Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in cairneldwin's LiveJournal:

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Monday, May 5th, 2008
10:45 pm	Fun Stuff Stressed out, so I don't feel like talking about shitty stuff. Just cool stuff: Portal was awesome. WAAAAY to short, but, very worth a go through. Original, challenging, and surprisingly humourous. It had Lili and I bursting into laughter several times. Lets just say that the AI is simply looking out for YOUR best interests :) Half-Life 2: Episode One was satisfying. Picked up right where the story left off. Felt like seeing old friendly faces again, or like watching a long awaited sequel to a good movie. Kept a hectic pace through the whole game, with little to no pauses. Combies...yeah, they're nasty. Will start Episode Two soon. Team Fortress 2: If only COD4 had these many Achievements to unlock. Only played one map as a Heavy; think brainless thug with Russian accent, large minigun, and a infatuation with filling everything with lead. The ingame commentary by the characters is funny. We played a map where you have to escort a bomb, in a railcart past several checkpoints until you reach the end. My character was screaming things like "Must stop wagon-thing!" and "The cart thing is moving!" The game itself feels like that Pixar film "the Incredibles" meets insane warfare team-based FPS. Worth a few goes. Watched Cloverfield. Left me wanting to know "SO WHAT THE F*$& HAPPENS NEXT!!!" Felt fun, captured that sense that The Blair Witch had of being with the participants. Lots of unanswered questions with hints at sequels and such. Lili finally got her Wii. Been playing Wii Sports and she rented Zelda, which I can't help but feel like it's just a fancier version of the N64 version. Sure, you can fish with the WiiMote, and you can kinda slash your sword (although not accurately) but it still feels like the same thing that the N64 version did. Fancy, but not using imagination to really make this one stand apart. My model of the Millenium Falcon is almost done. Fibre Optics are run and my LED is installed. Need to close up the top half, finish some smoke stains and rust markings on the hull. Also need a few blaster damage spots. Other than that :) Almost there!!! (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 20th, 2008
7:14 pm	Starfest 2008 Went to my first Con with Lil and Rage. Was everything I expected; costumes, cosplay, Trekkies and...other things. Kinda pricey at the door and we refrained from purchasing anything, although there were some pretty cool items to be had. Rage had eyes for a woman in a Starfleet uniform, which he took the time to introduce himself. The 501st were there, so it was pretty cool seeing all the variants of Stormtrooper, Scout Trooper and Imperial Office uniforms. A few Browncoats, one Klingon, a smattering of Starfleet officers, one or two pirates, and tons of cosplayers were everywhere. Even some Disney princesses, which I'm not too sure fit. The best reaction were two younger kids coming in with their dad. They were gawking at the Stormtroopers; a reaction of seeing magic in real life. It was absolutely precious. Also went hiking yesterday looking for campsites near Gross Lake. Found a few decent spots, but there was high traffic considering it's so early in the season, so we may not partake. Also went up to Geen's dad's cabin and poked around there. (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 17th, 2008
6:30 am	Not Trying Hard Enough The snow came down pretty damn heavy yesterday and made quite a good show of it. Still, looks like we received about 10 inches, and not a lick of it on the streets. Probably means wonderful patches of black ice and drivers afraid that the snow will jump up and attack them from its prone position on the grasses. Expecting a slow commute. Had an awesome fucking dream last night. Will flesh out later when I get it all down on paper. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
1:28 pm	Trolling Trolling Trolling Still casting the ol' fishin' pole out into the waters of employment. More and more evidence in the office that things are just going to tank and sooner than expected. Still no significant hits lately. In the interim, I've setup the TV Capture card so I can plug the old PS2 into it; want to take a swing at old FF PSone and PS2 games again. Maybe GameCube. Work is slow. Finally caught my share of flack from the Big IT Company upstairs for disabling an AD account that was let go. Apparently, there are procedures for removing individuals or accounts from the system and I didn't follow them. Needless to say, this is another one of those mystical "procedures" that we've asked for information on, but have never been given. So I'll just chaulk it up to "not going to stick my neck out for them" anymore unless they tell me to do something server-side. (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 6th, 2008
