Is this real life?

No shit, swear to God, this conversation just happened.

S:	“Hey Jeremy, will you be able to join the VPN call tomorrow night?”
J (ME):	“What’s the VPN call?”
S:	[goes in search of paper – reads verbatim]  “FWAM iVPN solution for CRC”
J:	“I don’t know what that is.”
S:	“[P] said you’d be able to join to be available for testing.”
J:	“I don’t mind joining, but as I don’t know what I’ll be testing, nor what’s changing, I don’t know that I’ll be able to help much.”
S:	“They just want someone available to make sure they can still connect to [app] and [app] after the VPN change.”
J:	“I don’t have access to the portal through which they would connect to those applications, so I really won’t be able to test that.”
S:	“I’m not sure.  Will you be able to join?”
J:	*likely audible sigh* “Sure.”
S (Email to Client):	Declined: FW: FWAM iVPN solution for CRC
	Hi [S2],
	Can you forward this to [J] at CRC? He will be able to be online.
	Thanks, [S]
J:	[thinking] You forwarded me and the organizer your declination of the meeting asking her to forward me the meeting.  You could have forwarded me the meeting.  Instead, you declined it, forwarded her BACK your declination COPYING me on it, ASKING HER to forward it to me.
S2 -> J:	[FW: FWAM iVPN solution for CRC]  (9pm Friday – 1am Saturday)
J:	9pm to 1am to test something that I can’t test and for which I don’t have any details to assist in any necessary troubleshooting.  Nice.
L:	CRC –
	We’ve forwarded the meeting to [J], but [C] was also invited.  Will both of you guys be joining?  Who is doing the Telenet/ping?  This ping is what was discussed on Monday’s call.
	Just want to be sure we have all bases covered.
	Please advise.
	Thanks,
	[L]
J:	PING. 9pm to 1am to PING.  *definitely audible sigh*

Zoloft

It wasn't entirely on purpose that I ran out of my prescription last Saturday (10 days ago). The main problem was just that I didn't care enough to bother refilling it. I had been on it for about 8 months at 100mg. That's not a huge dose, but it's not completely menial either. I'm also taking 150mg of Welbutrin so I wasn't too horrified by the thought of being without it.

I've heard some pretty scary withdrawal stories. Tremors, nightmares, horrible depression and anxiety, seizures even. Not short term either, these last for months. Damn, though, I feel fantastic.

I know for a fact that it helped me get over a particularly bad hump in my life that nothing else helped me with. I always thought I'd be the kind of person who didn't need to take medications at all, much less for something so stupid as being "down." That's all in my head. Mind over matter, there's no reason to take a pill to change the way that I feel. Turns out, I was pretty wrong. I read a pretty good description of depression the other day that really struck home for me.

I've Been Losing

It's so easy to find people who are broken but give into the emotion they're feeling, and let their struggles shape who they are, and it's so easy to find people who are optimistic and constantly try to do better but have never had to fight tooth and nail for what they want.

To find people who have fought, who have scraped along, who have known what it's like to be so close to giving in and giving up but regardless of all that believe that they can be who they want to be and do what they are passionate about is next to impossible.

It never goes away. The anxiety [and depression] is literally a constant battle every single second that I'm awake. I thought I'd gotten so damn good at winning but I was wrong, and lately I've been losing.

This enemy knows no logic, it knows no truth, and has no specific environment. When you're happy it taunts you, laughs at you, and asks how short lived it will be. It claws at you and pins you down and spits in your face and asks you how long you think you can keep improving before you fuck something up, and asks how long can the fragile little light we call optimism stand up to the onslaught of everything that fucking hurts, and bends, burns, and breaks. How long do you think the light will stay on once the walls that hold it up are torn down and darkness swallows it?

The answer is, not very long. That's why you have to open the door, walk beyond those walls, and face it head on. You hit it before it grabs you, and then you hit it some more. You stomp it's throat in because you know that it would do the same to you and the ones you love. You pin it to the ground, but you don't kill it because it can't die. That's the advantage that it has over you. You can win the fight over and over and over and over again, but it will always come back. You can beat it every single day of your life, and you will, just to show the people you love that you can. Just to show them that they're worth more than it is. That the pain, and the scars, and the darkness will never stand up to the love and the joy and the light that exists between you and them.

