The IggBlog

The turkeys are back at work. Careful guys, thanksgiving is getting pretty close

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

So I’m back from Vegas. Some months ago I decided it’d be cool to see Vegas before I turned 30. Probably after watching CSI or something. So Emily took it upon herself to be awesome and make it happen. She got us plane tickets and a room for relatively cheap on Orbitz or something like that. It’s pretty much exactly what I needed.

I’d been coming to work angry for the last few weeks just due to frustration… There’s a hiring freeze on engineers so I’m stuck in an operator position for now. It’s fine, I like my company but the waiting was getting to me. There hasn’t been much to do except push trash at work recently. I thrive off solving challenging problems, and spending hours troubleshooting something complex that I’ve never touched before. But recently it’s been all boring standardized notification type stuff.

Vegas was impressive. We stayed at Circus Circus, mostly because it was possible to get a big room on the strip for dirt cheap. It’s the place with the massive motherfucking creepy clown outside. It took a day or so to really take it all in. Sure it’s all artificial but the novelty, and sheer density of that novelty, was what was really cool to see. As with most people I didn’t net any wins. Emily and I played a bunch of slots… We’d find the loudest and most ADD/obnoxious machine we could find and we’d rock it for a few hours. All while sucking down free booze of course. I won a little at blackjack, but nothing worth mention. On the last day I got to visit a cousin of mine in the area and his GF. We wound down the vacation with a little BBQ, and leeched a ride to the airport. It was everything I thought it would be and more, and did exactly what I wanted it to. We left Thursday and came back Tuesday, and I returned to work calm and relaxed for once. I even got to do some really fun events at work on Wednesday.

That’s my story. That place is good times, looking forward to going back sometime.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

Saw this the other day on TV. Yes, it’s a legit commercial. I’d completely forgotten about it, but a coworker passed the link around the NOC. I think it might be a bit much for kids, but then I’ve only seen it aired late-ish on TV. It’s pretty awesome, especially if you’re ancient like me and you remember the original vid when it came out. Funny how controversial for one generation is commercial stock for another.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

Due to a combination of taunts and dares, my breakfast turned out to be…

That’s right. a poptart and brownie sandwich. Clicky for a full force pic of it. It was a little messier than I’d planned on, but totally worth it. Also, fuck you Korey.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

The name of the department I work in right now is insite. It’s probably just some corporate goon’s idea of a trendy spelling of “insight”. When our updated systems get rolled out the new name for my group will be RIM, for “remote infrastructure management”. Because… I mean… Everyone loves acronyms, right? This means my job title will be “RIM operator”. I think people need to be a little more careful with acronyms though. We’re already calling eachother rim jockeys, and we’re just waiting for someone to come walking in with a resumee asking for details on the RIM job. At least they didn’t go with “automated network usage support”. It’s a bit of a stretch, but you get the idea.

In related news, I’ve come to find out one of my coworkers almost got a medal for his time served over in the middle east. the acronym on the medal would have been for “the war on terror”, signifying his diligence in the fight against TWAT for his time served.

I decided to go against the grain and actually post something. Not much to update just yet, although good stuff is in the works.

News: Finally got my CCNA. I have yet to be reimbursed for the test costs, but it’s good to get that under my belt.
Not news: Still working in the same position, but we have a couple of massive contracts pending. If they go through they’ll be needing more engineers, and I’m first in line.
Random: Music video about russian culture:

A++, would buy again.

I’ll try to write more often. Not because I think I have anything interesting to say, mostly just because I like hearing myself say it.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

They’ve been “testing” the fire alarm system for a week and change here for some reason. I asked a friend that worked at the company who owns the building we lease space from, and he has no idea why they’ve been doing it. Basically the alarm will sound and strobes will go off, then abruptly stop. This will happen a half dozen times, then someoen will come on the loudspeaker and state that they will be performing testing. Yeah, makes as much sense to me too. This has been going on all day every day for nearly two weeks. The thought had crossed my mind “what if there was a real fire?”. Sure enough a few days ago there were fire engines and stuff outside. Apparently there was a for-reals fire somewhere in the building and they were evacuating. We only found out about it when a coworker came into the ops center and told us that people were collecting in the mini-park out front. The general consensus was that at this point we were going to stay in the building out of spite, and jump out a window if we ended up actually having to leave.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

There was recently a big issue with this one customer of ours, and the job to drive the ticket through AT&T fell in my lap. I spent around 90 minutes fighting with them to even get a ticket opened, and finally got to a person who could find the circuit I was calling in. They were reluctant to build the ticket, and I expressed to them that in the time I spent bouncing around in their system the ticket was escalated to a very high level. They asked what level that was. I replied “It’s been escalated to puppy kicking status. We have a whole lineup of puppies here, and we’re going to have to start kicking them soon if nothing gets done on this. I don’t want to kick them, but it’s part of their process. So please try and get moving on this”.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.

ATTN – Working public: If you use instant messaging at work, please disable sounds on it. Your coworkers hate hearing about it every time you send and receive a message. No seriously, I want to murder you after a solid hour of listening to your IM sounds. I’m only half kidding. Get some headphones if you’re still tickled by the novelty of it all.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or there.