Older blog entries for rjp (starting at number 45)

back at work, zooming along, less time for diaries and other web diversions . . . ;) it's good to be back at it.

wow. we did it. we arrived in santa barbara last tuesday, and the movers brought our stuff last saturday. this is my 3rd day at the new job, and things are good ;) if only my dsl provider could get their shit together.

the three most stressful things that can happen in someone's life: moving, new job, death. we've weathered all three, and it's my hope that now we're coming out on the other side of a hellish year, and things will be looking up.

woo hoo! linux at work. they don't care - they brought me another machine to do windows on for ms word and outlook calendaring. the only thing i could ask beyond that is that they simply drop exchange, and windows on the desktops . . . yeah right!

one and 1/2 days of packing left - we're in decent shape, but it's been sheer hell. common advice is to start packing up your house at least 1 month before a move - we have been doing this for just three days. the movers come early monday morning. then it's clean a bit, deal with some last-minute logistical peculiarities, and then tuesday it's off to santa barbara! then, we'll have 3 days or so with just the suitcases we bring with us, and then it'll be unpacking hell!

cox cable in sb doesn't give out static ip addresses, and while the cable modems tend to get the same ips over long periods of time, cox just started blocking http/ftp/etc ports - so, no point in it. verizon wants $70/month for a basic acct w/static ip - just too much. but, 101freeway.com resells verizon's dsl cheaper - i get a static ip and decent downstream speeds for $55/month. still, that means more than $100/month for cable and net access (combined cost) - bugger.

packing hell. movers come in a few days - it will be close. i am getting necessities together - i'll be living out of a few suitcases for the next 7 - 10 days.

i've got 2 months of uptime - and i need to bring down my workstation, but that means some sites and services will be down for the duration - it may be more than 2 weeks before they're up again . . . i'll delay it as long as possible.

saw harry connick tonight - i'm not a major big band fan, but significant other likes connick. actually, it was a really fun show, and there was some decent bluesy stuff.

packing the house. ugh. discovered today that moving expenses are tax deductible! sheeyit! we're definitely hiring movers, forget driving a truck myself! first order of business tomorrow morning is getting quotes and timelines for moving. we'd like to use the same guy/group that moved us up here in the first place. [big company] paid for that move, and even though we'll deduct the cost, it's still going to hurt a bit to pay out of pocket. still, it's much preferable to loading/driving/unloading ourselves.

*so* much to do.

house hunting, just as fruitful as job hunting, and in the same strange way: on the 1st day, we found the winner. amazing. if it all works out that is . . . right now signs point to yes, but anything's possible. that means we will need to move probably next week. next week! shit.

it's really strange, as if santa barbara is opening its arms and welcoming us back. definitely not how i felt when we left. but it's the only place that feels anything like "home" (whatever the hell that is supposed to be) in something like 14 years.

grampa died this morning. i got the call at about 6:30 am - we were still in santa barbara. we had several appointments, but blew them off and by 1 pm we were back up in the valley. i don't have words to describe the emptiness. i've spent the last 5 months of my life basically devoted to his comfort, and to help him and the rest of the family face his impending death. i understand, on an intellectual but not emotional level, the event that has taken place. actually i understand it for about 5 minutes at a time, and then i feel numb for a while.

geez - two of my friends that just recently found work here in the valley (after some length of time unemployed) are looking at pink slips within a month. things up here are supposed to be getting better - whatever.

i'm getting back into working on dcserver. shit, i haven't done anything technical except scripts and app configuration files (if you can call that technical) in about 2 months. it's going to be a tough couple of days when i finally go back to work - while i'm adjusting to having a real work schedule again.

lots of stuff to get done in the short period before we move: sell that damn car, get wheels and rollbar, finalize job, find a house, yadda yadda. i hate moving. damn, i hate moving. i really really hate moving.

dilemma: job offer is hanging there, waiting for me to take it. startup is 3 - 6 months out. if i take job offer and they have a problem with me leaving in ~3 months (which is reasonable for them), i can't go be a founder. i like them at [job offering company]. they are nice, and the work would be nice. the commonly held notion is that salaries in santa barbara are 10 - 15% lower than up here in the valley; and while that seems to be the case, i'm still coming out okay. so that's great too . . .

regardless, santa barbara is now firmly on the horizon. next week: house-hunting trip. shit, where do i host my sites while we get moved in and wait for cable/dsl? hmmmm.

svlug installfest today - i lugged the old sparc lx over to see if anyone could help me figure it out. no luck, except that this nice guy - from argentina i think he said? - thought we could boot it via bootp. he wasn't running bootp, so he had to install it and try to configure it . . . i think it can be done with bootp, but i doubt i'll try it until we move and get settled in. i'm convinced now that my linuxcentral sparc red hat 6.2 cd is simply not sparc-bootable.

what i *do* need to play with, though, is jabber. my dad wants to offer a private im service to the paying members of his site, and of course he wants it for free. so, i suggested jabber, and told him i'd set it up and get it all ready for him.

sb job hunt was fruitful - one offer, a couple of other possibilities. one of which is much more attractive than anything else - it would actually be focused on open source. the problem is, there won't be funding for a while.

i don't want to take a job down there and then skip out on them when the other thing is ready to roll - one can do that in silicon valley, but it's too small a town down there to pull it off. if i want to live down there for a while (like, settle down for good), i can't afford to burn bridges like that.

all in all though, having a concrete offer in hand is more than i could have hoped for. they're being flexible with me in terms of time, which allows me to look around more - and they know that's what i'm doing, and they're okay with it. hmmm . . .

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