Danger! Offensive comments ahead!
work
New computer hardware
Nov 8th
Work bought me a new kvm and two new LCD panels this week. The kvm is so I can take one of my old panels and put it on there, that way I have two distinct kvm setups, one a dual panel two machine kvm and the other a single panel four machine kvm. The nice part about the new panels though, and the reason I wanted them, is that I get more screen real estate out of the deal. The two new panels are 24″ 1920×1200 displays. I was able to set the font size on my dual terminal virtual screen back up to 10 point from 7 point without loosing any rows/columns of information. Talk about much easier to read! 
The web browser and the email programs are frikkin’ HUGE now too. That helps keep that long list of mail folders in view without having to scroll though, so that’s another awesomeness about it. I talked work into this upgrade because they had told me I was authorized to get a new laptop. Well, last weekend I took my old laptop, disassembled it, found the short on the motherboard, resoldered the connector that was shorting out, and basically fixed my laptop. Then I told work that given how rarely I travel, my old, newly working again laptop is good enough and that I would get relatively little benefit from a new laptop, but the same money spent on two larger panels for the increased screen real estate and the second kvm would allow me to see productivity gains on a daily basis, making it money much better spent. When I added in that the upgrade would allow me to have a spare lcd panel, which would prevent the same thing from happening to me again that happened earlier this year (which is that both of my lcd panels went out in the same week…I contacted the normal places at work to check on a loaner panel while I shipped these units off since they were still under warranty and no one had any, so I went out and bought two panels with my own money, shipped off the two broken ones, and once the two broken ones finally came back from repair I just gave them away to relatives and kept the two I bought as replacements), that was enough to put things over the top and they approved the purchase. All I can say is I feel like I have an entire wall of computer screens in front of my eyes 
The display wall…
Been lazy with posting lately…a few updates.
May 24th
First, my arm is much better. I have full range of motion now in the shoulder joint itself. After the doctor told me I could move it as long as I kept to a 1 lb weight limit it had a few ways that it didn’t like to move. After a couple times of reaching for something and having it pop rather painfully, it was suddenly able to move through the full range of motion and the popping quit and totally went away. I’m happy
The only thing still wrong with my shoulder is that the pin keeps the collar bone from moving as freely as it should be able to move. Things like I can take my left hand and move it over my right shoulder and actually place it on my back. My right arm can’t do that. About the time my hand reaches my left shoulder, the pin in my collar bone starts putting pressure on the bone itself (which doesn’t feel all that good). So, shoulder joint itself moves fine, collar bone/shoulder blade junction it limited in movement by the pin. All in all, I’m happy with the recovery.
Work this week was less productive than I wanted. I had to deal with lots of email that kept interrupting my ability to get things done. On top of that, the laptop I’ve been using was OK for email and things like that, but it was too wimpy for real work. That meant I had to log into other machines to do real work, and they weren’t always available. So, today I’m trying to get some real development work done. In order to make that easier, I went to Circuit City Thursday and bought a new laptop. The one I have now isn’t one of those small, light laptops, it’s a beast! But, it kicks ass performance wise. It’s actually quite a bit more powerful than my desktop machine at work (which is a couple years old now). The laptop I got is a p4, 2.4gHz, 512MB DDR 2100 RAM, 40gb disk, dvd/cd-rw, ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 video (which Linux supports rather well, thank God) w/32MB video RAM, and the best part is the LCD panel on the laptop does a native resolution of 1400×1050 so I have *tons* of screen real estate 
Between Thursday night and last night I managed to get it installed and working the way I want so that I’m ready to actually get to work on this thing now. My one bitch about it? It’s got a full sized keyboard. Between that little Vaio I was using and the keyboard I was using on my computer prior to my accident, I’m *tired* of readjusting to different keyboard sizes and layouts. Typos suck…
One of the things I did with this laptop is to finally track down the software I need to make full use of the things I own…I can play my mp3s and dvds on this thing under linux even though rh9 doesn’t ship with software to do that. Sshhh, don’t tell anyone that I like to be able to listen to and watch the shit I’ve paid for. RIAA can kiss my ass, fair use doesn’t mean shit to them.
New toys rock…
May 15th
Since I had my arm surgery, I’ve had to use a laptop to do any work because lifting my arm up to use a mouse or raise it up to the level of a keyboard on a desk was a problem. For my own use, I pulled an old, abondoned unit out of my closet. God that thing was slow, 128mb ram and only a p3/333 is really painful running rh9. So, taking pity on me, my manager sent me a not currently being used laptop he had up in Westford that is a nice Vaio with a p3/600 and 256mb ram. It is *so* much faster by comparison that it makes me want to go buy a Vaio for myself
I am soooo tired…
May 3rd
I went in to work on Thursday. I left kinda early so I could beat the rush hour traffic home. While I was in the office I spent most of my time catching up with people I hadn’t seen for many weeks now. Getting some face time, you know how that goes.
When I got home, I got to work. I set down with my laptop and I opened up a new email. I spent the next 7 hours writing one very long winded email to the CEO of the company. What I had to say in my email may be right or wrong, but it made a difference. I have an appt. for 3:30 Tuesday afternoon to discuss the issues I raised with Matthew (CEO of Red Hat). After that I spent a couple hours winding down and then went to bed.
Friday, Jessica had a shoot at the house. So, I had to get up and get dressed before the photographer arrived. Once I had my first latte, I set my laptop in my lap and started to work (about 10:30am). There was already a response to my email from Matthew. I set in one spot and wrote a counter response for the next 3 or 4 hours. Then I had an email from HR about my participation in the BNW project. I spent the next 3 or 4 hours writing two more emails to the HR person. In the middle of all this I got a call from my manager that there is a last minute issue with one of our kernels. I took about a 30 minute break to settle that problem. I had one other issue come up that took about another 30 minutes of my time. I had planned on going in to the office Friday. I never made it. I didn’t actually get around to eating my breakfast until about 7pm that night.
I have never been so drained from just doing email in all my life. I’m still wiped out today. Wonder what I should put on my status report that goes to the entire engineering department to account for my time on those two days?
Self Review forms suck…
Apr 28th
OK, where I work we have to fill out these self review forms, then our managers fill the same forms in about us, then we compare.
I *HATE* that process. Here’s why. You are expected to rate yourself compared to the other workers in the company based upon a series of traits that my employer considers important. However, if you aren’t a manager (and you aren’t if you are doing this self eval), then you don’t directly see how well your fellow engineers do at this stuff, so how do you accurately rate yourself? The scale is relative, which means you need an idea of what “normal” is in order to determine if you are above or below average. If you aren’t a manager, then your idea of “normal” is going to be based upon most likely a very limited subset of what really constitutes normal and can actually be very off.
Hi ho, Hi ho, It’s off to work I go…
Apr 25th
Geeze….I am *SO* far behind on work. I’m basically a full 3 weeks behind on everything at work. Now I’ve got to start trying to catch things up. Then, on top of that, I’ve still got mounds of insurance paperwork and stuff like that to take care of so that all the hospitals and ambulance drivers and other people get paid for my health care. I think I need a vacation from being beat up…