Checking In

A catch-all, catch-up post

There are 1,132 posts filed in Checking In (this is page 18 of 114).

New York City and Carnegie Hall

Ligon Middle School performs at Carnegie Hall

Ligon Middle School performs at Carnegie Hall


Wow, it’s been a busy few weeks not just for me but for all of us. Hallie took three days off of school last week to travel with the Ligon Philharmonic Orchestra up to New York to play at Carnegie Hall. Kelly, Travis, and I along with Kelly’s parents joined her after taking the bus up.

We arrived Friday afternoon and had plenty of time to do some sightseeing. First we checked in at the Union Theological Seminary which was to be our hotel for the trip. Then we hit the subway to check out downtown.

Our first stop was the Brooklyn Bridge. I’d seen it from a distance of course but had never walked over it before. It was windy, cool, and very crowded, but it was nice to be able to say I’ve been across it.
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New York City bound

As I mentioned, the Turners are on the move again. And, as usual, we’re all headed in different directions, at least initially.

Hallie left for school at 4 AM for her bus trip to New York City, where she and her fellow Ligon Middle School orchestra members will play Carnegie Hall Saturday night. An hour later, Kelly took Travis to his Conn Elementary school field trip to Fort Fisher. I’m staying here for work before heading to a fundraiser for Kay Hagan this evening.

Thursday night, Kelly, Travis, and I will travel to Kelly’s parents’ home (leaving the Rottweilers to guard the home while we’re away, of course). Friday morning we’ll head to DC to hop a bus which will take us to New York. We’ll stay long enough to watch Hallie’s performance before taking the bus back home.

Oh, and the following week I travel to Sacramento for work: the first business travel I’ve taken in a while. Should be fun.

Loving the new job

Raleigh_Team
Thursday marks my second week at the new job and, boy, what a difference it is from my last job! I actually have fun at work. No one micromanages me, no stupid mind games are being played. People don’t come into work seemingly to delight in making someone else’s day miserable. Night and day.

Two weeks into my job and I’ve already earned the trust of my colleagues. I’ve already jumped in and begun solving problems. I’ve even offered house-hunting advice to those new to Raleigh. It feels awesome to work someplace that appreciates my contributions.

Above is a photo I took of my team last week. Looks like a fun group, doesn’t it?

Healthcare still sucks

Now that I’m in a new job, Kelly and I spent some time this evening picking out a healthcare plan. Wading through a lot of boring-as-shit details boiled it down to the plain fact that insurance companies suck even more than they used to.

What kept popping up is this whole idea of “coinsurance.” Who came up with that? Basically if you get hit by a bus and the bills top $1 million, your broken, tire-track-covered ass is on the hook for $200,000. And that’s with insurance! “With friends like these,” right?

Healthcare is still broken and the industry is still playing everyone for suckers. If there’s ever a market that is screaming for more regulation – the kind with real teeth that stands up to these kinds of horseshit shell games that are still being played – healthcare is it.

Oh, and my opinion of UnitedHealthcare hasn’t improved any, either.

The visitor nightmare

In March of 2014, I experienced a terrifying nightmare. Nightmares are extremely rare for me, fortunately, so they tend to stand out when they occur.

That day, 28 March 2014, I had watched an entertaining video compilation on YouTube of all the movie scenes in which Christopher Walken was dancing. One of the featured clips was of the movie Communion, in which Walken played alien-abduction experiencer Whitley Strieber. At the end of the video I turned my attention to other things but apparently the video stayed with me.

It was an unseasonably warm night, with nighttime temperatures in the 60s and light rain moving through Raleigh. The comforter was still on the bed and I was feeling hot. I don’t sleep well when it’s warm.

Sometime in the early morning, I dreamed I was seated with my eyes closed in what seemed like a dentist’s chair. Three doctors hovered just above, doing work on me. A pencil-thin rod of some sort was being used to somehow adjust my spine.
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Dinner guest

I caught this fellow helping himself to the cat food on the porch this evening.

Raccoon

Raccoon

Lowering the sights

As I get set to embark on a new journey, I thought it would be good to look back at the job description that attracted me to my last job and compare it to the one advertised for my replacement. Here’s the first one:

Senior Support Engineer — Open Position Description

$COMPANY, a startup software company in Research Triangle Park recognized as a “Cool Vendor” by Gartner, is seeking talented individuals to help grow its expanding Engineering team.

$COMPANY‘s award-winning application management product — $PRODUCT — delivers transaction—based application discovery,
dependency mapping, and performance monitoring & analysis for complex, distributed applications in some of the world‘s largest data centers.

As a growing software business, $COMPANY is expanding our enterprise support team.

Responsibilities

– Quickly understand the dynamics of the $PRODUCT and maintain an extensive knowledge of any revisions and updates to the software
– Coordinate new customer implementations and provide effective and timely training to maximize use of the software by the customer
– Provide end-user application support via phone and email during support hours and on occasion during off hours when warranted
– Troubleshoot issues reported by customers and provide solutions in a timely, accurate, and professional manner
– Facilitate problem-solving between end user and $COMPANY development staff and make verbal and/or written recommendations for change and improvement
– Develop working relationship with $COMPANY sales team members and provide insight to sales reps regarding any current or future product needs as indicated by the customer
– Provide administrative support for the support portal and work flows associated with support tickets
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Landed!

The good news is that I found a job that’s closer than Belgium. I’ve accepted a position as a Senior Systems Engineer at a large legal database company that’s recently set up shop on N.C. State’s Centennial Campus. My goal is to make the company’s SaaS platform as rock-solid stable as I can. I start March 31st and I’m quite excited about the opportunity.

Work local?

Got this email in last night and it really underscored just how off-target some of the job opportunities that have come my way really are:

From: diceletter at dice.com
Subject: NATO Windows Systems Engineer – Mons, Belgium
To: Mark Turner

Hi Mark,

I scanned through your resume and thought you may be a fit for one of our open positions NATO in Mons, Belgium

The System Engineer will require experienced IT security professionals to be part of this leading edge capability for Cyber Defence. Working as part of an incident management team you would be part of the operational support at the sharp end of the NATO Computer Incident Response Centre (NCIRC).

This role entails 220 work days a year and a 7.6 hour workday. Plenty of time to see Europe – and hour drive from Paris and Germany. You get 25 paid days of vacation a year (five weeks) plus 16 additional paid holidays ? that?s 41 paid days off to explore Europe

You can find more information and apply online via the following link if interested:
Please visit
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Tickets to Neil deGrasse Tyson?

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson


I got a tip from a friend that tickets would be available to the public this morning for the upcoming visit to NCSU’s College of Sciences by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. I had heard there were only going to be 100 or so general admission tickets available so I knew we had to act fast if this science family had any chance to see NDT.

Kelly and I teamed up to increase our chances. She and I both pounded the NCSU website as the clock approached 10 AM. Then when the “register now” link appeared, we both typed like crazy to enter our information. With my registration safely complete, I refreshed my browser to see that the registration window had just closed. Kelly and I were both successful, and we made it in the nick of time!

I don’t know how NCSU will distribute it’s 100 tickets. It’s possible the school will try to accommodate its alumni first and leave us regular folk out of it. I sure hope they will honor their procedure, though, and award us the tickets that we earned this morning. Fingers crossed!