Tattoos, Web Sites, and All the Things

October 15, 2025 by Adam in Adam

Life seems to be full of lists and schedules, with obstacles thrown in my path just to keep me on my toes.

The web site went down because I didn't pay my domain name provider.  That was easily fixed after I stumbled across why it was behaving badly.  Hopefully that gives me more time to leisurely transfer everything over to my new server, which is annoyingly complicated enough that I don't want to rush it.

I've got a tattoo consult this afternoon, hopefully getting my Apollo 11/earth/moon ink done in the next few weeks.  That'll be an exciting thing, and a long time in the making.  I called both of my parents to try and figure out exactly when I was born to calculate the position of Apollo 11.  I'll still have to take some liberties with scale, but I like being accurate where I can.

We're trying to get a heat pump figured out before the end of the year.  I embarrasingly sent some clarifying questions to Jo and not the heat pump guy, which I fortunately figured out before calling him to complain. 

Work's coming along - I keep getting exciting opportunities to work on things.  Hopefully my willingness to jump in to new and unfamiliar areas ends up being good for my career and doesn't drive me too crazy.  After awhile it's hard to get too worked up about feeling lost and incompetent once again.

My favorite thing to do these days is making weird props for my various roleplaying games.  I've been vibe coding a retro platformer video game to stick on a cartridge.  There are annoying bugs to sort through, but it still feels magical to end up with this actual video game prop with a cool label I can hand to the players and they can play it.

First Couple Days

August 20, 2024 by Adam in Adam

I survived my first couple days at Microsoft.  I think I'm experiencing the software developer version of the Tetris Effect after trying to cram way too much information into my brain at once.  Last night I kept waking up worrying about storage limitations of databases for some silly reason.

Going to Microsoft

July 29, 2024 by Adam in Adam

When I was a teenager visiting my grandparents in Pennsylvania they asked me what I wanted for my birthday.  We were at a mall, so I went inside the computer store and picked out "Windows 1.0."  I spent the rest of the trip reading it from cover to cover and installed it on the family PC when I got home.  Such began my long association with Microsoft products, teaching the Office suite after graduate school, then starting work as a SQL Server developer then administrator in my PeaceHealth days.

Fourty years after that fateful birthday gift, I'm excited to announce that I've accepted a position at Microsoft and will be starting there in a couple weeks.  I'll be reporting to Jonathan King, whom I've known for decades at both PeaceHealth and Health Catalyst.  I'll be working on the Power BI product, which involves crunching data and making graphs and such, very much like the product I've worked on over the last seven years.  With over 18 million customers, I'm excited to be able to make a difference with so many people.

Ah, Corporations

November 07, 2023 by Adam in Adam

Work had layoffs yesterday.  I still have my job, though a number of my coworkers were not as lucky.  Not sure who I'll be reporting to starting today or what we'll be working on.  Having done this before, I'm feeling the expected survivor's guilt and trying to figure out my next steps.

Old Friends

August 29, 2023 by Adam in Adam

It was the late 80's and I was living with my girlfriend Rachel and our mutual friend BJ in a house by the fairgrounds.  We'd collectively hang out with Rachel's brother Jason, her friend Bridget, and a family friend Colin as we were all roughly the same age.  Though Rachel and I broke up, I kept her brother - Jason, Colin and I swam at Fall Creek, played Car Wars and Cyberpunk 2020, saw Akira in the theater, played early PC games, and generally had a great time.

Now Jason and Bridget are married with two girls.  Colin and his wife Suzanna live in Germany with their two boys.  Last night we descended on the Beer Stein for Colin's birthday to celebrate and wax nostalgic for old times.  Jo came along and patiently listened to our in jokes and references to mischief we got up to long ago.  Colin and BJ's parents were there too, the generation ahead of us, slowly getting older.  Some of them I haven't seen in thirty years.  It was a lovely, wistful night.

Boosted

December 01, 2021 by Adam in Adam

I didn't take a picture of myself this time, but I drove out to a Springfield Wallgreens, waited forever, and got my Pfizer booster shot.  So far I feel fine, though I may try and go a little slow today.  Glad I got it taken care of.

Suck it, Omicron variant!

Second Dose

May 06, 2021 by Adam in Adam

And today I had my second dose.  I feel a little funny, but nothing too bad.  Same person at Wallgreens - he made some comment that everyone he was seeing today was getting their second shot.  It's nice to finally get to the end of this thing, though theoretically it'll be a couple more weeks until we can go out into the world.

Work's been a little stressful lately.  Our team has been asked to shrink by two people, which is quite a bit from our current five.  There are good openings within the company and there's a reasonable chance I'll stay where I am, but it still means our team is going to change.  I've really grown to appreciate the people I work with - work has kept me sane this last year and has been one of the few things that has been relatively stable and calm.

The Beginning of the End

April 08, 2021 by Adam in Adam

Just got my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

Web Services Reunion

December 29, 2020 by Adam in Adam

My old friend and coworker Dave organized a Zoom call with much of the old Web Services Team from my PeaceHealth days.  It was great to catch up with everyone, though vaguely terrifying how much older everyone's kids are now.  Time passes quickly.  I also heard through Kate that Kai is moving back to Eugene with her family.  I still remember Kate and Kai hanging out around the house with Seraph when I was twelve.

Work Christmas Parties

December 18, 2020 by Adam in Adam

We had a Zoom Christmas Party at work today where we shared pictures of things we appreciated, followed by Jackbox games.  I posted a picture of Data being washed and looking resigned, which nicely summed up the year.  Jackbox was great fun and I enjoyed the creativity of my teammates.  Tim and I apparently think alike.