Our little guy

  Hearing some news from a friend of my wife today made me think of this little guy.

  In front of Boots there is TipTup. We didn't have him long, barely 10 weeks, but he made a big impact on us. I still think about him, especially when I'm here at work since I have a picture of him on my desk. He was such a small kitten when we had him and I'll always remember him as loving us so much. He would crawl under the bed sheets at night to sleep with us and always had to follow around his big brother.

  I miss you.

Anybody want a pet?

  Just saw a link to this story and good god that is a big arse insect. They brought it back from actual extinction (since the only habitat that had any had none) and then found a few hidden away. Rather than try to fix their habitat they bred them in captivity and now have far too many to bring back to where they came from so they are trying to find something to do with them.

  I wonder how many other things out there are like this, just a few specimens hanging out in a remote part of the world where nobody knows they are. Kind of freaky when you think about it that something like this could still be out there but simply just so well hidden or remote that it just gets on with things in isolation. I just hope that some of the creatures we know are in danger have some hideouts that we don't know about and can be kept safe in the long run.

Busy busy busy

  Today is far too busy for its own good. Got to work and since we are so close to going in to acceptance test for the feature I'm heading up we are fixing all the last minute niggly things that crop up. Add in to that I need to get out of here early to take my wife to physio and then for a 2 to 3 hour hair treatment later. On top of that there is trying to arrange cat stuff (making sure Lucy is not getting too fat), more work money/progress stuff, moving house stuff and a few other minor things then today really hasn't stopped.

  My wife is progressing remarkably well in her recovery from surgery. She is off painkillers for over a week now, has more movement with a similar amount of pain from before surgery and the healing has not completely finished yet. She is just a little weak in that arm for now which the physio will fix by letting her gradually build strength. It is amazing what she has come through in all this with the various health and surgery stuff in the last several years. I'm so proud of how she has managed it all, it puts whiny people who whine about the smallest little health problem to shame.

9 years

  I fixed something today. I was wondering why something didn't want to resend some data after it had been told to. It was a complete corner case caused by another bug in the code but it should have worked. I found it in the end and then wondered where it had come from. It had been there all along, from when someone else wrote the code 9 years ago. Not bad going for a bug, living that long before being squished like the little nasty thing it was.

  I often wonder how many more of them like that there are out there. Small imperfections waiting to jump up at the right moment and cause chaos? Kind of worrying that they can live for so long, especially considering where software is used nowadays. Still, this one won't cause any harm it has been well and truly splattered.

  Now on to doctor time again for my wife. Off we go for more money spending to have some sutures taken out (or at least mostly insurance company money).

Things are getting better

  I think things are a little better for me and my wife. With the progress at work career and money wise we could actually end up getting out of California in something other than a too long amount of time. Also other parts of our lives are pretty good at the moment. My wife and I are happy together, my wife's health is improving (the recent surgery is actually an improvement) and we have 5 happy animals. Now all we need is for a windfall of cash and we can live our dream life :) .

  The past week and the next few weeks have been and will be kind of busy with various doctor visits so we don't get a huge amount of relaxing time. Still I love every moment I can spend with my wife. Talking to a guy at work here today and his wife is coming back to the country tomorrow after being a long way away for two and a half months. That would be rough on me if my wife spent that long away. I'm glad I don't have to do that, it would make me so lonely.

  Anyway, enough waffling. I need to finish up here at work and then get on home where I should be. Bye all.

Patience of a saint?

  Sometimes my wife gets annoyed with idiots. She even loses her temper a little bit about that as well sometimes. I have no problem with that though. The reason why? There are so many freaking idiots in the world that my wife makes a saint look impatient. There are people she talks to with clear problems in their lives and obvious solutions to those problems. She will talk to and gently guide those people to do the right thing. Do they listen? Like hell they do. I really think that to get through that my wife is far more patient than I am in that respect. If I run in to people like that I tend to ignore them. She will spend hours, sometimes days, trying to help these people though. All for no thanks and no realisation on the other persons side that they have been helped. In the few instances where someone does what my wife suggests and it works out they other person also rarely thanks my wife. So to my wife, on behalf of all idiots out there, I say thank you.

