Life News – Page 39 – ::: jeffphillips.org :::

One More Week

I am just about to wrap up my penultimate week at IBM. The moving process is going to be accelerated and probably quite a bit uncomfortable – especially for Laura as she has to do quite a few things by herself while I’m working in DC. The trick will be to get everything squeezed into the time alloted. It looks as if we will have to be moved out of Houston by the first week of July.

This is a bit faster than I expected… but I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

Ah, well: time to get back on the plane…

Going Over To The Dark Side

2012-01-08 23:29:15

Now I’ve gone and done it. Big changes are coming down the pipe. I’m not sure I’m prepared for so many changes all at once, but I’ll have to deal with it, I suppose. “What have you done?” you ask. I have tendered my resignation to Big Blue and will be departing the company soon. I will now go “over” and work for the “Evil Empire” of Microsoft (as my Mac friends usually put it). The biggest change, though, is that for this job, Laura and I will have to relocate to the Washington, DC area. It’s not a bad area, and I’ve been getting used to it on my current project.

This is one change that’s very two-sided. I will enjoy the ability to be outside in the summer without melting, but will miss the vast quantities of Tex Mex restaurants. I will enjoy the luxury of being home with Laura on a daily basis, but we will both miss our Texas-based families dearly. [I already miss my Wyoming-based family since I only get to see them once a year or so…]

Work-wise, I think this move is very necessary since at IBM, Microsoft specialists are limited in how far up the chain they can go. Not so at Microsoft, of course. Plus, in my almost 10 years at IBM, I have become so familiar with the system and the way of working that I have become somewhat complacent. This change will shake me up – make me uncomfortable. And that’s just where I need to be: challenged. I’ll be challenged in all kinds of ways. Now, I will not be at the top of the food chain, but somewhere in the middle and forced to strive harder for recognition. I will not be intimately familiar with all the rules, so I will have to learn more to make sure I know where my boundaries are. I need that kind of challenge. I need to get off my butt [and off the plane!] and stimulate my brain more. I can do that better at Microsoft.

So, IBM: “So long, and thanks for all the fish!” [Douglas Adams]

The Windy City

Sure is windy here… The lake-effect wind is blowing rather briskly through the streets here in Chicago. It’s almost like another winter, which is fine with me, but not quite so wonderful for Laura.

We’ve arrived here safely in Chicago at the beginning of our much-needed vacation. I’ll be showing her some of my favorite restaurants and we’ll go touring here together – something I really didn’t get to do before as I was here to work.

I know what you’re probably thinking: “Hasn’t this guy complained endlessly about the amount of travel he does? So what does he do on vacation but hop on yet another airplane?!?!” Yeah – I think I’m crazy, too. One reason I liked the job in the beginning is that I love travel – I have discovered that I want to do it on my terms. So: barely a day’s turnaround and I’m back out of Houston and off to Chicago. I’m hoping to take some really good pictures of the city with the new wide-angle lens Laura got me for our anniversary. I know I’ll be playing with my new toy…

Of course, the real difficulty I’ll have here is choosing which restaurants to go to and which of my old favorites I have to pass up…

Soon To Come: Vacation!

That much-needed time of relaxation approaches for the first week of May when Laura and I take a two-year anniversary trip to Chicago. That’s right: two years! Congratulation, Us! Two years and still in love! That’s a record so far – one I intend to break every year.

I haven’t really had a vacation in quite a while as the last vacation I had was interrupted with the death of my good friend Jason. So, this time we hope to relax both mentally and emotionally – but probably not physically. Chicago is a walkin’ town. We certainly won’t rent a car except maybe one or two days. So, we’ll be walking to dinner, walking to sight-see, walking to… well, anything. The walking should help us digest the local cuisine.

Yum! Chicago Pizza! And, yes, Robert: Goose Island beer.

Slow Month… Sort Of

I know you’ve been eagerly awaiting my next post, but I can tell you that not too much is going on. Or: maybe I’m just too busy; or even maybe all of my complaints are the same and you’ve already heard them before. Whatever the reason, I’ve not posted much this month. In fact, after last month’s record number of posts, I’m down to two for the first half of this month. I must have hit writer’s block.

What has been going on with me, you ask? Well, I have taken some good pictures of the cherry blossoms here in DC and did that again this morning in better light.

I’ve also been experimenting with network-wide anti-spam products so that I can keep my mailboxes clean. After working with Laura on a slide-show presentation eulogizing Jim Kiley [another friend of ours who passed away recently], we’ve decided that I need to re-install her machine fresh so that we can rid it of it’s legacy of Windows 98 and old software as well as the infestation of spy-ware that is on it. After cleaning and reinstalling that machine [as well as my own desktop which had a serious bout of “crash” this weekend], I will look into transferring my firewall to a Linux box and maybe adding some anti-spam filtration on that [since it’s free…] instead of the setup I have now. I haven’t quite decided what I want to do, but I know I want to do something to keep the garbage from coming into my network.

So: if anyone knows of some good free-ware or open source anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-spy-ware, firewall products out there, post a comment…

The Blossoms

They are comin’ out now. Those famous little cherry blossoms of Washington, DC. I drove by one of the groves tonight on my way into town and saw several trees all… well, blossomed. Most, however, are being lazy. I suspect that I’ll be able to get some good pictures mid-week or so. It was dark, so I couldn’t really tell what the state of “blossoming” really is, but a least a few trees did have a bit of a “glow”.

I must say that the weather has warmed nicely for just such an event as taking pictures of trees outside. It’s much more mild than it’s been in a long time here. I guess that’s what they call Spring. Living in Houston, we just kinda skip straight on to Summer, so I don’t really have too much experience with it. It’s rather nice.

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone is having a happy Easter today. Me, I’m having a good day – especially since I’m not leaving for DC until tomorrow. I get a full day more to spend at home with my wife. For such blessings as this I am truly thankful. I hope you, too, are spending some time with loved ones today.

A Photo-Memorial For Jason

I have created a special album which contains all of my digital pictures of Jason. There is even a slideshow feature which will let you view the pictures in random order. This Memorial will stay on this server for as long as I own this site. These are pictures of Jason doing some of his favorite things and this is how we will always remember him.

If you have any pictures you’d like added to this Memorial, please email them to me. This will be an ongoing project.

Unwired In New Jersey

2012-01-08 23:29:13

Since my meetings have been canceled today and I don’t have any scheduled for tomorrow, I have managed an early flight home. Right now, I’m sitting in the President’s Club in the Newark airport and taking a bit of a rest.

I didn’t HAVE to come to New Jersey, but the non-stop from DCA to IAH is rather pricey, so I thought I’d not only save the customer a bit of cash, but I’d also spend an afternoon earning a few extra miles. I’ll get over 700 extra miles out of this “jaunt”. I don’t really know if it’s worth it, but hey – I got a few hours to kill.

Wasn’t There Long…

Now, I’m back in DC. Stayed home one ENTIRE night! Well, at least I can focus on work better now. Too bad I’ll be lonely.

Now that I am back in the area, even though it was around 70 degrees yesterday, this morning it began blowing snow. It’s not that nice, dry snow either. It was rain which transformed into wet, slushy snow… and the wind is blowing HARD. So, there’s now ice on trees and buildings and tonight, there will be ice on the roads. Lovely weather in this place, eh?