Next week definitely cannot fall under the umbrella of too little to do. Monday-Wednesday is all planning stuff for Windows 8 (no actual work to do yet, but a very important precursor to figuring out exactly what I will be doing), and then Thursday I’m in another training class. The only day I’ll even be in my office and have the opportunity to be bored is Friday, and by then, it’s the weekend!
I finally actually played a game on my 360 earlier (my first console game since I came up here actually) which was just the trial version of an XBLA game, but I still haven’t popped in any of my disc-based games. I should probably restart Mass Effect now that I’ll be playing it on a TV where I can actually read the text, and I have plenty of other games that could use some love also. Regardless, the fact that my game acquiring rate has severely decreased at least means that my backlog isn’t growing any larger (even though you could argue it has reached an unmanageable state already).
Personal - Seattle
This thought occurred to me last week or so, but I decided to save posting it until today. For the first time since I was 5, I won’t actually be starting any form of school this month. In fact, aside from any graduate work I do, I won’t ever be starting school again. The importance of today in making this post? Well, it would just happen to be the first day of school for UTD.
I have no master plan for this weekend, but you can bet that I’ll come up with some super entertaining thing to do. After all, since when have I ever just sat around doing nothing on a weekend? Maybe I’ll design my own flying machine, build it in the park across the street, and fly around Seattle. Then again, maybe not.
Personal - Seattle
Sorry, Apple, but after a year and with nothing really interesting coming out in 3.0, I’m fairly bored with my phone. Therefore, before I jump ship to Windows Mobile land when I’m upgrade eligible, I thought I would try to find a little bit of a spark remaining by jailbreaking my phone so I can do all of the things that you won’t let me. You know, things like use it as a modem for my computer, customize the lock screen, and let me set a background on the springboard. Minor things like that which don’t win you friends in the long run.
Earlier on in the week I thought I was going to have a training class tomorrow, but as it turns out (according to my calendar), that’s actually next Thursday. So, aside from the couple of meetings I have to go to, my day is once again just my average day at Microsoft. Hey, I’m getting really good at reading email in Outlook by now; I could totally teach a class on that if Microsoft didn’t feel like they were getting their money’s worth out of me.
Personal - Seattle
Even with my yo-yo schedule today, my downtime was kept to a minimum and I stayed fairly busy (helped in part by my first meeting with my mentor going longer than scheduled). Tomorrow my schedule is much more open, so I might be wishing for another day like today. If nothing else, being busy for most of the day today gave me lots of distribution list emails to catch up on (all meaningless as far as work goes, but at least something semi-work related to read).
Alex and I had a long chat earlier tonight about web design related stuff, and although he didn’t ask me to help him redesign the EE site, I did give him a bunch of input of various changes I think would look good. The big thing I’ve learned with web design is that what looks good in your mind may translate horribly into actual code and appearance, so having a bunch of different ideas to iterate through is never a bad thing. My big problem just comes from the fact that even with a computer in the mix I have no artistic skills, so I typically farm the design work out to other people (or just end up using templates like I do with my blogs).
Personal - Seattle
Because my TV and my computer are in such a configuration that it is very easy for me to watch TV while sitting at my desk (something I wasn’t able to do since we moved out of HP), I tend to keep my remote over next to my computer so I can change the channels and such from across the room. Unfortunately, this produces a very inconvenient situation when I’m stilling on the couch either to eat dinner or just to rest, and the remote isn’t where one would normally expect it to be. I know, complaining about getting up and walking across the room to get a remote makes me sound really lazy, but after about the tenth time, it just gets really old.
My day tomorrow is at least more populated with things to do, but rather than having everything grouped together (for better or worse), I have a one hour break in between every single one of my meetings. On the positive side, that means very little rushing around trying to get from place to place with no time to space. However, it also means that I continually have to go back to my office and entertain myself in short bursts before getting ready to leave to go to the next location. The short bursts of entertainment I actually don’t mind (as they’re much easier to pull off than day long ones), but it would just be nice if I wasn’t going to feel like a yo-yo by the end of the day.
