Back In The Saddle

I am now in the first week in my new position, for the first time in 10 years, as a pure software developer. I was dreading it but now find that I am really quite happy analyzing issues and proposing and architecting solutions. I never knew how much I deeply missed this aspect of IT.

I coded a fair amount at MS; writing tests and re-engineering our automation harness, Mace, to work with the departmental standard Maddog. But looking at a business process; stakeholder issues, and goals was something I hadn't done in a long time and ... darn it .... I still love it.

Yes, I still have to code .Net web stuff and T-SQL. Not worried; T-SQL is childs play and anything .Net is just a matter of syntax if you know how you want to proceed. Fortunately, I seem to have found an employer who appreciates the experience more than the language expertise.

Hurrah!

I start a new job on Monday at somewhat better pay and benefits than my previous engagement.

The scary part is that it's ostensibly an ASP.Net developer position. Although I made it abundantly clear to the recruiter and manager that I was complete crap in ASP.Net they hired me anyway. Apparently, there's a trememdous amount of data munging involved with the project they have earmarked me for so perhaps my 25 years of xBase and SQL experience appeals to them.

Regardless of their reasonings, I am very happy to be gainfully employed again. I was tired of the job search - difficult in a small city such as this because of the limited number of senior level positions available.

Musings

Lately, gas prices in Tallahassee have been hovering around $3.65 a gallon; perhaps a few cents higher than the national average. It's making an impact on me, I can tell you, since simply taking the kids to school and picking them up again is an investment of about 40 miles of travel. 40 miles is about 2.1 gallons of gas in my old, trusty 1996 Volvo 850 (with 210,000 miles!) which gets roughly 18 miles to the gallon.

If you look at the national average commute distances (I think it's 27 miles one way) and gas mileage (I believe it's 25 MPG) it's apparent that your average worker is paying $2-3 more per day to go to work than last year. Ugh. And it isn't going to get any better; I would estimate seeing trends that the average price for a gallon of gas by Summer, 2009 will probably be about $4.50. Another $2 per day gone.

There are attempts to manufacture an outcry versus the oil companies but they only produce about an 8% net profit in a highly speculative market so there's no real objective cause to rally against them. Having a gas tax holiday is just plain stupid - it won't impact consumers that much and we need that revenue for infrastructure.

Europeans have paid $4 a gallon and more since the early 90's. Maybe the chickens have finally come home to roost and we, as Americans, just have to deal with it.

Maybe, just maybe, the current "crisis" will spure shale-oil conversion and other domestically friendly energy initiatives and alternatives that will once again make this all affordable.

Then again, that assumes intelligence and objectivity in Congress. Hahahaha.

The Unholy Trinity of Dates and Other Comments

This weekend comes my annual nightmare of having three important family days coming at or near the same day. My son's birthday, his 17th, is May 10th. My anniversary (my 18th) is May 11th, as is Mother's Day. I kind of wish that they were spread out a bit more because it's hard to give the kind of attention each event deserves.

My brother's birthday was May 9th but he passed away in 2005. He would have been 41 this year.

A few weeks later is my birthday, 48th, on the 26th. Not that I care about my birthday anymore.

I was reading Cathy's blog about an issue with report variables and multiple detail bands. A few issues apparently escaped our attention or were "Won't Fix-ed" during VFP9 testing as it was difficult to come up with automated tests for multiple detail bands and we were stretched really, really thin in personnel by that time. Sorry about that.

What to Do When Your MSDN is Stolen

So, when I was terminated from my last position, I had the option of immediately retrieving my personal effects or of getting them later. I chose later to avoid turmoil. All of my effects were boxed up almost immediately and shipped to my home a few weeks later.

About 2 weeks ago I needed a SQL Server disk and went into the box that was shipped. My MSDN binder was not there.

I had a year-long MSDN subscription, courtesy of an MVP award to my friend Cathy Pountney, that expired last year but I had all of the critical disks - Vista, VS 2005, and Office 2007. I kept the binder and disks at work since I was constantly creating virtual machines for testing and the company's copies were not always available.