Close call

  Had another close call this morning on arriving at work. As I'm walking the very short distance from where I park to the door of the building a skunk decides to run across the path right in front of me. To make matters worse it saw me, stopped briefly, then ran off in the direction it was going before.

  I know how bad the stink from skunks is. You can smell them driving at 70mph down the road. I really really didn't want to get skunked this morning so I had a mini panic attack when it stopped. Hopefully I wasn't too scary for the skunk otherwise it really would have sprayed me and that would kind of put a dampener on my week. Clearly I'm just an inoffensive non scary kind of guy. Yay for that I suppose.

Desperate or generous?

  I got given some stock options at work today. Quite a lot of options. In fact so many that this single issue is almost as many as I have had over my almost 18 years working here (over 18 if you count the 8 months I was a temp). If our stock price recovers from where it is once the revenue recovers (which it is showing all signs of doing with the success of our new product) then they could be worth quite a bit of money. Enough for us to easily move and if the stock really takes off (extremely unlikely I know) enough to pay off our mortgage.

  The only thing I can't decide is if this is a desperate measure on the part of my company or they really are being generous to their few good employees. I know only a select few people got some options and even fewer got as many as I did. The prospect is kind of exciting though, in only 6 months I could have a substantial amount of money in just a year after that have even more.

  Still we shall see how the company treats me. We are still negotiating how I can work from somewhere else in the country and scoping out what my responsibilities would be for my role. You never know I may end up somewhere else entirely and making huge amounts of money that way :| .

My suffering wife

  My wife suffers through quite a few things. Right now it is the pain of surgery and recovery. She is in quite a bit of pain now with her shoulder and is getting through it extremely well. That's not to mention the bruise she has from her IV fluid drip or the bruises from clumsy people at the zoo this weekend.

  Then there are the times I put her through me playing games like Borderlands. Or possibly the just announced release date for Borderlands 2. I played through the first game multiple times and completed every possible optional extra in that game and still wanted more. It is amazing how much of my hobby my wife puts up with so that I can do something I really enjoy.

  Through all this my wife never really complains. She may try to steer me away from obsessiveness. She also brings up when she really needs something due to being in too much pain or literally can't deal with something. I need to be more like her in that way.

Mainstream means getting silly

  A game I'm looking forward to, Mass Effect 3, comes out in a fortnight. It is a fairly high profile release and is quite well known in the mainstream outside of the more enthusiast gamer like me. To this end I actually saw a TV program, The Walking Dead, sponsored by a videogame the other night. From what happened this morning that was just the beginning.

  A little while ago I played a demo for another game, it wasn't bad but nothing amazing. In doing so I unlocked some multiplayer bonus items for ME3. The only thing this game had in common was the publisher, Electronic Arts. This morning I had a driver update for the video card in my laptop. That had splash screens all over it whilst it was installing advertising the game and proclaiming it had been optimised for ME3. Next I see stories on videogame blog sites that art books, action figures, soundtracks and various other paraphernalia related to the game also come with codes for other various unlockable items in the multiplayer in the game. This isn't to mention the two different facebook games you could play in relation to this game.

  The long and short of it is that the PR push behind this game is astounding. There are so many widely different, sometimes totally unrelated, forms of advertising for this game I'm confused as to how successful they expect it to be. It should be a good game, the first was (even though it was a Microsoft only game so I didn't play it)  and the second was great, so much so that I still want to finish my second play through. Is this kind of over saturation what it takes though these days to succeed with the mass market in games?

  Questions to ponder I suppose. The more important question to me though is how much of me playing this game my wife can take :| . We shall see how my repelling the reapers from Earth gets on her nerves and if I can ultimately save mankind (ok, personkind if you want to be PC).

Little Big Men

  In a way all men are just little children that have to do grown up things every now and then. I know I prefer to shirk responsibility when I can and just do fun stuff. Our biggest and oldest cat Boots is like that too. He pretends to act all aloof and mature but when he wants something or a fuss from my wife he becomes a little kid. He will walk up to my wife and meow at her. He will sit there and keep doing this until she picks him up. If she then holds him like a small kid (a 19lb furry kid) he will then lay down on her and purr his head off in happiness. He is such a mummy's boy when he wants attention. Then when he has had enough and wants to pretend to be all grown up again he will jump down and wander off as if nothing had happened. Don't worry Boots, your secret is safe with us.

