Post also titled: Where in the hell have I been hiding out?

I’ll never forget the 14th of May.

They say it’s a life changing experience.

They weren’t wrong.

Not by any stretch of the imagination.

This little guy here is what’s keeping me up late at night, waking me up early, both exhilarating and worrying me all day, yet always ensuring I’m strapped to a roller coaster of mammoth proportions. All this, and he’s not even home.

Doesn’t look all that mischievous, now does he?

How great is this?

I mentioned in a previous post that I was quite fond of Cindy’s photoblog.

After receiving a slightly cryptic email asking for a mailing address, I came home from work to be (rather) surprised by a package from the US – a couple of prints from her photo gallery of a couple of camels in the Bronx Zoo and a card.

Thanks again, Cindy. Very, very cool and greatly appreciated! In case you were wondering, the camel lover was (finally) lost for words – I didn’t think it was possible

Now I need to find a decent framing place – any recommendations are welcome, given that the last decent place I found had since closed down

Oh well

Truth be told, the last two weeks have been absolute chaos, primarily because I had completely forgotten how much starting a new job throws you around. To really throw myself completely in the deep end (because I’m not known for doing anything less), I’ve not only started a new job, I’ve also started work in a different IT discipline to what I’ve done in the past and joined a new company.

To give some history, it was roughly 2 1/2 years ago when I started my last position where I was in the deep end – I’m now starting to remember those days quite vividly.

Still, the experience has been good so far and I’ve learnt heaps. Now I’ve just got to keep the momentum going, get my head back in the books and hopefully catch up on some sleep…. sometime.

Other events that have occurred in the last two weeks:

• I celebrated another nail being put in my coffin. Damn, 27 feels old
• I hit 100 k’s ridden in a week (103, actually )
• I found out how far out of practice I am at Quake 3 (although the after-work tournaments should fix that relatively quickly)
• I saw Stealth (not bad, although I would consider it a rental) and the Dukes of Hazzard (well worth it!)
• I knocked off 1/2 a semester of CCNA coursework in just over a week
• I’ve learnt exactly how bad the state of internal wiring in some buildings is, especially for DSL lines (and don’t get me started on DSL end-user hardware )
• I’ve reaffirmed my rather average experiences with Linux over the years are still valid, even with one or two of the latest-and-greatest out there.

I think that will do for now – more as I can remember it (and after I grab some sleep).

speedo,
originally uploaded by RejectReality.

Here’s the end result of week 2 of my stupidity on two wheels (and now with evidence!).

I’m a little in two minds about this – I’m happy that I’ve hit 85 k’s (especially given I’ve been doing this for only two weeks), but slightly disappointed that I didn’t hit 100k’s due to taking a day off.

It seems I’ve just given myself a target to nail this week

PS – for those that are desperately worried about the state of my derrière, I believe it’s starting to come out of the coma now. With any luck it will be no longer suffering from shock in the next week or two.

After picking up a bike speedo and measuring my course, I’m doing much better than I thought I was. The trip around the neighbourhood is clocking in at just over 3.9 k’s a lap (now extended to 4 just to make round numbers).

The all important numbers:
20 laps in total for the week (2 laps on Monday, 3 laps every other day) = ~80k’s

From nothing, to 80 k’s. In a week.

Holy crap! How the hell did that happen?

PS – that really explains why my ass is killing me

Funnily enough, I’m in the same predicament. Being a sysadmin (well, at least for a little while longer ) where shift work, on-call and weekend work is the norm, I can honestly say that the past five years with near-zero exercise has not been kind. It’s high time I got off my ass and do something about it. With thanks to one of my best mates, Euge, and his ability to find bargains better than most girls I know, I’m now the proud owner of a nice shiny new bike to get my ass moving again and me back in some semblance of shape.

If you’ve ever seen a fat guy on a bike before (especially one that hasn’t been on two wheels since he learnt to drive ten years ago), you can probably imagine the comedy gold that has been ensuing. I’ve scoped out a route around the back streets of my suburb that’s good for around two or three K’s a lap (memo to self: pick up a bike odometer and measure the route) – a couple of laps of that each night, aside from nearly killing me at the moment, is a damn good start.

Dave: If you ever read this, good on ya! Touch base with me once you reach your target – there’s a really tacky Aussie trinket in it for you to say congratulations and thanks for the last 9 months worth of entertainment I’ve had listening to your podcasts.

It looks like I’ve got a career change on my hands!

After close to five years of helpdesk, desktop support, system administration, engineering, and application support, it’s time to play with all sorts of networking stuff.

I’m really looking forward to this opportunity – great company, great position and a friend on the inside that’s already vouched for the work, culture and conditions.

This is going to be interesting, and it can only go up from here.

Most interviews that I’ve had for technical positions feel like a dog’n'pony show, where a bunch of psychological and personality based questions are asked in preference to technical questions. This sometimes occurs to the point where you are unable to obtain the opportunity to prove what you know and what you can do.

As an example, around 6 months ago I went though a bunch of interviews for a Systems Administrator / Engineer role, the mix was around 90% psychological, 10% technical – spread over three sessions, each over an hour long.

From what I’ve seen, this usually happens when people too high up interview for a position without someone already in that position being around to keep them close to what the job actually is.

Now, don’t get me wrong; the psych stuff is important – it’s the mix of the questions that needs to change based on what the interview is for.

To drag this theory back to a recent event, today I rocked up to an interview for a network support / administrator position – an interview where I was extremely surprised. I was in and out in just under three quarters of an hour. A good mix of questions where my technical knowledge and logical thought processes were able to be demonstrated reasonably effectively and any personality traits that they were looking for had been exposed. The interviewers were good at asking the questions, and good at interpreting the result.

Overall, I would have to say this was the smoothest interview I’ve been through in a loooooong time. Here’s hoping something comes out of it.