My Disastrous Third Day At Work… Oh My, Did I Lose Some Sleep Before Day Four!
This story would have been a lot less painful had I been looking for the exit before I ever really got started, but I had a really good vibe going into day three of my onboarding. So far, the team I was working with was outstanding. All that was left was to make sure I fit in… which I figured would be simple enough.
Sadly, I’d already written most of this post before I realized I don’t want to place my job in jeopardy by divulging anything that might be sensitive. I can cut to the chase without giving away too many details, though…
After a few texts back and forth with IT, I still managed to delete most of the company’s files. I’m not accustomed to the corporate structure – I’ve been in small companies my whole career so a lot of the corporate design is foreign. After three weeks, I’m getting used to it. On the third day, I still felt a little like a fish out of water. Thankfully I’ve got some great (and young) people I’m working with.
I received a call, shortly after getting back to the office from having lunch with my wife, from the CFO who asked if I’d deleted any files.
Oh $#!+. I explained, quickly and concisely, what had happened. And that was it.
I got two hours of sleep that night.
The next morning, just before I left, we got an email that all of the files had been restored and all was well. When I got to the office, my colleagues had a nice laugh (several, actually) at my expense (including the CFO) and I breathed a sigh of relief. If they’re laughing, I’m in good shape, I thought.
And so it was. I was in good shape and there haven’t been any further incidents. I’m also exceedingly happy with where I’m working. That’s going to be a good story for at least a decade.
Garmin’s Black Screen Of Nothingness… And How My Wife Fixed It.
My wife and I were on the trainers last weekend, about three-miles into our normal trainer ride when we got the call from our daughter that she had a full pot of coffee spill on her at work, that she needed a change of loose-fitting clothes so she could go to the after-hours clinic at the suggestion of an off-duty firefighter who suggested she get checked out just in case. It wasn’t horrible, just one of those “out of an abundance of caution” type things.
We hopped off the bikes, changed and headed straight out the door.
I thought nothing of it till I got on the trainer again a couple of days later and… nothing. It wouldn’t start up. I figured I ran the battery dead, so I set it on the charger and nothing again. No “charging” screen or icon, just black.
I left it on the charger for a few hours and went back to hit the power button, just to check. Nothing. I held the power button for ten seconds. Nothing again. I hit all of the buttons at once. Nothing. At that point, I left it on the charger for the rest of the day.
Next day, when it was time to ride, I went through the process again. Nothing. I rode without the Garmin and left it be. The next morning, my wife charged hers up and started tinkering with mine. She held all five buttons in for about fifteen seconds… and the screen came to life, just like that.
While this was going on, my buddy Mike called with the exact same issue with his Garmin. Black screen, no startup. She relayed the simple instruction and his popped to life.
So there it is. Black screen of death, hold all five buttons in for fifteen seconds. It should do you.
A Happy Thanksgiving (And Second Thanksgiving)!
A humorous sidenote to our Thanksgiving festivities; our Lions got hammered by the hapless Green Bay Packers, Thursday. In reality, I have to take part of the blame because as my father-in-law and I sat down for the game, I said, “You know? This is the first year I can remember I wasn’t nervous about our chances in this game”.
I guess that could be taken two ways. Technically.
Other than that mess, our Thanksgiving festivities were amazing. We had a gourmet hamburger dinner, with all of the trimmings and just shy of half-pound burgers with 94/6 steak burger (we have it specially ground), home-baked potato chips and cole slaw. Certainly not the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but that was what everyone wanted. We topped dinner off with a new specialty my wife came up with for her mom, who can’t eat anything with gluten; apple crisp with gluten free flour and almond flower a la mode. Outstanding is the perfect word for that treat. My wife nailed it.
Friday, my wife and I slept in till 8am. I can’t remember the last time I slept that late into the morning. It was glorious. We rode the trainers for a half-hour, then got ready for second Thanksgiving at my wife’s mom and stepdad’s new house, just a few minutes up the road. Our daughter arrived home from college, just before we were ready to head over. For second Thanksgiving we had the traditional meal, with turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, pumpkin and apple pies… it was perfect.
I’ve always loved Thanksgiving… but second Thanksgiving is the way to go!
