Redwolf's Journal (continued)

 Minor amusements that caught me enough to note: Yesterday I pulled in at home and shut off my truck while the radio was playing a particular song, albeit a cover version. This morning I turned on my truck and what starts on the radio? The latter part of the same song. I think the original this time, but that's just a weird little coincidence. Then, a radio DJ came on at the site of a local event. He was interviewing someone about the event, but the other guy's microphone wasn't working, so it was a lot of, "Tell us more about X," followed by long stretches of silence.

 I got an itch lately after having a friend go through repeated car issues, thinking that my own vehicle is over fifteen years old. I haven't really had notable problems with it, and the mileage is low for that age, but it did make me consider if there is a major breakdown of some sort, whether it's worthwhile to repair becomes a question very quickly. So I started looking around online a bit and thinking of criteria. If I get a replacement vehicle, I would want something: 1) Newer 2) Lower mileage 3) Conducive to my height (so very similar or better driver headroom/legroom) 4) Able to carry a medium household appliance (washer, stove, etc.). My current sedan lacks this and, while not common, I have missed that at times. 5) Having 4WD/AWD. While I've only owned 2WD vehicles and generally been fine, a little more ability to get going in winter weather has a strong appeal. 6) With a similar overall footprint. I don't really want or need a larger truck/SUV. Looking all thi...

Thoughts and emotions are weird. Sometimes something happens that really sticks more than it should. I sort of get why people can fly off the handle, even if I really believe adults ought to be able to rein those reactions in some. This requires some setup... A couple weeks ago at work, I noticed an email from someone at Adobe. It mentioned being a third attempt at contact and, sure enough, I had brushed off the previous two as likely-spam. When I got to looking closer, however, it appeared legit. Valid email. Email headers that all checked out. I've certainly never been asked by Adobe previously to confirm software assurance, but the license agreement(s) allow for it. A Teams meeting followed to discuss the process and scanning tools were provided. Of course, I've scanned those for possible viruses, checked what I could see of them, and reviewed the output. They all seem to genuinely be fairly simple - scanning computers for file name keyword matches to Adobe program names and...

Whether money or the love of, I've had various thoughts bouncing around for a while... - Some have come up pretty recently. At work, a few of us have been scrambling for the last handful of months trying to set up a new advertising/accounting system. We are supposed to go fully live with it this coming week and the sales team is only just getting into it because... well, "we don't have time" translates to me as closer to "we have no initiative." I can't be too critical. I don't realistically expect people to sink their own time after hours into such things, but I still feel frustrated when others have to be pulled kicking and screaming into something I've already been pushed into. What this really means, though, is this last week we've found a lot of problems we didn't foresee when it was just a few people with admin rights working in the system. A lot of the new stuff amounts to procedures that need to change, but one thing that's co...

I started off the day busting my ass working on things that came up yesterday during a training session in our new system as incomplete or needing adjustment. I made pretty good time with it through the morning, really, and I'm proud of it. Then, while walking at lunch, I observed an odd feeling of somehow being on the verge of something. It was like some epiphany was just beyond reach, waiting to be grabbed. I was reminded of a period of my life when I was not so jaded and actually so in love that everything felt more vivid and alive. This wasn't that, but it was still unusual, remarkable, and positive. This afternoon, our CFO is filling me in on some personnel changes. This mostly revolved around people who are leaving, but one is coming in soon. She then offers the good news that I'm getting a raise as of next week. 15% doesn't radically change life, but it's not trivial either and when any raise at all has been virtually mythological in the company the last seve...

 Maaaan, I kinda hate politics, even at small levels. Yesterday was our yearly HOA meeting and a new couple that has just recently bought and moved in has changed the dynamics of things with some definite butting of heads. A few years ago one family sort of de facto "took over" the board by virtue of being motivated. In general, I don't disagree with them, so I'm not saying that's a bad thing. The complex is definitely in better shape in many ways than it has been and our finances are not constantly scraping the bottom of the barrel as they were for a decade after I moved in. So this is good. The down side I see is the president of the last few years can be a little... authoritarian. As I agree with her decisions most of the time, that isn't really a problem, but I do genuinely wish she had a lighter touch. The new couple moved in and immediately made a request to fence/cage off their back patio area for benefit of a cat they didn't want wandering potentia...

 When we got word that the long-talked-about remodel of our main floor was to start in two-and-a-half weeks, that started a bit of panic. That means relocating about 40 people, about 95% of which use internal network servers to do their jobs, for an estimated 6-8 months. Ugh. The downstairs should be safe to use, so the servers themselves can remain as they are and the people working there don't need to move. But there are only about five unused workspaces there. We have a few rooms of space there as well, but it's seriously under-wired for regular use and completely unfurnished. We do have some furniture around from closed external offices, so there's a little something to work with. We were also given some office space to use that's about three miles away, but currently lacks anything but power. So, yeah, several issues and not much time. Plus no solid vision/leadership. Trials of the Remote Office Ideal would be to be able to connect the remote office space to our cu...

