...And back

After a short period of time where I thought I lost this blog, I'm back.

Thankfully I have a formula for usernames and I happened to rembmer it :)

Three Men...and NO baby.

Three Generations of Petersons
I think this is one of my favorite Pictures....all Three Generations of Peterson Men...looking Freakily alike.... 

A day of carp.

I've decided I cannot work here anymore.

Anyplace is better than here....

Back in action.

After a short outage...well ok, a kind of long outage.

I've decided to revive this failing blog!


Now....what to write about.

I have no idea.

At least for now.

Long Day

Ten hour days are rough..

But I'm used to it.


I hope...

Long day.

Working ten hours isn't bad.

I think..

3:00pm here I come...

I can't wait until I'm done today.

I need to fax my stuff over to CU Boulder....
I hope I get that job...


I guess we'll have to wait and see...

Breathe in....Breath out....

Got an email from my sup today. Apparently we were "ignoring emails" from our director....

Honestly, for about an hour, I forgot to follow-up. Then I did. It took awhile for the information to come in....

I didn't realize I needed to update with every little detail of the request...

Then again I guess it's part of CYA.....

I should apply CYA to my job...but I'm frustrated with it right now. I feel like I'm not using my skills at all, like I'm a piece of dirt, and I really feel like my bosses think they're better than me....

I don't like that....
I must remember, this job is only temporary...

at least I hope so...

I know I say it about three times a day but...

I need a new job...

I am seriously getting depressed about this...

Another day...

But the real question is...

When should I go to Ireland?

I get married on the 2nd of July...when is the quickest I can get over there?


I'll have to wait until I'm out of work to find that out...thank you SA....

Sad Sad Day

my site got hacked again...

Really kind of sucks. I left a port open I shouldn't have...and some script kiddie decided to attempt to break my stuff...

Luckily they didn't do any irreversable damage...I just shut down, copied all the data over to a different drive and began the process of recompling everything...better to be safe than sorry.


Kind of annoys me though...Someone decided to try to prove they're 1337.....


At least it keeps my install skills honed and helps me try to find new ways to secure my server.

Block-Rocking Beats

So I just moved this blog over to my site...let's see if it updates.


I'm in the middle of trying to get my powerbook to run linux...

Why?


Why not?!

That and I'm bored. With no Star Trek to watch...

I should mention that I have decided to watch ALL the Star Trek episodes I can...including TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY. I'll work on enterprise later...


waiting for more to show up.....

All the leaves are brown...

Another day, another random string of despressing calls.

I need to find a way NOT to hate this...

Unfortunately...it's all I have right now...

Grey Day

Today is a boring day.

It has finally hit me that I'm failing in my career. I just graduated college I know. But to be working on a helpdesk...not implementing a majority, if any at all, of my technical skills is depressing.

My Boss thinks people should work on a helpdesk for FIVE years before moving up...


Fuck that.

FIVE years on a desk...with a four year degree?

Not happening....

I need a new job...before it starts to take me down even more.

Am I that unprepared? Are my skills that undesirable?

Is the market that bad?

Been through the desert on a horse with no name...

Driving to work this morning was quite an adventure! I was surprised by snow, heavy snow, covering the roads and my truck. It was driving this morning that for the first time I thought about my car. My car was a contour, very heavy car (at least it seemed like). The Car always seemed to handle quite well, no real slipping to speak of. With the Truck, that's bound to happen. The back end is very light, while the front isn't. I fish-tailed a few times this morning on I-25. Just driving on I-25 is bad enough sometimes. Fish-tailing next to a big Semi? Now that's fun!

After working for about 4.5 hours this morning I get to go to orientation for my Perm position. I get to walk around the building and learn how to use email. This should be fun.

On an interesting note: I forgot to clock in and then left myself in not ready status (not able to take phone calls) for 30 minutes. Always fun. I can't believe I did that...


But it's to get out of the rain.

Without a book, I am lost.

Finished another book this morning. That means at lunch I will have nothing to read, save the few internet sites I read on a regular basis. That should take all of five minutes. I would check my email, but that would be blocked by our great SA's...but nevermind spyware. We'll let that run rampant, not blocking offending sites. Far be it from our SA's to actually implement a good idea.

Found another job I want to apply for. I have the right experience, and the right attitude. Sent my resume over. I expect a wait of only a few days before my glimmer of hope is shot out of the sky like a clay pigeon.

