I remember when I bought my first house here in Texas. When doing lawn maintenance I always tried to use the mulching feature to recycle the nutrients back into the soil. That got me a thatched lawn. While mulching may be a thing in some places, you need rain to break down the clippings and we don’t have that down here. So now I bag clippings and leaves and such and off it goes to the landfill. While I’m not happy I’m not recycling it, at least it may be assisting the landfill in composting garbage.

It’s half way through October and we’re finally going to get a break from the heat. The high tomorrow is supposed to be 70 which is 25 or so degrees lower than it was today. It’s always so hot down here that the standard dress is shorts and a t-shirt. I’m not even sure that I have a pair of pants that fit and when I do wear jeans I’m always pissed because there aren’t enough pockets.

It’s hard being a Cowboy’s fan. As fan would be short for fanatic, I’m not one. But I do like them better than any other football team so even though I’m not a Cowboy fanatic, I don’t like to see them lose, and it’s even less fun to watch them get slaughtered like they did in spectacular fashion today. If you’ve ever watched the Harlem Globetrotters play some no name team, that would have been the Cowboy’s today. Detroit just spanked them at every turn. I do think it’s funny that the football gods would do this on Jerry’s birthday, he’s still paying for pulling the trophy out of Jimmy’s hands. Still hard to watch though…

Evidently, crawling around on the floor pounding planks together is a young mans game. I’m a bit sore so I told the home owner that the project would be delayed until I felt like getting back to the job. He didn’t seem to mind at all.

I got back to studying the docker class and am making progress although I’ve got a concentration problem that I need to fix, I mean the subject isn’t super exciting but it’s not bad, I just wonder to other things even though I need to study. It’s just getting back into the groove.

Also got the new hire paperwork knocked out for the seasonal position I’m taking. It wasn’t too bad and I’ve filed the information for reference should it ever come up but I’ll probably just write exports like I’ve been doing for the last 4 or so years.

Sandy’s job is going phenomenal, she’s just doing training but this job is perfect for her. It’s better than I thought that it would be and that’s saying something.

TGIF

I’ve been feeling out of sorts for the past couple of days and it took me that long to put one and one together that the magnesium supplement is trying to kill me. It’s 420Mg is over the 350Mg that’s recommended. I’ve gone ahead and suspended use for now. Probably won’t be taking that one again.

In other news, it was men’s breakfast at church. Nothing too much going on there. Got home and did the lawn, then I started cleaning the garage. Adrian said he may stop over tomorrow to work on the Xterra front shocks with me and Sandy finished up the final painting in the back and so we’re ready for the floor.

My sister had a work conference this weekend and we’re sitting Pippa the pup. I’m a huge fan of animals but the amount of work involved with a dog is pretty big. I’m more of a cat person in part because cats are like furry houseplants with legs. Don’t get me wrong, I aspire to dog ownership but it’ll happen if any when I get some property that they would have room to run on. But even then you don’t get to travel much unless they come with you and I just don’t know if I could do that.

In much sadder news, Keli’s mom Claudia passed last night. I’ve been in tears thinking about what Keli must be going through. The older I get the more omnipresent death appears to be. It scares me because Sandy has yet to lose a parent and I have yet to lose the hard one, mom. You try not to think about it but it’s going to happen, there’s no way of avoiding that. Keli has handled her mom’s passing with such grace, I’m hoping that I can be half as together when I have to go through it.

I just walked Sandy out to her car and kissed her goodbye and for the first time in my adult life, my SO has a real job and I don’t. I’m not sure how I feel about that but it has caused some soul searching and I don’t believe it will take me that long to find a job but I’m still figuring out what I want to do. I feel I’ve lost my spark and direction in computers, don’t get me wrong I still love them and can’t imagine doing anything else but I need a direction. I’m certainly tired of HR and HR related software. Oh well, I’m sure something will turn up when the time comes.

I’m really proud of Sandy, this job represents the pinnacle of her career in both compensation and prestige. Ask anyone who works in skilled nursing facilities who state is and it strikes fear in their hearts because of the power they have to shut down substandard facilities. And they serve a very needed purpose which is to keep these places professional and their patients safe and comfortable.

I’ve got painting to do and then flooring and other home improvement efforts to undertake and some contract work to cleanup the last dying Taleo instances that will keep me entertained until my future because clear.

As the years drift by and my body tells me it’s getting older by triggering pain receptors in various points and parts of my body, my thoughts are increasingly turning towards the inevitable end. We’re seeing peers die, a close friend of mine (Tony) has been dead a year and a half already. We lost two female members of our graduating class to cancer in the span of a day a couple of months back.

And of course watching our parents age is an incredibly eye opening and horrifying realization of what’s to come. It’s playing on my mind and recently more heavily and pervasively. To the point I look at my cats and almost tear up thinking of a horrible day (hopefully years away) that I’ll have to say goodbye to them for the last time.

So in this pensive state I’m considering the process of dying. I mean that starts as soon as we’re born but I’m now more concerned about the actual transition between living and dying and then what’s after that. And the thing I’m stuck by most is that I don’t think of believe that there’s anything after. Death is the end, the body dies and that’s it, there isn’t a heaven or hell, there isn’t anything at all. It’s horrifying that this life and all the lessons learned are gone.

But it’s been like this forever, we created religions to ease the scary thoughts of what happens after passing. I’ve started planning for my eventual passing so that it’s going to be easier on those left behind. I think that may help in my anxiety on the subject, hopefully.

So it seems that Oracle has changed the amount of time your data is available after contract end for Taleo. Prior to September it was 60 days, after the change in fiscal year it’s now 30 days. This (of course) has thrown a wrench into a lot of works and seems to be facilitating a surge in the need of TCC integration folks. Think of it as the last rays of sun before it sets behind the front range of Colorado, it’ll be dark soon.

What this means for me is that I get to dust of Sarondy LLC and do a bit of contract work, maybe. I still have yet to see the SOW I’d be contracting under so we’ll see how that all shakes out. This would be a new one for me and I do understand the pitfalls of being responsible for taxes. I’m hoping to set it up so the company bills and receives payment and then pays me for the work. I get paid and the company makes money. I could technically end the year with a profitable company!