My first few inquiries to my former employer were not answered and, finally, they performed a search for the binder and could not locate it. Since they are a secure facility I don't have the option of looking myself.

I am left in a bit of a spot. I could report the missing disks to MS and as the regcodes are unique (I think, for the big stuff) perhaps they could invalidate them.

If I do this and the subscription disks were stolen, it'd be the right thing to do. If the disks were inadvertantly mixed in with the company's own subscriptions then it could cause them problems and I don't really want to do that.

What to do?

Fox Team 2008

By pure happenstance, I've recenly had the pleasure to write or otherwise chat with a lot of the folks who worked on VFP 8 and 9. It occurred to me that there's no single source of information on everyone, if anyone cares, so here's what I know:

• YAG (Y. Alan Griver). Still doing good communities architect work at MS and part-time involved with VFP issues and Sedna. Still happily attached to Ms. Beth Massi, another VFP superstar and now working with VB at MS.
• Gene Goldhammer. Happily retired in Las Vegas. Honestly, haven't seen or heard from him since 2005 DevCon.
• Ken Levy. Very involved with VSX so much so that he doesn't return emails from his pals (hey Ken!).
• Randy Brown. Still (willfully) unemployed. Engaged with a child due in June and official marriage in August.
• Calvin Hsia. Deeply involved with VB.Net and LINQ and still posting great code at http://blogs.msdn.com/Calvin_Hsia/
• Aleksey Tsingauz. The database code master is also involved with LINQ at MS and impressing everyone, as usual.
• Richard Stanton. Kicking butt still in the VS world for MS and doing some work for Sedna.
• Mike Stewart. Working for a startup and loving every minute of it. Still residing in Redmond with his wife.
• Chandra Srinivasan. Formerly a VFP tester, now a developer in the Windows division. He's now married (since July 2007).
• Garrett Fitzgerald. Gainfully employed in Maine where he resides with his family.
• Greg Reichert. Employed in Memphis, TN, since last year. Lost his wife earlier this year (so sad). One of the best and most intuitive VFP coders I have ever met.
• David Anderson. Still going strong as a partner in Alden Anderson, LLC. A gifted database man.
• Jay Jones. The buildmaster for VFP9, now working as the same with Visual Studio.

Boy, it's fun to remember old times!

Starvin Marvin

Yep, that's me! Still unemployed after two months. Perhaps I have been too picky about what I wanted to do or where I wanted to be. I was in one interview track that lasted two months where my potential employer loved me but the client has a veto vote and ....ahem... exercised that vote.

As I said, maybe I'm being too picky. If I was willing to relocate, I'd have a job very shortly; I've turned down offers. But it doesn't seem fair to my kids to relocate as I've asked them to do so four times in the last seven years.

Things are tough for an old Fox hand. Oh well, I guess I'll have to soldier on.

Arrggh

I was fired on the 15th of Feb. It's something I saw coming as my previous manager left the company and the guy I was placed under never liked me. He essentially orchestrated an "epic fail" situation for me. This company is in utter chaos when it comes to process and organization and morale is in the toilet as well. In a way, I'm glad I was canned as I was looking to leave anyway. I'm on the fasttrack to a much more rewarding job.

My previous employer is date-driven. They don't allot for true testing cycles and they don't provide functional specifications. Shit is released to testing with major functionality not working. They are a leader in law enforcement technology by being first in the market for some tools but also having marketers who are good buddies with the customers. They have dreams of being a $100 MM company but, honestly, I don't know how that can happen with the idiots they have running the show.

Along with the idiots are a couple of rat-bastards. Folks who feel threatened when underlings show initiative so they go out of their way to screw them. Further dinks in morale.

I have the feeling that I will have the opportunity to dance on their graves in the next 12-18 months. I feel bad for the friends who are still there but....thems the breaks.

As I said, better opportunities are coming my way.....