8:02 am	What is to come? Job searching has been dead ends so far. Lots of prospects with correspondence, then things falling through before interviews. I'm still poking around though. The Chief speaks of great opportunity that he's been presented personally. He'd be a fool to not take it as it sounds like the company would rather have him now, than later. Being the good samaritan that he is, he's trying to get the Atlas crew to be taken with em as well, but it's far too soon to know for sure if that's going to happen. Confronted my parents on the religion thing on Monday. Without rehashing the entire thing, it was very productive and my point finally came across. I will not be bothered about "doing my research" on the existence of God. I will not be pressured with "I hope you're there with us up there." I have also learned that I no longer have to live in my father's shadow. I spoken to him about all the pressure I put on myself to live up to his standards; whether or not they're put on my in the first place. Spent 3 hours sitting alone with them in the lobby of my work's office building. I suppose the timing was bad as they came to the office to say hello, which turned into them trying to give me More than a Carpenter. Being put on the spot, having discussed my feelings with just about everyone I know, and having them feel they could drop something of this magnitude on my lap while I was at work was enough for me to finally draw the line. It was a revealing conversation, I expressed things I've never told them about my personal beliefs, my pressures, and psyche that I've been trying to battle. And I feel they now understand my position. And it feels like a great weight off my shoulders. I like my sister-in-law. I really got good vibes off of her last night. I won't lie that I've been a little distant from her because I don't agree with her very cool and controlling manner, but last night I've noticed yet again her comfort in relaxing and being very friendly. Alcohol helped, but I recognize that within the last year, she's become much friendlier to be around, and I find that I respect her much more than I ever did. I hope this stays this way because I'm finding her to be pleasant to be around :) Played Chess with Jay last night, lost the first game to a horrible fork that I should have seen coming. Had a draw on the 2nd from a bad mistake in the end game in which I had incredible piece advantage. /me rolls eyes Gotta play that tutorial on chess master. Brad got in touch with me from California. My old high-school chum has gone onto great things working in the bio-chemistry field trying to create drugs to combat nervous system diseases like MS; come to find out his Mom was diagnosed with it 3 years ago. This is the first person I've known directly to get it as we used to hang out over his house all the time, so I can't help but hope he helps to find a cure or at least to put the brakes on. Current Mood: happy (Comment on this)
Monday, March 31st, 2008
6:56 am	This weekend's projects Accomplished a lot. Rebuild both laptop and desktop. Started organizing my CD's with two packs paper sleeves. Also picked up a bin in which I could alphabetize and separate them in rows of three. Now the discs take up a lot less space and will be much easier to sort through them. Need to pick up one more 100 pack, then I should have enough to finish off the project. For the family member's computer, all my spare motherboards with better procs were no good; one would power on automatically, suggesting a short somewhere that I couldn't find (an no, it wasn't my power switch) and the other would automatically restart randomly, even without anything plugged in except for power. Instead, I installed a REALLY old board with a Socket A proc and placed Rage's TV tuner card into it. Placed some old PC 133 memory in and it booted right up. I plan on setting it up as the "Media Center" computer, where I can plug consoles and such into it. I also put out several resumes as I've reached the same conclusion Sirus did when he left on monday; I don't look forward to going to work anymore. I want better. I want stability in the company. I want better pay. I am going to get it. Watched Stardust, 28 Weeks Later, and half of Spaceballs this weekend with Lil. I enjoyed Stardust and am tempted to read more of Neil Gaiman's works. Also got to the last episode of season six of Next Gen during my work. So now, I now I have 15 minutes before I head to work. Rage is dealing with withdrawals from quitting smoking and has called out today. Things were supposedly dead on Friday and may be more of the same today. Oh well. Change is coming. (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 29th, 2008