Medications mess you up

  My wife is currently fairly medicated up. She had an injection that numbed all the nerves on her left side around her shoulder so she can't feel anything at all around there. Even worse she can't move parts of her left side including that entire arm. Fortunately her arm is an a fairly complicated sling to keep it in place not to mention to stop it from flopping around and hurting her shoulder.

  What other effects these medications have though I have no idea. Some of my wife's drugs have had some pretty iffy side effects over the years including causing further problems which required medication. We really need to find more drugs that do something without having so many other effects on you that sometimes you end up worse than before you started taking the drug.

  Still I wouldn't want my wife to be without the drug she is currently using. I suspect that when it wears off later today she will be using her painkillers as often as she can. We shall see how effective they are on her since in general they don't have much effect (go look up redheads and pain and the recent research on it). I want her to not have to suffer through as much pain as she did before with her other surgeries since she doesn't deserve pain.

Relief

  Feeling very relieved right now, sitting on the bed next to my wife as she rests after her surgery. I did get some of the nerves and tension beforehand, my wife was much calmer than me. This one was less stressful though. Partly because when I did get to see my wife again afterwards she wasn't murmuring in pain but happily sitting in bed a little groggy but otherwise fine.

  Something about this one just felt easier I think. I know the surgery didn't beat up my wife quite as much this time. Her shoulder was invaded and poked around but it is not like large portions of her skin were ripped off, moved and sewn back in to place. In fact the doctor wants her to try and get some physiotherapy tomorrow which seems really fast.

  Now though comes the caring time. The time when I get to fuss over my wife and make sure she is looked after properly.

I love buns

  I love cinnamon buns (why, what type of buns did you think I was talking about?). My wife knows this and made me some really great buns for valentines day. So far I've eaten about 5 since first having them Monday evening. I still have another one here on my desk to be consumed later as a snack. As a gift from my wife this was a very cool one.

  Talking of cool and unique I should say what gift my wife got me yesterday. It is a snow tube. Not a cheap inflatable one but a proper one with a thick strong bottom, proper inflatable tube to go in the case and all the proper straps and stuff to hold on to. Seriously unexpected and pretty unique I think.

  Speaking of lovely buns (or as my wife calls her fugly buns) a quick shout out to Lucy who was especially chirpy this morning. Daisy was her usual graceful self, Fudge was still the happiest cat ever and Boots was in full on pose mode on the sofa. Yay our cats.

I'm a mess

  I make such a mess of things some times. I get so wound up about things that I end up taking forever to come to no decision and end up messing up whatever it is I'm trying to do. Take last night, valentines. I managed to get a dinner out arranged no problem but when it came to the gift I froze. I know what I wanted to do but couldn't make it happen and stressed and stressed and stressed about it until in the end I got my wife nothing. Seriously I'm a total mess at this.

  The thing is my wife deserves someone who can make a decision and get something done. She is such a thoughtful and beautiful and wonderful woman. I love being with her, I love everything about her. I just wish I could decide on the right actions to do to back it up to her. I want her to feel as loved as I know I love her. In the end all that matters is that I love her and want her to feel that love. Nothing else comes close in importance to that.

  I know I can be a better man and husband to my wife, I just need to make it happen. She deserves the best since she is the best.

Nearly there

  I'm getting to the closing stretch of this latest project at work. Well at least the closing stretch of the coding part. There is still the integration, FAT testing, FT/ST testing, FCO testing (lots of testing), documentation updates, spec approvals and all sorts of other stuff that still happens from day to day (code reviews, bug fixing etc). I think I need to move on from this kind of thing since it is a thankless task to something else that doesn't require such a slog. This is not fun any more, I would rather be designing or fixing things not doing the grunt work.

  Still, I'm almost done with the drudge, only another couple of months until this release is done from looking at the schedule. Time to push for something else now so I don't get stuck in the next round of slog.

