Post office worker like outburst imminent

I could go on all day about how sick I am of getting snide answers when asking for help. I'll have to go on for just a few minutes, but I'll cut it short because I have gone through anger and come out on the other side completely unable to give any more of a shit. A large portion of The Snide is coming from my own company, which makes it even more aggravating. For some reason, there is a huge discord between the UK and US offices, so that when I ask for help from the UK what I get back is snide answers, and either a handoff to someone else who doesn't give a shit, or a referral to some process document that i never knew existed and don't know how to follow, coupled with silence when I ask for help in understanding said document so that I might learn to follow said process. It peaked last week when I snided back at someone and was told he "did not like the tone of voice he read in my email" I give a fuck. I responded in kind, we exchanged obnoxious escalating emails and then I hit The Point Where I Don't Care Anymore.

I have also hit this point this morning. Had a bunch of stupid NSI shit to do this weekend, and lo and behold remote access isn't working (for a change) so I had to go in and spend half of Saturday kicking off an import. I couldn't get in last night either, so I roll into the joint around 5am this morning to clean up my db, take a backup and contact the DBA like I always do when we run this shit (we have run this thing 7 -SEVEN- times. The last time should have been the one, but since they are so far behind the times they still use Enterprise Manager to manage SQL2K databases, she couldn't terminate a lone connection to the DB and so was unable to restore the backup that I had spent THAT whole weekend creating) Instead of the usual "I can't figure this out" I get back "I'm busy this morning. I waited up until midnight last night and you didn't call. Tough luck" wtf? I started to get very angry, because quite frankly it's a bunch of bullshit. It takes roughly 30 seconds to kick off a restore. She could do it and jump in the shower. She could let me do. She could JUST FUCKING DO IT. I will go 50/50 with her on the I didn't call her last night. I didn't. Nor did she call me to ask what was up or what I was doing. Nor did she tell me she wouldn't be able to do the restore this morning, like we always do. In reviewing the whole clusterfuck that has been this project, I realize this is just another drop in the bucket. Deep breaths. This time next week I will be on vacation, so they can all kiss my sweet white ass.

Speaking of vacation: itinerary somewhat mapped out.

So far it's looking like:

July 10&11, spend the night in Anchorage. Spend the day of the 11 trying to find somewhere to leave some rations so we don't have to carry them all around.
July 12 Fancy train to Denali. Oooh, aaah.
July 12,13,14,15,16; Backpacking in da wilderness yo.
July 17 Back to Anchorage. Don't put coffee on, we're not staying. Grab whatever food we have managed to stow and head south. Camp roadside or hitch hike somewhere interesting. Depends on the luck.
July 18 Night in Valdez hopefully
July 19 Arrive in Cordova
July 20 Night in Cordova
July 21 Cabin beeatch!
July 22 See July 21
July 23 Night in Cordova (I hope Cordova doesn't suck!)
July 24 Alaska Marine Highway Ferry transport to Whittier
Kick it in Whittier for 7 hours
Train to Anchorage
Crash at Hostel
July 25 Homeward bound!

And now for total non sequitur. I emptied my camera phone, see below.

My AWESOME new hat

HNs pretty little ikea plant blooms!

serious wardrobe apathy, HN style.

Star on our last car ride. That's my special girl!

Catastrophic failure! Sounds like Monday to me!



Artist's rendering of my hat. This is probably what it will look like in Alaska. As you can see, there are bears and moose and bald eagles this time of year.

protecting my assets

So HN told me this morning that he had a dream that we were marked as tourists and derided in AK because we were wearing those big horrid columbia hats with the chin straps that tourist people wear. He totally made me want one, so we set out this morning on what will hopefully be one of the last REI runs before the trip. I needed venty pants (have made valiant, alas, unsuccessful effort to find good pants at the thrift stores in the area so have given in and bought new ones) I also needed more socks and he needed boat shoes too. Brimmy hat in hand, we rolled home so that I can start the process of packing and checking my shizz. Based on current plans, this is going to be f*cking awesome, compounded by this little beauty.

Tourist, what tourist? Me?? How did you guess? I think it looks straight lady of the jungle.

I'll be posting itinerary soon so you can know the awesomeness.

I need a thing

Like this dude's thing.

Planning

So we got a cabin for a couple of nights! fireplace, wooden bunks, outhouse. POSH!!!



Enlarge and look for the A. That's where I'll be if you need me July 20-22. Werd to yer moms.

While we're on the topic of mental imagery...

Have a think on what this might be. Then try to decide if I'm really that far out there, if I would have bought one. We can discuss later.

For now, I'm knee deep in Alaska preparations, I don't have the time to worry about that thing.

Here's about where I'm at. Feeling pretty good about what I've got, although I'm sure there's something else I need. I might not know it until I see it at the secondhand gear-a-palooza store in Portland. that happens you know.

-New (pink!) pack: check
-New sleeping mat: Check
-Replacement me sized sleeping bag* (from the Satin in a Coffin line by Kelty) because Bill the shitbum borrowed mine for his little man friend and now won't return my calls, and I need something since I'm going to f'ing AK in 2 weeks: Check (the other one was 12 years old, I knew I would have to replace it someday. It's really just the principle of the thing)
-Pack cover -with hood- check
-Superfeet replacement boot insoles! (flame retardant): check

*me sized sleeping bag is what I need when the dog isn't coming. When she joins, we have the man/ dig and girl sized model. Unfortch, she won't fit in my carry on so she stays home this time.

