Category: Activities

I seem to have become the local media’s “aviation guy”

It started when RNews called me after some guy crashed near the airport. Evidently they got my name from the Rochester Flying Club web site. I tried very hard to say positive things about aviation and not to speculate on what the guy might have done wrong, and I figured they’d probably hate me.

Then they called me after Bill Law crashed and died. I did the same thing – except for the fact that I heard about his death from the RNews reporter, which is pretty shocking, and because I knew and liked Bill I could say more about what a great guy he was and how important he was to aviation in Rochester.

Well, it’s continuing on. Today I got a call from a local reporter who wanted to know if I’m following Steve Fossett in the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer. I told him that I’ve been watching the
Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer : Flight Tracker for every waking hour since before he took off until now. He asked me some background stuff, and asked me if I’d like to be doing what Fossett is doing. I said I wouldn’t mind being able to spend all my time doing aviation adventures, but I don’t think I’d want to spend 80 hours in a noisy cockpit. He then said that if Steve makes it they’ll probably want some reactions from local pilots.

Ok, I guess I’m up to 10 minutes of fame.

Why sure, I’d love to be your secretary

I’m working on something that’s fairly important and complicated, but it’s supporting current customers, not something on the critical path for the highest priority task, which is preparing for a trade show to get new customers. (I hate the fact that servicing current customers always takes a back seat to getting new customers, but that’s a rant for another time.)

There is another programmer who is working on tasks that are on the critical path. He’s task saturated, at least partly because he’s disorganized, only grudingly uses our source code management system, does stuff in a way that’s impossible for other people to understand, doesn’t document what he’s done, and when asked to explain only gives a vague generalities or launches into wild digressions. But because he’s on the critical path and I’m not, my boss thinks nothing of having me interrupt my work and do stuff for the other guy. And because the other guy is useless when it comes to explaining what he’s doing, often those interruptions are like today’s.

“Paul, I need to you remove these three lines from these four files, and submit a PCR for it.” Ok, fine. It only takes 10 minutes to do the edit, and another 10 minutes to process the PCR through the problem reporting system (which SUCKS, by the way). But it’s an interruption that I don’t want when I’m trying to concentrate on something. And lets not forget the 30 minutes of playing Net to get over my anger at being made into the most highly paid secretary outside of the executive floors.

What’s next?

I’m a pretty pessimistic guy (ok, brief pause while everybody who knows me says “No shit, Sherlock” and rolls around laughing), and so as I’m working in a job I like a lot (ok, I’m partially responsible for delivering all those god-damned ads at the beginning of movies, but really it’s not my fault) and I’m making a ton more money at it than I ever have in the past, I naturally have to wonder what’s next after this gig runs out.
Continue reading “What’s next?”