10:05 am	Updated To-do Two Updated To-Do Due to two forgotten things, I have to modify the To-Do list I posted a few days ago: Projects for this weekend: 1. Added: Repair MikeXP 2.0, DONE, now version 2.1.1 2. Wipe Laptop, reload with MikeXP 2.1.1 3. Wipe Desktop, reload with MikeXP 2.1.1 4. Finish masking the Millenium Falcon gunwells and airbrush black 5. Finish fixing the microphone on DireInfluence's Altec Lansing headphones 6. Order parts for compy I'm building for familyAll my parts are bad, nothing I have will work for them. I shall rebuild their current computer instead. 7. Gut the old Dell Machine I rescued yesterday 8. Take the truck to the grandparents and diagnose the speakers cutting-out, suspecting one of the RCA ports on the back of the deck is loose or dirty OR the cable is damaged. 9. Reorganize my CD collection....low priority Fun Projects 1. Maybe get some WoW in 2. Maybe get some CoD4 in 3. Mountain touring in Cheda's Lexus "Lola" because I've forgotten that we were to have breakfast with the inlaws. How the hell do I forget these things (Comment on this)
Friday, March 28th, 2008
7:05 am	Updated To-Do Due to two forgotten things, I have to modify the To-Do list I posted a few days ago: Projects for this weekend: 1. Added: Repair MikeXP 2.0, DONE, now version 2.1.1 2. Wipe Laptop, reload with MikeXP 2.1.1 3. Wipe Desktop, reload with MikeXP 2.1.1 4. Finish masking the Millenium Falcon gunwells and airbrush black 5. Finish fixing the microphone on DireInfluence's Altec Lansing headphones 6. Order parts for compy I'm building for family 7. Gut the old Dell Machine I rescued yesterday 8. Take the truck to the grandparents and diagnose the speakers cutting-out, suspecting one of the RCA ports on the back of the deck is loose or dirty OR the cable is damaged. 9. Reorganize my CD collection....low priority Fun Projects 1. Maybe get some WoW in 2. Maybe get some CoD4 in 3. Mountain touring in Cheda's Lexus "Lola" because I've forgotten that we were to have breakfast with the inlaws. How the hell do I forget these things (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
1:51 pm	11 Recovery Discs I forgot there was a time when compys used to come with this. Of course it makes me wonder why they don't just ship the damn OS discs with the machine. Granted this is an old comp I'm restoring, but dear GAWD, 11 discs for XP Home?! Slow day at work. Played two sloppy games of Chess, in which I tried some risky positioning and lost. Restoring a comp and have done a few remote things. Most of my tickets are dead in the water atm; read: the OTHER IT company still hasn't responded to emails. The Chief is in the Springs on another attempt to be a field tech again; read: Needs to call every 5 mins to figure out how to use the routers/dhcp scopes/wireless devices onsite. /me Rolls eyes Chess tonight. Rage will be going along as well this time. I'm pretty proud of the guy, he's quitting smoking and has been doing admirably as he starts to cut back on how many cigs he lights up a day. Need to read some. Projects for this weekend: 1. Wipe Laptop, reload with MikeXP 2.0 2. Wipe Desktop, reload with MikeXP 2.0 3. Finish masking the Millenium Falcon gunwells and airbrush black 4. Finish fixing the microphone on DireInfluence's Altec Lansing headphones 5. Order parts for compy I'm building for family 6. Gut the old Dell Machine I rescued yesterday 7. Reorganize my CD collection....low priority Fun Projects 1. Maybe get some WoW in 2. Maybe get some CoD4 in 3. Mountain touring in Cheda's Lexus "Lola" (Comment on this)
Monday, March 24th, 2008
12:11 pm	Shakeup Phyasin, at our office, quit. More politics with our little company. More crap. He may not have a bad idea. Gonna start job hunting. (Comment on this)