Someone (who is lucky sometimes that I get distracted from his inane questions by his striking good looks) asked me the other day if I was afraid of bears. What the hell kind of GD question is that? Who in their right mind isn't afraid of bears I ask you? I just smiled and told him he was handsome, which is when I got the very serious "Camping is very serious" discussion.

Apparently it can be dangerous, and also difficult, to meander into the woods during bear season. Who'd have thought?

I could give you a whole speech, I've been getting it from my dad and my mother as well. My mother, never having left New England other than to go "rough it" on the strip in Vegas or visit my brother in Phoenix has not too much to say on the subject, but what little she has is precious. She's just "heard" it can be "bad". And of course all those programs on the Discovery channel make you an expert, no? She's still trying to figure out where she went wrong, or what she could have done differently to avoid how I turned out: namely independent and wanderlust-y. So conversating with her is thrilling this week, although slightly funny b/c she just had a hip replacement and is hopped up to the gills on painkillers.

My dad, having traveled some in his youth has several very relevant points (though he too slowly blinks and heaves the occasional pained sigh when he learns of my latest plans. But he rallies, gets the facts and then makes sure I have them, and also usually some supplies for said adventure. Can you ask for better?) And he also has a pair of trekking poles with my name on them. How can you hate?? He at least did stuff when he was younger, and still does some now though in a different vein. But he's a total gear whore much like myself, and also a rather large, research oriented nerd which is pretty sweet. I dig on surrounding myself with those people. The thing about a nerdy gear whore is, by the time they get to the point where they have formed an opinion they are willing to offer on any given piece of gear (or techno toy, cough, itch!), they've either read up on or broken several other types. It's like getting the benefits of countless hours of research work in 20 minutes of conversing, and it's usually with someone I generally enjoy talking to anyway. Win/win.

And I'll leave you with that. I have to go rotate dehydrating trays. Bear Gryllis HN says that "from now until the minute we walk out the door we need to have something dehydrating 24/7" because we are carrying most/all of our food for Alaska with us. It's amazing what you can do with this thing, I can see a long and fruitful lifetime of playing "will it dehydrate?" alongside "will it blend?". I love me some new appliance.

oh! ok, seriously this time. One more and then I'm out. Today's batch is fruit and I'm dying to see what the bananas are doing. This is my next "As Seen on TV" purchase. While laid up for the day Sat, part of what I did was watch informercials. I need this.
If you saw the show, you'd realize you need it too.

You're welcome.

awesome

This could be me.

Hopefully, this will not be me.

it's so my color

I'm going to own this soon. Muwahahaha.

human interest segment

So I'm in the airport right now, and there is a deaf man next to me with his laptop and webcam and he's having a video chat convo with his wife. He looks so happy to be talking to her, and it's nice to see instances where technology is actually making such a difference for someone like that. sigh.

V cool.



ok, enough of that shit.

Recognize!!

This just in from the USELESS pm at NSI. The one who 19 months into his career there still uses the "I'm new here" excuse when he's caught looking like a total ignorant douche at meetings.

"KS does not provide me with periodic updates. ... She has always been reluctant to spend time communicating with me. ...Either she feels she has no time for me, or she feels it is unnecessary for her to give me attention."

Well at least he is clear on the matter. I do not feel it necessary to spend time with him. I reserve my time for the people involved who know what's going on. If you can't catch on after 19mos I'm done trying. Get one of your own people to spoon feed it to you. I am also officially listed as "hostile and uncooperative". First of all, he has no idea exactly how hostile or uncooperative I can be. I hope to have occasion to show him. Secondly: Excellent! I am the rebel PM from hell. Trampling people's feelings all to "get my work done" Put it in my permanent record, put me on double secret probation and get me out of here.

In other fun news look what I bought. Pink! ("loganberry" = Pink!)


Alaska is totally going to rule.

I choose to believe it builds character

So due to a work emergency yesterday, all hands were called to the task of re-printing customer letters. Like 1,500 of them, 500 of which were my lot. It was tedious, but once I got in the groove it went ok. Until I finished: approximately 6 seconds after which time I was contacted by someone on my dev team to run a SQL script which generates all the customer letters.

Wait, what? I'm sorry, did you just hand me a script to do what I spent all day doing? But didn't you tell me it wasn't possible this morning? Oh, right you figured it out. THANKS FOR NOTHING.

p.s. I hate you sometimes.


And in the "also idiot" sweepstakes, I broke the dog cookie jar. I bagged up the pieces, salvaged the dog cookies and ran out to run a quick errand. This is what I came back to:


Dog bed full of broken ceramic pieces. She apparently is not ready to let go of the fire hydrant cookie jar. I simply must get a webcam, because I would love to know how this one went down. The bag was nowhere near her bed, so it's not as if she could have just dumped it. She must have dug out and carried each little piece of shrapnel to bed for a good cleaning. I'm on the edge of my seat today to see what she craps out, that's always a good little lottery of what the dog's been up to (or into) while I was away. When I questioned the suspect she tried to hold out.

I did not do it!

However, I am wilier than she is. I broke out the big guns, the magic words "Oh the shame!" , which are like truth serum to this bad dog.

Ok, I did it!
I am weak and ashamed.

I love the fact that she responds to the word "shame".



I also went to the store and discovered this in the heirloom tomato section:

You say heirloom, I say deformed

Don't sugarcoat it, be honest.