I guess it's one of those things that you never really understand until you've been through it. That pretty aptly describes the way I was feeling before getting help from a shrink and a pill. I have more respect now than I ever have before for folks who suffer through things like anxiety, addiction, and other issues that I may not understand. I've learned through this to not judge people as seriously, because you truly do not know what they've been through or what they're going through. We can't help what we think, the way we feel. We can't control our preferences or emotions. They're there. It is what it is, right? All we can control is how we handle these things and how we act and behave.

Anyway, over the last few months (without me noticing), that bastard of a pill has been taking hold of my mind. It's been squeezing out every last bit of care or concern that I have -- for my work, for my wife, for my friends and family, certainly for my own life, all my cares had been crushed, wiped out of existence. My relationship with my wife has been in a downward spiral. The quality and quantity of my work has been in a downward spiral (and hopefully hit an all-time low). My health for sure has been in a downward spiral. I couldn't have possibly cared any less. "Maybe if I get fired, it'll be motivation for me to do something different."

The look that my wife gave me for that one. We both knew that wasn't true. I knew that my life was in the toilet and that there was nothing that I could do to make it better, because [insert situation here] would never change. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, there was no reason to even bother trying. Don't get me wrong, the ability to stop caring was exactly what I needed 8 months ago.

Now, after quitting that pill? My motivation is back. I enjoy my job again. I've enjoyed spending time with my wife, and I think she's noticed. I've gotten more done in the past ~5 days at work than I have over the past probably 6 months. It's fantastic. I hadn't even realized that my senses had been dulled to the point that everything just seemed gray, hazy, covered in a film. Sights and sounds were being filtered by a pill that removed all the color, all the emotion, all the vibrancy. Nothing had meaning, nothing had any impact, nothing mattered. 

Now, everything has color and detail again. I can see the leaves on the trees, I can taste my food and feel the texture of my clothes. I actually hear people talking now rather than just hearing them droning on about who cares what problem you're having right now it's nothing compared to this. I want to be with my wife and spend time with people that I like, rather than just sitting on the sofa playing video games to try to make the time go by faster to get it all over with and drone out all the shittiness and drabness in the world. I enjoy listening to people talk and write about things they're passionate about, things they care about. I'm ready to really start living again.

The frequent and random (but thankfully very short) bouts of dizziness and the uncontrollable (but also short lived) depressive episodes are a bit weird, but they're a small price to pay to feel as though I'm back in control of my own mind -- of my own will.

I'm definitely not encouraging anyone to give up medications, as they definitely work. I just wanted to share my experience with how a particular SSRI was working on me in a way that I didn't really want it to, but didn't even realize that I didn't want it to. It snuck in like a parasite and made roots -- really dug in. Now that I've (at least started to) get rid of it, I can see the damage it had caused. And, for the first time in a long time, I look forward to repairing that damage.  Sure, there will be ups and downs, but every experience can be learned from, and I've learned a great deal from this one.

First Solo!

I've been taking pilot lessons for a few months now.  Being able to fly "only" once a week, it's not going super fast, but it's going.

My first CFI, Luke and I went up on Saturday and shot some crosswind touch-and-go's (11g16 kts pretty much straight across the runway). I felt that most of my landings were fair, and he didn't really have to help me on the controls. Once we landed, he told me that I should schedule another flight for the next day so that we could get me solo'd. Man, my nerves were playing havoc all night.  As I tell people, I'm very comfortable with the flying, but the landings are very stressful.  I don't feel that I'm very good at them.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy them.  They're challenging.  I just don't think I'm that good at them.

Anyway, the weather turned out perfectly the morning of the solo. It was around 75f with maybe a 5-7 kt wind coming straight down the runway. Luke was in the plane for the first three landings. He pulled the power on me on the third one. "Engine out.  Sorry I have to do this to you." That was my best landing of the three, go figure.  Establish best glide speed, easy turn toward the runway, flaps in as the landing becomes assured, easy touchdown.  It was near the beginning of the downwind, so I may have turned too soon -- ended up landing about half way down the 5,500 foot runway. 

Once we cleared the runway after that one, he had me taxi over to the terminal and he hopped out.Laura  had come along with me, so Luke grabbed the hand-held radio and he and Laura walked down to the taxi-way to bid me farewell, I guess. (It's an uncontrolled airport -- KFCI). With it being such a gorgeous day today, there were more planes in the pattern than I was used to, and several shooting the ILS approach as well.

