Rampidbyter Rampid byter: A byte of my .Net developing life.

I had an experience this weekend that I don’t think I’ll soon forget. I woke up early Saturday (5am) morning and went about my routine of trying to sleep in. I ended up giving up around 7am. I went upstairs and figured I’d check to see what was going on in the world on my desktop since I still haven’t replaced my Windows Phone 7 (another story.)

I logged into the usual sites, Google+, Facebook, Yammer, and Twitter. I skim through all of them and then I noticed it. A buddy had posted a plea for help, that his dad was missing, and that he needed help searching for him at 7:30am. I looked at the clock, it was 7:15am. I sent a quick comment saying I was on my way. I didn’t even shower. I grabbed my gear, cargo jeans, carhart jacket, warm socks, ball cap, and bolted from the house after getting the OK from the wife.

I made it to the search operation meeting area, and pulled in behind a parked police cruiser. I walked over to join the last search party heading into the woods and waited while the chief explained where we were going into the woods in coordination with the other groups that were searching. It’s at this point Trent, the son of the missing hunter, walks over to join the group along with his wife. We all entered the woods together and split up into two groups. I went with Trent, his wife, and an EMT off into a sector close to where his father may have been hunting.

We covered a lot of ground, most of it uphill, and visibility was very poor heading up to the top of the hill. I got filled in that his father most likely was wearing cameo, no reflective material as he was bow hunting, and that we should look for blood or any tracks. His cell phone was on and that they knew that he was within two miles so he was most definitely somewhere in the 60+ acre of woods. By this point I was told that any blood would be black and hard to see but to stay vigilant.

I learned a few things during the search that still bother me. Mainly that the EMT and police rely on hard-copy printed aerial maps while Trent was using Google maps to pinpoint our position far better. The EMT we were with had a basic phone and was surprised of the availability of such technological capabilities. While I don’t doubt the capability of their on-foot searching experience I can’t imagine how much more effective they’d be with properly applied technology.

We kept heading towards clearings that showed signs of recent deer activity as the most likely locations where his father would have been staking out for a good shot. We’d heard some radio chatter that a single arrow was found with a few climbing spikes not far from where we were located. We were advised that it was highly likely we were in the area that he’d be found. I don’t really know how much area we covered after that announcement, but we were heading into another thicket when the EMT shouted ‘They found him!’ We all rushed back to the EMT (we were spread out 20+ feet canvasing the area barely able to see each other).

It was silent for a moment waiting for any additional information. Very silent. We heard the news he was deceased. I looked at the EMT, back at Trent, and then his wife started crying. Trent and his wife embraced. I still can’t describe the look on his face. Pain hidden behind a solemn expression. His eyes were tearing slightly but he held his composure. The EMT and I made eye contact and shared the same thought. He placed his hand out on Trent’s shoulder, who was still consoling his wife, and squeezed. I did the same to the other shoulder.

We were close to where they found him. The other side of the clearing where we’d gone right instead of left. It was a while later when we exited the woods to join with the returning search parties. I splintered off to head to the back where I met with another buddy who I’d not seen in quite some time. Neither one of us had words that adequately described what we were thinking or the situation. I felt my heart jumping into my throat at the pain this must have caused the family. I waited around a while so I could get the chance to again express how truly sorry I was for his loss. I left shortly after. On the way home I called my dad and told him how much I love him.

Man, it’s been one of those weeks you know you get once every few months. I was sick Sunday before last and it stretched into Wednesday of last week. Weirdest thing, I was running on the treadmill for about a mile and a half at 1am because I couldn’t sleep. Probably because I was up so late that weekend helping my cousin put in the new straight six into his old F100 or something like that. I finished running and was exhausted so I fell right to sleep only to wake up an hour later with the most painful gut ache. It was one of those pains so bad it had an effect on my dream. I can still remember the dream of being on the Olympic judging panel filling paperwork for all the events and how mind numbing it was. It’s bad when I start doing paperwork in my head I usually wake up ill.

So I end up finally feeling better that night at 5:30am, took a nap until 6:00am, and got up for work. That was the beginning of the slope that’s resulted in a pretty crappy week and continuing into this new week. I then end up doing a lot of things during the week, mainly reading, and resting from the illness. I start to feel better about Friday and I have to go to my girlfriends grandpas 80^th birthday party. Parties always make me nervous especially around a lot of people that I don’t know very well, and especially around her family because they’re kind of upper class. I never get along very well with higher up people because most have an undeserved sense of entitlement. It’s annoying to say the least.

All in all it wasn’t too bad except only her grandparents talk to me anymore. I rarely get addressed or mentioned, or even waived to. Probably because I’m freaking tall and just avoid all contact when possible because I’m awkward. Her grandpa asked how my work was going at my previous clients, whom he retired from coincidently, and I told him I had a new job. I was asked what I was doing and I told them I was a senior developer with a jewelry company. Next thing I know I hear a gasp and it’s her uncle (works as an IS executive) shocked I was a senior anything, and was asking me the details of my work. He’d thought I was still a consultant and I had to tell him I’d moved on for professional reasons. Long story short probably the longest conversation I’ve had with him in four years, and it was only about two minutes long.

