As we enter the 32 week since this fun started, things have changed a bit, at home, and at work, but we are still alive and kicking.
Starting tomorrow, the youngest will go back to face to face instructions. Her school has had zero reported cases of the plague, so we feel pretty safe about it. The middle has been back for a few weeks, but his school has had a few cases. The oldest is still doing all her classes for college on-line.
On the professional front, as I mentioned a while back, my $JOB was making changes. Well, Thursday past was my last day with the group I started with almost 4 years ago (missed 4 years by 4 weeks) and Friday I started with the new group. I will be doing the same basic role, but using different technology stack so I have a bit of a learning curve to deal with. Also, it is looking like I will not return to the office until late Spring at the earliest.
I have dusted off my old Ansible playbooks, and I have gotten them up to date. I used this when I set up my new desktop that $JOB paid for. It is missing some things that I wanted when I bought my first desktop in over 15 years like discrete graphics card, AMD CPU, and more RAM, but the main board is really nice if only limited to 32G of RAM. My first step is to upgrade the 16G of RAM the system came with to 32G. I have started to look for a decent GPU card to add to the system. The case is nice and large and easy to work in, so adding the GPU should be an easy task on afternoon. But first, I need to decide on the GPU. I do not really game, so the GPU will be used for photography and sadly Zoom calls.
Pretty soon, I will need to replace my keyboard. The current one is a 78-key non-mechanical keyboard. It is nice and quiet, but it is just a tad to small, and I have not really been able to touch-type well on it. I got it so I would not disturb anyone else while working, but since I will be solo in the home office again starting Monday, I can get away with something which makes a little noise.
Note I started writing this 13.Jul.2020. It is now 9.Aug.2020. Oops.
As we go into our 17th 21st week of the Plague Apocalypse, I find that I have slipped into a routine for the week, but one which does not involve much creativity.
I have set a menu which is heavily driven by broad themes (Taco Tuesday, Take-out Thursday, etc). I still get dressed for work as if I was going into the office, which
for me means slacks, shirt, and a tie. I spent a decent chunk of my time in the office on video calls, so why should I change what I wear simply because I doing it from
somewhere else? Plus, it is a signal to my family that I am working vs not working.
I have gotten a lot of little projects completed. Both around the house, and on my computers. And, I have fund time to take some training classes at work above what is
normally required of me.
I am still posting weekly photos photos, but they have been more snap-shots vs photos. I am finding that my creative drive is lacking right
now. I am not sure if it is due to the stress of the wider world with the virus and the, um, interesting politics in the US currently or the stress from work.
I found out a while back that the group I work in at my $JOB is leaving Houston for whatever reason, and that I could move the North East, the UK, or Singapore. While we did talk
about moving to the UK a few years back, we are not in a position to pick up and move anywhere, let alone overseas. I have two leads for different groups out of the office
here which I am pretty excited for. They both have some great opportunities, as well as their own issues, but in the end, it is still a job.
I have had a lot of time to study up on photography and on coding, and I need to find some time to go practice both. One of the big issues is that since there are no
commutes currently, folks have been scheduling even earlier meeting, so my mornings are ‘at work’ earlier than they were before this whole mess. I need to push back on that,
where I can.
I am also going to try to post more here as a place I can leave notes to myself.