Personal - Seattle
Maybe with my mentor back from his vacation, I’ll have meetings to go to again that are way over my head as far as content goes, but very effective in the reducing boredom department. I actually have my own solution to the boredom issue for Tuesday afternoon, but I could use a little help with the rest of my week. Actually having work to do would be nice, but I’ll take just about anything I can get at this point.
Andrew has one week left here before he returns to Dallas and leaves me friendless (aside from Julia, but she isn’t online for me to talk with each day while I’m insanely bored). He should know if he’s getting a full time offer towards the end of the week, and then has to make the decision on whether to accept or not if he is given one. Obviously I think it would be cool if he did get an offer and accepted it, but he’ll just have to wait and see what his managers say about his work over the summer.
Personal - Seattle
Well, I decided on the theater that I wanted to go see District 9 at, and amazingly, it wasn’t showing there. This wasn’t some small, out of the way theater either; I went downtown to the Pacific Place mall where I saw Star Trek and Angels and Demons. My reason for wanting to go there was so that I could start to get some hands on experience with the Seattle mass transit system for when I want to take it in order to get to the airport rather than leaving my car parked there for numerous days at a time (especially important for when I’m home over Christmas).
Instead, I went to go see G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. This was a movie that I would have gone to see last weekend, but it wasn’t showing at a convenient time at the theater I was going to then (hmmm, I’m starting to notice a pattern here). The reviews I’d read about it said it was pointless, no character development, and just non-stop action of stuff blowing up. So…Transformers? I’d actually rate it about the same; it was entertaining and fast paced, but no, it isn’t going to be winning any awards for story or acting. My score: 7.5/10.
Personal - Seattle
With my DVDs copied onto my computer and my 360 connected to my HDTV, watching movies has never been so simple. Sure, putting a disc in isn’t that hard, but since I don’t have a standalone DVD player, streaming saves me from having the drive noise in the background in addition to the fans. Also, it lets me store all of my DVDs in a closet and simply browse through a list in order to locate what I want to play. Aside from the TV (obviously), it’s a full Microsoft solution from end to end with no 3rd party software in the mix to handle various formats or anything. Sometimes you get so jaded with having to come up with workarounds that whenever something just works, it’s a pleasant surprise.
Against my better judgment, I’ll probably update both the file server and the HTPC in Dallas to Windows 7 over Christmas (hey, I’m going to be able to get the licenses super cheap, and I’ll need something to do while I’m down there). I would say that I’d throw Windows Home Server on the file server, but I’m not certain that it will play nice with the streaming TV setup down to my dad’s laptop. It would also be nice if Media Center on a PC could act as an extender (like a 360 can) so that I could just cut out the software used for that, but alas, that might have to be a feature that just has to wait for Windows 8.
Personal - Seattle
When I got into work today, I thought I would go ask a couple people various things so that I wouldn’t be so entirely bored in the morning. 9:00, no one there that I wanted to talk to. 10:00, still no one there. 11:00, same as before. At some magical point after lunch people materialized in their offices, but apparently the people I want to talk with are taking advantage of the fact that they have no work to do either and are sleeping in.
My plans for Saturday have slightly changed from what I publicly announced last night. First off, I won’t be going over to Julia’s anymore because they found out too many of their invitees were going to be busy that night, so the plan is for that to be rescheduled in about a month or so. Second, I think District 9 will be my movie of choice for the weekend, so now the only question is deciding where to go see it. It’s probably in my best interest to go to a new place since I still haven’t found my perfect theater up here yet, but very likely I’ll just end up going somewhere that I’ve already been before.
Personal - Seattle
My training class today was on how to be a good PM, so I at least have some knowledge now about what I would be doing if there was actually work for me to perform my PM tasks on. For the next two days I’m back to finding interesting ways to entertain myself, so take a lack of posts as a sign that I died of boredom. I would hope that it doesn’t come to that though because I have many things I want to do that require me to be alive.
This weekend I’ll probably go see a movie on Saturday afternoon and then go over to Julia’s place for a barbeque that she and her boyfriend are having that night. Sunday is very likely just a day of rest and relaxation for me, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see something pop up on my schedule either. Something tells me that my schedule won’t be this open and free forever, but unfortunately I can’t really save my free time from now and use it later on when I wish I had it.
Personal - Seattle