Butterflies

  Want to know how I know I love my wife? Butterflies. Not the real ones but the virtual ones you feel in your stomach. I still get those after all these years with my wife. I can be in another part of the house and hear her cry in pain. I immediately get butterflies in my stomach and end up charging through the house dangerously to see if she is ok.

  When I get home from work every day and physically see my wife again I get butterflies. I know I talk to her online all day but there is no replacement for being within touching distance. That first moment though when I see her again with my own eyes is special. I've never known anyone else in my life that makes me feel like that.

  This is how I know I love my wife, she is the only person who makes me feel this way and this special.

Lots of money

  Watching my twitter feed last night I saw something slightly crazy going on. A game developer I follow announced he was going to do a small independent project and was going to fund it via an unusual method (at least for game development). He announced he would start a kickstarter fund (go see www.kickstarter.com if you've not heard about his before) since this wasn't something that any publisher was going to fund and he wanted to do it as a personal project. By the time the evening had ended he was half way to his funding goal. Now this wasn't a small amount of money, he was asking for $400,000 and set the fund up to close in 33 days. If by the end of that period enough people had pledged the money they would be charged for whatever they had pledged and the funding would go ahead, no promises on the final result.

  So we have over $200,000 raised in an evening. What do I see when I get up this morning? The fund has already been met and is now heading for the order of $700,000 as of time of writing this blog post. That is an insane amount of money given to one guy and his team to write develop a game. This is the link for the project in case you are interested.

  It is interesting how keen people are to give money to other people if they see something that sparks their interest or support. Take the case of last week when through a stupid political decision the Komen breast cancer foundation decided to stop funding Planned Parenthood to the order of about $750,000 per year due to the fact that part of PP provides abortions. The bigger thing they do though is to provide health care services to low income women, you know vital stuff like breast cancer screening and general women's health issues. In the days following this announcement PP had promises from several donours of MORE money than the Komen foundation had been previously providing. They were all speaking with their wallet in response to what Komen did, basically saying they were idiots and if they didn't want to do something that is effectively necessary (given the sorry cost of health in this country) they would do it instead.

  We all know Komen backed down in the end and restored the funding as well as the directory who forced the original decision "resigned" but the principal was there. People felt strongly enough about something that they put forward money to get something done they thought was right.

  Now if I just had enough spare money myself to give something to both of these worthy causes, women and videogames.

Expectations

  It is surprising the expectations some people have. They expect everything to be great and worthy of their time. If you stop to think about it for a moment though if everything was great nothing would be. The new normal would be great and everything would be regarded as standard and not great. If everything in the world was perfect we wouldn't know it.

  Take  your health nowadays. If you get a small sniffle or cold you take something to help relieve it and get over it. If you get some other more urgent injury or disease you treat it and most of the time get better from it. This wasn't always the case though. Go back 200, heck even 100, years and you are in a situation where what would be considered great then is now considered absolutely normal. Today though it takes some form or miraculous fix or uncommon surgery to even get noticed, so much of our health is taken for granted.

  The same can be said for any other part of life. My wife and I went to see a couple of films this weekend. Both of them had been reviewed and were not considered that great by critics. However we both enjoyed both films since we didn't have expectations of them. We just wanted to see something that would entertain us and pass the time. We didn't require them to be brilliantly acted, make us feel emotions or be full of deep philosophies. To get anywhere with critics though it seems you need to be exceptional or amazing. With the way things are it is very hard for the films that don't meet this criteria to actually make money and succeed. People are becoming trained to only want the best of everything and not enjoy even the "lesser" things in life. If you enjoy it then it doesn't matter how well it was done as long as any flaws it have don't break your enjoyment of it.

  Anyway, quick thought/rant over with, back to writing exceptional code.

Do come again

  Just got back from the dentist for an appointment for my wife. She is being asked to come back again in 4 months rather than the usual 6. It is hard though to say how much that is through necessity rather than getting us in there more often (since I'm on a 4 month schedule) to make more money. You can never tell with these things since you go to these type of people (doctor types) to get things sorted or checked for that you don't have the expertise for.

