Diary of a Network Geek

Attention Headhunters! I don’t want a new job!

Seriously? Thanks for making the overtures to me, but I really don’t want to change jobs.
First of all, these folks supported me when I was going through my cancer treatments when a lot of other companies would have been trying to get rid of me, if they could. And, I don’t mean that they were just supportive, but they kept me on the payroll, not disability, and let me come in and work when I could. How many places would do that?

Secondly, Seatrax is in the Oil and Gas industry, which is, frankly, booming right now. Granted, those $100/barrel oil prices really make things like gas expensive, but they also keep companies in our industry working. Right now, we’re doing very well. We have a lot of work and, based on what I’ve seen, it looks like we’re going to have work for quite a long time. So, if we’re about to go into a recession, which every seems to think we are, I’d rather work for a company with a proven track record who likes the work I do and has future business already.

Thirdly, I like working for a company that actually makes something and contributes to the GNP in a real way. In fact, I think Seatrax is the last, big, crane manufacturer in the United States. Frankly, I’m not sure I could name another post crane manufacturing company, period. And, yes, there is something cool about being associated with a company that make really, big, huge machines that go on the largest off-shore platforms in the world. I’m not sure what it is, but seeing one of those giant machines, in pieces, strapped down to a series of flatbed trucks cruising down the highway toward the shipyard to get installed makes me swell up with pride. There aren’t many companies in the U.S., who are owned buy U.S. backers, that actually produce things any more. At least, that’s how it seems to me. And, I think it’s great to be a part of a team that does.

So, in spite of some really great offers, I like the job I’m at and I’m just going to stay put.
Thanks, though.

I’m a resource hog.

One of my several websites has used 5856.36 megabytes of 6500.00 megabytes of bandwidth as of 13:55 today. Do you think it will make it until midnight when the counters reset?

I love the juxtaposition of high tech and low tech.

Over at Roland Piquepaille’s blog on ZDnet, there’s a fairly long post about an art project in Germany that has taken a robotic arm and repurposed it to copy the complete Bible as translated by Martin Luther. They even programmed it to do everything in a caligraphic style with fancy, illuminated capital letters starting the paragraphs, just like the monks in the scriptorums used to do. By the time you’re reading this, the art exhibit this is a part of will have closed, but the webpages live on.
So, anyway, it’s cool and you should go read about “a very religious robot“.