.:: Yolospat ::.

“The future doesn’t lie ahead of you, waiting to happen…it lies deep inside of you, waiting to be discovered.”

I’ve been “boss” this week at work because my boss is on vacation. When I say “boss” I don’t mean being drill sergeant yelling at staff while holding some scary looking stick threatening to pound anyone’s face in who even hints at slacking off. I mean, make sure all work is done and bosses boss is pleased and doesn’t yell. At least too much.

The bulk of what I’m doing are the jobs and tasks I never really wanted to deal with before, because it would have taken some actual thought and I would have had to logically thought about something. I used to just “leave those” to my boss who always used to “take care of those jobs” .. well, guess who’s taking care of them now? Guess what. They aren’t so bad. In fact, they have become quite fun. Weird. Someone has to do them. They take patience sometimes. They are really fun sometimes. My appreciation for those jobs had totally changed. I’ll probably continue to do these takes after my boss gets back. I sort of feel bad for slacking on those before. Whatever. Moving on.

I’ve been saying “moving on” lately too. I would send out department emails, someone would be defensive about something, and I would reply “moving on” or “moving forward” because frankly I don’t care about excuses, I don’t care about setting the story straight about who did what and when. What I care about is did A, B, and C get done? If it did, I really don’t care how. Smile!

I think that everyone needs to be boss for a week because it’s opened my eyes up to everything my boss puts up with. I have a new appreciation for his position and I feel like I’ve held together what could have easily fallen apart. I even got kudos from the bosses boss, so stick a fork in me, I’m done!

Just making a test right now, posting this from Textmate. I’m also going to test inserting an image through Textmate using drag and drop.

Inserting image didn’t work, trying to find out why

Nothing like messing up some hidden apache2 file somewhere deep inside /etc/

Well, I did. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. Maybe because my brain is dying. I was riding the rail the other night with ruby and after realizing that I had installed my gems incorrectly I reinstalled. Then I got an idea for a Java program I was working on so I jump over to Netbeans 6.1 and I realize that I had a gem I wanted to install there too, so completely distracted (doesn’t take much) I start installing some gems and plug-ins and … oh noes.

CRASH!

There goes Netbeans 6.1 … I try to open it again and I get this:

Just great. After many searches through the Googlespere I find out there is some apache file that calls Xalan.jar and makes it a very unhappy jar file breaking some class that Netbeans 6.1 calls. So I had another Bright Idea™ (I really should be careful about those big idea’s). I’d just delete Netbeans 6.1 and re-install. Nope, didn’t work. I thought I would re-install apache2 with macports. I got this error:

Great, so the all mighty macports won’t even install apache2 again. I went to xMod and let it check and fix my files and permissions. Ya, didn’t work. So, I had to do the long road. Reinstall completely with my last Time Machine backup. But, then I had another Bright Idea™ .. I re-named my /usr/local folder and try to re-install apache2. With success I got:

Yet, it didn’t fix my Netbeans 6.1 problem. Sigh. Let me go try out another Bright Idea™ …

I have been, BUSY. So busy that I’ll be writing to my advisor tomorrow to drop one of my classes. I think I’m going to drop Java, I think. I’ve been staying late at work mostly due to our lack of competent support staff. I’ve had to fix a lot of mistakes lately for people. It’s extremely frustrating. I’ve been handed this huge job of configuring and maintaining the Altiris Helpdesk, including custom automation, setting up notify rules, and building custom forms that integrate into the software and database itself. I’m not a DBA, but I feel like I’m soon becoming one.

The other night I was playing around with Ruby on Rails. It was a lot of fun. Even with all my web development experience, I never really learned about database stuff. I just knew how to set up MySQL to work with whatever web application I needed. After playing with Ruby on Rails I learned a great deal about SQL syntax and how to install, and create databases (through command line). Fun stuff. Dangerous for me however, because my idea bank really starts to expand when I learn new things. When I get to work Monday my head was exploding with all these idea’s for Altiris Helpdesk and how I was going to make it rockin’. I’ve already done some code customization work to it that was noticeable to everyone right away so that was good. Even a little encouragement and the idea’s in my head explode. That’s where I get into problems. I have to start one idea and take it all the way, then start another idea. I tend to switch what I’m doing about every 5 minutes, it even annoys me. Point is, there are some things I want to start working on now, like the custom forms but that’s not exactly the most important or demanding feature they want implemented.

