/var/log/kespernorth

I was underwhelmed by Narnia. The CGI looked rather fake in places, bluescreening was obvious in in places, and the theater had serious technical issues during the screening -- sound kept cutting out, video color balance wavered into the green and back. The story was admittedly not as evangelical as I feared, Liam Neeson does the "wise mentor" thing very well -- I think he's getting more than a bit typecast at this point -- and the White Queen was well done, but a lot of the other actors were not so good. And did the director realize how very not-good Tumnus's dealings with Lucy looked?

"Now I can classify the animal kingdom by 'good' and 'evil'!" said either Don or Elisa, I don't quite recall which.

Massive work crisising continued into the weekend, and I ended up having to ditch in the middle of brunch on Sunday with seanscian and biteycat to go kick our mail server and deal with more stress test screwiness.

However, things are finally settling down on that front now. My boss is back, so some of the IT pressure is off, and we're getting a handle on the stress test stuff. (Plus I actually know how it all works now, so it's not as much of a pain to deal with.)

On the upside, I have the thanks of the executive team, very high praise and thanks from my boss (who says he'll see if he can get some comp time for me), and the nmap scan I just ran against the box that DOS'd us last week shows that it's now wearing a chastity belt, all ports inaccessable. (An apology from the ISP would have bee nice, though.)

We're supposed to have employee reviews by January. I imagine this means mine will go pretty well.

I have a 15-page paper due on Wednesday, then I'll be done with school for the quarter.

So are any of you coming to the party on Friday? We haven't gotten very many responses.

On the job front, I am well-pleased. Sourcelabs is small, fast and well-positioned; the people who work there are bright; management does what is necessary with a minimum of bullshit, and the environment is pleasant. I share a well-lit office with a taciturn Russian named Konstantin; I have been issued a 17" PowerBook G4, a gigabit switch, a 17" flat panel secondary monitor, a 2.8GHz dual-proc Xeon Linux box, and a piece of raw wood slung across a pair of sawhorses to work on.

I am getting what amounts to a crash remedial course in computer science fundamentals, C++ and Java from an acerbic Swedish military diver named Christian, who I find I like even as I find him intimidating. SourceLabs thinks I'm valuable enough to pay me while they bring me up to speed, even though I am not really ready to actively work any support issues yet, which is both a huge compliment and kind of scary. Support itself here is a very different animal from at F5: this is a development shop, not a call center. We get almost no calls; almost no time is spent on the phone with the actual customer -- it's about fixing, testing and documenting problems.

In the meantime, by virtue of my networking experience, I have been given the secondary job of Assistant IT Person. My boss, the support director, is also the IT Person, and I have been assigned the task of being his backup, knowledge repository, and assistant. This is a very good thing, because it gives me something useful to do until I come back up to speed in programming, it's interesting, I can continue to expand and practice the skills I gathered at F5, and I have root on everything.

Everything. Ahh, power.

Eventually, Sourcelabs will expand to the point where a full-time IT director will be required, which will mean that either my boss will be forced to give up his IT role, or his support role. I hope to be able to step into one or the other of those positions should the opportunity arise. Which would be awesome. At the rate our business is growing, that day might not even be too far in the future.

Speaking of my boss, I really like him. He reminds me rather strongly of Adam Savage of Mythbusters: fun-loving, sardonic, self-possessed, literate and capable. Not an asshole, corporate drone or martinet. He's rather entertaining to talk to. He's a space-opera-obsessed science fiction geek like me, and his taste in music is very 80s, though it tends more towards the punk than the new wave and synthpop that I prefer. Even so, I approve.

So yes, things are going well here. I like the job, I like the people, and I like the company.

I can feel the stress and depression of F5 lifting, day by day.