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Mar. 18th, 2002 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugrikThe colocation center my workplace uses is up in Fremont, right off of Mission Boulevard where the street serves as a junction between highways 680 and 880. The building used to be a Fry's electronics in a past life; now it's full of rows of sealed cabinets that are more of a lesson in perspective drawings and vanishing points than anything else. I end up there about every two weeks or so to poke or prod at some random piece of equipment, or to give the machines there a new sibling, slowly filling up our 42U of paid space.
There's something comforting about being the primary contact at such a place, able to walk in 24 hours a day and be given full, unquestioned access once my ID is shown. I've done my time as one of the mindless drones in the tech world... person 80 of 100 on a faceless staff, given a trouble-ticket bin and very limited access. Literally a number, not a name, to my bosses. Every now and then it actually sinks in that now, after 9 years in the 'valley, I've 'made it', on a career level. I'm the the network manager of my company -- a company, that while still pretty small, has a global reach and may yet someday be a commonly known name. On purely technical issues, I've got no manager or senior staff to look up to; instead, others take their tech issues up to me. When this happens there's this combination of pride and concern that comes directly to mind. Pride at being able to acquire this opportunity, and the concern that if I don't do a good job it could realistically mean the end of a company and the fiscal well being of its workers.
These aren't new thoughts; they've been floating around now and then for the last year or so in my mind. They only come out now because of this livejournal thing. I don't really talk to many people about the career side of life, as on the rankings of What's Truely Important, it's not terribly high up. So if it sounds overly melodramatic or chest-puffing, I apologize. These things will shake themselves out of my system after I get used to writing entries more regularly.
The reason for bringing up the colo center and its location was its direct proximity to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
roon and amilori; they live about 4 miles away, and luckily back in the direction of my return trip. I've pulled by their house before but they're quite the active pair, and I'd yet to catch them home. This time they were, and I was able to convince them off to lunch nearby, even though they already had lunch cooking. Luckily for me, it was the kind of thing one can set to 'warm' and have ready for dinner just as easily, so it was off to a local mexican eatery they'd recommended.
The mexican place was closed, but nextdoor was a newly opened Quizno's. Now, I've not had a good grinder or hoagie since leaving the midwest, and I'd heard Quizno's actually did an oven-baked sub that was similar, so I was quite glad for the distraction. In the end, it was good... better than your average Togo's and far better from that atrocity named Subway... but it didn't quite fit the bill like I'd hoped. This may also be a factor of a decade-old memory being held in that oft-misued 'cherished' category, where things that were mediocre at the time get remembered as Amazingly Wonderful and Great due to the passage of time and/or the inability to acquire them again. If I ever make it back to Michigan and re-acquire a Big Joe's oven-baked turkey grinder I hope it can live up to the memories I have of the ones had during my early college years.
It was nice to see Roon and Ami. They're a fun couple, and good friends. However, I feel somewhat distant from them... mostly becuase we only interact online. I've never actually spent significant time nor travels with them like I have with other RL friends. I hope someday to follow them to a Ren Faire or convince them out to one of my events, so we can have a good weekend's romp and more of a get-to-know-you than those awkward 'get together and eat -- sit and talk after' mini-socializations. I was never good at eat-and-talks. I do much better with Events.
Pefect example: A friend named Peganthyrus (no livejournal that I know of). Only really known online; lives 400 miles away, so the one or two bump-into-say-hi occurances have been at conventions or while I've been down there visiting Frang (another non-LJ'd friend). On a whim, Peggy came with us to last year's Burning Man festival... and spent a week in the desert, doing the co-survival thing. It's made a huge difference how I feel about knowing the person behind the online ID now. A good friend was made, even if one I'll only see face-to-face once or twice a year.
Now, you can't exactly drag everybody off to a week in the desert. Efforts are being made to find other, shorter, closer and more tolerable Events that can be shared experiences. I miss the Cedarcons of old. In fact, I miss the casual beach-BBQ's and attendances of the Cherry Blossom festivals that I used to do withchareth and traveller_blues and others. With the hardening of feelings between various friends/relatives, strained by both the successes of economies old and failures/tight-times of economies new, it's gotten scary quiet around the Bay Area of late. But that in itself is for another LJ entry when I've got time to word it better.
--------------------
What I'd intended to write during this after-lunch lull was in fact about motorcycling... a subject that I keep trying to start on, and can't seem to form together in a satisfactory way. All I know at this point is that it's Important, to me at least. At the same time, it's something that easily causes large quantities of disinterest amongst most of my friends. I'm trying to find a way to share what it's doing to my life without boring the tail off of anybody reading. The key here is that once I can figure out and properly phrase the start to my motorcycle-related postings, a flood of them will probably release.
