We’re Off!
Welcome, friends, to my second live-blog attempt! My first attempt went un-time-stamped and mostly un-read (except for Tara, yay Tara!) This one will endeavor to follow some of the example put out by live-blogger-extraordinaire Pauly and by drinker-extraordinaire Al. It won’t live up. I can promise you that.
But it should be fun.
You should also know that it will likely not live up to my usually high standards for grammar and spelling. I will not be spell-checking. I will proof-read less. I will probably spit stuff out just as it occurs to me, and no faster or slower. It will be an adventure for everyone.
Here we go!
7:28 AM: I walked up to the red-framed square windows that surround the employee entrance for the last… second-to-last (we’re going out for lunch) time. I did not get teary. After I badged in, and the door clicked, I entered the building and greeted the security guard.
“Good morning!”
“Good morning. How are you today?”
“Great, thanks. You?”
“Great! It’s Friday!”
“That it is.”
I didn’t bother telling him today is my last day.
In other news, I’m coming down with a cold! Yay! So, this post, in addition to being spell-check-deprived will also be store-brand-Day-Quil-enhanced.
7:33 AM: I read my email. None of it was relevant to me.
7:35 AM: I just noticed that my blog tried to ping-back to itself. That’s retarded. I deleted the trackback.
7:43 AM: I can’t log into our build server. They already killed my account maybe? I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure I was typing the password in correctly. Oh well, I guess I won’t be checking in that stuff. I’ll have to send it to my group lead. If I can get to the code… I wonder…
7:50 AM: Yes, I can get to the code. I’ve sent the file to my group lead. Yay email still working!
7:55 AM: I have determined that I, in fact, have lost my Unix account. Fabulous. This should make getting things done today really fun! My next-cube-neighbor just had to do some of my work for me.
8:06 AM: I am patiently waiting for my CD to burn. My computer is very impatient with me, and often turns CDs into coasters. As such, the only thing I’m doing while the CD burns is typing in here. I won’t even hit “Save and Continue Editing” until after the CD is finalizaed. This is going to take a while. Burning at 16x is so 1999, but it’s the only safe way.
Yay! The burn suceeded!
8:29 AM: I am talking to some coworkers about where to live and how to commute. This is exciting.
8:34 AM: Time for breakfast!
9:15 AM: Breakfast was pretty good. I got an omelet, with peppers, onions, and provolone. Unfortunately, my second-to-last bite had a bit of ham in it. I was pretty grossed out, and the taste lingers. But I have gum, so I’ll be okay!
I found out that some of my favorite senior engineers won’t be able to come to my lunch because of some stupid meeting. That makes me sad. Count of times Diane is sad today, one.
9:25 AM: I’ve caught up on my blog reading. I don’t think I’ll read my webcomics today, though. I haven’t read them all week and it would take too long to catch up. I’m sorry Laura!
9:38 AM: I went to drop off some equipment and a CD, and the people I was going to see weren’t there! Oh well. I think next I will go through the pile of junk to the left of my computer.
9:40 AM: One of the UI designers, who I just said goodbye to while I was down in that area (way on the other end of the building), just sent me a picture of a kitten hugging a teddy bear. It is super cute.
9:48 AM: I just walked about 15 hard drives over to a coworker. Lucky him!
9:57 AM: Left side of the desk is cleared off. Right side is standing in wait. I took off my long-sleeved shirt to do this sorting, because I was getting warm. I’m so breaking dress code wearing a tank top!
I just discovered that I forgot to bring a part of the hardware I brought down to the other end of the building. Damn it. I gotta make the walk again. I think I’ll wait a little while though, see if I can’t combine it with another trip.
10:01 AM: I just threw out 11 sticky notes. This is a relatively small number. I’ve been purging over the last couple weeks as I tied up projects I was working on. I like sticky notes.
10:16 AM: I have finished desk surfaces, and am moving on to drawers! I found a dollar coupon for the cafeteria that I can’t use. I gave it to my next-cube-neighbor. I hope he enjoys himself a few cookies or something.
10:22 AM: I found Tara’s clipboard! I know she’s wanted it back for a while. Like several years. She probably had to replace it by now because I’m a loser (in two ways!). Don’t worry Tara! I’ve got him!
10:26 AM: I opted against doing the shredding myself, as there was well over three inches of company confidential crap hanging out on my desk. I went instead with the “red box” method. I put it in the box, and a professional shredding company (they have those, apparently) shreds it for me.
10:43 AM: I’m getting my exercise today. I just walked back to the other end of the building to return that bit of hardware. They were there this time, and thankful for the stuff. Nice people.
I also stopped at the admin’s desk on the way back (it’s totally not on the way) to get a life saver. She’s nice and always has candy out for us.
10:47 AM: I just pawned off a years worth of Dr. Dobb’s Journal to a coworker.
11:00 AM: I am now deleting 3 years of cruft from my computer’s hard drive. It’s amazing the stupid things I keep around. It’s the pack-rat in me. I’m incapable of throwing something out unless I’m absolutely certain I’ll never need it again. It’s probably the one thing that drives Mike nuts the most… I’d fix it if I knew how.