I had to bowl last night, and that went pretty well (the middle game could have gone a lot better, but the bookend games were above average – 204/193). On waking with my wife this morning at 7, it struck me how much I needed this weekend off. Work’s been great, but I was tired! It was nice to have a rest before we get back to it.
PS. The weather is too cold for my wife to ride. She’s got a medical issue that greatly limits cold-weather exertion… and I’m exceedingly thankful for it. I hate riding in the cold, and it’s COLD. It’s currently 20° and feels like 15°. On the plus side, it is sunny. For what that matters. Which is not much. That’s -7 and -9-ish in Moose Latin (Celsius). And that is officially too cold for me to venture outdoors.
And we have a chance for snow showers tomorrow. Yippee.
What I’ve Learned About High Intensity Training Over The Last 20-Years
I was a runner before I rode bikes for exercise, and before that I was into rollerblading quite a bit. In fact, since I began my recovery from addiction, there have only been a handful of years I wasn’t active in the last three decades.
The impetus for this post is yet another article that’s come out touting the benefits of high-intensity workouts. The difference with this one is that the article hasn’t been entirely dumbed down to suggest walking can be counted in with what the study shows. Technically it can, but you’d have to be in the elite bunch of walk-racers to get there. The exercise in question has to make your heart rate rise and make you sweat “a lot”.
In fact, the article even points out this gem; “There are a couple caveats here to note, according to Carol Mack, D.P.T., C.S.C.S. One is the “self-reported” factor, which can often skew results to some degree since people tend to overestimate the intensity of their exercise efforts”.
Well, count me excited about the truth!
I’ve trained hard and I’ve trained easy, and without question, training hard isn’t as fun as lollygagging down the road at a fun, easy pace. I’ve gone so far as puking on my top tube, and, while a little on the brutal side, there was a certain satisfaction to it at the same time.
Admittedly, it’s been a long time since those days, though getting a tandem around the block is no walk in the park. The point is, there’s nothing that makes me feel better, mentally and physically, than sending it in a good workout.
Case in point; just yesterday I was quite achy and pain-y on waking up. My neck was out of sorts and cracking it did some good but there was something more to it than that. 45 minutes on the trainer, and a hard effort I’d usually reserve for February later, and the majority of the pain subsided for the rest of the day. I’ve said it for years, being sedentary is vastly more painful than a hard workout a few times a week, and every time I get a little lazy (it does happen), I’m reminded of just how painful it is to choose that lifestyle.
Anyway, the main point is, it was nice to see an article that was more true than politically true (in the Neil Tyson DeGrasse definition of “politically true”).
Buzzwords, BS, And How I Jumped To The Front Of The Line To Land My Job.
My wife read me a resume that was posted on line, written with more bullshit buzzwords… I wish I could find it because I was actually laughing by the end. This kid was fully in charge of her buzzword use, but way over the top. As a project engineer (two steps, maybe three, below a Project Manager) and just a year or two out of college, all she demonstrated in that interview was a mastery of the AI lingity that would get her noticed by a recruiter who would try to pimp her out to the first company gullible enough to hire her because “she said all the right things” to get there.
Now, I would be ignorant to suggest that buzzwords lack importance. That clearly isn’t the case – I had to go so far as to seek the advice of my sister-in-law, who took my resume to the next level with a few carefully placed jargon buzzwords. I was a little bummed, too, considering my two million word blog with more than a million hits, I believe I can spin a yarn assemble a forward-thinking, well executed and thoroughly entertaining and inclusive post that also includes the mentoring of the newly graduated interns along with a fresh approach to an increasingly complex business environment, blah, blah, blah).
Under increasing pressure to get a job and not a whole lot of luck using the headhunters and “easy apply” approach, I decided to go lo-fi. I thought back to the last time I had to look for a job; they didn’t have email yet. That’s how long ago that was. In construction, we were still using beepers (AKA pagers) and pay phones. I had an email flash across my inbox for a position that looked like it suited me, and I knew where the office was – it was just four miles from my house. My wife, friends and I ride by the place every time we have a north wind. I took my resume and walked in the front door.
I sent a follow-up email to the person in charge of HR (and Project Managers, as it turned out) and she replied almost immediately with a date and time for an interview. I responded that I’d be there. The interview went excellently – I couldn’t have asked for a better time. I sent a follow-up the next morning. Six hours later, I had an offer. We negotiated for a couple of hours, the presented a formal offer, I accepted, and a week later, I started.