At this point, I've realized another nice thing about Live Journaling. It doesn't have to entertain people. If they find it boring, they can just click on to the next post. :) I'll tackle motorcycle stuff next time.
--Tug
There's something comforting about being the primary contact at such a place, able to walk in 24 hours a day and be given full, unquestioned access once my ID is shown. I've done my time as one of the mindless drones in the tech world... person 80 of 100 on a faceless staff, given a trouble-ticket bin and very limited access. Literally a number, not a name, to my bosses. Every now and then it actually sinks in that now, after 9 years in the 'valley, I've 'made it', on a career level. I'm the the network manager of my company -- a company, that while still pretty small, has a global reach and may yet someday be a commonly known name. On purely technical issues, I've got no manager or senior staff to look up to; instead, others take their tech issues up to me. When this happens there's this combination of pride and concern that comes directly to mind. Pride at being able to acquire this opportunity, and the concern that if I don't do a good job it could realistically mean the end of a company and the fiscal well being of its workers.
These aren't new thoughts; they've been floating around now and then for the last year or so in my mind. They only come out now because of this livejournal thing. I don't really talk to many people about the career side of life, as on the rankings of What's Truely Important, it's not terribly high up. So if it sounds overly melodramatic or chest-puffing, I apologize. These things will shake themselves out of my system after I get used to writing entries more regularly.
The reason for bringing up the colo center and its location was its direct proximity to
roon and amilori; they live about 4 miles away, and luckily back in the direction of my return trip. I've pulled by their house before but they're quite the active pair, and I'd yet to catch them home. This time they were, and I was able to convince them off to lunch nearby, even though they already had lunch cooking. Luckily for me, it was the kind of thing one can set to 'warm' and have ready for dinner just as easily, so it was off to a local mexican eatery they'd recommended.The mexican place was closed, but nextdoor was a newly opened Quizno's. Now, I've not had a good grinder or hoagie since leaving the midwest, and I'd heard Quizno's actually did an oven-baked sub that was similar, so I was quite glad for the distraction. In the end, it was good... better than your average Togo's and far better from that atrocity named Subway... but it didn't quite fit the bill like I'd hoped. This may also be a factor of a decade-old memory being held in that oft-misued 'cherished' category, where things that were mediocre at the time get remembered as Amazingly Wonderful and Great due to the passage of time and/or the inability to acquire them again. If I ever make it back to Michigan and re-acquire a Big Joe's oven-baked turkey grinder I hope it can live up to the memories I have of the ones had during my early college years.
It was nice to see Roon and Ami. They're a fun couple, and good friends. However, I feel somewhat distant from them... mostly becuase we only interact online. I've never actually spent significant time nor travels with them like I have with other RL friends. I hope someday to follow them to a Ren Faire or convince them out to one of my events, so we can have a good weekend's romp and more of a get-to-know-you than those awkward 'get together and eat -- sit and talk after' mini-socializations. I was never good at eat-and-talks. I do much better with Events.
Pefect example: A friend named Peganthyrus (no livejournal that I know of). Only really known online; lives 400 miles away, so the one or two bump-into-say-hi occurances have been at conventions or while I've been down there visiting Frang (another non-LJ'd friend). On a whim, Peggy came with us to last year's Burning Man festival... and spent a week in the desert, doing the co-survival thing. It's made a huge difference how I feel about knowing the person behind the online ID now. A good friend was made, even if one I'll only see face-to-face once or twice a year.
Now, you can't exactly drag everybody off to a week in the desert. Efforts are being made to find other, shorter, closer and more tolerable Events that can be shared experiences. I miss the Cedarcons of old. In fact, I miss the casual beach-BBQ's and attendances of the Cherry Blossom festivals that I used to do with
chareth and traveller_blues and others. With the hardening of feelings between various friends/relatives, strained by both the successes of economies old and failures/tight-times of economies new, it's gotten scary quiet around the Bay Area of late. But that in itself is for another LJ entry when I've got time to word it better.--------------------
What I'd intended to write during this after-lunch lull was in fact about motorcycling... a subject that I keep trying to start on, and can't seem to form together in a satisfactory way. All I know at this point is that it's Important, to me at least. At the same time, it's something that easily causes large quantities of disinterest amongst most of my friends. I'm trying to find a way to share what it's doing to my life without boring the tail off of anybody reading. The key here is that once I can figure out and properly phrase the start to my motorcycle-related postings, a flood of them will probably release.
At this point, I've realized another nice thing about Live Journaling. It doesn't have to entertain people. If they find it boring, they can just click on to the next post. :) I'll tackle motorcycle stuff next time.
--Tug
