This week has been about trying up loose ends preparing for the next chapter. Am I going to miss the routine of day-to-day doing something that could end in absolute disaster if I’m not there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still bouncing things around about what to do. Whether or not I can earn money on them is far less-important; seeing the arrangement I’m going to have is okay. I really can’t find a better word for it, unfortunately; I’m tired of trying to have other people think I’m just like anyone else physically. I’m not<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. My protestations to the contrary should probably be met with more than a little skepticism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What I need to learn to do is not try and find things into which I can throw myself to distract me from the mundane that used to consume so much of my time previously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Fake So, in addition to work stuff, I’ve been running numbers, and making some planes. Short-term Disability until the fall. Probably long-term after that. It’s going to be a pretty significant income cut, but the past few years, for me, have been about doing as much as I possibly can to spare huge tax bills. I’m absolutely certain that there’s someone not far from where I live who’d argue that I’m not paying “my fair share.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n Got it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can live somewhat-comfortably really about until my expected end-of-life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking of that, got news that one of my longest employers died<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When i was getting into the media, I’d heard so many things about how awful iit was to work for him. Maybe it was due to the odd hours I worked most of my time there, but I didn’t have very many experiences with him that you could say were negative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I did have an instance where I thought I was going to be fired. I was working overnights, doing live assist on things like Coast To Coast AM<\/em> while prepping for the morning shows. I also inherited a big share of the IT work because I knew how to use free-as-in-beer software (yes, most of it was free as-in-speech, but the in-beer part was biggest concern). After one of the first I’d helped prep for Y2K, helped in the cleanup after Melissa<\/a>, Badtrans<\/a>, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The promotions staff were trying to send an email announcement about some event to people who’d subscribed to the station mailing list(s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of this was tied to a single server on probably about a 40Kbps fractional T1. The message wasn’t huge, but sending thousands of them over a small pipe took a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’d gotten off the air at 0600 and gone home. The promotions person sent the email probably just before lunchtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I got the first call about the fact that it was taking forever about 1p. I came to, checked the queue, and things were moving, but it was taking a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of the pipe was also being used by other staff doing their normal day-to-day tasks. It’d take a while, but it would finish if the server hadn’t crashed so far. (Mind you, this was probably like a 166 MHz Pentium with about 24M of RAM.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n After that disruption, and I did have to work that night, I got another call probably about two hours later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sponsor still hasn’t gotten hist email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Log back in<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s still running. Sorry. It’ll go when it goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bob is getting really upset that it’s taking so long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Half asleep, I exclaimed something like “Fuck Bob! It’ll be done when it’s done.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was listening on the call to me. Maybe he urged the staff to call me. I don’t know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh shit, I’m gonna get fired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Probably 36h later, I got word that he was upset, but he understood. And that I needed to mind my manners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sir, yessir.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTwi<\/s>X account that’d needle some? Hm. Is there someone else who could do this better than I could? Certainly. Am I going to blow the idea off because I don’t have a co-conspirator interested? Almost certainly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n