Are We Having Fun Yet?

I try to be non-judgmental at the gym, but some days my resolve is weaker than circumstances require.

I've been going to the same LA Fitness for over three years, more than long enough to know the regulars and spot the newbies. I hardly notice the muscle-bound guys: I'm focused on my routines, they're focused entirely on theirs, and outside of a greeting glance or patiently waiting for equipment to be available, there's no interaction.

The newbies are easy to spot: they're unsure which equipment they should use next, how precisely to use something new, where to set the seat height, how much weight to configure, etc., not to mention the unspoken etiquette of the gym. They usually watch intently from the sides to see how a regular is using the equpiment then make their way over when the machine is free. I feel for them: it's a daunting environment but I'm so glad they found the courage to at least try. I sometimes offer to help, but I'm also sometimes wary that I might easily scare off the timid. And what they really need is a full workout plan in advance so they can use time on the floor to actually work out rather than mull over the finer points.

Every day, there are people with obvious weight issues feebly lifting weights lighter than my gym bag. My five-year-old self makes ugly jokes, but my mature self recognizes these are people who are working to improve their health and they are to be supported & helped, even if that support just means letting them alone to do their thing. When I started, I couldn't lift heavy either (some would say I still can't... it's relative). Everyone starts somewhere, and some have a longer road to walk than others. I respect their efforts, give them their space and, if we're working similar routines, ensure they get first right of refusal on any equipment I might want to use. And say hi should we make eye contact.

There are the fashion queens & failures. There are a handful with the latest day-glo branded fashions for the gym, always freshly pressed and fitted. There are also a bunch with either no sense of appropriate clothing for the gym or simply don't own any. Here's a hint: jeans and a polo shirt aren't good clothes to select for your workout.

There are the ultra shy folks. I can understand some people are so uptight about nudity (esp their own) that they want to change as quickly as possible and escape the locker room, but it's frankly wierd that anyone would go into the showers fully dressed, doubly so for going into the steam room. Who taught them to be so ashamed of their own body? It's time to unlearn that, whatever kind of body one has.

And then there are some particular characters at my gym...

There are the Smash Brothers. They either use equipment as props while they chat for hours or use the equipment so hard it breaks. These are the guys who load up a machine to a massive weight, push to their extreme, then simply drop the weight at peak, letting the weights fall to the floor or to the machine's rest state. "We're working to failure," they claim. Wrong: working to failure means to exert to the point where one can no longer complete a rep *with good form*. It does not mean complete loss of control. A loud clang or thud should only be heard in cases of medical emergency, not as part of one's regular workout. I ascribe much of the floor damage and out-of-order equpiment to these guys or people like them. They're the reason our gym fees go up.

There's Potion Guy. He brings a duffle bag of his personal workout equipment and a second duffle bag of various protein powders & supplements. He also maintains three lockers in the men's locker room, stuffed with equipment & supplies. He typically takes more than an hour and all counter space in the locker room to mix all of his supplements, drinks, slurries, cleanses and lord knows what else. In all these years, I've never actually seen him on the gym floor working out, just mixing in the locker room. I suspect that if I ever wanted some illicit performance-enhancing pharmaceuticals, he'd be the go-to guy. Now that I think of it, he's pretty chummy with the more muscular regulars...

And there's Kitten. I don't know his real name but he's mid-thirties, 5'4", nice build and totally adorable. I want to adopt him, he's just so precious!

MusclePuppy is also adorable. Again, about 5'4", tiny waist but broad shoulders giving him that classic V torso we'd all strive for if genetics allowed. MP is extremely sociable and says hi to everyone in the gym everytime he works out. He's also very, very christian so he tosses in a few blessings in his rounds. He does seem to be a geniunely nice guy and is easy on the eyes so I chat with him periodically because, yes, I'm that shallow.

And SuperModel. He's about 6'3", slim build, perhaps 5% body fat, thick black wavy hair always perfectly styled. If he doesn't work as a model, he should. SM has his particular supersets and well-defined routines, a mix of cardio and weight lifting. While I'm frequently frustrated by equipment left helter-skelter around the gym, I've come to recognize which are random distributions and which are merely waiting for SuperModel to make a return trip in the next part of his workout cycle. At least he does put his equipment back when he's done and doesn't get territorial about others using those pieces while he's in other parts of his superset.

