time) but we're hearing one of the characters will get killed this year, Rory is the most expendable (sorry girls...).  Poor guy looked so good in a Centurion suit after being dreamed back in existence, but Time doesn't like those kinds of games.  And hence, he needs to go again.  Properly this time - where Amy does remember and mourns and all that.
If my speculation on River is true, and Rory is killed by River Song, it may well be to her "the best man she ever knew" - her father.

And the Silence (Silent singular)?  The Silence will fall.  And I think we're hearing it wrong - and not understanding what it means.

See, people don't use the word "fall" in regards to say...  descent (as in, to descend).  Perhaps Prisoner Zero meant they will "fall out of the sky" and descend upon us, but that isn't what I hear.  To "fall" usually means defeat, destruction, or some other coming down from a position of importance.  So when I hear "the Silence will fall" I hear that the Silence will be defeated.  And it will not be a Good Thing.  It may have even been the cause of the rip which played such a large role in last year's season.

In other words, the Silence, no matter how evil, are Important.  They serve a function.  And when they are defeated, as all of the baddies in the Whoniverse ultimately are, it will unleash terrible consequences.  Keepers of the Time Lock perhaps?  Whatever the case is, the fall of the Silence will bring about something worse.  And the Doctor, trying to correct this, will have to "run faster than he's ever run" to fix it.  And it has taken him 200 years to do it (hence the age difference).

Of course, Jim The Fish may be the key to everything.  Unfortunately, he was eaten by Dolphins as the left the Earth before the building of the hyperspace bypass so we may never know where he came from.

this is the final post ever from this desk...

Moment of silence (or the singular, silent) please.

And unlike the Silence, I'd like to think people here don't forget me when they can't see me any longer.

Sometimes, time can't be re-written.... 

Ask me what I want, what I really really want...

I just registered at Yet Another Tech Job Site (Dice) and one of the questions asked was "what are you looking for in a job?" 

It's a question I answer to some extent in my resume and cover letter.  It's a fair question, and one that I have to ask myself right now.

Perfect world?  I'd like to go back to a smaller shop.  Even if that means not making as much.  Or someplace where I will have more responsibility than I do now - I'm a coder.  Last job?  I did more, had more responsibility, and people knew what I did/do and appreciated it.  Outside of the office, I'm not a known entity.

I'd also like smaller town.  Denver, I love ya, but I'd be more than happy to see you in my rearview mirror.  Traffic is getting to me and I never really fit the hyperfitness culture here.  That was why a recent job prospect in Burlington VT was so hopeful.  It didn't happen (although the contracting door is possibly open there) but that would be the ideal environment for me.

Anyhow, maybe I'll put together a real wishlist later.  Still fiddling with stuff in the office.

Like fleas deserting a dying dawg

One by one the office clears.  Another body stops by, shakes my hand, says "good luck," and then leaves the office.  I'd be gone by now if I weren't waiting for my wife to get here (probably another hour and a half). 

I've turned in my access card (but the code is still good through the end of the day so I'm not completely trapped) but the habit of swiping my wallet over the reader is ingrained from years of doing it.  I got a bit panicky when I tried the first time after handing in the card because the door didn't "click".  But it was just because of the obvious - no more card means no more reads.

I've got some additional things to do before I leave - nothing company related of course, that stopped this morning (even though I did get a couple of support requests - dutifully ignored thankyouverymuch).

Strange to think I may be the last person here today.  Just... strange.

strange feelings...

It may just be a reaction to the overhype of the royal weeding, or perhaps a bit of confusion over who chose whom in the NFL draft (and figuring my Packers tryed unsuccessfully to trade down in to the 2nd round in their spot), but the strangeness of it all is finally hitting me. 

Desk: empty save some folders and the soon to be surrendered craptop. 
Fridge: all traces of me gone (except one leftover box with explicit instructions to be passed on to a specific coworker upon my departure)
Cubicle: my name has been replaced with a number.  I'm no longer "Steve Pearson," I'm in "Cubicle 8." 

Paperwork signed, I's dotted, T's crossed.  And then...?

Who knows?

I have been productive.  Not for the company.  But I've dropped a few more resumes, cleaned up any remaining stuff that needs cleaning on my computer, and am basically just waiting for my wife to show up so we can go out to dinner tonight.