Thanksgiving was... muted this year. That's natural with everything that's going on. While I've had a couple Thanksgivings/Christmases during which my parents were unreasonably far away (thus I was by myself), this is the first to be interrupted by other factors. If we hadn't had someone in the office here test positive, we probably still would have gotten together for a porch-based meal, but that one incident was enough to push things over the edge and call off gathering. Bit of a bummer, but so it goes. - I've been playing through Assassin's Creed Valhalla of late. It's satisfying, though I can totally understand complaints like combat being mediocre at best and the game being stretched out too much. Still, I'm enjoying most of it and I'm reasonably involved in the story being told. Though I must say, there are some times I really wish I could project into the game more and take some specific action or say something. I certainly could have headed ...

 Feh. Tired this morning. Must stay awake... - I started Assassin's Creed Valhalla over the weekend. It certainly has a different feel to me from the rest of the series. Several hours in I only have a handful of different weapon types with several still unseen and 2-3 armor options. I'm not sure what I think about that overall, but I do feel the game would benefit from some ability to at least loosely target weapons/armor that suit your build within consulting outside sources. Combat feels a bit "floatier" than Odyssey. And I've hit a couple bugs that very oddly had workarounds that involved changing graphics settings. How graphical FPS setting is connected to passing beyond a particular spot in a cave is beyond me. - In our Sunday D&D game, we came fairly close to a party wipe. In the previous session, when our stealth character was discovered we jumped out of his cloak-with-dimensional-resting-space and totally stomped what appeared to be a high-level assas...

 Too many thoughts, too disjointed and generally not very positive... State of the World I've never been much of an optimist, but damn the world feels bleak. Technology progresses - we've got these ubiquitous and amazing smart phones - but that feels like about it. The economy is increasingly divided between the few who have and the masses who have not. Society is turning in on itself, perhaps for lack of a clear outside threat and the ease of blaming "them" for problems rather than looking for a solution. This year's pandemic has been a boost to the very ills already assailing us. Perhaps "us" is only the USA, but it feels even more widespread than that (perception bias?). Personally, I'm fortunate on most of the points by not ending up at the bottom of the barrel. We've gotten off lightly here as far as infections. We're not locally plagued by wildfires or natural disasters. I've avoided the most divisive of political demonstrations or ...

Between watching an ongoing lawsuit connected to work and a rather large misunderstanding about an upcoming system upgrade, I have some thoughts... Read (and understand) the damn contract! With this upgrade issue, we've had something blindside us because someone did not read and understand what was signed. The contract has a vendor hosting part of the systems and our company hosting other parts when everyone I've talked to expected them to host it all. Big difference there in some cases. If a contract says you'll pay your part with a 1999 five dollar bill, that's what you do. Doing anything different weakens your argument if there's a dispute later, even if you gave the other party stuff worth ten times as much. On the other hand, if you act like a contract is valid for over a year, you may be on shaky ground arguing it was never valid to begin with. Maybe define how a contract can be cancelled and what happens if it is rather than leaving all that vague. If you wor...

 After twelve-ish hours of dog sitting over the weekend, I'm thoroughly reminded of reasons I don't have dogs. Or kids for that matter. Sure, dogs aren't allowed at my home, but I could have lived elsewhere if that was a priority.  There's the big overarching reason that I dislike being responsible for others. I am, in some ways, deeply selfish. Being hemmed in by things I "must" do is acceptable on a work basis as that provides money which is necessary for everything else, but beyond that... I'm pretty notably resistant. I mean, I am fully capable of coordinating with other people or taking care of pets. I just don't like it. I can enjoy situations in which I am in some way responsible for other beings, but it's in spite of that rather than because of it. Then there's the issue of communication. Watching over dogs, I find myself very much wanting to understand what they want. Not unlike babies, though, they have a fairly limited ability to com...

 Yeah, I perhaps got a little too <i>real</i> for my own tastes last night by delving into a short rant about the state of modern (USA, at least) society. I really do think a lot of people (especially older ones) don't grasp how far-fetched the "American Dream" has become. Being able to get a job that allows you to support a homemaking spouse, 1-2 kids, and a house with lovely white picket fense is exception more than the rule. Even as I was growing up, it felt like having both parents work became a requirement. And now my perception is that having more working young adults than bedrooms in a shared, rented apartment is approaching the <i>norm</i>. I've held what seems like it should be a <i>decent</i> job with one company for over two decades and (with some other elements of good fortune) I'm just able to fend for myself. In no way do I feel financially able to support a partner, child, or even really a pet. I often think of my...

