Category: Uncategorized

It’s been a million years since I’ve made a post.  Bad Roxie, bad.
I’ve been rather busy at work.  Lots of development work to do, and, well, I’m rather motivated.  I’m still in the honeymoon period in my job and I’m finding I really want to dive into it.   When I get home, I’m spending my time learning more about Second Life.  Techniques in building (creating structures, items, etc. in-world), scripting (making those objects do interesting things), 3d sculpting and texture building and so on.  Gotta learn what the product is.  I should probably do that during my normal day, but that’s turning out to be rather busy.
All of that, and, well, I just don’t have the zoom to come up with anything interesting to say.  Worse, I’ve only taking time to work on my fiction project a few times in the past few months. I blame that on my random schedule, both due to the holidays and due to travel.
Ah, the holidays.  Well, any holiday plans we had were completely derailed due to the weather.  Specifically, the historic snow.  I can’t remember so much snow.  Down in Seattle, we had a foot or more.  Only once do I remember anything like it, when I was a child in Issaquah, and my memory of that snow may be exaggerated, as I was only about 3 feet tall at the time.
I flew back from our San Francisco offices on the 19th of December, a day or so after the first big snowstorm.  I was seriously concerned about getting home from the airport.  Commercial jets can deal with the snow and ice we were blessed with, as long as the runway has been cleared (heck, they can deal with a Chicago winter), but the Seattle roads were sheets of ice.  Fortunately, a number of brave taxi drivers braved the winter weather.  I’m sure tips were high. The next day, on my birthday, it totally dumped on us.  I postponed my birthday plans as, well, I didn’t want anyone to try to drive to the restaurant, and there was a fair chance it would close anyway.
Anyway, Xmas was mostly uneventful with all of Seattle buried under a foot of snow.  
more to follow….

Well, lately I have what Stacy calls Zoom. Energy and motivation to do stuff. Since I’ve been home this week, I’ve been able to:

• Finish cleaning out the hot tub
• Get the hot tub to power up
• Fix an issue with the hot tub heating (the circulation pump was clogged)
• Start cleaning/organizing stuff in the basement
• Cook borscht
• Start cooking for thanksgiving.

All of this while I’m putting in productive days at my job.  What’s different?  Well, lemme guess. I’ve noticed I’ve had ‘zoom’ in the past periodically.  Always when I don’t have job stress of the social or political nature.  Job stress entailing challenging problems, well, that energizes, but social and political job stress really saps my soul.
The only place where my zoom is lacking?  I’ve spend barely any time writing in the last month.

So I’ve not been posting very often, as my new job has been quite busy. I’m pretty tired when I get back to the hotel, and all I can think about is getting dinner. I’m usually one of the last to leave work around 7:30, although I get in at 10, so that’s not so bad. I’ve even worked from the hotel room.
Why am I working so much? Well, of course in the first weeks you need to prove yourself. And the product is very complicated and there’s lots to learn. But most important, I’m having fun. I’ve even spent a few hours simply building in-world. I’ve rented some space for a month so I can do my building, and I’ll move everything to Linden Villiage once I’ve received my land allocation. The ops guys are way busy, so they take some time to get around to that stuff.

Cool thing is, I get a complimentary non-linden account, which I can use for normal SL stuff such as sales, so maybe I can build some cool things and make some extra scratch…

Anyway, the technology is really growing on me. It’s pretty hard-core stuff and appeals to my technical side.

On my more literary side, well, I’ve been way remiss on doing my writing. I’m just too tired to focus on it when I get back to the hotel, or the hotel and living out of a suitcase unmotivates me. It’s probably that there are no late-night coffee shops for my writing within a few blocks. I’m stuck in the financial district, a block from that big, pointy transamerica building.

North Beach is 6 or so blocks from work. The Vesuvio Cafe and the City Lights Bookstore, two of the classic Beat hangouts, are just down broadway. These classic locations were the haunts of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and other beat poets and writers. Perhaps I’ll get around to draging my laptop over there for some writing. Maybe the spirit of those authors will inspire me.

Anyway, ’nuff from San Fran, I’m off to Seattle tonight for 9 days, over the thanksgiving holiday.

So, I’m past my first week at my new job.
It’s been an exhausting, incredible week. I’m working the weeks in San Francisco, and last Sunday I flew down. They’ve put me up in a ‘Business Dorm.’ That’s the best way to describe it. It’s not primitive by any means, but it has very limited amenities. No bath, only a shower. Very small bathroom. Small television. It does have a decent sized desk, however, and a huge bed. Very functional, but that’s all.
It is only about 5 blocks from work, and it’s just over one block from the Transamerica building, that big pointy one that’s one of San Francisco’s landmarks. An easy walk to work, with plenty of Starbucks on the way, not that I like Charbu…er…Starbucks.
Work will reimburse me for my expenses, including food. Honestly, though, if I did use up my entire food budget, I’d be three hundred pounds by the time I left SF. The food is great.