There are many other special characters, more than I could write here. I'm glad though they're no wierder than they are.

We saw the latest movie in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek Beyond, on Sunday. General review: Not bad, to my surprise.

I hated the first movie. Beyond what I thought was a calculated snub to Gene Roddenberry and his vision, it simply had so many internal contradictions from bad script writing that watching it makes me cringe even as the endless lens flares make me nauseated. I'm willing to accept some contrivances for the purposes of science fiction (eg. warp drive, artificial gravity, etc.) but I can't ignore stunningly obvious problems (eg. Spock watching the destruction of Vulcan as though he were sitting on a nearby asteroid rather than in another star system several light-years away).

Star Trek Into Darkness was a bit better but tried far too hard to shoe in elements from The Wrath of Khan. It had a couple of nice twists but again it fell down where the physical universe just wouldn't cooperate with film-making: if the Enterprise was crippled some 230,000km from Earth and so close to the moon (visible in the background), it was more likely to fall to the moon than Earth. Even if it did fall towards Earth, it would take days to drift into the atmosphere rather than less than five minutes. I could go on for several pages more, but you get the drift.

Star Trek Beyond had better timing and some good plot twists. We also had some relatively good character development so a few characters finally seemed to be fully-fleshed people instead of two dimentional cardboard replacements of actors from the original TV series.
( Spoilers below! )
And finally, the biggest mystery of all: Why does anyone keep giving James Kirk ships? Has he ever returned one intact? Seriously, I would not lend the man a pen, let alone a car.

Still, it was overall engaging and I can close my eyes for the most egregious issues. And it seemed much truer to Gene's vision than the prior two installments. I think this one could even earn his endorsement if he was still alive. Well done.

Shopping in San Francisco is harder than I'm used to.

I don't really like shopping, and I'm even less fond of spending money. Still, it must be done on occasion and I do need a light jacket as the evenings here can be cold. I'll likely need one as well for our September trip to London, so I might as well get the jacket now rather than just tough it out.

I'm typically a directed item shopper: I have a goal of picking up a particular item with a budget already in mind, I go acquire it, and then I go home. I don't like browsing for the sake of it, I'm not big on taking hours to do extensive comparison shopping, an item outside of my price range is immediately ignored, and I don't get side-tracked by accessories, extra items, or add-ons. Like a dental appointment, I go in, I get the damned thing done, and I get out again. Easy stuff, usually.

Many stores are relatively small, have a obvious single product line and are easily perused. Those are painless for me, although a little frustrating when I can't find the item I want as there is a lot of walking between those shops.

The large stores I'm used to on the east coast and in Canada are pretty easy: if you want men's wear, you go to the men's wear department. All the major labels and the store brands are there in the same area. I can peruse everything in a half-hour and without wearing the tread off my shoes.

And then there's San Francisco.

Its large stores aren't dividing by function or interest, but by brand & label. There is no men's wear area. If you want men's wear, you have to visit six to a dozen different areas on multiple floors. you visit the Burberry area on the 2nd floor to peruse their men's wear alongside women's wear, etc., the Ralph Lauren section on the first floor to look at their men's wear, etc.. A single store takes an extra half-hour just to walk to each separate section and riding a number of escalators.

It's exhausting & frustrating for me, although I'm sure it makes perfect sense for those guys whose wardrobe is exclusively composed on one particular label. If you wear only Armani, shopping is a breeze.

I'm home from the annual IAGSDC convention in Toronto, and while I didn't dance much --perhaps three tips-- I spent a lot of time studying the staff callers.

In prior caller schools and in articles I've written for The Call Sheet, I've frequently said that it is OK for callers to specialize: we don't have to be all things to all people at all times. There typically are more than enough callers around to permit everyone a niche where they find maximum joy. I've walked that walk: I don't do square dance parties as I find them painful & frustrating, despite them being the most lucrative calling gig.

Of late, I've decided to pare down some of my other calling responsibilities.