11:52 am	The God Delusion Eostre went by well enough. No religious persecution on the day of, although my dad wants to go on a "long-walk" with me; I'm assuming he wishes to discuss my recent claim to be an Atheist. It was brought up by my mother on the phone a week ago, but I don't think it had sunk in with dad until he saw The God Delusion on the seat of my car. I noticed he was visibly disturbed by the fact the book was there, although he didn't bring anything up during the day. diffrentcolours had recommended the book to me and I find it echoes much of my own beliefs in the matter. I've been reading it as often as possible, as it's rather heady material and I often have to stop to soak it in. I was having a conflict of morality on it when deciding to stand up for my atheism, to the point of not wanting to partake in the saying of Grace. Lili and I discussed for hours about where to draw the lines and when to pull punches. We both decided to not start a war at Eostre gathering, preferring to wait for them to bring up their "concerns" first. I'm a bit split. I want the conflict to concrete my stance with them. But I also don't have the energy to debate it any longer. I'm satisfied that I have my beliefs, I've come to this conclusion with speaking with believers and non-believers on BOTH sides of the fence. I'm comfortable with my decision, but I'm not comfortable with having to defend it repeatedly. It's not anyone else's job to justify my own thoughts. And my parents need to accept that fact. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
9:39 pm	Clean as a whistle, sound as a bell or smt like that. So my bloodwork was clean, I do not have any diseases wreaking havoc, nor is there a presence of acid threatening to eat away at the bulkhead of an intergalactic cargo hauler. No Diabetes = Peace of Mind (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 8th, 2008
9:10 am	Acantosis Nigricans and the Diabetes Scare SO, I've had this rash for years now. Doctors thought it was a fungus, although instead of going away with medication, it continued to spread. I finally went in to really get an answer cause I wasn't able to lay down, as it was so damn aggravating. I was pointed to a dermatologist, who after two skin samples from different locations, found out it was Acantosis Nigricans. Basically it's my genetic reaction to insulin in my body. It can be treated short term with a steroid foam, but to ensure that it stays gone, I have had to change my diet. I've stuck to the new diet for about 2-3 weeks now, which is definitely better for my body in general. I have been good to keep to only one soda a week, if at all. Ton's of water, and tea at restaurants. A lot more greens, a lot less processed foods, whole grain rice and crackers, lean chicken and fish meals. I don't mind the change tbh, as I've always grown up with good food. The hardest part is FINDING what things aren't loaded with sugars and other junk. I mean ketchup for christ's sake?! WTF does it have sugar in it? As an added precaution, the dermatologist recommended I get a blood sugar test. He says A.N. isn't indicative of Diabetes, but the two share common symptoms and causes. Through the help of having SEVERAL people telling me to go get the test and having no good excuses, I went and had the blood sugar test done this morning. The initial urinalysis showed no sugar, which is a good sign. My eyes weren't showing signs of diabetes changes. The final note will come on Wednesday after the two blood samples they took are analyzed. This is a great start, but it's certainly no reason to get off my change in diet. Plus, it will be nice to eat right and start exercising when I drag my bike out. After all, it's time to start training for the MS 150!!! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
6:55 am	WoW Review Abridged I was going to write a review about World of Warcraft, but the further I got, the more it felt like a user tut you'd find a forum somewhere. SO here's the abridged version, which veterans of MMO's can appreciate (if you've played one, you've played em all) I am looking at you J! Good Quests, Quests, Quests, tons to do there Classes, plenty of with tons of configuration options so you're not like everyone else's toon. Depth of story, especially those familiar with the previous Warcraft RTS titles...although the maps from Warcraft III's loading screens don't always match with the WoW ingame locales ;) High potential for roleplaying - zomg, an MMO that you can feel inclined to RP?! Say what?! Community - Lots of people who are friendly and helpful for finding quest givers or parts, item drops or recommendations on how to build your characters. The Tradeskills, called Professions, aren't bland and the drops for them aren't UNGODLY unattainable. Good Auction House system, with the exception of items for twink chars (think level bracketed battlegrounds where the highest level in the bracket will have the most sought after items given higher value) PVP - This is the first time I've actually enjoyed PVP. Raids, Battlegrounds, random encounters in the field. It's actually pretty fun. I'm not going to join a