I am knee deep in learning things on my new job, and have been thrust into some things that require a lot of my time.  It’s fun and not so fun at the same time.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year, invited the entire family over and survived.  Alex did great and spent time playing with his cousin Kallen.  They were hugging each other, a first for both of them.  A big step for both of them really.  Alex doesn’t get to play with kids his own age much and Kallen has had a long road of learning behind him and much more to go as he gets older so it was good to see them get along and play well together.

—–

My primary computer has been slowly going to hell and finally died this past weekend.  I have thrown in the  towel on this one and decided to buy a new one.  I have been using the machine we bought Toni last year as a standby but it’s not a gaming rig like mine.  I am still able to play Warhammer Online but it’s brutal.   My new machine wont arrive until the 22nd.  It’s a combo birthday/Xmas present to myself.

—–

Travis has joined the swim team at Lincoln.  Lincoln isn’t know for their swimming program but they plan to change that this year.  Travis has advanced through the beginner ranks and is now right on the tail of the pro kids.  He will probably swim with the big boys soon.  Now if we could just get those grades improved…

—–

I turn 40 next Monday and it feels kind of funny.  I know that it’s just a day but it feels like a turning point kind of birthday.  This is where I am supposed to freak out and get into mid-life crisis mode but I’m just not feeling it.

—–

I drove past some of my old haunts this weekend while running errands.  It is amazing to me to see how much things have changed the past 15 – 20 years.  It feels like it changed in the blink of an eye.   Places where we used to party are now an AutoZone and shopping center.  Places I used to work have been leveled flat  and are going to have new buildings.  Makes me feel like I have not been out enough to see things change and I regret not being out there more.

The smell is amazing and it has worked it’s way through our entire home.  Toni is heading to Home Depot this morning to pick up some air order killers.  I’ve used them in the past and they are the only thing that kills odors like this.

The bad part (besides the awesome stink) is that we are hosting Thanksgiving at our house next week.   We basically have a week to get rid of the smell before people come to our home and try to enjoy a meal.  Toni is freaking.

—–

We are now convinced that my dead grandmother has “come home” and is staying in our house.   The house was originally hers and she lived there for 60 years before giving the house to me.  Now that she is gone, it just feels like she is still around and I know it sounds odd but let me explain.

Last weekend after everyone was in bed, I sat down in the living room with Toni to catch up on Dexter season 2.  Alexander has a “play room” that is down the hall and that room happens to be my grandmothers old bedroom.

Alex has been freaking out the past few weeks and doesn’t like to go in there alone and wants the light on in that room even if he is not in the room.

So as we are sitting down to watch Dexter, a balloon that Alex got a few weeks ago comes floating out of the room at waist level.  It floats down the hall, not touching the walls, stops and enters the living room.  It floats over the to the front of the TV and sits there a moment, then decides to take off for the kitchen.   Again, it is not touching walls or anything and it is moving along at a decent pace.

We just sat on the couch and looked at earch other for a few moments, a little creeped out.  Toni laughed and said that my grandmother was having a bit of fun with us, because my grandmother loved to play tricks and had a great sense of humor.  I told Toni is was probably just a draft in the house moving in that direction and blew off the whole dead grandmother theory.

That’s when the balloon came back from the kitchen, now going the opposite direction.  Toni looked at me and said “So how about that breeze…”.

I grabbed the balloon and shoved it back into the play room and shut the door. :)

I have been seeing things the past few weeks.  It’s hard to explain.  I catch something our of the corner of my eyes, and there are times when I feel like someone is in the room with me when I am all alone.  It’s not creepy and I don’t feel anything bad, it’s just not something I am used to.

—–

I am on my second week of working for the Government and find that the wheels of Government turn slowly.  I want to jump right into things but that is not how things work around here so I am learning to be patient, a skill I have need to work on anyway.

I think I will enjoy this in the long run as the job is tailored more to my skills working in a Windows Server admin type of environment.

I enjoyed my time at T-Mobile, mostly because I worked with a group of people that were fun and easy to work with and I enjoyed the new things I Was learning.  I would have stayed with T-Mobile but there was an implied threat that my office was going to move, and it would have added nother 30-45 minutes to an already 90 minute drive.  That’s just too much time away from the family.

