Pain in the Head

I’m usually not overly sensitive to scents/sprays.  However, I have found automated air fresheners in bathrooms contains some of the most potent, eye-burning scents known to man.  A particular bathroom at the school I go to has four of these babies in the room all firing every 15 minutes or so.  Walking in that bathroom is like walking into a French whore house.  Horrible.

Today I was in the restroom at work washing my hands and I looked up.  What did I see?  One of those evil machines staring at me with its single eye of death spray.  I thought to myself, you need to leave now before it sprays.  As I was drying my hands with my back to machine, it lets out the puff of air.

Awe shit.

Not more than two seconds later I felt the mist hit my neck and then into my sinuses.  You’d think the floral scent would be relaxing, but it’s not.  I’m very lucky I didn’t get a migraine out of this experience.  But now I know, the machines can read your thoughts and are as devious as those squirrels that run out in front of cars to make you swerve to miss them.

Eek, four weeks since I’ve posted something.  Unfortunately, the blog has been taking the back seat to life lately…

The client I’m at didn’t renew our contract through the end of the month, so I’m heading back in the office after April 24th.  I may already have another client booked but that hasn’t been finalized yet.  To be a consultant on the bench isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I’m not bringing in money and it isn’t cheap to sit around doing nothing.  I’m not too worried as I’m continually adding to my skills to be more of a selling point to potential clients.  Enough about work.

School has been crazy, as usual.  I’m looking forward to finishing at the end of this month because Tazz and I are heading to New Mexico for five days and then to San Antonio for four days.  We’re going to see Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico along with the VLA (Very Large Array) near Socorro which was featured in the film Contact.  San Antonio will be four days of unplanned activities, mostly sitting around relaxing with my Aunt and Grandfather.  Tazz has never been to SA so he’s looking forward to it!

The household work has been a blast this spring, already.  Finally got the garage door replaced and entry door removed.  The chimney was falling apart and just dropped $2200 on a new liner and repair.  Next up, our driveway is getting ripped out and replaced because of water issues we were having in the basement.  It’s the year of repairs and I’m doing my part to stimulate the local economy.  (read: sarcasm)

Starting this fall, maybe even this summer, I will be starting initial work on my iPhone application for a migraine diary.  If you have interest in being part of my focus group and potentially a beta tester, let me know via a comment or send me an e-mail through my blog.

At work and at home, I frequently get distracted by noises.  At work, it’s the cackling hens I’ve talked about and at home it would be the TV from another room for example.  I dropped $100 on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones from audio-technica and I’m in love with them.  They reduce probably half of the ambient noise around you and add a little music on top of that and you can hardly hear those distractions.  When I need to really concentrate, these guys have been my saving grace.  I’ve considered using them when I get a bad migraine too since you don’t have to be connected to a music source – you can just wear them.

If you don’t already know, I’m a software engineer consultant.  I typically am placed at a clients’ office for three or more months at a time and typically feel like a regular employee.  Being a consultant, I must accept the environment and working conditions as they are given unless of course, they are hazardous to my well-being.  I’m beginning to wonder about the hazard level at my current client.

My client built out some pretty nice offices in a foundry that went out of business many years back.  The building has some strange space configurations given this history and not every desk has the best view or alignment with bathroom facilities, break rooms, etc.  My desk happens to be located right on a main walkway between two of the buildings this office covers.  A fairly wide hallway/breezeway is about 20 feet from my desk and has a number of break room tables located in that walkway.  During lunch, there is a group of ladies who get together and have a jolly old time.

They cackle like hens and it’s maddening.

I’m all for a stress-relieving lunch, but do they realize they’re smack in the middle of a business?  The tall ceilings lend themselves to horrendous echoes and when all five of them get wound up in their air-raid siren guffaw, I nearly lose it.  Being a consultant, I have to maintain a level of acceptance of the client, even if I don’t work with them.  However, I think I will print a small sign up saying “Please be mindful – voices carry!” or something neutral of the sort.  They have plastic sign holders for announcements and it would look professional enough.  But a part of me wants to throw my desk chair at them.  It doesn’t help when I have a migraine and music hurts my ears.  I should record them sometime so you can get the full effect.