I don't especially like teaching newbie dancers. I can do it --and do it well-- but it's draining to the point of physical debilitation. The last few times, I had to sit in the car in the parking lot after the gig to collect myself together sufficiently that I could drive home safely. Even when I succeed, there's the constant worry that in a moment of weakness, I might telegraph something less than joy from the stage: the mic & location amplifies everything and a newbie dancer who has less than an ideal experience their first time out may be lost to square dancing forever. For a shrinking recreational activity, the stakes and pressure to perform are high. Teaching absolute beginners is not my Happy Place.

I've also written a few times about the Dark Side of Square Dance Calling. Once you call for a club, you're forever on the hook as the expert in all things, whether you know anything or not. During the GCA grad dance in Toronto, a few people saw me on stage adjusting the volume settings and holding a microphone: for the rest of that weekend, I was suddenly their go-to guy for issues of audio in all halls, air conditioning levels, banquet table layouts, lost & found, and fun badge tours --of which I knew nothing, nor had any responsibilities. But despite my insistence that I couldn't help them and directed them to the registration table of volunteers, they kept coming back to me 'cuz they saw me with a microphone on a stage once.

As a club caller, I'm wheeled out to consult on audio issues for every festival, weekend dances, and misc events between them all. And revising & rewriting festival schedules through multiple drafts. And consulting on & contacting potential future festival staff callers. And MC-ing various events. And coordinating other resources. Yup, I spend two hours on stage for a club night, but there's so many more backstage which no one ever sees (or at least, won't notice if I've done everything correctly). It doesn't sound too bad, but multiply this by several clubs and it adds up.

All of this was unknown to me when I started calling.

The one thing I did know in advance was a minor thing back then, but has become a more onerous problem in 12+ years I've been calling: your schedule is not your own anymore.

I have so many Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays booked over this past year for various club nights. Feeling tired? Too bad: you must go. Weather sucks so bad no one in their right mind would venture out? Too bad: there hasn't been a formal cancellation so you must go. Had a spectacularly bad day with your spouse or at the office? Too bad: you must go --and fake joy about it until the gig is complete. Need to work late? Too bad: you have to do your gig, then go back to the office even later to mop up. Taking a gig is a promise and you are honour-bound to fulfill it, no matter how painful.

Over the past number of years, I've missed many professional training opportunities, business trips, professional meet-ups, business dinners and such, not to mention had to perform several all-nighters at the data center because I was booked for a dance gig. Most of my gigs are planned months in advance, but ironically, most of my best business obligations & opportunities are short notice. Being a caller has limited my professional scheduling agility. And while this isn't a huge surprise and not a catastrophic problem, the effect has been that I'm slipping professionally in my industry knowledge. It's just a little each year, but after a decade, it adds up: I need to correct this quickly before I become professionally obsolete.

So all of this is a large justification for my next steps:
1. I've formally resigned as club caller for Chesapeake Squares in Baltimore to free up my Tuesday evenings;
2. I've formally resigned as club caller for DC Lambda Squares in DC to free up my Thursday evenings.

I'm going to keep calling, primarily our Wednesday C2 group, Zig Zaggers (Advanced) and other subs as they come up. I want to do more guest spots at other festivals; I've been ignoring those for the past 2-3 years because I'm typically too exhausted from being a de facto festival organizer because of me being a club caller.

3. Mainstream and Plus are not my Happy Place. I can call them and do it well, but I like challenging take-no-prisoners, hot hash & DBD, while the market wants easy, breezy, wind-in-your-face dancing with no conscious thought required. Yup, I can do that but it's not my forte so I'll refer queries to my list of great local callers.
4. No more open houses, first-nighters and square dance parties. Yup, there's good money there, and yes, these are the things we need to make our activity grow, but I'm not the guy to run those. Again, I'll refer these to someone who does them better and actually enjoys them.
5. I do good extemporaneous calling and sight resolution. I use that exclusively at Mainstream and Plus, 50/50 at Advanced, and sparingly at Challenge-1 and Challenge-2. I want to correct that: in the next couple of years, I want to be as fluent in the A/C programs as I am in MS/Plus. This is what I was studying at the Toronto convention, and that's where I want to be.
6. To fulfill (5), I need to memorize many more get-outs, and become more confident in spotting & using great get-outs when they appear during extemporaneous calling. Every now and again, I've called something like "follow your neighbour" and while the dancers were still moving, I saw what I was 90% sure was the place to call a "right-and-left grand": I need to believe in my gut a bit more, and take a few more measured risks.
7. My music collection needs a refresh. I've been relying on the old standards too long and it's getting stale. I've bought seven new pieces this past weekend and am about to go review the CALLERLAB convention recordings of the panels discussing music to see what else I can pick up. Huge amounts of music produced annually sucks, but there are still some gems to be found if one looks hard enough.