For those of you that are wondering, yes, I am a little teary eyed.  Lump in my throat.  No, I haven't been terribly happy here the last couple of years but it still means an end.  Yes, a beginning too, although beginning of what I don't know.  Nobody does. 

T minus 1

12 hours.

I figured I'd sleep in a bit this morning.

Nope, alarm went off and I lasted one snooze cycle.

I'm up and about.

Final day.  Such an odd feeling.  Final day.  Less than 12 hours from now I'm gone

Current plans?  Go in to work a bit later than I have been.  Do basically nothing except get my resume out to a few more places (Canadian companies perhaps?).  Fill out some paperwork, hand in the craptop, and then "so long and thanks for all the fish."

I will probably post off and on during the day with random thoughts.  But for now?  To studying.

The not official T minus 1 blog

Perchance to dream?

When I wake up tomorrow, I'm facing the end. Well, a beginning as well, but the end of seven years of my life.

Little to say now as Morpheus calls, but I feel the tug of nostalgia rolling in. not quite in waves yet but it will get there.

Goodnight sun. Goodnight moon. Goodnight job.

Parallel beer

While at the booze barn tonight, to pick up my Killer Penguin, I found another interesting beer by Upslope brewing. It was an IPA.

Logo?  Bold. Deep. Bitter. Hmm. Feels like a parallel to me right now.

A royal fiasco

I just don't get it.  I really don't.  I didn't understand it when it happened in when I was in 7th grade, and I don't understand it now.  Why are we so bloody fascinated by a royal wedding?

And I'm not talking about just any royal wedding - when Swedish or Japanese royalty get married, you don't see the world put on its brakes to rubberneck the impending train wreck we call the British royals.

Frankly my dear Scarlet, I don't give a damn.

Don't get me wrong.  I actually kinda like the British monarchy.  I think Billy and Katie are sweet kids.  And I wish them well.  I hope they're happy, and have many fat, happy little princes and princesses running around the house in a few years.  Hopefully the resulting gene pool for the lineage is preserved for a few more generations by not marrying within the same branch of the family tree.

But really?  Guys?  Um...  hello in there.  <tap><tap><tap>  This is reality calling.  They are not that important.  Neither of them actually will rule over anything.  Maybe if they could still chop off a few heads here and there, this would be worth the attention.  Or if they were going to rule over an empire on which the sun never sets.  But c'mon here folks, They Are Not That Important.

I have heard from some that there is a fairy tale element to this.  In fact, this story (thanks to my twitter feed for pointing it out to me): KC woman quits job for royal wedding .  Um folks, this hain't no fairy tale. The media wants it to be and are really projecting the hell out of it, but there is no fairy tale here.  Move along.  Last time I checked, fairy tales require glass slippers, fairy godmothers, and at least one pumpkin.

Katie and Billy?  Can I call ya Billy?  Probably not.  Sir Billy?  Your Royal Highness Billy?  I wish you and the soon to be Mrs luck and all that, and I really hope you make good of things.  But stop wasting the time of reporters who should be covering important stories.  The Iraq and Afghanistan wars haven't gone away.  The Middle East is still a mess.  And for reasons completely beyond my comprehension, people still drink Budweiser.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled head in the sand...

wait, where did all this bloody productivity come from?

I was figuring today to be a relatively quiet day.  Yes, I'm starting to want to slack off.  And technically, with me typing this, I am doing just that.  But it is 4:30 in the afternoon, not 1:30, and I was hoping to be in coasting mode.  

Alas, 'tis not to be.

I've had 6 weeks of "transition" time and still feel like I'm not even close to having transitioned what I need to take care of.  In 24 hours, I tell myself, that's not my problem anymore.  But it is, because I'm leaving it behind.  Bugrit!  Millenium hand and shrimp!

Just needed to vent a little.  Thank You For Your Support.

T minus 2

Wow. Penultimate day.

I am down to the final 2 days.

Just. Wow.

I've worked for 30 years. Never been laid off. Until now. And as of tomorrow evening I'm not working.

The recent nybble didn't lead anywhere, and my wife just about blue her stack when I told her.  I think I'll just with hold such info from her in the future until I have a beret idea if I'm a better fit for a job.  Seems almost cruel to get her hours up.

