But it sure is awesome
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
it's your weekend update!
I'll have to start with the big news, in case for some reason you've been living under a rock and hadn't heard: Osama bin Laden has been killed. Big news, right?
Aside from that, this weekend has been relatively quiet. Taylor had one tickets to Moody Blues on Thursday, and we saw the first part of their show. After about a half hour they had a 20 minute intermission, and by that point we were good to go. We aren't huge Moody Blues fans and I personally don't know any of their songs. They were good but I didn't want to stay for several hours and a few intermissions.
On Sunday, we celebrated my grandma's 88th birthday.
Next weekend is Mother's Day, don't forget!
Next weekend is Mother's Day, don't forget!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
another late post
It's a downward spiral effect. The longer I wait to post, the less motivated I am to post because I have to write more to catch everybody up. I need to get back on the ball with this...
The highlight of last weekend for me was my prime rib adventure on Sunday. I bought a ~4 lb prime rib that cost me about $43, and I needed to cook it correctly the first time so all that cash didn't go to waste. I followed the recipe from Serious Eats (and for those who are interested in a little food science, you can read the article on how the recipe came to be), and everything turned out better than expected. The meat came out a glorious reddish-pink and juicy. In fact, here's a snapshot:
It was quite literally the best [homemade] steak I've ever had. Since a majority of the steak was medium rare, as opposed to a small 1/2"-1" strip of medium rare in most steak cuts, it was very tender. I almost want to do this more often, except that it costs a buttload of money.
On Monday, we had our flag football playoffs and it did not go well. We lost out on our first game, but just as well. They were doing the whole playoff bracket in one day, meaning that some teams could have up to four back-to-back games. That seems a bit intense and crazy to me, but ended up being a moot point for us.
Tuesday was the penultimate day of class for the one I'm taking this semester, which is nice. After next week, I won't have anymore late days because all sports and classes will be over... at least until June. After class, Andy and I went to help out Taylor's kickball team because they were a tiny bit shorthanded. It was a good game, but unfortunately I screwed up in the outfield which led to a grand slam. A GRAND SLAM! Son of a bitch. We ended up losing 13-8. I might help them out one or two more times this season.
Things are going strong at work for me after having to take up extra responsibilities and tasks because of our reduction. Let's hope this will be the last set of layoffs for a while.
The highlight of last weekend for me was my prime rib adventure on Sunday. I bought a ~4 lb prime rib that cost me about $43, and I needed to cook it correctly the first time so all that cash didn't go to waste. I followed the recipe from Serious Eats (and for those who are interested in a little food science, you can read the article on how the recipe came to be), and everything turned out better than expected. The meat came out a glorious reddish-pink and juicy. In fact, here's a snapshot:
It was quite literally the best [homemade] steak I've ever had. Since a majority of the steak was medium rare, as opposed to a small 1/2"-1" strip of medium rare in most steak cuts, it was very tender. I almost want to do this more often, except that it costs a buttload of money.
On Monday, we had our flag football playoffs and it did not go well. We lost out on our first game, but just as well. They were doing the whole playoff bracket in one day, meaning that some teams could have up to four back-to-back games. That seems a bit intense and crazy to me, but ended up being a moot point for us.
Tuesday was the penultimate day of class for the one I'm taking this semester, which is nice. After next week, I won't have anymore late days because all sports and classes will be over... at least until June. After class, Andy and I went to help out Taylor's kickball team because they were a tiny bit shorthanded. It was a good game, but unfortunately I screwed up in the outfield which led to a grand slam. A GRAND SLAM! Son of a bitch. We ended up losing 13-8. I might help them out one or two more times this season.
Things are going strong at work for me after having to take up extra responsibilities and tasks because of our reduction. Let's hope this will be the last set of layoffs for a while.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
the aftermath
Last week, much like Monday, was rough. Throughout the week, the people who were laid off still showed up at work because my work offered them outplacement services. We went to lunches and happy hours to spend some remaining time with those who were laid off. There was also a rush of requests sent on LinkedIn, which I still haven't personally found useful. On top of the sadness of watching people pack up and leave, there was also the reality that we will have to work even harder to meet schedules with less people. On my project alone, we lost 8 people, which is substantial because we only had around 15 people to begin with. More work for everybody!
On a completely unrelated note, Taylor and I watched the original Scream trilogy, refreshing ourselves for the newest sequel. I'm not a big horror movie fan, but the Scream series' mix of parody and horror works well for me.