  All in all it is a bit of a trust situation and when you feel ok and know you have no problems it does make you wonder. You wonder why do they want me back so often, does it really need to be checked then? With this particular one it is annoying since the insurance only covers two dentist visits a year so we end up paying for the third one. Its not much but every little adds up in the end.

And another one....

  Another work week over and done with. They go past one by one and more time has passed. At least this day is a good day, I got paid and I get to go home to my wife and be with her for the whole weekend. I even get to work from home on Monday. If I could spend more of my time around her I would do it in a heartbeat.

  I think it is time to go on my cruising commute, listen to my spodcasts (my term for the spoddy podcasts I listen to in the car), get a little bit of shopping done on the way home and then spend a weekend how it should be. Be with my loved one doing things together we enjoy.

Wandering mind

My mind is a bit all over the place today so lets take a quick journey on some of the places it has been (in no particular order):

1. I actually stopped playing Skyrim last night. Final time was 178 hours. On one play through. Of not absolutely everything in that game. Scary.
2. For the first time in a long while there might actually be several films at the cinema my wife and I will actually go to see.
3. For the umpteenth time while living in the US my wife and I are going to totally ignore the fact that this Sunday is "superbowl sunday".
4. Hamsters need to learn to run around less. Andy our hamster ran on her wheel so much last night it started wobbling and making noises waking both of us up. Seriously, where does she get all the energy?
5. I need a new job, something that doesn't bore me so much.
6. Driving in the fog is fun. People don't notice how fast they are going. Like the guy who passed me leaving town this morning right past the police car. No guesses for what happened next to him.
7. All the freeway signs around here are "advertising" that the bay bridge will be closed over the presidents day 3 day weekend. No trips to SF for us that weekend I think.
8. The game I started playing last night, Driver San Francisco, has a very silly premise but it makes for some damn fun game play.
9. My wife is a great cook, yummy risotto leftovers for lunch today along with another muffin from the latest batch.
10. I think I'll post this blog post now so that I can get on with other things. Back another time if my mind gets to it.

Clear communication

  I'm not that great at communicating, expressing what I want or need is something I have a varying ability to do. Add in interactions with other groups of people who don't always get the full or intended message. Can you tell I've been playing phone tag and stuff arranging today?

  Anyway, on to happier things. For me that is cats. Every morning when I get up to go to work I have between 2 and 4 cats running around ready to greet me. To watch the joy they have when they get fed, the fun they have simply chasing a simple piece of plastic around or the strange positions they get themselves in to whilst sleeping. Then you have cats who do things like this that just make you laugh. All people in the world should be cat people.

The shakes

  My wife has surgery to finally fix the last bit of her shoulder coming up in a couple of weeks. To be honest it is a little daunting to me having been there for her previous surgeries. I know she has it worse since she has to actually have the surgery but all I can think about is remembering how it felt when those other surgeries happened.

  During it you are sitting there in the waiting room, completely unaware of what is going on, knowing that the person you love is currently lying unconscious on a table being cut up. Then when you finally get to see them in the recovery room, hooked up to machines and in obvious pain you get faint and feel the shakes. You see this person you love in obvious physical distress and your body reacts physically to the purely emotional response you have. It is such a strong feeling that you are physically affected by it.

Really can't be arsed

  I"m getting to the point in my current bit of work where it is really dragging. I'm in the middle of the drudgery and dull stuff and I really can't be bothered to finish it. I can sit here for a while and just not get anything done since I really can't be bothered to. I know I have to get it done, it's kind of required for my job so that I can get paid but I have zero motivation left for the place where I work.

  They've dragged me along for so long without giving anything back that I'm ready to give it all up. If I didn't have bills to pay I would walk right out of here today. It is depressing to realise that the place you have put so much of your working life in to cares nothing for what you have become and just expects you to carry on. I need something that I can feel proud of when I do it, that actually interests me, that doesn't have to be dragged out of me to get done.

  Looking at the time now, I've spent 20 minutes since starting to write this and found various ways to do anything but work. This shouldn't be what I do for a living anymore but I don't know how to do anything else. Maybe it is just the things I'm asked to do here but they aren't fun anymore. They are nothing but stress, boredom and monotonous drudge.