Work was amazing. I met far too many people, and there’s no way I’ll remember all of the names until I’ve been there awhile. Everyone is really friendly. I’ve never had a welcome like that when I start a job. You can feel it, everyone just loves their job there. One person stated that the ‘honeymoon’ period was over a year and a half long for them. They’d been there for just over a year and a half.

I hit the ground running. They really expect you to spend the first week just getting your feet wet, taking care of HR stuff, learning the project, meeting people. I’ve done as much of that as I was able in the first week, given a lot of stuff was scheduled for the second week, but I actually starting scripting and building in-world, which is somewhat advanced. I checked out a machine, and started building my groups software. All kinds of stuff like that. I even checked in my first bugfix.

Next week, I hope to make some good contributions to the specific components that are high priority.

They also know how to have fun. Wednesday, some coworkers took me out for beer and clubbing. Thursday was martini day. Friday was company lunch day and Nintendo rock band stuff.

As far as other stuff, well, I didn’t get much of a chance to see SF. Didn’t get much of a chance to write, either. No time, and by the time I got back to the hotel, I was out of zoom. I’m going to try to catch up today.

Anyway, I look forward to going back on Sunday, and it’s gonna be hard not to do work over the weeklend.

Ok, it’s been over a week since my last post. I’ve no excuse, I’ve been between jobs, relaxing at home. Oh well.
Last night I went to Catherine and Jeffry’s wedding. Very nice and very unique. I was a gothic affair. The crowd was a sea of black, with a touch of red and purple thrown in for variety. Leather corsets, vinyl ball gowns and velvet were de rigeur. The groom wore a very classy antique british military uniform. Cavalry I believe. Red, with a black hat and sword to boot.
The bride wore a custom hoop skirt affair, all black and beautiful, with a wonderful large fluffy hat.

The event was decorated in dia de los muertos fashion, with sugar skulls and an alter to Mary. It definitely reflected Catherine. Lots of fun people watching, and good friends.

As far as Hallowe’en, I attended the Merc in my warrior princess outfit. I had to sacrifice 2 leather jackets and hours of sewing to make it, but I’m rather happy with the result. A nice, well worn look and the right amount of skin. I received many complements. Unfortunately, pookie was unable to attend, as she’d attempted to keep up with some russians and their vodka at a housewarming.

Today, I leave for San Francisco, for my new job. I’ll be there during the weeks, and home on the weekends for the next few months, although fortunately I’ll be home for the holiday weeks. I’m rather looking forward to it, as I’ll be building worlds.

I’ll have plenty of time after work to write, as, well, I’ll not be able to do any chores around the house, or visit with folk. I hope to churn through some good pages.

Today was my last day at Skytap. As a workday, well, the only real things of note were eating lunch with some coworkers…In a nice little New Orleans type restaurant on the same block. I had no idea the food was so good there.
And, well, the Guinness at Owl and Thistle after work.

My emotions are very mixed. I’m sad that I’ll no longer work with my great coworkers, unless the wild world of software brings us together again. A great weight has lifted from my shoulders. I no longer need to feel the downside of that particular situation. I’m excited, giddy almost, to be moving on to a job that may very well be my dream job.

I’m sure the full impact of the change won’t hit me for a few weeks. We’ll see.

Yep, that’s my avatar name in Second Life.

I’ve just been bursting to tell the world, but I’ve kept this news hush-hush so it didn’t leak to my current management.
I’m now a Linden, as in Linden Lab! I received an accepted an offer from them on Friday.
Far more secure than the Startup I’m currently at. They’ve nearly 280 employees, are profitable, and have plenty of work to be done.
And, hey, I’ll be making 10% more than I am now. An amount appropriate for my experience level. Take that, glass ceiling.

The interview process was intense.
A phone interview with the hiring manager (who’s really cool), followed by 3 in person interviews with people in the Seattle office, followed by a tech phone interview with one of the Mountain View people. Then they flew me out to SF for the day to interview
with the main team. My new manager plus 7 others. They were all really cool.

I’ll be starting on the 3rd of November, and will be in SF during the weeks for a month or so. Yay frequent flier miles.

I’ll be working on some really cool stuff. Virtual Reality for businesses, education and governments. 🙂

I’m soooo excited. Yay for me 🙂