Joe Morgan Says ... "Time for a life update!"

My brand new, GreatAmerican branded, Joe Morgan bobble-head doll sitting on my desk is telling me that its time to post a life update, so here goes:

Last Week:

• Very busy at work. We are finishing up our current sprint the first week in April, and a ton of stuff still needs to be done. I would contend that this is less because of the fact that our team as a whole had some unrealistic goals for the sprint, and that the requirements still not being fully finished has hurt us .... but thats just me.
• I ran into several small programming issue this past week which I will go into in a later post, but they hinged around finding an effective and simple to maintain "enum" construct in Java 1.4.2 which doesn't have it built in, trying to understand why abstract static variables and methods are possible, and figuring out a quick and easily understood explanation for "What is XML?"
• I coworker turned me on to Google Map's Call a business functionality which I had never noticed before. Essentially, when searching on google maps, if you find a business that has a phone number, you can click "call" on the little popup window, type in your phone number, and hit Go. In a few seconds, your phone rings, when you pick up, Google connects the other end to the business you were trying to call. For free! Includes long distance. Pretty slick if you ask me. After doing a bit of searching, there are other services out there that do the same thing, but its integration into google maps was pretty slick.
• Em's car got hit. Don't worry, she is OK. She was leaving to get her hair cut and the person waiting to turn out of Kroger before her started to go, realized they couldn't, put their var in reverse and proceeded to back right into her. Em was a bit frazzled but held up well considering this is her 3rd time having her car hit and none have been her fault. We had it checked out at a body shop and there was no damage beyond some mild scuffing of the paint so that is lucky.
• At work, for the past few weeks, some people I know have been playing this wonderfully addicting web game while waiting for server restarts, etc. On Friday, I finally broke down in played a few rounds. At this point, the other guys found that beating the game was easy, getting a decent rank by points on the rotating 5 hour leader board, was something else. Well, me not one to do something half heartedly, I had to look into this problem. Several server restarts and library rebuilds later, I finished with 70K points and rank 100! Yeah, I am a huge nerd, but at least I am good at it!
• Last week or weekend, I can't remember, I got a call from the apt. complex (finally!) who finally gave me a $$$ number they would be reimbursing me the trouble with the fan in our bathroom. As you may remember, it broke, we called, 2 months later it was finally fixed, and during the meantime I had filled out a card for the apt. complex parent company which said that all service requests are to be completed within 24 or 48 hours of them being notified or they would reimburse you equal to the portion of the month's rent it went over. Well, to me, two months of delay even minus a fair bit equals a month and a half rent owed to me. I knew I wasn't gonna get that, but the $100 bucks they did give me was a little lite given their clear cut policy (which made no mention of limits or timetables). The only explanation the overly bubbly and seemingly incompetent office person could give me was that those cards were old and that their current policy is to do $50 bucks normally, or a max of 100. Well, she was the one who explained the policy to me in the first place, so she is a liar liar with pants on fire, but whatever. I wasn't in the mood to argue, and $100 is still a nice dinner out with Em. Whatever.....
• Last week I had several meetings regarding questions people had with our buyout, career paths, benefits, etc. All in all, I have to say there are going to be some definite pluses to working for Sogeti, some minuses and several "we won't know until later" issues. But the pluses are looking good which is a good thing. The career opportunities seem better, assuming you get your 40 billable hours in and then work you but off. Granted thats pretty much how it should be, but Sogeti is pretty blunt about it.

This past weekend and this week:

• The first part of the weekend was a bummer since both Em and I came down with some sort of mild stomach bug which wasn't terrible, but made for an uneventful Saturday and made us miss out on our anticipated Saturday dinner out to Sebastian's. We are definitely going there then next dinner out night we have (next weekend is Easter so thats out). Mmmm gyros.
• Sunday there was no rain in site so Em and I spent some time at Sharron Woods getting in tune with nature and the very large, orange fish that we could see in the lake (think large, mostly muddy park lake + a random pair of Japanese koi -esque things. Not sure if they were rogue goldfish or what, but definitely surprising. We also so a dog that had to have been half bear. The thing was HUGE! Sunday evening I grilled hotdogs (and chicken for later in the week) and em made beans and coleslaw. That night we watched the Cards loose their season opener :( but it was nice to have baseball back. GO CARDS!
  
• Today was the season opener for the Reds. This meant a large parade and rally, everyone at GAIC being encouraged to wear jeans and Reds apparel (too bad consultants were copied on the memo), free hot dogs and snacks on the top floor conf. room and prizes. We went up for the free food and I ended up getting a Joe Morgan bobble-head doll (first 25 people) and won a nice GAIC umbrella. Not too shabby for free. Opening day also meant parking was at a premium (I normally park at the ball park, but for day games only season ticket people can park there). Luckily I got down here early enough to find alternative parking in the same area.
• The rest of this week is going to be busy with work, getting ready for going back to STL this weekend for Easter, and trying to find some Apt.s to look at on Saturday. Should be good though. And Tuesday we have a make-up darts match from last week (company meetings with the CEO evidently are more important than darts ... who would have guessed ;) ).