It turned out, that I showed up at the front door with my resume, in the words of my new supervisor, “moved you to the front of the line”. The rest was simply a great fit, for the company and me.
This doesn’t work with most new offices. They want to see the bullshit buzzwords that have no meaning whatsoever, and they want the hum-drum email approach. Every once in a while, though, you run into what I found; a company that wants someone who will be dedicated to their job and the company. They want someone who can do the job. They want someone genuine, who knows a few buzzwords and hot topics (like mentoring, that’s big right now for us older folks), but can also do the job.
And that’s a good company to work for.
Oh, and we have a real popcorn maker. Best popcorn ever.
Funny Quote of the Day
Every time you get upset at something, ask yourself; if you were to die tomorrow, was it worth your time being angry?
Robert Tew https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8206324-every-time-you-get-upset-at-something-ask-yourself-if
Now, the key is to get to this realization before making yourself look like an ass.
I’m still working on that second part. I’m close. Let’s call it a work in progress.
The Best Use For Squirt Wax Lube Yet… And It Isn’t On A Chain (As Good As The Stuff Is)
I’ve had a shifting problem on my Trek 5200 since I brought the bike home and failed to understand that the metal cable guide under the bottom bracket needs to be cleaned and lubed regularly, or the spots drink and dirt cocktail that coagulates on the thing becomes a grinding paste underneath the cable when the bike shifts. I even wrote about the issue here, way back in 2012.
Over the course of a week, the bike went from shifting well to barely shifting – the shift levers were very hard to move. I was perplexed until I flipped the bike upside down. I loosened the cables, cleaned the cable guide and shot some lube on the cables and guide. This worked for years, though there were shifting problems I only realized in the last couple of years because I hadn’t quite ridden enough to know any better. Now that I’ve got a modern 10-speed 105 shifting system with a brand-spankin’-new rear derailleur, new stainless steel cables and brand new housings but everything still has to be adjusted perfectly to operate and the shifting still feels a little sluggish, did things start dawning on me; it’s that stinkin’ cable guide that’s the problem.
I took the bike apart a couple of months ago to wax the frame, and when I put it all back together, with brand new cables, the rear derailleur was so difficult to index, I’d finally had enough to do something about it. I kicked around the idea of buying a dozen different plastic cable guides, but I knew they wouldn’t fit, so I thought about how to get the cables off the metal guide. My first idea was to cut a couple of pieces of zip tie to epoxy them to the cable guide – if I couldn’t find a plastic guide, I’d fit plastic to it. There seemed a lot that could go wrong with that, so I started thinking about our mountain bike cleats and pedals… metal on metal, and they get noisy if… I don’t wax them (old candle wax).
I loosened the cables, took off the guide and sanded the surface smooth, then put everything back together. Then, I cleaned out the shifters with several shots of a light spray lube/cleaner. When everything was back together, I hit the cable guide with Squirt wax lube. I put the bike on the trainer and gave it a try.
Money.
Not only was I able to properly index the derailleur in seconds, the bike shifts much closer to flawlessly than it ever has. It’s not perfect, there’s still a little drag in that cable guide, but it’s unquestionably better (my Specialized Venge is much better). Squirt has worked better than any other lube I’ve used on that cable guide since I bought the bike.
…That Humorous Moment My Wife Realizes Our Tandem Isn’t An eBike… And Yes, This Is Going On A T-Shirt.
My wife was diagnosed with a type of asthma… if she exerts herself too much in the cold, she can induce a cough that can last days. This is why we’re riding the trainers a lot these days. It’s simply too cold for my wife to enjoy a ride, knowing she’ll be coughing for a day or two after.
This sets up Friday night’s ride. It was cold outside but there was a parade in downtown Lansing that buzzes right by the capitol building and the company my wife works for hosts a spot behind a float. This isn’t an all-hands-on-deck event, but it made sense for my wife to show, so we decided to take the tandem. Considering we’d be riding a tandem in a parade, I headed out to the garage to find a couple sets of platform pedals. I figured it’d be way to difficult to try to pedal (and stop) the goliath with clippy pedals. Jess and I were on the same wavelength.