I shouldn't be as negative as I am. When you apply for about 50 jobs and only hear back from two (both negative I might add ), things get a little depressing. I begin to think that perhaps RIT didn't prepare me as well as I thought...or that I went for the wrong degree..

Then again, perhaps Denver is not really looking for Jr. Admins right now...all I know is I wish I was using my skills more effectively.

Time

I seem to have a lot of this lately. I have time to read my book in the morning. This really helps keep me focused and not completely lose my mind during the day. I find that my routine is pretty much set at work. If there's one thing I hate it is a boring routine. I try to find ways to make my work, how to put this, not entirely boring and void of thought. I don't ask as many questions as I did, I constantly check for more tickets to assign/close, and ways to improve the documentation. Unfortunately, there is not much I can do about these things.
Tickets seem to come in bunches, and I usually grab the first of them. I often get the ticket that requires about ten minutes of stepping the user through a set process that I've recited several times before. By the time I'm done, the tickets that were there have disappeared. I try not to grab the easy ones, completing a bunch of those would pat my stats, but I really don't care about that. I can have the worst/best stats and I won't find any satisfaction in that. I just want to do a good job. I want the person I help to understand what I did.
Actually, that's not true. I just want them to not think of me as a "Nasty Bitch" as someone called a co-worker of mine. Granted, she isn't exactly pleasant with people..but I don't know if NB is justifiable.

Then again, I don't know what she did/said.

Perm: First day

This is my first day as a permanent employee...

not surprisingly things haven't changed.

I'm still over qualified for this job, and it still pays the same...

Must remember to call phone company...need phone/internet....

Little known Fact

The phones are quiet from 4 until 5:30. There is only one other person where with me until 6. The other person sits across the office from me, with several cube walls between us.

The silence in the morning is nice. I recently discovered I can "get away" with Reading during the quiet times. I can't believe how nice the absense of ringing phones is. Those moments are my moments of Zen. I can read my book, read the latest news articles, or just relax. I don't have to worry about hearing "I'm going to be so pissed if..." or "What a f*cking moron this guy is!"

Unfortunately...my moment of Zen is gone...

Fun times...

Came into work this morning expecting another boring, uneventful day.

That's when I realised that my account expired and I couldn't sign on. That is just great. I can't get into half of what I need to get my job done, but that's alright. I've found ways around that.

I had my meeting with HR yesturday to discuss my becoming a permanent employee. During this meeting I became aware of the fact I'm not making what other people who started around me are making(Long story short: People were talking where they shouldn't have been). In fact, I'm making less. My offer did not increase what I was making with the temp agency either.

I understand that this is the way things work. You work for a company for 1-6 months, not sure if you'll get a permanent job. Then they offer you what you were making as a temp, and you excitedly sign away with anticipation of becoming full time. This doesn't mean I wasn't happy about being full time: I am happy that I don't have to worry about if I'll have a job next week.

Actually, my employment is at will, so in a way I still have to worry. But at least I have benefits.

Benefits that start in two months. Becoming a permanent employee will only fuel my desire to find a better job. My supervior and my manager...sorry...director seem to be fine with me stating I'm not being challenge. Here's an example:

Supervisor: "How's it going?"
Me: "To be honest, this job isn't that hard. It's not challenging at all."
Supervisor: "Thank you! I've been telling people that for months!"
Me: "So what should I do?"
Supervisor: "Just keep doing a great job!"

Also, my Mana...err..Director asked me how things were going. I told him the same thing. His response: "That's helpdesk for ya."

I realize that I'm fresh out of school and wet behind the ears. I know I need to learn a hell of a lot more before I can even think about being an Administrator somewhere. I really need to find a job that challenges me. A job where I can learn more skills and improve upon the ones I have. The only thing I'm improving here is my ability describe a network cable to someone who does not understand what I mean.

I can't end up here forever...can I?

I need to work on my linux admin skills...yet there are not any Unix/Linux boxes here where I'm allowed to sign onto. I can only sign onto my Windows box. I understand the need for windows, but I rather enjoy *nix environments. I love the powerful command line, the non-dependancy on a gui. I know I have a lot to learn on the *nix side of things as well...but I want to learn! I can only do so much with my two machines at home.

I think I'll buy a book on Perl...