I do understand that the changes in my path may mean I'll never stand on a stage again, as most gigs go to those who can and do offer everything. I'm fine with that: the important thing is that the best person for the role is hired so if I don't meet the requirements, I shouldn't be on any mic.

And I'm looking forward to catching up with my professional career, attending conventions, meet-ups, presentations, and such once again. I retire in 4,011 days... I can slow down then.

This was Pride Weekend in DC, but for the first time in years, I skipped it entirely.

For starters, there was a lot of family visiting so they were the higher priority. The youngest grandkid, Elodie, was celebrating her first birthday with a small party at our place Saturday afternoon and we had our hands full hosting the bash, preparing the food & drinks, and generally amusing the very young children. I think the entire event was a success.

Sunday was the official day of the pride festival in the downtown but it was also hot & humid, and frankly, I don't get as much out of these events as I once did when I was a young gay. Maybe I'm an old fart sitting on the front porch, yelling at the kids to get off my lawn. Maybe the modern pride festival speaks to this current generation of young gays in a way which doesn't appeal to my own generation. Maybe I just don't need the public reinforcement happy times like I once did. In any case, I just felt no desire to attend.

And then I heard about the mass killings in Orlando: 50 deaths, 26+ injuries. That completely took the wind out of my sails: a party & festival just didn't feel appropriate. I tried to ignore it all so I didn't cause any commotion with the kids here, but it was hard to look at any news outlet as the body count mounted.

Saturday night, friends Josh & Skip in Manassas, VA, lost their apartment to fire. The fire burned out two apartments on the top floor (3rd floor), but the water damage destroyed the apartments below them, including theirs in the ground level. In all 7 units were destroyed but more than 20 families are displaced because the neighbouring units had to be evacuated as well. Good new: there were no injuries beyond minor smoke inhalation. Josh & Skip are safe, as are their dog & cat. Bad news: Josh is the property manager so not only does he have to deal with his household problems, but he has to help sort out this mess and help the displaced families as much as possible.

They are now staying with a friend of theirs nearby the property. Today, they're working on getting replacement medical prescriptions, eye glasses, minor personal items, and replacement documents & credit cards, not to mention contacting their renter's insurance agency for assistance. I'm planning to visit tomorrow to take them out clothes shopping to help rebuild their wardrobes so they can at least attempt to go back to work asap.

There is an IndieGoGo fundraising campaign to help them with the costs of replacing, well, everything. Insurance will cover a significant amount of the replacements but not all, and probably not swiftly. If you can spare a few dollars, here's the link: https://www.gofundme.com/292u5jf8

Granddaughter Elodie is visiting with us this week, Tuesday to Tuesday, while her parents take advantage of a use-it-or-lose-it vacation package her mom won from her employer for sales volume last year. Elodie is only a couple of weeks shy of her first birthday --and that's awkward in so many ways.


I'll start by saying she's a delight and I'm tickled to have her here. The snag is that we all have jobs already, so fitting in baby care is a bit of a challenge in our otherwise adult lives, even if two of us typically work from home. Being a toddler, she needs constant care & supervision; even without a fulltime job, that's a major undertaking.

Elodie also can't vocalize her needs or complaints except by crying, wailing or shrieking in a fashion which may yet crack some windows but it's not always clear what is irritating her at a given moment. We have learned the "my poopy diaper needs changing *now*" scream, as well as the "I'm scared of strangers" and "I feel abandoned" cries. Her "I'm hungry" cries are harder to identify as they come across more as general irritability, so we need to monitor feeding times so we can hypothesize whether hunger is an issue.