So when I learned that the IT Director wanted to get the email notifications and automation running first I thought, shit. I’m going to have to document all of this. My mind works with visuals so to make these automation tools the idea’s explode but if I don’t get them down in a flow chart of some kind I get lost and I can’t keep up with my brain. So I spend a lot of today writing those logic flows out, and I spent a lot of that time being completely distracted with down systems and down networks.

I’ve been so busy dealing with work fires (you know, shit just breaks sometimes) from our sites it’s emptying my tank fast. I was on a conference call for 2 hours tonight, and on the phone with network engineers for an hour and I wasn’t done working on putting these fires out until midnight. That’s a 14 hour day today people and keep in mind that I’m a full time student. Yesterday I wasn’t done until 10 PM. Do not want fires, I want to work on these projects and get my homework done and stuff.

I’m still not feeling well.

I was playing around in Photoshop last night and this is what I had at the end.

Also, the sun on Saturday morning was amazing in the backyard, coming through the pine trees.

I’m one of those poeple that has a TV on in my office even if I’m not watching it. It’s more for background noise, white noise, whatever you call it. Well, one station I usually keep it on is crime TV since it’s a lot of talking and sometimes they have interesting things on. So cops was playing tonight and they had a special Cops episode called “Party Girls”.

When I hear “Party Girls” I think of some sorority girl from a rich family in Cancun drinking like a fish while hanging all over every guy she walks up to pulling up her shirt and flashing every camera she sees. That’s not what this espisode of Cops is about. It’s about girls out on the street prostituting.

I feel sorry for some of those girls. There is one single reason why any of those girls are there, and that is a bad situation. Their home life was shitty, they get kicked out of the house at a young age, they get addicted to drugs to hide and numb their pain, or they have other emotional problems. Whichever the case, I bet if you asked any one of girls if they are where they want to be, they would say no. No one wants to grow up to be a prostitute. No one wants that life style. When I think of party girl, I think of a irresponsible college teenager having fun. I don’t think of a girl giving away the very being of herself to strangers, who’s so miserable on the inside she convinced herself it will be ok.

Sad. What’s equally as sad is the sorority girl will never have empathy because she has that silver spoon in her mouth to keep her from crying, otherwise known as Daddy’s wallet. I don’t know which is worse.

Am I sure glad it’s Friday. Altho I didn’t go to work 3 days this week I did work from home which granted me the privilege to get a hell of a lot done. It’s been a hard week when it comes to health. Ever since I moved away from where I was born and raised I’ve run into nothing but problems with the health care system, and I long to have my old doctor back. Going back to Colorado however, isn’t an option and I must seek and find what I’m looking for here. It’s just going to take time and energy, the two most non-abundant things in my life.

I haven’t gotten a chance to catch up with my RSS feeds yet. I can usually keep up daily with them but with the amount of school work I’ve been up against I haven’t even played WoW. I don’t usually during the quarter but when I have a little bit of time I at least log on. Not this quarter, however, and I fear it’s going to reflect the rest of my degree program. Onward and upward, someday I’ll be happy I did it. Right?

I truly do love education and I love learning. In fact I would probably go to school the rest of my life if I didn’t have any other responsibilities or family to provide for. Things being how they are, I’m looking forward to that time I can actually have to sit down for a while after coming home from work. It only makes me stronger I suppose, and I’m learning those time management skills I always wanted to know. I didn’t exactly want to be forced into learning those however, lol.

I don’t have to work this weekend so I have the next 48 hours to do with as I please, in a very responsible manner. I was fully expecting to be working this weekend so it was a nice surprise. I have two movies from Netflix to watch … which I might do as I’m looking up information for my System Administration class.

Might as well get started.

Right now I’m arguing with myself on what to do. It’s already 1 AM but I feel like I need to get more homework done. Do I jump into some java code, or do I jump into a 5-10 page paper about system administration? Or do I simply go to bed and feel defeated?

With all the mess from the medical stuff I’m far behind and I want to catch up. I’m finding my time becomes less and less lately and it’s stressing me out in such a bad way that my health is failing. There really isn’t much I can do about it at this point in time, so I have to carry on and try my best.

