It was supposed to be 70 degrees outside today but it didn't seem it with the wind and no sun so I instead of hiking around, we visited the botanical gardens.



The combo of humidity and warmth is so great.

After the really long and stressful unpaid, overtime friday I got a visit from the Mike's Hard Lemonade monster. I wasn't home - out with (e:mike) while when most of it happend but it pretty much wrecked a whole lot of stuff including destroying my outdoor electric socket and just about every flower power I have. Then it ripped the wind shield wipers off (e:puddlediving)'s car. Not just the easily removable wiper part either. It ripped them down to the motors which is likely hundreds of dollars in damage.

The police came but no one pressed charges because despite it being passed out on my porch in a puddle of damaged stuff, and threatening the entire night, it denied everything. I also felt bad enough for it so I didn't press charges and the monster got taken home by the police instead of off to jail. Even after that it continued to threaten me the next morning via text. I've decided its time for a restaining order come monday. I want the kind where it can never talk to me ever talk again.

Bathroom light had been sparking for a bit as the switch was deteriorating. It finally gave out. Luckily this problem was one that i could fix on my own for the grand total of $4 and 20 minutes of effort including the trip to get the replacement part I needed at Schuele.

Its pretty awesome that there is a hardware store right on Summer between main and linwood now. somehow they manage to pack everything I ever need into that store. Its like having a home depot one block away minus the kitchen, remodeling, bathroom fixtures, doors, wood yard and drywall sections that I never really go in anyways.

I hate going to home depot when I need a small item because first of all its a 10-15 minute drive each way and second of all because I end up spending forever trying to find what I needed or get help. Then I end up purchasing all this crap I didn't really want or need because I was waiting around.

I am no longer a landlord. I wasn't cut out for it. We sold it for 75k which was a good deal but I owed a bunch to the bank and my parents because I remortaged it to finance the downpayment on my primary residence.

Anyways yesterday we got an email saying that the buyer wanted the remaining items removed from the house before closing this morning at 11am or he would charge us $500. So from 10pm (when I got done with my 12 hour shift) to 12:30am (e:terry) and I hauled out all the remaining crap my grandfather hoarded over 30+ years into (e:heidis) truck.

Bushels of rocks, tires, scraps of wood and wire, tar paper, and boxes. All kinds of crap. Add to that the shit (e:enknot) and (e:samathon) left. That poor tv went through so much. They wouldn't even take it at the dump. Not even the scrappers stole it. Its sad because when the journey started it was a working set. By the time it was done, its pretty much junk. The junkyard also doesn't take tires.

Anyways it was sad leaving the last time but I think its for the best.

Part of the process was filling out some paper work with her death date. I wasn't sure so I typed "nonna died buffalo" and the first thing that came up was my (e:paul,31977) a blog titled "Waiting While Nonna is Dying." Someday when I go old ans forgetful this blog will be an invaluable resource.

I really need a new position or a salary increase, preferably both. Luckily I really love what I do but my job has gotten substantially more complex over the last four years. In the last two years especially. I just wish I could finally have some authority and some people working for me as I really know what am I doing and have some great ideas but spend so much time having to ask permission and jump through hoops. The systems I am creating involve scores of servers intercommunicating and hundreds of thousands of lines of code in many different languages and on multiple platforms. I do so much work, that I honestly can't even believe it myself. Today, on my day off, after already putting in 40 hours as of yesterday I ended up with two very last minute work mandates from the top of the org.

One involved a whole bunch of programming in order to add a new feature to a complex app to help a very important person and the other was graphic design. Its been so long since I had to promote something graphically and with text. I do graphic design stuff all the time, but not brochure/flyer stuff with text layout.

This tiny new system feature was a huge hit. Basically, we are trying to advertise a new system feature I created that allows users to unlock their account from anywhere so that there is no more "locked your account our at 3am typing the wrong password into webmail and need to call the helpdesk to get back in." type of situation. Really I pushed for the system because I am that guy with the overly complex password that I am typing into my phone at 3am but once we rolled it out there was so much positive feedback. It used to suck to have to call the helpdesk and wait to get unlocked, especially if they were busy and you were in the middle of something important, or they had to wake up to help you. It also sucked for them because they are busy with lots of other stuff.

I tried my best and ended up with this slide. I just got one slide so even though the system has all kinds of other cool features, I focused on the "cloud unlock" portion. Hope it works out.