T minus 3, a small rant

Yep, the middle of the week is here. and it is not expected to be a heavy work day yet I already know of at least one conference call (skipping because of the time), a meeting of an hour or two, plus a "good bye" lunch for those of us that have been part of this "transition".

Note: I think the word "transition" is more than a little silly.  A lot silly really.  This isn't transition, this is attrition and being laid off.  Lipstick meet pig, you tain't any purdee-er, and while time can be re-written, the facts before the house (barring Time Lord intervention) are this:

I'm laid off.  Yep, the Company is doing a number of things to help me (and it is greatly appreciated) and the reason they I was amongst the folks let go is rational (unofficially to support an existing package instead of our custom built in-house ERP package... my VL skills will no longer be needed) but no matter how flashy the lipstick, it's still a pig I'm staring down.

The strange thing is that folks in the office - and probably more so in the field - don't seem to Get It.  Then again, neither do I.  Why am I still busting my tail when there are really only 3 work days left?  The obvious answer is that I'm still showing up to work so therefore I'm still a resource, but when it comes down to it, I am the sole point of knowledge for many of the areas I cover.  That is definitely the case with the VL work, but the handheld interface stuff (interfacing between our system and existing handheld software, not interface on a handheld) is a huge part of our business and the 2.5 people that covered it?  Gone are my project manager was let go late last year, and one of the others in this current layoff occasionally looked at some of it.

When the IT Transformation process began late last year, we were told that roughly 10% of the Company's IT was going to be reduced.  There are 13 people in the office.  Since the beginning of the Transformation, our office has lost 5 bodies.  My specific area?  3 of 4.  Expert VL coders?  1 of 1.  That last one is me if you are curious.

Going back in time, to the first set of layoffs (4+ years ago) we have lost an additional 5 people (2 to retirement, one quit, 2 let go).  We have also lost our core testers, or the testers have been sent to other areas that we aren't allowed to access.  So any changes/fixes we do are stuck in limbo.

Our software, which supports 50-60% of the business, has lost 10 bodies, none of whom have been replaced.  Do the math boys and girls.  It hain't pretty in the office.  I think the reality of the situation has set in to a lot of folks - not just that our software is not going to be the future, but that there is an active attempt to make sure that it will die.  Painfully.  Without morphine.  Alone in a darkened hospital room with a bunch of tubes and machines that go *ping* surrounding it.

Right now?  I feel like one of the lucky ones.  In three days time, when I wake up knowing no more paychecks, I will likely feel differently.  But there is light at the end of this tunnel.  It may be a train (although with my luck its a Smart car and will just knock me around for a few cuts and bruises) but until it hits me, let me imagine otherwise.

a nybble?

It's not enough to get really hyped about, but I just was solicited for a contract in Florida.

Good news? Pay isn't bad but it is contract (6+ month), no benefits (but it is W2 - more palatable than the other option).  It would give me some breathing room to continue looking and would mean I wouldn't have to put the house on the market right away.

It would also mean Florida during hurricane season and summer time with stifling humidity.  Hmm...

I need to mull it over and any commentary/thoughts would be appreciated.  Of course, at this time I think I have one, maybe two followers so I'm not expecting a deluge of feedback...

T minus 4 (or 3.25 by the time it will be posted)

I've been dilly-dallying with this all day, but haven't had the time to finish what I started.  Which is kind of a parable for my last week here.

So much time, so little to do.  <pause> Wait a minute...  Strike that that...  Reverse it....  Thank you.

The most difficult part about this last week?  Letting go.  Saying to myself "I can't start anything new, can't finish what I started, can't let minutia keep me from getting done what I can get done."

It seems there are people here - well, not necessarily here, in the office, but in the Outside World (corporate), are having trouble accepting that I'm gone after Friday.  Still getting requests for researching help desk tickets, and being asked to provide estimates on projects that I will have no continuing role in.  I can't do it all, but I'm so heavily invested in some of these (professionally and personally) that I seem to be unable to say "no".

I keep telling myself "it's not my problem anymore" but dammit, it is.  I feel like I'm leaving behind too many strands, too much unfinished business.  And while I say that Friday I will Not Do Anything, I know I'm going to get roped in to something somehow somewhere some way.

