{"id":6701,"date":"2026-11-11T15:13:18","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T15:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/?p=6701"},"modified":"2026-11-11T15:13:18","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T15:13:18","slug":"11-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/2026\/11\/11\/11-4\/","title":{"rendered":"11"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Interesting find in the old archives. I guess I started my first job outside radio on Veterans&#8217; Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\">First Day - 11\/11\/2005<br>---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br><br><br>So, first day at the new job.......<br><br>Took me an hour and twenty minutes to get to work.  Ugh.  Rolled in the door, just enough time to drop my shit, and we were off to look at what is going to be the new office.  The one we're in now isn't going to be big enough for the contract the company won, and I'm going to have to share my office with a tech once they hire him\/her.  The potential new place looks okay; management\/corporate types upstairs, and me downstairs with my team of techs.  Yea, looks like I'm going to be a \"manager\" of sorts, managing more than just myself (which is difficult enough).<br><br>*barf*<br><br>Anyway, the reason I had to start today was that my boss is going to Europe for two weeks, and he wanted to get me up and running before he left.  So, we get back to the office, start going over what needs to be done while he's gone, and...the power goes out.  Yeah.  We rolled over to Best Buy to get a case for the new notebook he got.  Come back, and start going over things.<br><br>Essentially, we've been hired to a) find out why this particular system we're working on doesn't work, b) recommend changes to it so that it does actually work, and c) test every single system before they're installed.  The other guy in the office and I have to devise a system to do those things, then we hire people to actually do them as the contract progresses.<br><br>FUN.<br><br>Still, I suppose it has the potential to be better than the everyday drudgery of the radio station, where I didn't really get to do anything really neat.  Sure, there were a few things that ended up being interesting, but most of it was just implementing bland off-the-shelf stuff, and stomping out fires.<br><br>I got to show off some of my skills almost right away, transferring everything to this new notebook the boss got, and doing some networking stuff.<br><br>I have to go to Florida the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  In a Ryder truck.<br><br>FUN.<br><br>I'm hoping that once we get more people in I'll be relieved from some of the more suck-ass parts of the travel.  At least I don't have to go to Indiana next week, something that was discussed.  Instead, I go to Va. Beach for two days.  Woohoo.  The Florida trip, well, we go to the corporate office near Richmond on Wednesday, box shit up for this conference down there, put it in the truck, and then take the truck down to Chesapeake for the weekend.  Saturday, we head down to Florida, set up shit on Sunday, then hang out....working out of our hotel rooms for the week.  Friday night, we box shit back up, take it back to Richmond.<br><br>Blaaaah.<br><br>I'm also becoming quickly aware of how little of a life I have outside work.  Trying to find people to hang out with, other than just drinking beer at their houses, ain't easy these days.  People are telling me I need a girlfriend or something.  I dunno.  Might be nice.<br><br>I have Friday off.  WTF is that?  A holiday where I don't have to work?  I really can't remember the last time that happened.  A full three days with absolutely nothing to do.  I'm going to be bored out of my mind, with the exception of Friday night, where I'm having my unofficial going away party for radio station people (after I'm gone, but couldn't work it any other way).  Extreme intoxication is on the agenda for that.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m still wracked with internal debate about whether I should go further with an inquiry I sent as I was playing with AI tools.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can find a hell of a lot out about someone just by feeding their name into AI tools.  I think I might have searched my own name to find police reports where I was named <a href=\"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/2026\/08\/06\/16-8-6\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this entry<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don&#8217;t have a generic name;  I&#8217;m not &#8220;John Smith.&#8221;  But my appearances in media have really subsided since I exited radio in 2005.  Now searching my name yields a few others who share my name.  No, I&#8217;m not a college golf star.  Or a hockey player.<br>If you were looking for someone, me, specifically, you could probably figure out where that person is without too much work.  That wasn&#8217;t the case just a few years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The new boss from the old entry above I haven&#8217;t spoken to, really, since around my MS diagnosis in 2010.  There are many reasons for that, but seeing my name pop up in a police report I&#8217;d filed, kind of as a preemptive action, against the guy who&#8217;d owned that company.<br>Or he&#8217;d left a threatening message.  Or something.<br>I don&#8217;t remember, and that was kind of purposeful on my end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I really don&#8217;t know what happened to the former company owner.  Last rumors I&#8217;d heard, he was divorced from his second wife.  She was the one who&#8217;d travel to Sedona, Arizona, to speak to a medium for corporate business strategy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m not creative enough to have invented these details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, I&#8217;d heard they&#8217;d divorced, the new company financial guru had taken ownership of the company, and sold it a few years later.  The owner was supposedly living on his daughter&#8217;s couch in San Diego.  And doing what people do in <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/LKwW8PNZpOQ?si=dzOpR5qVylWESbMX\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Diego<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, back to the former immediate boss.  What happened to him after about 2010?  I&#8217;ve had an outstanding Facebook friend request for a while now.  <em>*clicks on profile*<\/em>  Yeah, no activity in a few years;  is he still alive?  How many of those folks have died?  I know a few from the radio days are gone, but have no idea about these two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;ll stew on it for a bit longer.  There&#8217;s also something else I want to discuss with my psychologist surrounding inaction due to fear.  I did eat the oysters while I was in Biloxi;  they were wonderful.  So why am I afraid to do the other thing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I&#8217;m getting really distracted.  My thoughts are with, and appreciation for, the veterans.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ANC site is swamped today;  I&#8217;ll come back to see my dad in \u00a754.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Interesting find in the old archives. I guess I started my first job outside radio on Veterans&#8217; Day. First Day &#8211; 11\/11\/2005&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;So, first day at the new job&#8230;&#8230;.Took me an hour and twenty minutes to get to work. Ugh. Rolled in the door, just enough time to drop my shit, and we were off to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-journal-writers-month","category-old-od"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6701"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7381,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6701\/revisions\/7381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}