Lots of new things to learn.

—–

The chaos of October is behind me and it feels good to have things settle down.

Alex is talking more but he is a little obsessive about certain things and it is starting to worry me. We had a long night last night, not much sleep. Alex woke up around 10pm and was really upset. He finally went down around midnight after lots of frustrating communication attempts with him. He wanted things, then got upset when he got them, rinse and repeat.

Alex is now terrified of the back room where we keep his toys. He refuses to be in the room alone, and here is an example of the obsessive behavior, points at the window non stop and gets upset saying “no no no more”. It’s upsetting for all of us. Maybe we have a ghost?

He can understand most of the things we are saying in the house, but he wont say words to ask or describe what he wants.  He resorts to pointing or making noises to illustrate his needs.

Simple things like up and down are just not clicking with him.  He still resorts to his standard words like “light”, “No more”, and “dad” which is generic for either myself or Toni.

We are really worried about it, he has been a little behind the curve on most of his development and we don’t feel like there is anything wrong.  I just wish I could talk to him and understand him better.

I guess these things take time, and while I’ve learned to be patient with him I guess there is still room for me to learn a little more.

Potty training is in a dead zone right now.  He really shows no interest in using his potty and we have not pushed the issue.   He is coming up on 2 years old in October so it’s time we really start showing him what needs to be done and how to get there.

—–

I currently feel like I am at a crossroad right now.  Maybe it’s just the mid life crisi thing creeping up on me as I edge towards 40.  I’m not sure if I am happy with my career right now and want to find the right “fit” so I can finish my career in one place, doing something I enjoy.

I currently work a job that requires 24/7 on call every couple of weeks and it is starting to drain me.  When I accpted the job I honestly thought I would be able to handle it, I’ve done it before, but this just feels different.  Maybe the job wasn’t a good fit?

It’s difficult to explain.

I just don’t like the way it takes time away from Toni and the boys.

The first time I delivered medicine to Hugh he was living in a low income housing apartment in down town Tacoma.   Hugh was a mess.   He was taking too many meds, they were not regulated well and the combination of everything he was taking made things worse.  Hugh was not very trusting of the young guy bringing him his medicine every week but he put up with it, giving me not much more than a grunt when I said hello.

Once we got Hugh back on track with the proper medicines he was like a new man.  He was thankful for the help and we slowly developed a friendship.

My weekly visits to Hugh started lasting longer, where we would sit and talk about Native American history and of the things we had both done in our youth, even though I was still well into my own at the time.

A few months into our friendship Hugh confided in me that he had once robbed a bank and committed conspiracy related to kidnapping, and ended up in Alcatraz prison as inmate number 1504.  I thought he was pulling my leg at the time but he was very serious about it and described his life in great detail.  You can see Hugh listed on this page for the Alcatraz inmate list.

When Alcatraz closed, Hugh was moved to Walla Walla prison in Washington State to serve the remainder of his sentence.  Eventually he ended up in Tacoma with a box of his belongings.

Hugh had a twisted and wicked sense of humor.  One day he was thumbing through a magazine and showed me a picture of a device that looked like hot water bottle with a long hose.  He said it would be perfect for bus rides.  I was lost and asked him to explain.

“I could tape this big end to my leg, and put that hose over the end of my penis, then I could pee into it while riding on the bus, smiling at the pretty girls sitting across from me, who would have no idea I was pissing my pants.”

That was typical Hugh.  Sick and twisted but I could appreciate the humor.

Stories

Hugh often told stories about his time spent as a merchant marine, living on Indian reservations in the 30′s-40′s (he was half Sioux) and how he made the mistake of getting caught and ending up in prison.

As a merchant marine, he sailed the world leaving his wife at home.  Hugh described it as an odd relationship, that neither were faithful while he was away and that he was not sure why they were married in the first place.  He described the life of a merchant marine as difficult, lonely (until they pulled into a port), and demanding work.

Living on the reservations was difficult for Hugh as he was not a full blooded Sioux.  In his words, he was discriminated against by his “own people”.  He tried to marry a Sioux woman but eventually that fell apart due to the race issue.  Hugh would never be accepted by her family or the tribe in general so he left.   It was heartbreaking to hear this because it felt like that would have been his one true love.  Our talks about Indian life and his feeling as an “outsider” often ended with him fighting back tears.  Hugh had a lot of Indian memorabilia scattered around his apartment, a reminder of his past.

