15 June, 1999


Dark City

You've seen what we are. We use your dead as vessels.

Vernell and Eric are over here watching Dark City on our DVD. Dave's watching it too. Great movie, and the woman is beautiful. She resembles my cousin Erin too, which makes it all the neater.

This morning I slept in some. Taking off for work I headed down El Camino and got my chain lubed up on my bike. I also bought a portable tire pump, and inflated the tires. Well the lube job was no help you see, because I still skip spokes when I push too hard, so I move nice and slow.

I live right down the street from Tellme, about a mile and a half. Unfortunately, this street, San Antonio, has no bike lanes, and the crossing of Central Expressway is exceedingly nasty. What I do is ride down California about half a mile to Rengstorff and then up. Then the ride is pleasant up 'til about Charleston where I lose the bike lane and the intersections get a little contorted. A wise bike commuter would invest in a helmet, but this commuter forgot in his haste to get to work.

The day was spent working. I started cleaning up on account of some investor stopping by tomorrow. Yesterday our new office manager, Vicki, started working. Today while cleaning I found the receipt for the cell phone and gave it to Andy. At that point he and Vicki wondered if it was too late to get a refund, as Vicki has connections with another cellular provider to get us a deal on these nice Nokia phones. Ah the costs of a hasty startup. This though, is just a minor inefficiency that pales in comparison to the FUBARs I've come to expect from other organizations I've dealt with. If this is the worst that Tellme can do, they are a righteous employer indeed.

Another cool story ... we have some legacy ethernet cables that were made before I came to work here. They were made by Angus, who doesn't actually know how to make ethernet cables, but is also red-green color-blind to boot. Since the process involves laying out orange, brown, green and blue wires in a specific order ... well, an ethernet cable, botched, can still work. Sometimes though said cable will provide little troubles. Well ... on the inevitable occasions that someone experiences network flakiness, I check the cable, and if it's an Angus cable, I have one more variable to eliminate.

Fun, actually. I think the funness derives from the fact that Angus is pretty good-natured about his cables. He did his best under the circumstances, and now I can fix it. What is more frustrating is when you're in a situation where your predecessor was simply incompetent, but passed themself off as an expert. Another thing that has been surprisingly pleasant about Tellme is that everyone seems to have a positive, cooperative, team attitude. This kinda stuff is found more frequently in a start up.

Well, later on I got the call from Eric. He and Vern swung by and we went out to this really good burger joint over on El Camino, and now we're here, at the house, and Dark City is playing.

Sleep, yes?


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This document last modified Wednesday, 19-Nov-2003 23:24:54 UTC <dannyman@dannyland.org>