Right now I don't see panic as I leave the office on my last day.  I see relief.  Once I walk out the door for good, I can say to myself "I'm done.  That's it.  It really isn't my problem anymore."  Yes, the panic will come (and has paid me more than a few visits in the last 6 weeks) but I just want this to be over.  Done.  I want to look it in the rearview mirror and say "I've done as much as I could do."

Concentration and the God Particle

Maybe it's just because it is Monday.  Maybe it's because I'm stressed.  Maybe it's because I feel overwhelmed.  But I am having difficulty concentrating on work today.

I think I will try the "banging my head against the wall" method of resetting my brain.  Unfortunately, my head already hurts.  The pain is in the back of the noggin so maybe a few good *thwaps* to the front will even things out.

Needs to be done today, in no particular order:
review dynamic routebook specs and mark it up for a meeting tomorrow
continue handheld knowledge transfer
drink more coffee
try to put together something about the order to cash system
more coffee
contemplate the fate of the universe
bang head against wall
more coffee

On the subject of particles (ordered or not), saw an article today about a possible discovery of the Higgs boson.  It's just rumor at this time, being met with rational skepticism.  But an exciting "maybe" nonetheless.
http://yhoo.it/h0ggrW

T minus 5

Today starts the surreal experience of my last week. Too much to do and not enough time to do it in.

I'm in the final stages of what they are calling "knowledge transfer" which is a fancy wai of saying I plop my brain in to someone else's head. Terrifying thought.

Thing is, there is too much. And I am the single point of knowledge on most of my areas. Thems that knew my area are gone, or in my case, going. These are not small areas either (will discuss those some other time).

I feel sorry for those I will be leaving my projects/areas to. I have a hunch that they are going to go dark because no one understands them (they are some of the most complicated areas in our system). I feel a twinge of sadness knowing that. But as my soon to be former boss has told me "it's no longer my problem." So i'll do what I can to leave my areas in good hands.

Countdown T minus 6

6 days and counting before I officially join the ranks of the unemployed.

The upside (?) is that I can get some stuff done around the house, study, dig in to .Net, and take advantage of outplacement services. The downside? I still have to look for a job.

I've actually been actively  doing that since I got The News over a month ago. A few nibbles, one serious, but no offers.

A testament to mobility

This is a quick test of my mobile posting software.  I don't doubt that it works, I'm just a guy that likes to see things for myself.

There is a tiny part of me that feels a little guilty about working on an Android phone. I've been a Palm guy most of my PDA using life and loved WebOS in my roughly year long relationship with it. There just were not enough apps for it and my carrier seems to have lost interest in it.

So here I am, writing (more like sliding thanks to Swype) on a different mobile platform than I wanted to be using.

So, we shall see what madness this platform hath wraught (or wrote).

An introduction of sorts

Honestly? I don't know why I'm here.

Okay, I lied.  I know exactly why I'm here, I'm just a little surprised that I am.  Here in front of the computer isn't unusual, here, looking out over the abyss of unemployment, that's why I'm here.  This is new to me.  In the almost 30 years that I've been working (starting at ~14) I've never been out of a job and I've never been laid off.

Yet here I am.

Technically I'm not laid off - I'm "transitioning out".  And as of April 29, 2011 at approximately 5pm mountain time, I am unemployed.

I am (was) an application developer for a Very Large Company.  The environment I develop in is somewhat obscure (Lansa) which makes finding a job a bit of a challenge.  I'm damned good at what I do (making VL do things it's not supposed to do), but there aren't a lot of shops out there looking for my skill set - at least very few that are posting in all the Usual Places.  In a difficult economy, that's a little (okay, a lot) scary.

I'm optimistic that something will come along.  Ask me in a week... two weeks, three weeks, that may change, but something better will - has to - come along.

I don't know why I started this.  I'm normally a content consumer, not provider.  I don't know if I'm any good at it or if I will have the time or drive to continue working on it.  But in this place, and in this time, I need an outlet.  Is this vanity? Catharsis? A support group of one? An excuse for me to rant and post pictures of my cats?  I don't know.  As the Doctor said in The Eleventh Hour, "I don't know yet. Still cooking."

I promise not to just talk about my jobless state - after all, the world continues to turn regardless my employment status.