I taxi'd down to the active (33) and took a few seconds to convince myself to take-off. "Once the plane's off the ground, you'll have to land it." The first take-off (as many people have reported) was unexpected -- the plane jumped off the runway nearly as soon as I began rotating and didn't hesitate a bit to climb. I found myself nearly 150 feet above pattern altitude before I realized that the plane just really wanted to climb, and cut power a little more than usual to reign it back in.

The first two landings were great -- probably two of the best I've ever done. On the third, there was an aircraft shooting a low ILS approach 5 miles out as I was taking off. By the time I was on the downwind (parallel the runway, heading in the opposite direction I was going to land), I couldn't see him, but announced that I'd extend downwind until he was out of the way. Once I finally saw him, he was pretty well past me on the approach, so I started my base turn at a bit too high, and a bit too fast -- the rest of the approach seemed to stay that way. I guess I didn't cut power enough to get myself down. I ended up doing a go-around on that one. I probably could have slipped down to a good approach, but having not had a lot of practice with that, decided to just try again.  I felt it was an excellent decision-making process, and certainly a decision made on the side of caution. The last approach was much better, and a perfect end to a perfect solo -- the touchdown was right on the centerline, nice and smooth, stall horn going off. What a great end to the day.

It's nice to see that .7 hours PIC in the logbook next to the 13.5 of dual. Man, I wish I could go flying again right now.

I certainly didn't think I was ready last night when he told me we were going to try for today, but I talked myself down a bit. The three good landings in calm-ish winds this morning were really a confidence booster. He kept re-assuring me, "I wouldn't send you up if I didn't think you were ready." Man, I'm glad he did. What a great feeling.

Life long dreams, etc

So, a couple of months ago (? -- it's good that I post so often), I was given a raise and some new responsibilities at work.  I'm getting maybe an extra $150 a week in my pocket over what I used to make.  Sounds awesome, right?  Well... it is.

I decided to put that money towards a life-long dream of mine.  I started taking flying lessons.  I'm going to get my PPL-ASEL.  With about 40+ hours of flight time, I'll be able to fly Aircraft, Single-Engine, Land.  All by myself. 

So far, I've only flown a grand total of 6.4 hours, so I've only scratched the surface of what's out there to see and do, but even just doing that is incredible.  There's really nothing like it, soaring thousands of feet above the ground in a plane the size of a (very) small car.  I so hope that I get to keep flying, as it's far and away my favorite thing that I've ever done.  If you ever have the opportunity to give it a try, I highly recommend it to anyone.

And, the anti-climactic response.

Dear Mr. Lawrence,

Your e-mail below was forwarded to me as Assistant Director of Public Works. Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your input.

The construction activities you have observed along Three Chopt Road are related to the ongoing Department of Public Utilities (DPU) waterline installation project. Representatives from DPU have informed me the contractor will begin final restoration of the disturbed road surface including the replacement of the concrete median at Three Chopt Road and Cox Road later this month pending weather. In the mean time, DPU representatives are monitoring the roadway.

The signal at Pump Road and West Broad Street is maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation. I will ask that they review the signal timings and make any adjustments they deem necessary.

In closing, should you have any further concerns or questions please do not hesitate to contact me at 867-5309 [number changed].

Sincerely,

Henrico County Department of Transportation

Henrico County Department of Transportation

To whom it may concern (likely no one):

I got an opportunity to drive down the new stretch of John Rolfe Parkway--between Church and Broad--this evening. It was a very smooth ride. You should work on that.

I realize that your laborers have spent the last 12 years working on the stretch of roadway that’s going to eventually (perhaps by the time I retire in 2040) become the full John Rolfe Parkway. I remember when you opened the first portion between Lauderdale and Ridgefield when I was first allowed to drive myself to Godwin High School in 1998. It had promise. It would be a fantastic way for me to get home easily while avoiding traffic after I dropped my friend off. He lived off of Lauderdale, and I was near Church and Pump.

This smooth, nearly flawless stretch of roadway (however minuscule it may be) is unacceptable in the Far West End. It just doesn’t fit. All of the roads around it have trenches and pot holes cut strategically into them so that our vehicles don’t have a chance to stop bouncing after barreling through one before slamming into the next. You’ve done well with Three Chopt, which was as newly paved as this stretch of John Rolfe not too long ago. You even managed to unevenly cut a ditch down the middle of Three Chopt in a manner that we’re forced to attempt to hold our vehicles steady with at least two tires bouncing back and forth between the edges for a stretch that seems like a mile. Heading from Gaskins to Pump in the afternoons, I begin to get the jitters as the road starts to level off, but am rewarded once again with the bone-shaking rumble as I near the apartment complex.