Hugh described the robbery that eventually lead to his imprisonment on Alcatraz as a big mistake.  He met up with the wrong crowd, and made some bad descisions.

Here is what I recall of the robbery and conspiracy charges.   Hugh met a man and woman and the three of them robbed a bank.  Later the three came up with an idea to kidnapp someone and get ransom money.  Hugh says that he was not keen on the kidknapping idea, and that the other two had to talk him into it.  Even then he was not comfortable and thought it would never happen.

The kidknapping never happened.  Friends turned on each other and Hugh was the only one brought to court for the kidknapping.  He felt that he’d been setup as a “patsy” for the other two and was upset about it.

Moving On

Hugh was a product of the system.  He relied on DSHS for his medical services and at some point DSHS stopped paying for his medicine.  Our pharmacy kept him going for a month, esentially giving him his meds for free but the owner coudn’t continue doing this.

Hugh declined quickly.  He was in and out of the hospitals for a few months and I had quit working at the pharmacy.  Hugh was removed from his apartment and I lost contact with him, never sure where he had been moved to.  I assumed that Hugh had been moved into an actual care facility.

Every time I drive past his apartment I still remember him.  I remember his stories, his charm and his wicked sense of humor.

I miss him.

Last week I walked into the bathroom and as I approached the row of urinals I noticed that something wasn’t quite right.  There was a man standing at the urinal with his pants and underwear pulled all the way down to his ankles.  What the hell?

I honestly did not know what to do.  It locked me up for a moment.  It was a “did I just really see that” kind of thing.

He was obviously caught off guard as well because he scrambled to pull his pants up and leave the bathroom.  I don’t even want to know what he was doing and why it required a full blown open exposure to the elements.

—–

My co-worker Jim had a funny story about the same bathroom.   Jim noticed that there were footprints on the toilet seats all of the time.  No prints on the lid, just on the seats.  Jim brushed it off but continued to come across the footprints every now and then.

So one afternoon Jim wanders into the bathroom thinking he is alone.  Jim sets up shop in one of the stalls and is enjoying a nice quiet experience when he hears a noise that did not come from him.  He looks over and can see a pair of feet stepping down off of the toilet in the stall next to him.  That is something right out of a b-grade horror movie.

So the toilet stander exits the stall, washes up and leaves the bathroom while Jim is left to wonder what the heck just happened.

We think the guy might just want to avoid the toilet seats as a hygiene issue, but then you have to realize how difficult it would be to stand and squat on the seat.  The biggest issue is that your pants would get in the way no matter how you try to arrange yourself on the seat.

I told Toni about this and she suggested that we are dealing with a stall peeper, and thinking about it, that makes more sense.  I have not dropped that bit of wisdom on Jim yet and I am sure he’ll be mortified when I do.

I’ve changed my driving habits and it appears that it’s paid off.  The bulk of my miles are my work commute from Tacoma to Bellevue which is 60+ miles round trip.  I have been using the cruise control when possible to keep my speed at a steady pace.  I’ve read somewhere that using the cruise control makes a difference because you are not constantly pumping the pedal and using more gas.  Guess what I read was correct.

The second change in habits has been coasting more.  I’ve tried to gage the distance it takes me to stop and have eased off the gas a bit to try and coast to a stop when I can.

Those two simple changes have made a pretty significant jump in my MPG and I’m happy with it.  Now I am going to change a few things mechanically like tire pressure and maybe some of the other fuel saving tips I’ve read to see if I can boost my MPG even more.

Travis was basically in bed the entire time, getting up only to void his stomach and bowels in the bathroom. (Be thankful I’m not going into a detailed description) After 24 hours of non-stop being sick we decided to take Travis to the Urgent Care to get him some help for the vomiting. He is finally feeling better but is still not 100% as of this morning.

We thought the rest of the family was in the clear and would come away from this without catching the bug, but it looks like Alexander is now getting hit with the same thing. He was sick in his bed on Friday night, and has had bad stomach issues with very runny diapers the past few days. He is handling it well, but it makes me nervous to see a baby/toddler get sick like this. Lots of pedialyte and TLC for him right now as we keep a close eye on him.

