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High-tech fondue 2011 February 2 19:32

Posted by diamond in : Random,Work , add a comment

I’m oncall, sitting in a swiss restaurant, eating fondue, fixing machines in tokyo on my laptop:

From Drop Box

Sometimes the world seems really bizarre. But also very cool.

Working 2011 January 18 13:18

Posted by diamond in : Health,Work , 3 comments

I wanted to write something longer, but i keep putting it off. So i’m gonna go with the short version and actually get it written :)

I’ve not been productive in work in a long long time. The last 9 months have been awful, and before that was still pretty bad. While Google have been exceptionally supportive and understanding, it’s still been a very large burden on me, weighing me down. I want to be productive, to contribute, to use my abilities. Not being able to do so was killing me.

But finally, last week, something happened. I got a new project (working on ganeti node groups), and for the first time in ages, things were looking up. Here’s the rundown on why:

  1. It’s a cool project, it’s something that i find interesting, so it’s easier to motivate myself to work on.
  2. There’s an established large local development team, so i’m not working on my own, not constantly running into team issues that have never been considered.
  3. It’s well-defined, so i’m not running into questions that i can’t find answers for.
  4. I’m working directly with other people i know well, so there’s support, and positive peer pressure.
  5. It’s a big chunk of work, not something i’ll be finished in 2 weeks and then be in limbo again.

In short, it’s perfect. I sat down with my team lead before the xmas break and talked to him about the sort of project i was looking for, and this is exactly it.

So there i was, bright-eyed and hopeful. But i was also worried. I have a history of getting excited about something new for a short period of time, and then losing interest. So i was worried that i’d lose momentum in a day or two. And while i’m still worried, i’m much less so. Why? Because i woke up yesterday morning, and i wanted to get up early so i could go to work and get stuck in. I had completely forgotten how that felt. This is hope, this is progress, this is the direction i want to be going in.

diamond & speling 2008 November 3 19:47

Posted by diamond in : Work , 1 comment so far

A conversation just now:

aug: you know the decommission script we have, since forever?
diamond: oh yeah, i wrote the first version
aug: oh! then it’s your fault!
diamond: eh?
aug: in all that time, it’s been misspelt. there were 3 s’s in it. no-one noticed until last week, when ciaran went “wtf?”
aug: and when we renamed it, we discovered that its (misspelt) name was all through the documentation
aug: so we had to update all of that as well
diamond: oops. that certainly sounds like me

I wrote that script a year ago. Sigh.

Doctor, doctor 2006 November 30 12:29

Posted by diamond in : Health,Work , 2 comments

On 11/29/06, Stephen Shirley wrote:
> I managed to strain something in my wrist yesterday.
> It seems to be getting better, taking today off to try
> and rest it up.

Failed to get better, doctor has ordered me to rest it till monday, girlfriend complains that i never take her orders, all allegations that this is a foosball-related injury are strenuously denied. Girlfriend now also complains that she was only joking when she suggested the above mention and that i wasn’t meant to type it. Sheesh.

I’m available by mobile if anyone needs more girlfriend-related whining.

Steve

Siren 2006 November 20 17:55

Posted by diamond in : Random,Work , 3 comments

I got pulled over by the mountain view police on the way to work this morning. The reasons given were:

  1. Failing to yield to oncoming traffic at a juntion
  2. Failing to yield to a pedestrian on a crossing

Oops. The latter is definetely true, i didn’t spot the pedestrian until i was well past (nor was i aware of the exact laws on how pedestrian crossings work over here). The former is debatable, i thought i had cleared the junction in plenty of time, but i wasn’t about to debate it with an american policeman -)

He was very polite, told me his name and why he’d pulled me over, asked to see my license, registration and proof of insurance, asked how long i had been over here, then went off to check them. He came back and asked me why was i here, when i replied i worked for google and was over on training, he replied with “So.. you’re over here a lot then yeah?”, to which i hastily replied that i’d only started working for them about 6 weeks ago.

He finally told me that he was going to let me off without citation, and explained very clearly the rules that i had broken. I went on my way, shaken but not stirred.