Diary of a Network Geek

So, you may have noticed that I haven’t written as much lately.
Well, okay, maybe you haven’t because I have a giant backlog of posts just waiting for when I feel a little off and un-writerly. Still, these are generic posts and contain virtually nothing personal or important. There’s a reason. Of course, that’s silly, isn’t it? There’s always a reason!

Saturday night, after Mercy Street, I went out to dinner with some friends. More specifically, some friends that aren’t the Prayer Team. A buddy of mine, J., his new girl/woman/whatever, L., a special lady, C., and, the reason I jumped at the chance to go with this crew, Jennifer. She’s one of the two girls I could have changed my life for at that New Year’s party that L. threw. The one from out of state, not out of the country. So, of course, I jumped at the chance. I mean, a cute, young red-head who spent time in the Peace Corps and is about to finish her MBA? Yeah, an evening spent in conversation with her would be just fine.
In any case, we get to the restaurant and everyone is talking about what they’re going to order. J. gets some queso for the entire table, because, well, because he apparently has a very special relationship with cheese. But, that leads to a discussion about weight and diet. And, I talk about how I’d like to loose a few more pounds.
“Yeah, you looked really different when I met you four years ago”, J. said.
“Oh?” asked L.
“Yeah, I was on my way to being ‘little Jim’ at the time.”
“Weren’t you already little when I met you?” asked J.
“No, but, I was by the end of that year.”
“Yeah, you lost a lot of weight that year”, added J.
“Really? How much?” asked L.
“Well, I started out at around 230 and before the year was out, I’d bounced off 175 for a week or two.”
“Whoa! That’s a huge change! How’d you do it?” asked L.
“Well, I was out of work for a year, my now ex hadn’t even made a move toward working and I was doing everything I could to take care of my little family. I had no good prospects for jobs, thanks to the Enron thing. I was quickly running out of money and the bills kept coming and I had no idea how I was going to pay them. I got so depressed that I stopped eating. So, you know, that severe depression really takes the weight off.”
Apparently, by the time I was done with that little tale of woe, poor L., who is a dear, sweet, sensitive soul, had heard a whole lot of pain, because when I was done and looked at her, I got this slightly shocked, pitiful look and a very, small, quiet, “Oh, Jim, I’m so sorry…” To which I shrugged, smiled and said, “Hey, it happens. Regardless, I made it through, didn’t I?”
But, then, I felt so old. My buddy, J., is the same age I am, but he had no idea what it was like trying to support a family and knowing that there was no way I could make it without help. Help that wasn’t coming from anyone I lived with at the time. I realized that I’d lived an entire life, then watched it crumble into bits and fly off on the wind. And, here I was, left still standing to build another life with hardly any idea where to start. And, damn, if that didn’t make me feel like the oldest person at the table. And, all I can think after I’d said that was that I’d just ruined my chances with Jennifer sitting next to me. Of course, it’s very, very, highly unlikely that she’s going to move back to Houston after she gets her MBA anyway, but, still, a guy can dream.
But, it gets “better”…
So, we’re all walking out to our cars and everyone points theirs out and so on, trying to figure where to separate and hug and whatnot. I laugh and point out my car, saying, “Well, I can always spot my car. How many retired police cars can there be in a lot?”
And, L., trying to be her usual nice self, says, “I like it. It’s got personality.”
Ugh. Personality. I told J. when I saw him Sunday night, that I’d trade all that personality for a double helping of normal. He told me that it’d be okay and I’d drive something nice and normal again one day.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I wasn’t talking about the car.

Yeah, it’s not years that get me, but, sometimes, it sure is the milage.

Hmm, that’s a good quesiton….
A friend asked me why I blog the other day and it really got me thinking. Why do I blog?