I'm pretty damned tired of the same stuff over and over. Sure, my personal life is pretty darn same-y. News is a constant stream of "You won't believe what <politician> said..." After the last few years, not only would I believe it, I would have predicted it. Work sees me regularly wanting to smack my head or eyeroll at how people within the company seem unable to communicate, coordinate, or have any consistent direction. And we're personally hamstrung a lot of the time financially. Maybe I need a vacation ? That's not in the cards, though, for a variety of reasons...

Well, starting the morning off with a frustrating, looping software issue is one way to feel something other than ongoing malaise, right? A flickering ember of undirected anger instead... It's definitely not been a great week for me on the mental-emotional front. Though "alone" at work (ie. the other IT person has been out), things haven't been much busier than usual. Of late, the "usual" has been more boring than anything. I know enough to acknowledge that's not overall a bad thing, especially in any job that involves supporting others. It takes a different sort of psychological toll than being busy, however, rather than none at all. I've been thinking a lot about the not-MUCK of Faire lately and I seem to have reached the conclusion that playing "there" isn't really for me. That is sad and frustrating and a bunch of other muddled emotions that I seem to be moving toward acceptance of. I'm just not there yet. I've said pr...

This  has been making the rounds lately in the roleplay circles I view. And... mrrf... I dunno... My gut reaction was: "Well, okay. I mean, this seems a bit like caving to sociopolitical pressures of the times to make changes that aren't really necessary, but whatever?" When I see orcs defined as evil, I think of origins founded in Tolkien's tales in which they are... pretty fundamentally evil? Particularly in a fantasy world in which evil is a real thing (which I've discussed before), species that embody or are corrupted by evil forces don't seem out of place or problematic to me. That isn't my preference. Heck, when I first really dove in to create a fantasy world of my own, one of my guiding tenets was "shades of gray" - no nation or faction or race would be inherently good or evil, just motivated by interests. Defining any group as monolithic in personality isn't very realistic. But then, fantasy is often about exploring things th...

It's definitely odd to see so many retail and office spaces closed downtown. Wrrf. Even businesses that are open are going to be suffering from all this. About the only places I can think of that aren't going to take a major downturn in revenue may be shipping and grocery stores - and that assumes they aren't directly  hit by infection issues. Steven Universe came to a full end this last week. Appropriately enough for a series that dealt heavily with relationships, identity, and helping people work through their problems, the final arc leaned heavily into Steven himself needing to find his way. It felt a little too simple for me, though. I feel like it may be unfair of me to say, considering this is a series in which many things span beyond the 15 (10?)-minute episode run time. Many issues have been resolved quicker than they probably "should" have been. I'm not sure if maybe it's just because it feels close to home, but shining a light on Steven's ...

These are weird times. I've seen duck-and-cover earthquake/nuke drills. I've seen natural disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, and the like shut down areas. SARS, MERS, and the swine/bird-flus created fairly wide waves in the media, but that's about it. The COVID-19 pandemic is the first time I've seen something shutting things down in quite this fashion. Perhaps 9/11 was similar in some ways - it paused/revamped air travel and had emotional shockwaves, but I don't recall the same scale of shutting things down. Really weird. If it helps control the spread, then good, but still really weird. And the run on toilet paper, sanitizer, and face masks is... rather revealing of how there are people who are just dicks - hoarding and reselling at markups and such. All this reducing of hours and shutting down of placing is going to be particularly rough on hourly workers. If you don't get paid for not working, well, then not working isn't a good thing.

It's all we've got, but man it's sometimes just horribly inadequate. Perhaps I should make an attempt to engage more in direct verbal exchanges over text-based ones, though it's often impractical in this day and age. Also, that's likely to only help in some cases. One day this week I got bent out of shape by an email exchange with another HOA board member. I made a suggestion for an alternate budget to consider and got what came across as a very hostile response regarding my "nerve." I really shouldn't have checked that email just before going to bed, as it made it difficult to sleep while I mulled over what I had said and how it could have provoked such a response. That has cooled down some, but it still doesn't make me eager to interact with her in any fashion if she gets that defensive, reading things I never said into a message. Maybe she's stressed - entirely possible - but I really dislike the projected feeling that she sees anyone not ...

Things were reasonably normal when I got home last night after doing a little favor/errand. I peeked in at Discord to see what the latest RP-stuffs was and saw 223 messages missed just in the general conversation channel. Okay, time to skim... talking about making new martial arts... bear traps as weapons... Yeah, I could sense that little jealous flare of "I'm conforming to presented rules while others are expanding/bending them." Ugh. So, I told myself flat out, "Look, you're not going to let this get to you tonight. It's too easy. You'll get bothered. You'll feel left out. That'll make you depressed about it. Just don't tonight, okay?" And with that, I pushed back, listened to a Youtube video, and went to make dinner. As dinner was ready, my phone buzzed with a message from my supervisor/co-tech. The accounting server had been restarted for Windows updates and was now in a recovery loop asking for a password that didn't match o...