Saturday had great promise but ended up being more toil than spoil. I had planned to venture out with a group of Christians with attitude, just kidding, but they were going out shooting on a farm so that’s rocking right? I woke up at 7:30am and trucked down to my step brothers to help dump 70+ water heater boxes, water heaters, toilets, and cooper to the respective recycling places. This is all with intentions of heading to the shootout at 11am, but wound up doing work all morning and into the afternoon. Took the entire cooper haul to the metal recycler and got a hefty $500, and then came the boxes. This is about 9:30 at this point and we started on the boxes. I stacked them full in the truck bed so they were up past the window. Took three trips to get them all loaded full way to clear them all out and at this point it was past 11:00am so I completely missed going shooting. The whole time we’re trucking around with all this trash in the back of my truck I’ve got two hand guns, ammo, and an assault rifle sitting behind my bench seat. That’d been a pretty bad way to start off the weekend with getting arrested with weapons, and a truck full of cooper. I swear it looked like we knocked off a hardware store at some points.

So Sunday comes floating around. I’m still aggressively attempting to shed some pounds by running at least 15 minutes straight for just over 1.5 miles. I’ve been stretching my running out longer each week. I’m going on 25 minutes this week. I run x minutes per week, and on the Sunday of the week I run the x time one more time, and the following Monday I increase my time by five minutes. I’ve been doing this for four weeks this week. I’m trying very hard not to end up like my parents, and to save my knee. However things keep getting bad to worse. I have found that it’s getting harder and harder to run because my knee constantly feels like a limp pile of flesh. I get on the treadmill and I have to actually thrust my right side of my body forward to swing my leg out. It’s terrible and it’s incredibly frustrating so much so that I actually end up running harder to try to force it to get better. It’s so maddening I actually had to start yelling at myself to keep me running longer because the pain becomes so overbearing I have to start daydreaming while I’m running to force myself to concentrate on something else. I always run and try to stare off into nothing and crank my iPod up to drown out the constant thumping of my feet on the tread. I don’t know what to do really I just need to beat myself until it gets stronger I think but the next morning my leg hurts so bad I can’t really walk well when I get up. I kind of stumple and I’ve nearly fallen down the stairs…. Ugh I can’t write anymore. I wrote three more pages but freaking ass Word keeps crashing and asking to restart. Visual Studio 2008 keeps crashing, windows media player keeps crashing and letting out the most horrible screetching in my stereo, which is lucky because normaly after remoting into the machine I lose my sound card. I’m about to say screw Microsoft operating system and switch to linux or crayons and paper. I may try Server 08 as I’ve heard It’s decent and doesn’t crash every freaking twenty minutes! Man I am having a shit tastic week. My step brother is moving possibly out of country, my knee doesn’t work, and my Vista keeps crashing worse than Lindsey lohan. I’m going to go running…

Well, I start my new job tomorrow. I’m looking forward to the new experiences and working with a new group of people. I had a wonderful send off from my client location, handshakes galore, people talking about how my programs affected their lives, one guy said I saved him two hours a morning with the program I made specifically for him, and others recapped when they first met me. They talked about the first interview I did with the company with all the big wigs at the company, and how their first reaction was that some young punk kid wants to come into their system, without any MRP experience, and how at the end of the interview it was oowing and awing at my knowledge. It turned into a close to four hour interview.

The main boss and I decided to play a joke on the shop foreman by having me send an email to the main boss CC’ing the foreman saying how I couldn’t work there anymore and I quit because I was promised the 40oz and never got one. The foreman is on vacation so the first thing he’ll see in the morning is an email saying I quit, and because he didn’t deliver any of the 40oz’s promised. The branch boss and I laughed a pretty good while after I sent that email. It was one of the best places I’ve worked, the people were amazing, and I enjoyed learning lean inventory manage and MRP processes. After spending 8 months building inventory control applications I think I turned them on their heads a little bit since they didn’t expect so much out of me.

I also had the chance to perform an exit interview at my actual company. I went down there and met with the HR lady, and my ex-departmental manager from when I originally started with the company. It was kind of a bitter sweet meeting because I did miss working down there. However, when I went to say good bye to everyone I only found three people I actually knew. I turned the corner, went to say good bye to the bullpen guys, and found only one original person from when I worked at the office 9 months ago. It’s been a heck of a lot of turnover and all these new people I’ve never met before were in the cubes. One new guy stood up, introduced himself with ‘I’ve been here a month’, and I introduced myself and was like ‘I was here a year and today is my last day.’ The new guy looked kind of confused, but what are you going to do. I said good bye to the two guys I knew from working with them and left. I never felt like more of a stranger than I did rounding that corner.

On a plus side HR was in the wrong on the number of PTO days I used and was owed. Turns out I get about four paid days off, and so I get money from the buy-out of those days by the new policy. I was also given another contract for a sub-contract role for my old position with the client to help facilitate the change. Since they said it was just an hour-by-hour thing I looked over the contract and had to decline. The original employment agreement I signed when I first started stipulated a 6 month non-compete agreement, and this new contract would be three years. It even says if I get a job with a client of my company I have to pay 30% of my first year’s compensation to the company in the event I get a job with a client within the first year of the non-compete agreement. Why would I sign a contract saying I can’t work for these companies for three years on a contract where I may not get any work anyways? That doesn’t make sense to me at all! So as it sits I miss out on a contract, but at least I could work for these clients after six months from today if need be.

Blog has a new home at www.RampidByter.com. If you're reading these posts you'll want to change your RSS feeds as March 1st will the be the last day that this blog is available through the coderrob.com website.

The blogging has begun.

- Admin ... because I say so.