Waste of Space

Ever since I was laid off from work at PwC last December, I have had to submit an unemployment claim every two weeks, and had to go to the unemployment office once a month to drop off a job search log showing the nine jobs that I have applied for over the previous month. While there, I also was to sign a waiver for an extension of my TAA/TRA benefits for the following month. Today, when I do my routine meeting with my new TAA coordinator (he was appointed to me last month), he looks at me surprised and says that he does not think that I qualify for any more waivers. Of course, I was pretty much like WTF???

It appeared that I was not supposed to be signing these waivers until my regular unemployment benefits ran out… and even when those run out, I have the option to apply for an extension to my regular unemployment benefits. Luckily, he was able to talk with the supervisor and find a possible alternative way for me to continue with the waivers. Hopefully, the unemployment folks up in Tallahassee approve of the change.

::crosses fingers::

On top of that mess, my coordinator tells me that I might get audited from the unemployment office because I do not have enough job applications for each month. Turns out, I am supposed to be submitting 5 applications a WEEK instead of 9 applications a MONTH… as I was informed when I first started this crap!! When I first started these jobs searches, I was given a form that had 9 spaces on it for me to fill out companies that I had submitted a job application to. My coordinator (at the time) told me that I need to bring the completed form back to her at the end of each month so that I can sign off on another extension waiver… no mention that I had to do anything more than what was on the form. By inadvertently having these waivers submitted each month, I have been effectively cutting short the amount of benefits I get from unemployment. … click HERE for more »

Hello there, Internets!

It has been a while since I last wrote in my blog, but then again, not much is really happened in the past few months for me to blog about. Aside from a 1 1/2 week stint at Publix as a wedding cake decorator, I have remained for the most part unemployed. Furthermore, since we have used most of my severance from PwC to pay bills and other debts, I have started to entertain the idea of working in the IT support sector again. Probably one of the major reasons why I’ve even decided to go back into the IT world, much less even consider doing so, is because of what my friends and former PwC coworkers tell me what the world is like in a “real” IT shop. apparently it’s a much different world out there than what PwC had to offer us… and it is for the better.

Anyhow, that is pretty much the only major thing that has happened over the past six months up until a few days ago. Earlier this week, I received a phone call from my smart car dealership to see if I was interested in trading in my old car. The car that I had at the time was a 2008 “Smart fortwo Passion” in yellow. 2008 was the first year that the Smart car was offered in America… It was also the only year that yellow was offered. So out of curiosity, I decided to take them up on her offer and come down to see what they have him a lot and to possibly test drive one of the new 2011 Smart cars. … click HERE for more »

So, I am the proud owner of an iPad that has both wifi and 3G capability… it was a gift from my previous employer before they decided to lay us off and outsource their IT dept.

Anyhow, being a techno-geek, I decked to go into the iPad settings and streamline it to ensure the most bang for my buck… rather, that’s what I thought I was doing.

I think is was just a few weeks ago that I noticed that the clock on my iPad was not the same as the clock displaying on our cable box. I checked it with my iPhone and laptop and found it was not the same as those either. WTF???

I know I had set up the iPad to automatically update the time/date, so I thought that maybe the time servers at Apple were ahead by 6+ minutes. Then I recalled that both my laptop (a MacBook Pro) and iPhone all had the correct time listed and were syncing with the Apple servers.

Rather than go through all the tedious failed attempts of mine to resolve the problem, let me just tell you what simple setting fixed it: Cellular Data

I’ve always been connected to a wifi connection on my iPad, so turning OFF the Cellular Data setting was one of the first things I did. Apparently, my iPad NEEDS that setting to remain active to update the clock. Stupid, IMHO, but a simple fix that was unfortunately not obvious.

If you have an iPad with wifi+3G and are experiencing time sync issues, then I’d highly recommend making sure you have your Cellular Data setting turned ON.

You can find it right under the Settings menu.

Hope that helps!

On July 29th, my employer, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), informed it’s US IT employee’s in Tampa that they would either no longer be employed or in the same role that they are in now. Of the 1,100 IT staff in the Tampa office, they said that they plan to cut approx. 500 jobs in favor of outsourcing/offshoring those positions. Unfortunately, that number seems to be closer to 800 people… including my team.

My team, known easiest by its short name “Platform Services”, was comprised of a small group of Unix and Windows system administrators. Our job, in a nutshell, was to build/maintain/manage the OS and hardware for ALL of the servers in the US IT infrastucture…. this number was well over 5,000 systems. Figure that the ratio of techs to servers was about 1:900. We are a very self-sufficient team that had always been a favorite in US IT for our expertise and willingness to help those in their time of need. The only time we would record anything near 40 hours a week on our timesheet was if we were out sick or on vacation for an entire week. Most of us had 60 – 80 hour weeks on a consistent basis due to the number of systems we managed. I think one of our guys went several months without a single weekend off because of this. … click HERE for more »

It’s really no wonder that America is still in the Dark-Ages of recycling… the majority of people just assume some items are recyclable rather than actually look up the information.