strict PVP server anytime soon, but it's definately fun to claim a town in the name of your faction :) Solo play and Party system - Both are very viable for players of any play style. Party management is awesome with controlling loot distribution, how rare drops are managed and how to keep track of party members (important for healers). Mods - An online game that doesn't frown on mods. Haven't seen that myself since Asheron's Call. Change your UI, your tradeskill windows, status of XP/Hour mods, Guild Management, etc etc etc. Cool stuff Bad Cartoony Graphics, personally I don't mind, it kinda fits the flavour of the series, although I do miss the FF style. As J said, everything looks like it belongs in "candy shop...or gay disco." /me rolls eyes Servers, hard to find a good one near you with low latency. Really bad luck if you have to wait in queues, which can happen on busy servers, fortunately they usually start offering free server transfers at that point. Community, due to the variables of age, can REALLY hamper an enjoyable atmosphere when children are being rude, vulgar or impolite, talking about feces, sex with women they've never had sex with, calling each other n00bs, and/or any reference to Chuck Norris jokes; further information, see Barrens Chat Undecided End game, can't say if this is good or bad yet, cause I'm not there. I've really taken my time leveling (as I always do) so I've not been in a rush. Currently the cap is at 70, but is soon to increase to 80 with the new expansion due out sometime in the near future. The one thing I hear is the gap between 60-70 has TONS to do, and even at 70, the quests are supposed to be innumerable. We have a few level 70's in our guild and they all claim there's tons to do in the Outlands region and that they're never out of things to do. But I dunno, many detractors bring up good points. Level 1-70 in a month or so? I suppose if you're a fast leveller, it does seem a bit quick. And an imposed cap? Well it's being raised. Early on, they never planned for it to go above 60. Dunno, suppose I'll have to see when I get there. (Comment on this)
6:47 am	Change of Heart Well, I can't lie, Zeitgeist the Movie really got me thinking. Ruined my sleeping the night I watched it. Couldn't concentrate at work. After some thinking as to how to deal with it, I started by sharing it with everyone I know. Even my parents seemed interested, despite the whole first part being about debunking Judeo-Christian beliefs. At least I feel I've spread the word. It feels somewhat Matrix-esque, when Neo reentered the Matrix for the first time and was truly starting to grasp that everything wasn't real around him. I can't help but walk to lunch or interact with clients at work without thinking of the grand scheme of things. So where do we go from here? So where do I go on from here? I'll continue to spread the word. I'll continue to oppose the unjust wars and fight the National ID that's coming out. Can't help but notice the ironies between what diffrentcolours is attacking in the UK NO2ID plan and the similarities of the exact same thing here. Lol, did you know that the Income Tax is unconstitutional? Dunno how to fight that yet :) That's it on that. My eyes are open. (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
9:38 pm	... zeitgeistmovie.com (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
1:28 pm	Mental Note In my entries, I need to use different adjectives than "well" when I describe things. Or proofread. (Comment on this)
6:43 am	Back in the Saddle So it's after the New Year. The last of my two sets of 4-day weekends are over. A little anxious and bummed to go back in. I've kept detailed notes via email as to what needs to be accomplished this week, so I'm not to worried. Will be a little crunched for time, but Rage will be back, so that will help. Recap. Several movies seen over Holiday: Sweeney Todd, Demon Barber of Fleet Street - A- -Well done, musical talents were well done, even for the actors/actresses who obviously don't sing for a living. The story harkens back to the simple morality tales of Dickens or Poe; a single lesson being told by few major players and having it executed well. The chemistry between the actors is great, especially between Todd and Mrs. Lovett. My only complaint is I'm not a huge fan of Tim Burton's dark and outlandish style; I think he's a brilliant cinematographer with great camera work and colours, but I think his dark humour can be just a bit too far out there. I Am Legend - A- -Again well done. Will Smith, in my opinion, proves he is one of the greatest actors of our generation. As in Pursuit of Happiness and Ali, he ability to realistically become the character and display a wide gamut of emotion is perfect. Considering much of Legend is a humanity tale, he runs with every feeling that you would expect given the circumstances of the story. My only disappointment was, as usual with this particular genre, is wondering: "ok, so what happens next?" Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - B+ - Given the fact that my last interaction with the stories was late summer, I found within the first few minutes, that I missed these characters. All things considered, the movies fall shorter and shorter of the mark as the begin to weed out events from the original books to fit it into movie length. Phoenix is no exception. With as juicy as the books get, starting with Goblet of Fire, it's a shame to have to see a lot of it go away. On par with the films, despite enjoying them all to this point, it's plagued with odd pauses and wonky lines during dialogue (no offense meant to the younger actors in the films) and secondary characters who are meant to have more time, get smashed into two-second hiccups of lines (see the "Neville Longbottom" character). Otherwise, still enjoyable, including the ( Spoiler Hidden ). The Bourne Ultimatum - A- -Finishes up the story well, wrapping up the final loose ends, in typical Gov't-agency-trying-to-cover-up-bad-stuff-by-blaming-rogue-operative-who-doesn't-like-taking-shit-from-people sort of way. Action, Action, Action, some intrigue injected into the plot, although delivered with the subtlety of leading a dog with a leash, but enjoyable none-the-less. Some mild parkour and ass-kicking scenes, but not to the degree of evoking memories of the lastest Bond romp. Tons of WoW time in. Now that I'm coming up on my one-month of playing it, I feel obligated to review it, for myself, Jernau, and anyone else brave enough to read it There we go of to work. Oh yeah, Happy New Year (Comment on this)
Monday, December 24th, 2007
6:41 am	And now I feel like a dick I'm not one to pawn my troubles off on others. I don't ever want to be that person that bitch, pisses and moans to someone else. Everyone has the right to rant or need an ear to cry to (assuming their trustee is a friendly and understanding sort and you return the favour), but the ones who wallow in misery and loathing for living can be so depressing. During the week, I felt some of this coming back to me, so I've toned it down a bit. I had one individual tell me to be thankful for where I am, along the premise of "I could be flipping burgers" or something to that effect. There's one thing I have never and will never lose sight of, and that's where I've been. I've washed dishes, I've swept floors, I've worked retail (17th layer of Hell for sure) and I've frozen my ass off doing labour in the snow and winds of Colorado. I won't ever forget that. I know I've earned where I'm at and I intend to stay here to my best ability. I know change is inevitable. I'm sure if it wasn't a beeper, it'd be Saturday and Sunday shifts, or having to resort to a sales position within the company or something. Whatever it takes or move on I suppose. But it wasn't having this pushed back in my face that made me feel bad. The boss's wife is losing a battle with her health. I don't have intimate details on what's happening suffice to say she's not going to make it. I don't know their relationship or spend time with them, but I do know that despite everything, they are good people and I hate to see good people in bad places. He called me up to check in on stuff, then suddenly barraged me with details of the hospital visit, expectations, looking for reprieves such as bringing her home for the holidays at least. The chief is a good guy and I do know he thinks the world of his soulmate, and it hurt to hear the guy break down on the phone. All the things of the previous week went away. I weakly offered a "let me know if I can help with anything," which feels hard to fullfill because I can't wave my hand and ease her discomforts. I mean, what could I do? I suppose if coming over to make a spaghetti dinner would help, I would, but I doubt he would call up for that. But really, what could I do. Of course after he hung up, I couldn't help but feel selfish for my prior thoughts. The business half of my brain was saying "keep work and private separate," but fortunately that thinking is easily overriden. Unlike some of the clients we work for, I'm still human and I still give a damn. I can excuse the Chief's short comings on such things, now knowing what he's being taking care of at home. Priorities have shifted, but still life happens. If the business goes under, oh well. It's better he's had time to spend with his wife still. So I suppose I cling to the fact that through my anger, I stopped analyzing things. In retrospect, he's been under loads of stress, some shared with us at the office, some definately withheld. Another lesson I suppose. Saying Merry Christmas or anything of that nature to him seems inappropriate, but I hope for his sake he gets happy moments to remember of his time together with her. (Comment on this)