I left the gravel wheels on, too. The roads near the capital building are humorously horrible. Potholes, crevices, heaved bricks and all forms of nastiness dot the roads just a couple of blocks away from the State’s capitol building. Interestingly, the bike doesn’t fit as well with the mudguards on. A sad fact, indeed.
We arrived late due to horrific traffic, but got our bike set up and down the road just a couple of minutes late and with enough time to sit around waiting for the parade to start for a good half-hour or so. We spoke to a couple on single bikes who were surprised to see us on our tandem. Turned out, they were a tandem couple as well but said they rode the parade once on the tandem but would never do it again. Ruh roh, Raggy. (That’s from the cartoon Scooby Doo).
The start was easy enough. We waited for the float we were supposed to follow, The Petosky Steel Drum Band (!), and we rolled out giving everyone else a bit of a head start before we moved as my wife suggested. This proved to be an excellent strategy… but we were stopped within a half a block. Getting going again was a mess. Then stopping again. Then starting. And stopping. My wife was getting frustrated in a hurry and I was right behind… well, in front, but behind her in frustration. You get the idea.
Then we started hopping the start, right foot down and hopping forward with the left. This meant we didn’t have to fully mount the bike to move forward… and thus provided us the one thing we needed – the ability to start and stop on a dime. From that moment, our struggles ended and we enjoyed the parade. When the route opened up to four lanes, we had enough room to fully ride the bike and it was awesome. Kids were pointing and telling their parents, “look at that double-bike!”, and the parents were telling each other, “Oh, look! A tandem!” We did a loop back around… well, one of us wanted to perform the U-turn. My wife, a second before I began the turn and three after I announced we were going to turn around, said, “Oh no we aren’t!” We did, though without my wife clipped in, she almost hopped off. Thankfully, the move was performed flawlessly and we rolled on behind the steel drum band’s float.
A few blocks later, the parade was over and the whole 75-ish bike group rolled back to the parking lot where we staged (it was a massive group of riders, very cool). On the way up a bridge over Grand River, my wife, who hadn’t thought about adding a few extra watts up the bridge, said, “Oh, I just realized this wasn’t an eBike, it’s a we bike!” and commenced to putting in some extra wattage.
We laughed all the way back about that little quip.
Our tandem isn’t an eBike, it’s a weBike. And that is very cool.
31 Years… And The Countdown To A Billion Reaches The Homestretch.
I won’t lie, I’m a little excited. My wife woke up singing happy anniversary to me and we’re going to see our daughter at work with my youngest daughter, wife’s mom, stepdad and my sponsor and his wife. That would normally be enough for a fabulous evening, but there’s one thing that makes this a little sweeter; today is my daughter’s one year alcohol free, too.
Oh, there will be tears shed this evening.
I’ve said it so many times I’ve lost count, recovering early is like having a cheat-sheet for life. Life is so good, I can’t believe I get to live it like this. My sponsor’s sponsor said this would happen when he gave me a coin for nine months. The tough part to grasp is that, as long as I keep working at it, it’s just kept getting better. And as my new sponsor says, “how free do you want to be?”
I always answer, “Very, very f***in’ free.”
So shall it ever be.
31 years.
372 months
11,323 days
271,735 hours (as of right now)
16,304,100 minutes
978,246,000 seconds. July 26th is the day for 1,000,000,000 – a number so high you can’t count to it in a lifetime. Well, maybe you could, but you’d have to be exceedingly fast… and it sure would be a waste of a lifetime.
Completely Out of My First Career
One thing that really weighed on me going into my new, second career, was the fact I was entering a realm I knew virtually nothing about; I went from a carpentry Sr. Project Manager/Sr. Estimator position to a PV Electric Project Manager (Photovoltaic – Solar). In many ways, the new job is a lot like my old. It’s vastly different at the same time. I was petrified starting the new career, with all of the new terms I’m way behind on, but a lot of the paperwork is actually quite the same and after just a week, I’m starting to get the hang of some things… which is a lot faster than I expected.
One thing I didn’t expect when my position was ended last February, I never thought I’d fully get out of drywall and carpentry. I thought there would always be a tie back to the old company.
I’m glad to say I was very wrong. I’m completely out of the old career, if things continue… and I certainly hope they do. The new company/job is awesome.
So shall it ever be!
Fit Recovery 