Actually, I think that sums up a lot of what is wrong with people in general. They don’t take the time to educate themselves on various topics, so they just make assumptions.

Anyhow, the catalyst to this rant was when I went to throw out some pizza boxes and other trash in our apartment’s dumpster. A few months back, they added some large bins for recyclable materials… paper & plastics. I don’t think they have “glass” bins listed. Having educated myself on what is recyclable, I got quite agitated when I saw huge plastic bags with chunks of Styrofoam in them inside the “Plastics Only” bin. Not only that, but the “Paper Only” bin had piles of pizza boxes in it too.

These items do NOT belong in those bins!

Despite popular belief, just because an item says it’s made from recycled material does NOT mean that it is meant for those bins. I really wish people would learn the proper way to recycle items.

When we finally have a house with recycling pickup, I plan to have at least 4 different waste bins:

1. Paper waste
2. Glass/Plastic waste
3. Metal waste
4. Food/Other

Here’s something to mull over in your brain… cigarette smokers, how would you dispose of your empty packs?

Answer: into bins 1, 2, and 3

Why? Bin 1 for the cardboard pack, bin 2 for the plastic outer wrapper, and bin 3 for the foil liner inside the pack.

If you really want to get behind cleaning up the environment by recycling, then you REALLY need to read up on how to dispose of items in your area.

…and if you don’t know for sure, use this motto: “When in doubt, throw it out.” (i.e. just put it in the regular waste bin)

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So… March 6th, Miranda and I were invited to an “Alice in Wonderland” Tea Party being held at a friend’s house along with going to see the Tim Burton movie in 3D at Channelside in downtown Tampa. I had been asked to use my imagination and come up with a cake for the party… and boy, did I ever! My first thought was to make a topsy-turvy whimsical tiered cake, but then I thought I’d try my hand at something a little harder… the Mad Hatter’s HAT!

I baked up three 9″ rounds and one 10″ round yellow cake… all 2″ tall… and filled between the layers with blueberries (the kind used in pies). I bought an electric carving knife to help sculpt out the hat shape and went to work on rolling out as much dark-chocolate fondant as my small counter space would allow.

… oh, I also whipped up @ 5 lbs. of vanilla buttercream icing to “hold” the cake together under the fondant.

One of our friends had a distaste for blueberries, so I made a small 6″ round cake with no filling for her. I did, however, flavor the icing with Creme de Menthe to accentuate the dark-chocolate fondant. Since I had my hands full with getting the hat sculpted, Miranda offered to decorate the small cake… which she did rather well for her first time at REALLY decorating a cake. She turned the small round into a pocket watch and even made some “pills” out of marzipan.

Here are a few pictures of the cake in progress and the results:

Now, the part of this story that SUCKS is that Miranda and I did not get the chance to eat any of our cakes, nor did we get to see the movie OR go to the Tea Party.

Thanks to closed garages, full pay lots, and full valet (due to hockey and some arts festival), we drove around for an hour without finding a place to park. Miranda called the theater manager and he refunded the $30 we spent on tickets AND sent us free passes to see the movie again another day. So instead of seeing the movie and attending the Tea Party afterwards, we dropped off the cake first… drove around downtown Tampa for @ an hour looking for parking… decided to leave because we already missed the first 20 minutes or more of the movie… went to Mimi’s Cafe to have a dinner and go home.

I think we’re going to go try seeing the movie again on the 21st… we’ll see how THAT goes.

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Time for some more rambling and thoughts to cross my mind as of late…

Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that I’ve been forgetting things more and more often…. conversations (verbal or in email) seem to be slipping away. At work, I feel like I don’t know which way I’m going anymore…. it’s like I’m just on cruise control. Unfortunately, being asleep at the wheel isn’t healthy… not even in the metaphorical sense.

For the past 10 years or so, I seem to have had two parts to my life: Work and Home. At work, I’m constantly thinking of ways to improve things or solutions to some problem…. at home, I would usually think about work. I’ve always been a proponent of mind over body…. there was rarely a time when I need the help of a physician…. or anyone. Hell, when I had my kidney stone, it had practically passed 90% though me before I asked my wife to take me to the hospital.

Another thing that never helped was the aspergian(sp?) trait of being a loner. Despite my trying to fit in, I’ve only felt comfortable when I was alone. However, thanks to my wife, Miranda, I’ve been getting help with that. She’s been active in getting me to see various doctor’s and including me with much of her social life. (ie going places with her friends) I also owe a lot of my sociable appearance to my past jobs in the customer service industry. I already feel like a fool most of the time when trying to talk to people… stammering for the right thing to say, making little noises to myself, repetitive physical movements, or simply laughing/snickering too much during a conversation… but it’s better than the silent alternative, don’t you think? So please, pay me no mind if you think I’m odd, I’m just trying to act “normal”.