We've also found that she has a real problem with people entering or leaving the room where she is located at any given time. She might be playing in the living room with one of us, then she becomes generally stressed when either of the other granddads enter the area, although she'll calm down in a couple of minutes. But once she's accustomed to your presence in the room, you can't leave the area without a mournful multi-minute cry of infinite sadness.

Seriously, once I manage to leave the room, I make a point of not stepping back into her visual range again unless I'm certain I'm going to stay with her for at least an hour. If I even suspect I may need a bathroom break in the next half-hour, I'll hide in the kitchen for as long as needed. Even today, rather than go up the stairs from the basement computer bunker to the middle bedroom to get some papers, I unlocked the basement backdoor, went up the outside stairs, unlocked the kitchen backdoor, and had Michael distract the baby while I dashed into the bedroom to grab my papers. Only when he indicated Elodie was distracted again did I risk dashing through the hall again, then retracing my steps to the basement.

I'm skulking around like a thief in the night. In my own house. Because I'm scared of a baby. OMFG.

Elodie has a mixed track record being introduced to strangers, but in general, she finds the experience upsetting: she hides her face, flails a bit as though she's trying to run away, and being angst-ridden crying. I'm not exactly sure what has caused this behavior, but we have to work with it somehow.

Tonight, we're trying a little experiment: Elodie will be joining us for our C2 square dance in Arlington, VA. We hope she'll acclimatize to the situation after a few minutes of angst, but are braced for the possibility she will be utterly inconsolable until we get her home. Depending on our degree of success, we may bring her to John Marshall's A2 dance Friday night and the DC Lambda Squares' Advanced & Challenge afternoon on Saturday, as well as the Mid-Atlantic Challenge Association board meeting on Sunday. This may be an utter disaster, but there's no way to tell until we try.

Yes, my Dear Employer is still alive & kicking. And so am I, at Dear Employer.

The management structure is still in flux, but has nearly reached stability and a new norm. In my division, our Corporate IT and Operations groups are merging. We have had a new DevOps group for the past few months but so far, I haven't seen anything devops-y from them, just tinkering with some of our internal apps & monitors.

The COO just mentioned in an off-hand way as he was showing the new org structures in PowerPoint that they're looking at a large investment into our data centers to improve our uptime & stability. This is a relief, not only because it goes a long way to preserving my employment but also because preserving uptime is getting harder as each day goes by because of our aging infrastructure. If nothing else, I'm happy that there is now finally an announced direction.

In other fun news, there's also a proposal --and it's only a proposal-- to replace our existing vacation policy with unlimited vacation since that's what all the cool companies are doing these days. I'm not sure this would really affect me overall: at my level of seniority, I get 20 vacation days, plus national holidays, corp holidays, two flex days and a stack of sick days. Only 23 days may be accrued at any time and may only be cashed out at termination of employment; I know I haven't been using my full vacation allotment but I've been working on that this year with planned trips to Toronto and England. Anyway, the new policy would wipe out this bank, replacing it with vacation when/if my manager approves.

The snag is in the transition between policies. Management could just cash out everyone their outstanding balance so we all start from zero, but that would be a major hit to the finances at a time when management is working hard to fix our cashflows. Alternatively, they're considering a company-wide shutdown across the week of US Thanksgiving, Xmas and next year's July 4: the firm closes for a few days and everyone is compelled to use some vacation days.

I'm fine with this, largely since I have a full bank of vacation and those are the periods when I'm most likely to try taking vacation time. On the flip side, these corp shutdowns would also be the perfect windows for major infrastructure updates so vacation might be contra-indicated for my division. And I'm unsure what the relatively new hires might think since they get fewer vacation days and would now be required to dedicate half of those to the company's schedule rather than their lives.

Update: In a meeting with my new COO and new VP, it was clearly stated that the purchases of some equipment to refresh my data center should proceed immediately, and that the rebuild of the data center as a whole is corporate priority to be initiated as soon as we get refreshed quotes from vendors. Yaaaaassssss!