I finished a book I started many months ago, Stranger in a Strange Land. I rated it a 3/5 stars on Goodreads. It was a pretty good book, and this might by attributed to the long periods of time where I stopped reading, but I found parts of it very long-winded and serving no purpose. I remember a part in the book that was about 6 pages of dialogue between two characters discussing statues. Why? The book overall was good, and showed an interesting perspective on our society and what we consider "normal." I had an internal struggle when deciding the next book to read: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or The Dark Tower, and ended up deciding on the former since I've had it on my shelf longer.
We had our final two regular season flag football games on Monday, and they did not go well at all. We lost both games, but it's hard to be disheartened. We got screwed on scheduling, and they gave us a back-to-back double-header against the best two teams in the league. Let me give you an idea on the skills disparity between the teams in this league. We beat most of the teams in the league by 30-40 points, and yet these two teams beat us by 20-30 points. That's a huge disparity between the best, the middle, and the crappier teams. I should also mention that the people on the first team we played on Monday were all wearing wristbands with plays on them. Need I remind you that this is a super social league, which is categorized as a league "for players with limited football skills / recreational league." If you're going to be that douchebag team where everyone is wearing wristband playbooks, then go into the competitive league. Nevertheless, we still managed to make playoffs as a 3-3 team, and our first game is next Monday against a team we should have no problem with.
And now I leave you with something completely different:
On a completely unrelated note, Taylor and I watched the original Scream trilogy, refreshing ourselves for the newest sequel. I'm not a big horror movie fan, but the Scream series' mix of parody and horror works well for me.
I finished a book I started many months ago, Stranger in a Strange Land. I rated it a 3/5 stars on Goodreads. It was a pretty good book, and this might by attributed to the long periods of time where I stopped reading, but I found parts of it very long-winded and serving no purpose. I remember a part in the book that was about 6 pages of dialogue between two characters discussing statues. Why? The book overall was good, and showed an interesting perspective on our society and what we consider "normal." I had an internal struggle when deciding the next book to read: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or The Dark Tower, and ended up deciding on the former since I've had it on my shelf longer.
We had our final two regular season flag football games on Monday, and they did not go well at all. We lost both games, but it's hard to be disheartened. We got screwed on scheduling, and they gave us a back-to-back double-header against the best two teams in the league. Let me give you an idea on the skills disparity between the teams in this league. We beat most of the teams in the league by 30-40 points, and yet these two teams beat us by 20-30 points. That's a huge disparity between the best, the middle, and the crappier teams. I should also mention that the people on the first team we played on Monday were all wearing wristbands with plays on them. Need I remind you that this is a super social league, which is categorized as a league "for players with limited football skills / recreational league." If you're going to be that douchebag team where everyone is wearing wristband playbooks, then go into the competitive league. Nevertheless, we still managed to make playoffs as a 3-3 team, and our first game is next Monday against a team we should have no problem with.
And now I leave you with something completely different:
Monday, April 11, 2011
picking up the pieces
Well, the dust has settled and I've come out of it alive, but not unscathed.
We had 26 software engineers, and we are left with only 16, losing about 40%. Of those, I lost my software project lead (not the same as my boss), which is a huge loss to our project. He has many years of domain expertise on our product, and I'm not sure who can replace him.
The tallies are still coming in from the other functions in our business, but I hear we're losing about 67-76 people total from Austin.
It's been a pretty stressful day, and it's tough watching these people pack up. Some of them are fine with it, and some are bitter. It's going to leave a bad taste in our mouths for a while, and I've definitely lost my work ethic for the day. I was planning on taking the rest of the day off, but my boss recommended I stay because we might have some meetings later today.
What lesson have I learned? Always keep your résumé up-to-date.
We had 26 software engineers, and we are left with only 16, losing about 40%. Of those, I lost my software project lead (not the same as my boss), which is a huge loss to our project. He has many years of domain expertise on our product, and I'm not sure who can replace him.
The tallies are still coming in from the other functions in our business, but I hear we're losing about 67-76 people total from Austin.
It's been a pretty stressful day, and it's tough watching these people pack up. Some of them are fine with it, and some are bitter. It's going to leave a bad taste in our mouths for a while, and I've definitely lost my work ethic for the day. I was planning on taking the rest of the day off, but my boss recommended I stay because we might have some meetings later today.
What lesson have I learned? Always keep your résumé up-to-date.
Friday, April 8, 2011
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