Seems like I’m on a three week schedule for updating my blog.  The blog has taken somewhat of a back seat since other things have been taking my attention.

Camping this past weekend at KOA in Wisconsin Dells was great.  The cabin was cozy, the people very friendly, and the weather beyond awesome.  It put a nice end to the summer season!  This is actually my favorite time of the year, with the trees turning colors and the air a bit chilly at night.  The trees just started to turn in our area and soon we’ll be left with the grey skeletons of branches.  Of course, not soon after those grey skeletons turn white in winter with all of the snow.  That’s fun too!

School has turned out to be manageable this semester.  My Monday night class is a lot of work and the four person team only has myself and one other person doing any work.  It sucks how inexperienced the other two guys are and I wouldn’t complain if this were an undergrad degree.  Master’s degree implies a level of knowledge on the applied level.  I shouldn’t have to teach people concepts that I learned during my Associate’s Degree schooling.

The new client at work has been good so far.  I am busy all day long and have very little time to goof off.  I’m learning a lot as well and finally applying my schooling to my job.  My previous jobs and clients were technical in nature but in reality all revolving around non-software engineering positions.  I’m finally designing applications and also implementing those designs.  Fun, yes, but exhausting.

My Grandather is coming up from Texas this coming weekend to visit mainly my parents, but also my brother and I.  He’s in the dark about me being gas, but he’s a smart guy and probably knows.  He knows Tazz is a friend at least and he’ll be with me when we go up this weekend.  I think it’s good that Tazz get to know my Grandfather a little bit since it explains a lot about my father. 

I’m hosting a carnival next month – topic is art inspired by migraines.  I’ll post more on it later.

The past month, well really three weeks, has been a shit storm of activity.  School, of course, has created more havoc than I expected this semester.  Work has thrown me for a loop as well.  Tazz and I have also been doing a bit of local traveling & exploration too.  Funny how you have to “fit in” vacation time.  Meh.

I have two classes this semester.  My Monday night class is called “Software Engineering” and it seemed like a fun class when I got the book.  Remember here, I am a geek at heart and stuff like physics and engineering are right up my alley.  Within 20 minutes of night #1, I was already crapping my pants.  Every computer class that I’ve had up to this point with a group project includes a fake company and project to work on.  This class has a real project that we MUST complete by the end of the semester.  Why am I in software engineering if I hate working with other people?  Not quite sure, really.  The application we’re building is going to help the disability services group on campus to manage requests for accommodations due to a disability.  It’s going to a good cause but already, I can see they don’t even know what they need for an application.  Thankfully my Thursday night class is somewhat of a repeat of an undergraduate class I took.

Work took kind of a weird turn at the end of last month.  The current client I’m at (remember I’m a computer consultant/bitch for hire) had me contracted through December 31st.  They are a relatively small hedge fund and recently had to “reorganize” their staff which ultimately led to me being dropped at the end of September.  My employer found me a new client to interview with and they accepted me to start 10/1.  I do feel lucky that I don’t have to sit on the bench waiting for a new client – some of my coworkers don’t have an engagement to follow up with.  The only thing that scares me is that this will be my first real development job.  Up until now, I usually work on reporting with some programming mixed in.  This is going to be a real project with deliverables.  Frightening.  It’s good that I’m finally getting what I want to get into but I can be a baby about it, right?  (Remember, I said back in October 2005, I like to bitch about everything!)

As for vacation, Tazz and I have had our share of adventures this year.  A cruise to the Bahamas in January, camping twice, road trip to Niagara Falls & Toronto and a casino trip last weekend.  All in all, we had fun.  I’m going to San Antonio again this coming Thursday and will be back in town Monday night, late.  I like visiting my family and have been fortunate enough to be able to do it every six months for the past two years.  Our last trip of the year was supposed to be tent camping October 10th.  We decided, because of being rained out last week, to switch it up and rent a cabin so we can’t be rained out.  It’s going to be at a KOA campground, which is to say the least the most commercial campground ever.  We’re going to have WiFi – that’s NOT camping.  But, alas, we’ll be able to have a fire and still do things in the area.

So that’s kind of the catch-up.  I need to get back to the homework so I can relieve the anxiety I have about not having a good grasp around my classes.  Toodles!