Which leads to the way I am feeling this morning… Honestly I’m not feeling so hot, a little nausea that I am trying to fight off. What makes it worse for me is that I am on call 24/7 until Wednesday.

—–

This is my first week of on call with the new job. Being on call means answering calls 24/7 and reading every SMS text message that comes in to my phone. That means sleeping with my phone pretty much in my hand every night. I get SMS status messages every few hours so I’m not getting much sleep at the moment. On top of that, I have to answer any critical calls that come in for the job, and work any change request/outages that are scheduled.

I’ve had a lot of support from the rest of my team and they have been great when it comes to answering my stupid questions. I am still not sure if this is a job I will enjoy because it’s the early stage of learning everything. It is kind of like when you start dating someone new. Those first few weeks/months everything is great and everyone is on their best behavior so you don’t get to see the “real” side of things. I think we are still in that stage right now so I’ll have a much better feel for it in a few months.

The last few weeks he has developed a pretty funny sense of humor and it’s interesting to see it happen. When he is feeling playful, he’ll start running out of the room then stop to peer around the corner at us. That means he wants us to chase him around the house, with lots of laughing and screaming on his end.

He also like to get in my face and make the “smootchie face” or “stinker face” which means he just generally wants to be playful and climb all over me.

The one that gets a laugh from all of us is his dinner face. We were sitting at the dinner table one night, all of us chewing away. We look over at Alexander and he is pretending to chew his food and making a funny face while doing it. He was making fun of us! Very exaggerated, rolling his eyes a little bit and everything. It’s hilarious and hard not to laugh when he does it.

—–

Alex loves music so we are trying to encourage his appreciation for it as much as possible. While I was still working from home, I would play music for him and rock him to sleep for naps and bedtime. It was kind of our bonding time.

He had a small CD player that attached to his crib but it ate batteries and was pretty fragile so listening to a CD was kind of a pain. We finally broke down and bought a Playskool MP3 Player for him. It’s pretty cool, comes with 50 pre-loaded songs and allows you to load your own music, heck it even comes with a cute animal cover.

So I’ve loaded all of Alexanders music that we listen to from Sprout and Noggin and I even included the Baby Rock versions of Radiohead which he really enjoys. Now he can control what and when he listens to his music and it’s great.

—–

Everyone is adjusting to me being out of the house during the day now that I no longer work from home. One concern was how this would impact Alexander because you can’t explain to a toddler why daddy is home all of the time and now gone all of the time. It’s got to be weird for him.

I gave Alexander one of my old mobile phones to get him used to speaking on the phone. Toni will pretend that the Wonder Pets are calling him and need his help. Silly, but he goes along with it.

The first couple of days he was looking for me throughout the house and screaming “Daaaaaa” which is his version of daddy/mommy. I felt horrible and guilty at first but it’s just part of him learning to adjust.

When I call the house during the day I can here him saying “Daaaaaa” while I talk to Toni. Toni puts the phone to his hear and I say hello while he baby talks. Makes me kind of sad not to be there.

I’m working in the EIT group doing application support in Bellevue and things are interesting.  I have a lot to learn over the next few months and will be very busy with everything.  It helps that my manager and team members are all great people with a sense of humor.  They are very supportive and I appreciate what they are doing to make me feel welcomed and a part of the team.

The atmosphere is very different from what I was used to at Boeing and I think Boeing could learn a lot from T-Mobile when it comes to treating your employees like humans.

The benefits with T-Mobile are just as good, and better in some areas, when stacked up against what Boeing had to offer.  Employee programs like discounts, fitness and assistance are excellent.  Heck, we even get free beverages in our office which seems like a small thing but the small perks really start to add up when you take everything into consideration.

The only negatives are the drive from Tacoma to Bellevue and the fact that my supplied laptop is a piece of crap.  It has not worked form day one, with various OS/hardware issues and it is very difficult to get the laptop folks to service them.  Just trying to contact or find one of them has been a challenge.

I’m cautiously optimistic about this job and look forward to what the future holds with T-Mobile.  It’s a great first impression so I am curious what my view will be a month or two down the road.