For a while there, during your constant roadway experimentation, you’d just thrown gravel into the ditches beside Three Chopt and made me drive there. I don’t know if you were just testing out a new strategy during that time or what, but I liked it. Not only did I have to navigate ditches, trenches and potholes, but I also had to watch for flying gravel, workers standing around looking at one another and eating donuts, and orange barrels rolling down the hills toward my car. It was like a gauntlet of potential vehicular destruction that really epitomized driving in the Far West End.

I will give you some credit, however. In the 12 year stretch that you spent paving this new section of John Rolfe (presumably pebble by tiny pebble), you have managed to wreak havoc, destroying several of the connecting roads. I used to take Pump all the time to get from Church to Broad. It was a straight shot from the many neighborhoods to all of the shops. Not only that, the traffic at the stoplight right there at Pump and Broad was always very fitting of the Far West End (Great Job on setting the timing of the green-light just long enough so that the first car THINKS they can make it through before the light turns! You’ve gotten me good a few times!). Now, I have to rumble across what used to be Pump before making a left turn onto the new (too smooth) section of John Rolfe in order to make another left onto Pump. You turned a single painless left turns into two lefts over what could only be described as a mine-field of potholes and jagged edges. Bravo.

In conclusion, please find time to do something about this stretch of even roadway before I get spoiled by not having my joints shaken every time I sit down in my car. I wouldn’t want to become accustomed to this, only to have it ripped away when someone there decides that it needs more holes and takes a jackhammer to it for gits and shiggles.

Thanks for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

A Concerned (Shaken, not Stirred) Citizen

Testes Tester

Just seeing if I can get the code formatting to work. Also, I hope no one finds my blog now by searching for Testes.

// comment
public class x-returner 
{
  public int x { get; set; }

  public int getX { int x = 1; return x; }
}

Testes Tester

Just seeing if I can get the code formatting to work. Also, I hope no one finds my blog now by searching for Testes.

// comment
public class x-returner 
{
public int x { get; set; }

public int getX { int x = 1; return x; }
}

Verizon and their glaring incompetence.

So, I got my bill from Verizon this month, and shock-of-all-shocks, it was wrong. They overcharged me for TV and Phone and didn't bother charging me for internet. Again. This isn't the first time, I'm sure it won't be the last.

First off, I pay them a LOT of money each month, as we are pretty loyal customers and have had our cell phones through Verizon Wireless for as long as I can remember.

As Laura recently lost her job, I started looking into ways that we could save a bit of money, and cutting back this bill was #1 priority, as it's our most expensive bill.

I started looking online and found a "Quad Play" package that seemed like a good deal at 134.99 for TV, Phone, Internet, and Wireless service. Granted, I'm sure I'll pay more than that for wireless service, as my wireless service alone is typically $170+. (700 minutes, two additional lines, two $30 data packages, and text messaging packages.. yeah, it's a ripoff.).

So, I start chatting up a nice rep named 'Rockie' that I imagine looks something like Rick Moranis from the original Ghostbusters movie. He assures me that the package is $95, plus my cell service charges, plus any equipment charges, plus taxes and fees. That's a lot of plusses.

Ok, so let's do the math.

My equipment (Set top boxes) comes to 14.98 a month, the "Taxes and fees" come to a ridiculous 15.50 a month (not including internet.. I don't know how much that is, they didn't charge me for it). So, 30.48 a month.

My Cell Bill this month was 173.82. Yes, I know, insane.. but I have $80 worth of data and text messaging plans alone over the 3 lines.

So, 95 + 173.82 + 30.48 = 299.30.

That's not too bad, under 300 bucks.. although tacking on whatever the taxes and fees are for internet will probably be a little over that.

My bill? 292.45. That doesn't include internet. I doubt I get 15/5 FIOS for a grand total of like 8 bucks a month. I really don't have too many complaints with verizon other than that their billing practices are batshit crazy. If they could just get it right and keep it right, I wouldn't complain. They have automated systems to do that stuff, how is it wrong so often?

Moral of the story is, pay attention to your bill, as they nearly never get it right. Then they expect me to pay for their incompetence. Yeah, I don't think so.

Eesh, I feel better.

The Gimp

PiBG
Originally uploaded by unafragger

This is the BG image that I created (mentioned last post) with the Gimp. As I said, I love the Gimp, and I think this came out quite well, but it just doesn't handle 3d as well as it could.