Well, the reasons have changed over the years. Originally, I started “blogging” to chronicle my search for a job here in Houston. Well, it was also a way to try and drive traffic to my website so that the search engines would find my resume. That was almost five years ago, back before there was such a thing as blogging software. In the early days, I hand-coded every page and uploaded it. As one might imagine, I tried to make every “post” count back then. It was a real hassle! But, I kept posting things about my work. Often, I found myself out on the road doing strange things or going odd places for my work and I wrote about it. I tried to focus on the technical side of things, but every so often, I would throw in something strange about my personal life, like getting married.
Then, back in September of 2002, I heard about Moveable Type, which was the first really good blogging application. It ran on PERL and MySQL, which were things I wanted to learn, so it seemed like a good choice. And, it was. I was able to post more often and more easily than ever before. And, I was out of work, again, so I moved from work war stories back to the seemingly endless search for work. It was the Summer after Enron and IT work was hard to come by, so I started posting more and more about my own personal thoughts, hopes and dreams. The blog started to become much more personal. It was a place to vent my frustrations, though I did so carefully as I was ever mindful that a future employer might read my postings.
Somewhere in there, I also started my other blog on Fantasist.net. There I posted things that were purely fun for me. Nothing but cool science and fantasy stuff, some of my fiction and poetry, and just plain cool or weird things. It was there that I originally started posting my “Fun Friday” links. That carried over here and I’ve done my best to maintain that to this day.
Now, I’ve upgraded to WordPress and blogging couldn’t be easier or more fun. I’m still carefull about what I post. I have a fairly varied audience, some of which include family that might be under the age of 18, so I do my best to be intelligent without being insulting to too many people. I do my best to keep the profanity and “adult material” to a minimum, too, for the same reasons.

So, why do I keep posting? Well, I can always use the traffic, even if I am the #1 hit for “CNE Resume” on Google. But, mainly, it gives me a place to think out loud when no one is around for me to talk to about things. Blogging let’s me share my thoughts and dreams and, sometimes, fears with a larger world. A larger world that often responds with surprising kindness and sympathy, I might add. It’s my way of reaching out to fellow geeks who are stuggling with their own careers or lives and offer a bit of hope that they’re not alone.
Also, it’s a way for me to create a bit of immortality. To feel like a part of me will go on beyond my own limited life. To get my words and thoughts out into a larger world so that I might be remembered and understood.
So, why do you all read my blog? And, if you keep one, why do you blog?

Not even shredding is safe enough anymore.

A long, long time ago, I argued that people with enough time could reassmble shredded documents. That was, unfortunately, proven true by the Iranians in the US Embassy. But, now, you don’t even need that much time or individual human resources. According to this story on The New York Times, there are a growing number of high-tech ways to reassmble shredded documents. To those of use who live in Houston, home of the Enron Scandal, that takes on a special significance. It seems they now have a program that does, essentially, “edge matching” and connects scanned pieces of shredded documents together via software. Basically, it’s a program to do jigsaw puzzles at a very high-speed. Keep that in mind if you think your documents are safe after they’ve been shredded.
And, one of the biggest firms offering this service is ChurchStreet Technology, who are based out of Houston. I bet they’re booked working on the Enron stuff for years.

Being out of work sucks.

I could just about end this entry there, but that would be cheating. Thankfully, I am employed now, but I haven’t been for all that long, so I remember how bad it sucks to be out of work.
I remember when I first got into IT. I was sure that I’d never have to worry about being employed again. Wrong! But, then, at the time, I never would have expected to move to Houston. And, I never would have expected that a company like Enron would go bankrupt. Not to mention the fact that the mere concept of HP and Compaq “merging” was so far from being a possibility that it was inconcievable. But, the only constant is that things change. And change they did.
So, last year at this time, I was out of work and I didn’t know when I’d get hired. I figured that it would be no sooner than mid-January, because that’s when most everyone gets their new budget. Wrong again. It took almost an entire year for me to get a new job. Now, I’ll admit that part of that is my fault. I’ve got my Novell certification, but I never really wanted to get my Micro$oft certification. Guess what everyone was hiring this year? Yeah, primarily MCSEs (that’s MicroSoft Certified Systems Engineers, to you, buddy!). And that left me high and dry for most of the year. But, eventually, a Novell shop went looking and found me. Of course, even they are converting to Windows 2000, so I’m going to end up getting my MCSE after all. At least, the next time I’m out of work, I’ll be able to use that to my advantage.

Now, don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not going to rely on either certification to get me a gig. No, sir, I’ve learned my lesson. Marketing is going to get me a job. Yep, that’s right. Marketing is the key. Marketing is the answer.
Marketing myself is what I mean, of course. Why else would I set up a blog like this? I get to use all the nice keywords and technical terms that keep me listed high in the search engines. Yep, I can write about being a CNE, then explain that CNE mean Certified NetWare Engineer. Buzzwords. Ah, I love the sound of buzzwords. Every MicroSoft and Windows reference cranks me up a notch. Each time I link to Novell’s website, I improve my search ranking. And, the last time I checked, it was working. If I do a search for CNE Resume on Google, I find myself as the number one hit. Sweet!
So, keep hitting those links, children. Keep Uncle Jim’s website ranked high. make sure the nice recruiters can see me, so that the next time I’m over loaded with free time and not enough paying work, they can fix that. Ah, the power of technology….

Now, back to work for me, before I’m unemployed again.