Both projects that are due are pretty huge. I have to be semi-coherent for both which I am right now, I just don’t know which to choose. Sleep is something I haven’t been getting enough of obviously, but I don’t want to feel like I’ve not gotten anything done. I’ve been on call this week for work and tonight has been a busy work night for me too, which again pushed school off to the side. Sigh. I think I’ll start my paper …

The pains that have been torturing my body for the last few weeks, decided they were at a rock concert in a mosh pit. My feet started swelling up the day before yesterday. I couldn’t sleep, I haven’t had an appetite. Last night, while I was soaking my feet in the tub for some temporary relief I noticed that my toes, weren’t anything like I had ever seen them before. They were completely blue. I take a picture of them (I take pictures of everything, duh) and send the picture to my Mom. She in turn sends it to my Aunt Donna who shows my Uncle Don (the doctor).

Ohhhh boy. I knew something was bad when it was 11:30 at night and my iPhone started ringing off the hook. It’s a well known fact that my Mother is horrible at telling me bad news. My Aunt Donna has had “The-One-Who-Tells-Jen-Bad-News” title for about 15 years now, so I automatically assume if she calls me (especially late at night) that it’s not good. I couldn’t bring myself to answer the phone. My Aunt Donna knows this well too. It’s my way of sliding “into” the news. This is my Aunt Donna’s trick. She will leave me a message, and she will tell me right off the bat that she misses me and loves me. Then she doesn’t tell me anything about what the bad news is, except that I need to call her right away because she needs to talk to me and she, Uncle Don and my Mother weren’t going to sleep until I did, and it was very important. Then she ends it with she loves me again. She’s so good at this, and she’s also so brave at being “The-One-Who-Tells-Jen-Bad-News”. Believe me, no one wants that role. No one.

So, I get myself a glass of milk and waddle (I have to walk on the heels of my feet because of how swollen my feet and ankles were) out to the back porch and touch the Call Back button. I sit and listen. She’s very good at explaining things without actually telling me the bloody details while giving special care on the urgency of the matter. Then Uncle (Dr) Don gets on the phone. He sucks at telling me bad news, but he usually doesn’t get on the phone. My Aunt Donna quickly takes the phone back and I had agreed to go to the ER by the time I had hung up the phone, but ONLY until I took a shower first. Aunt Donna said it was fine, but to please try not to doddle (I learned the word doddle from her, I love that word).

Shortly after that, somewhere in between calling my Mother, taking a shower and doddling, my brain sort of unplugged itself. That’s the best way I can describe it since the next 1.5 hours are really fuzzy in my head. I could hear what Brendan and my Mother were saying to me, but I couldn’t match up the words. I was confused, and nothing made sense. It’s like everyone started talking in tongues. Brendan tells me that while I was in the shower I asked him what I was doing. My Mother called while we were in the car on the way to the hospital and she kept asking me how far from the hospital I was. I just couldn’t understand the how far part, like my brain was skipping like a scratched record. I had to keep asking Brendan for help. When I got to the hospital I couldn’t tell them my birthdate, except that I wasn’t 30 yet. I just couldn’t figure out anything past that. When the nurse asked me what year it was, I said that I knew it wasn’t 2006, but I couldn’t give her the year. I guess I did know that Bush was president tho, altho Clinton was at the tip of my tongue. I felt so, dumb. My brain, got stuck, and after the nurse asked me more questions I couldn’t answer I just started crying. I mean, I know I should have known that stuff, but … my brain was just stuck. I knew enough to know that wasn’t right or normal. That’s when I got scared. Something, in me, broke. Something just wasn’t right, something was really wrong.

For the next 6 hours on an EKG I had three IV’s stuck in me and I was just staring at the heart meter, watching my pulse and pulse oxygen level. Just watching. And then my brain turned back on. It went from pause to play again. Ironically during the foggy time, I don’t remember as much pain. I just felt like my toe was dead. When my brain turned back on, pain from all over my body throbbed. Blood test after blood test were taken. When one blood test came back as being fine, another one was ordered up. At around 6 or 7 AM the doctor came in the room (he had only been by for about 25 seconds previously just to ask what was going on) he said that they couldn’t find anything wrong and they were going to send me home with water pills to help drain the swelling, and to follow up with my primary care physician.