Update #2: My team is very<./b> opposed to the proposed unlimited vacation policy. They figure we rarely get a chance to use vacation time as is so this change doesn't benefit us at all; in fact, all benefits accrue to the company who no longer needs to carry vacation time as a P/L statement liability or cash out unused vacation time on employment termination. I'm still ambivalent on it: I don't fully exercise my current vacation allotment, and I can live with the new policy. The only impact to me is the cash-out if I left the firm but since I'm not planning to go anywhere yet...

Today, Michael and I went for our inteviews for the TSA Precheck program (Kent has a different date at a different office, one more convenient to his office). The hope is that having the precheck and "Known Traveller" status will help us get through airport security lines a little faster. Even if the lines don't move faster, at least we won't have to take off our shoes & belts, remove laptops, etc..

The interview itself was fairly bland: the data we entered on the online forms was displayed back to us and we were asked to confirm the contents. Our fingerprints were then scanned, payment of $85 (for five years) was taken, and we were done. The background check will take about 30 days, but the investigation status will be updated online.

Interestingly, about 10% of all applications are rejected. And the fee is non-refundable.

The precheck is good for domestic flights and as it stands, my next two trips are both international. Still, the known traveller status is printed on the boarding passes by the airlines rather than the TSA, so there's always a chance we'll get the precheck line for the security at whichever airport we're using. I'll let you know.

If nothing else, the expedited line will be useful for my future trips to San Francisco, Michael's visits to Cleveland, or Kent's to Florida.

Of late, I've noticed that the work tickets submitted to my team at the office follow trends.

A month ago, the common theme was asking for impossible things: 35 servers, all equipped with 4GHz CPUs, 10TB hard drives & 128GB of RAM, to be ready in 24 hours. That kind of thing.

Last week, the trend was for the author to identify the precise problem, state exactly what team should address it --then send the ticket to my team which isn't related to any issues mentioned. I received so many networking, database and MS Exchange tickets last week; the first few I directed appropriately, but after that, I just sent them back to the author asking them why they were wasting their time sending it to my team when they already knew we couldn't help them.

This week, it's all about not even trying. I've received several tickets this week which mention casually a problem somewhere but make no effort at all to indicate where the error may lay, how to recreate it, the precise error itself, or what they'd like to do about it. Just a "Hey, something is wrong somewhere" message.

Imagine your emo teenage son walking into the house, saying "Something is wrong with the car," and then disappearing into his room. There are two cars in the driveway. Which car? What "something"? Was there a noise? A leak? An explosion? Was it related to the engine, the body, the tires? Was there really a problem or did just not like the colour of the seats?

I'm sending the vague tickets back to the author with a template for clarification. Most haven't responded back yet, probably because it's too difficult to think about such details as how to replicate the error.

And last night, I discoverd one of our senior software developers has no idea what the difference is between RAM and swap space. Not a clue.

Here's what I'd like to have happen in the next sixty days:
1. I want a major company to buy out my employer.
2. My share options get translated into real shares and I cash out.
3. A massive recession sweeps through Silicon Valley. Everyone is laid off.
4. The remaining firms regroup and hire only those with skills from the talent pool.
5. Everyone else returns to writing bad emo poetry while living in a shared flophouse above a meth lab somewhere in the midwest.

Please make it so.

I had a strange dream about a week ago. Oddly, I remembered it the next day. Even more oddly, I still remember it.

I was attending a sales seminar in a small auditorium with about 50 other people in the audience. The presenter was at the front of the hall, sitting with two people who were past success stories of his product, and behind them all was a very large television screen showing a slide presentation.

The sales pitch was about becoming a male exotic dancer and/or escort.

I don't remember the price tag but it was a DVD set and some personal coaching. The market is apparently huge, one sets one's own hours although clearly one will be working nights and weekends, and a motivated person with a good network of contacts can earn $200+k per year, much of it under the table. If one is willing to travel a circuit of cities, one can pull in even more. The downsides are obvious: working nights & weekends, frequent STI checks, lack of a 401k, some sketchy customers, possible run-ins with law enforcement, etc.. Back to the good news, there's a niche for daddy figures which appears to be underserved.

I'm not sure why this dream stuck with me, but it gives me hope for a possible career option should this whole Internet/high tech thing peters out.