Anyhow, back to my topic…. I’m fairly sure that my recent lapse in memory is caused by the build up of stress at work. There have been a number of published scientific studies that show that too much multi-tasking is NOT good for you. Including that with the stress I have at work is surely one of the key factors in my loss of memory. I’ve been working with computers now for close to 20 years…. about the past 15 years have been in a support role. I feel like I’ve become a slave to this hobby I had for computers. It’s not something I really enjoy doing… it just happens to be something I’m good at without really trying.

So in an effort to try and calm my nerves and provide some self-psychotherapy, I’ve enrolled myself in some Wilton Cake Decorating classes at our local JoAnn Fabrics store!

Is this a good idea? I think so. I don’t really have an outlet from stress at work…. playing music physically hurts (hand conditions)… and playing video games too much gets me motion sick. Now, the main concern I have with cake decorating is the need for a steady hand. I’m just hoping that my tremors are a neurological condition brought on by stress and not something that will continue to interfere with my life. I’m really excited to start these classes… 2 hours a week for 4 sessions. I hope they help with the stress reduction. At least the increased Zoloft dosage has prevented me from having more panic attacks…. although a few times, I was pretty darn close.

I start the classes in November… so I’ll be sure to post pictures of my train wrec…. er…. masterpieces online for all to see and laugh at. ;o)

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Got my 2.0 update done today at the Smart Center of Tampa… only had to wait 2 hours this time. I was still quoted that it should only take 45 minutes or less since I supposedly had everything but the transmission upgraded while Miranda and I waited for 5 hours on Saturday.

I’m done with this 2.0 update…. not going back to the dealer unless the car is dying or something.

The ONLY thing that I know for sure that they did was wash my car and modify my transmission…. and I’m not sure if this 2.0 update will be beneficial as far as gas mileage goes. The bobble-head factor of shifting isn’t as bad as it was… it’s still present though… and it seems that the car revs higher before shifting too. I’ll have to pay attention to that closer as I drive it more.

I’ll also have to look for some before/after shots of the VIN and VECI to see if those were changed… doesn’t look like it at first glance. I’ll also have to pull up the passenger floor to see IF they even changed the battery out.

….like I said, I’m done…. over it…. don’t care. The car runs, so I’m fine with that.

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Had a fiasco at the Smart Center of Tampa today trying to get my 2.0 upgrade.

They called me last week and told me about an event they were having today to get a bunch of 2008 owners to come in and get their 2.0 upgrade. I went ahead and scheduled my appointment to have it done today during their event… they even provided me with the best time to bring it in.

My wife and I show up @ 11:00am and there is a small crowd of others who had already dropped off their cars for the upgrade. So I sign the paperwork to authorize the work to be done on my car and my wife and I start walking around to pass the time…

Mind you, I was repeatedly told that the entire upgrade should take about “45 minutes to an hour”.

Two hours later, my wife started to wonder if we did the right thing by bringing it in…. 3 hours later, people were starting to ask if they could “borrow” the dealer cars in order to run errands that they had planned to do 2 hours ago.

After 5 hours of waiting, one of the people came up to me and my wife and apologized… “I’m sorry, but we had not planned for this big of a turnout. We have taken your car over to the servivce area, but it is still in the queue. Would you like to remain waiting here or would you like to take your car and bring it back another day?”

WHAT??!? Where was this guy 3 hours ago to tell us there was going to be a wait???

My AS prevents me from displaying most emotions, but my wife doesn’t… and was quite capable of showing her frustration. “Fine,” I thought to myself, “I work within a mile of the dealer, so I’ll just drop it off after work during the week.” Again, they gave me the spiel about it only taking 45 minutes to an hour… MAYBE even shorter as there won’t be such a crowd.

My advice to anyone who has NOT yet had their upgrade… if your dealer is holding some kind of “event” for the upgrade, AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS!! Just schedule it like a regular appointment and avoid the hassle.

There are apparently quite a few different “upgrades” in addition to the transmission being performed that varies on the type of Smart you have. I’ll post mine when I get it done… if ever.

Here are some iPhone pics from the day:

Miranda with a Smart to match her bag…

Miranda next to a TINY Subaru van…. Miranda’s 5′ 4″ btw…

LOL!

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For some reason, the ass decided that he should read a flippin’ newspaper instead of pay attention to driving.

Not only was he driving slow, he would hit the brakes or swurve whenever something caught his eye on the aide of the road… like pedestrians or bikes.

When I eventually passed him on Busch Blvd, I saw that his newspaper was covering the steering wheel and his eye fixated in it.

I mean really??? Was that article worth risking the lives of everyone you pass?

Ass.