6:39 am	A Series of Events With the upcoming end of the year, the usual gamut of things are happening. Things are being signed and purchased by our clients because of the end of year tax write offs and such. Everyone has accrued a week or two of vacation that requires usage before the year end. It's left me stranded at the office, I being the only one who uses it regularly throughout the year. Unfortunately, things have been rather hectic with these geratric servers deciding to let go of mailbox stores randomly and things such as tape backups forgetting their credentials for authentication. Rage has taken two weeks off, and although well earned and reluctantly taken (thanks to a little nudging on my part), things have decided to die after he left. That's resorted me to calling twice, of course early in the morning, and with one day where he came in for an hour to make sure everything was alright. This makes my guilt swell because I know damn well that if I were on vacation, my phone would be off and I would be anything short of reluctant to even answer my door. On top of the headache, last monday, the boss put a pager on my desk. It's the hastily implemented means to appease the individuals that stomped their feet the hardest. I don't know what I'm getting paid to be on call. He claims there is an incentive program in the works for those with pager duty, but that suggests two things: 1. "Incentive" implies either the ability to volunteer for privilige or the right to give a damn; neither being the case as this is obviously an obligation. 2. Obviously this plan isn't thought through as he doesn't even have the rules outlined on how the damn response time is supposed to work, how we get paid for it, and whether or not we should charge the client on a case per case basis. The whole thing reeks of cart before the donkey. Anyone who knows me understands that I love company, but when it's time to have private relaxation, I don't like to be pulled from it. I don't ever remember signing up for "on-call" duty and I don't appreciate it having, most literally, dropped in my lap. When handed the pager, he says, ignore any messages talking about "packet loss" as they are an erroneous error that's being worked on. The first night alone, I had six messages about this, going off between 7-9pm. Jesus fucking Christ, that pager is fucking annoying. Despite thinking better of it, I silenced the pager, understanding full well that if it were to go off again, I'd not hear it. But I'd be damned if I would wake up to it at midnight because of these damn messages... ....which leads me to the second night with it. It went off twice around 9pm for packet loss messages then was silent. Then at 12:04am, *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* several messages saying packet loss!. Rising from my bed in a sleep induced stupor, I fumble for the "Shut the fuck up button" and silence it again... ...to find out in the morning that shortly after the packet loss messages, it told me the primary server went down. Fuck. I rush into work early to try to remedy the situation and make the best of my arrogance and anger to find out, NOTHING WAS WRONG. No servers were shutdown, crashed, restarted, or ANYTHING. What the fuck is this pager talking about? So I call up the boss later in the day and explain in slightly doctored storytelling the events of the previous nights, looking for clarification. Boss: Business hours are only 8-4pm for the customers. You don't have to sleep with that next to your bed. Me: What the fuck is that supposed to mean?! It's an after hours pager!!! So what time do you want me to check this thing. Boss: Well we're working on an acceptable schedule, but don't live with it on your belt, cause... I think it's my turn to talk again Me: What about those messages you told me to ignore, they come in at multiples. Boss: I don't have an answer Argh fuck. I love the opportunities I have at this company, but sometimes I wish the work would be left to us who are more than capable to take care of things. Leave the schmoozing and client wrangling to the boss, leave operations to us. /rant (Comment on this)