Just like that. Not only was I more swollen (my hand was starting to swell at that point), but I was mad, stressed, frustrated at being dismissed when nothing had really changed (besides my brain going from the off to the on switch). Everything my Aunt Donna told me she was scared of happening, happened in regards to how the doctor was going to dismiss it and to be persistant). I again asked him how this had happened before in 2002 and how I’ve felt so horrible the last few weeks, and how my tests always come back showing good stats, but obviously there was something really wrong. He said to see my primary care doc and elivate my feet in the meantime. Here is what just one of my feet looked like. I thought if I went to sleep, I’d wake up and my toes would dead.

I won’t go into a tangent about how I hate healthcare in this country. If no one has seen the movie “sicko” then see it, please. It’s such bullshit. Brains don’t just “turn off” and body limbs don’t swell up to the point of cutting circulation randomly or by a fluke like travel or such. It just doesn’t happen.

So, me and my balloon feet are going to see my primary care doc and go through the whole thing again, with a new set of bloodwork and repeating events of the last few weeks. And I’m scared. I’m scared that they still won’t find anything and I’ll still go on with all this for the rest of my life wishing for one day, I could get through the day, without pain. I just want to feel good.

All I have to say about Acrobat.com’s new web office launch is, whoa.

For the first time, it looks like Google will have some serious competition.

I just tired out Buzzword and ConnectNow and I’m completely blown away so far. Doesn’t webex make you pay an arm and a leg?

Beautiful interface, beautiful design. But then again, it’s Adobe, it’s sort of what they do.

Good job Adobe, very good job.

Lots of stuff has been happening recently, most of it being on the emotional spectrum. When it comes to loss and grief I’ve had more than my fair share in my 29 years of life. It’s the first emotion I can remember feeling when I was very young and I know my experience with losing someone, a loved one will only continue and the time between tears will steadily increase instead of decline. That’s just life, that’s apart of life. It’s the part of life that never gets easier .. but it’s not supposed to.

Over the past 10 years I’ve been hit left and right with grief. I’m the type of person that takes such emotions and stuffs them away much like a disobedient child shoving his clothes under the bed when he was supposed to have his room cleaned hours ago. When my Father passed very suddenly in 1999 the shock of it was quickly followed up with denial. I’m fairly certain I could resemble a walking zombie during that time, but I distinctly remember repeating to myself “this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, I can’t be the kid that losses her Daddy, this can’t be happening to me”. A quick look on Wikipedia I found this about the denial process:

“Feelings of unreality, depersonalization, withdrawal, and an anesthetizing of affect. The person feels unable to come to terms with what just occurred.”

Around the year anniversary of his death the anger and rebellion set in. The denial wasn’t over by any means, it was just being ignored as I acted out against life for being so unfair. I remained stuck in that stage for 3 years living in the vortex of chaos and unhealthy relationships. Wikipedia has information about the “Volatile Reactions” would should also be called the spiraling downhill out of control stage.

“Whenever one’s identity and social order face the possibility of destruction, there is a natural tendency to feel angry, frustrated, helpless and/or hurt. The volatile reactions of terror, hatred, resentment, and jealousy are often experienced as emotional manifestations of these feelings.”

When I look back at it now I see loss and grief not only in the time of death, but when there is loss of a friendship, a dream, the sense of safety, and of possessions. Grief is a multi-faceted response to loss. The emotional effect is the same (though loss in the case of death, especially sudden and unexpected highens the intensity of the grieving process) and the same steps of the naturally occuring grieving process is triggered.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t handle loss and grief well at all. I’m still dealing with losses from 10 years ago, trying to bring that process full circle. It’s also made me a better person. I never got to tell my Father goodbye. We hadn’t spoken to each other in a week due to a silly fight. Since that time my Mother and I never end a phone conversation or an email without telling each other “I love you!”

The losses that I’ve had along the way that weren’t a result of death have been forefront in my mind. Maybe I’m making up for the rotten last words I ever spoke to my Father, but I’m determined not to leave a situation in hurt and anger. The only thing I can control is myself and that has been pushing me to patch up those losses while I can, even if it’s to properly say goodbye.

I wanted to make a video demonstrating this emotion because I always have a hard time putting these emotions into words. Rather, I can visualize the emotion in my mind. This video is symbolic to the trials of Loss and Grief. It’s called “Love and Loss” ..