11:04 AM: It occurs to me. I have most of my links mirrored in various places. I mean, I really only need to visit GMail, LiveJournal, Bloglines, and this site, and I’m linked to any site I’d check. But there’s an exception. Webcomics. I’ve been looking at those out of my bookmarks menu for years. Well, crap! I’d better go ahead and duplicate those somewhere. Seeing as I love webcomics, and I love to share, I guess I’ll just add them to my links over on the right!
11:15 AM: The delete I started 15 minutes ago is finally done “preparing to delete” and is now actually deleting. Yay.
11:26 AM: I have reached complete boredom. I was just watching the delete thing scroll. 17 minutes remaining, if you can believe Windows (and I never do).
11:35 AM: Damn vultures! The guy in the cube to my left (technically a next-cube-neighbor, but not the one I normally talk about) is so impatiently waiting to steal stuff from my desk. It’s annoying. Wait until I’m gone, seriously.
11:38 AM: Lunch time!
2:01 PM: Back from lunch. We went to Bertucci’s, which our admin let me pick. It was good food, and I’m extremely full.
Our super-sweet admin arranged to get me flowers and a balloon. When she came in carrying the flowers, I almost cried. Count of times Diane is sad today, two. The balloon she clipped to the back of my chair when I wasn’t looking, and only found out it was there when a cute little girl ran up and pointed, “Baooon!” Her mother assured her that yes it was a balloon, and I thanked her for pointing it out to me.
They also got an ice cream cake. I love ice cream cake. Good choice! But, of course, they wanted a speech. I thanked everyone for all that I’ve learned and commented on making such good friends. It was sincere. One of my group leads said, “So why are you leaving, then?”
A tear came to my eye. Count of times Diane is sad today, three. Our former interim director told me not to cry any more. I managed to keep most of it in.
I’m a really emotional person. It’s just how I am. So this is what I do.
At any rate, I brought the flowers back inside with me so they wouldn’t die in the car. Now I’m going to have to take two trips when I leave. Damn.
2:27 PM: It turns out that I broke the build a couple weeks ago. That amuses me. It does not amuse my coworker who has to clean up after my stupid (trivial) mess. We fixed it in a very small number of moments. Luckily they caught me just moments before I was going to delete the crap from my share drive where I did all my work.
2:37 PM: My stomach is overfilled with tortellini and ice cream cake. Graaaasahsddfjaasoindgzoinasdfnmx….
2:48 PM: I just noticed that the time stamps on my blog appear to be off by an hour. I wonder how the hell that happened.
2:49 PM: I found the part of my WordPress options that lets me change that. It must have been a daylight savings thing or something. I don’t know. Anyway, it looks like, unfortunately, once they’re put in the database they’re stuck that way. What a pain. That makes me sad. But not sad enough to count towards the tally for the day.
3:03 PM: My next-cube-neighbor just IMed me some very nice things. I’m teary. I called him a bastard. Okay, really, I’m not teary, I’m crying. Bastard!
Count of times Diane is sad today, four.
3:13 PM: I deleted my time card. I have to send in my time card. Delema! Next-cube-neighbor to the rescue!
3:27 PM: I think this will be the end of the live-blog. It was a good way to spend my last day, I think. But it is time for me to finalize the world and get out of here. Have a great night!
I’m going to pretend I even remember my clipboard.
Omigosh, you found my clipboard! Awesome!
If you use a mozilla based browser, your bookmarks are just an html file. I usually try to keep a central copy somewhere. If it’s IE, it’s a bigger pain because it’s a file structure of folders and shortcut files.
The clipboard is that nice blue one. I borrowed it so far back I’m not sure which play it was for. It may have even been SOFT TARGETS. That’s totally like eighty-bajillion years ago! Or, well, three, but whatever.
Oh wow. I totally remember it now. With the nice plastic grip? I was wicked afraid it was my hot pink one. (Don’t ask)
It is totally hot blue, though!
I’ll leave it in my car so I can give it to you tomorrow. That’s just how cool I am.
I’ve begun to be a fan of Deli.cio.us for my link storage. Their feeds make it possible to do all sorts of tricky stuff with the links in the long run.
You know, if you’re that bored, I’m pretty sure you told a friend you’d write some letter thing or another.
Watching the delete thing scroll is never a good sign…yay for the distraction of lunch :)
What? No one stole anything from your desk while you were at lunch? Very disappointed in the vultures.
I’ll have to look into deli.cio.us, Jon. I don’t really know what the hell that is. I am such an internet idiot these days :-D
Tara, I am so sorry, because I am a forgetful idiot.
Woah, I’m two kinds of idiots!
The vultures were totally at lunch with us. Really, it doesn’t much affect me if they steal things from the pile of junk I no longer want or need. It just bothers me when they bother me.
Okay, three kinds of idiots, when you add the grammar idiocy.
I could probably fix your data for you, if it really bothers you.
Aw… crap. Now comments are showing up out of order because of this time-stamp mess. Damn! For future note, Tara’s comment about fixing the data is the first comment after I readjusted the clock.
Have a good night yourself! Tie one on!