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The Joy of Tech

9.14.2001

well i had typed out a big post about my new rant (you can read if you head over to the rants link at the bottom) and the WTC attack but blogger fucked up and lost my long winded post...since i cant remember half the shit i typed and i type as slow as an Emmy Awards hosted by Dennis Miller. I will give you the gist...

-new rant is up about the cyberpunk connection to this attack
-i expect another attack soon, possibly on the west coast
-i am proud to be an american seeing the country come together in crisis
-we are going to bomb the shit out of those fucks.
-god bless america and god have mercy on those responsible as we bomb the shit out of them
-when posting a rambling thought on blogger, copy to the clipboard before hitting the 'post' button.

goodnight cyberspace,
jeffro
dropped by jeffro 9/14/2001 02:45:19 AM

9.10.2001

as you no doubt saw on the main page, i have posted the pics i got last saturday at the linkfilter.net and jplt.com.

Mario, Daniel and i roasted tired to the Tower district and had loads of booze and good times! there were quite a few people there and everyone had a great time and kept their hands to themselves.

In employment news, i had an interview today for an outfit named New Horizons Learning Center. They offer day or week courses for anyone on subjects as Word, Excel, PowerPoint...yadda yadda yadda...really a bunch of Microsoft stuff but they want to do some Mac training and i may have a hand in that if i am hired. Im pretty excited about it because i would be teaching and i think that is somthing i would like to persue further. I like the idea of teaching technology and computers to little kids. I think that would be very rewarding. And that is somthing i despertaly need in my life right now...a feeling of fulfilment. Here's hoping i get the job! : )

goodnight everyone,

jeffro
dropped by jeffro 9/10/2001 10:29:38 PM

8.25.2001

Well, after a long stretch of procrastination i have begun working on my "Straylight project"; a tenitave title for the cyberpunk story i am writing. My partner in crime, Lokiis is helping me out with it. Who knows, between the 2 of us we may even be able to finish it. With most of my other endevors this one may be beyond my scope of creative writing but its good for my soul so i am goint to try to stick with it. Any one out there interested in reading any of it can check out the excerpt below and give me come critisim...most of the story is in rough, note taking brainstorming form but with any luck, some determination and mabey some effort on my part will see it completed one day. So untill you can buy a copy at Barnes and Nobel, or read about me being sued for copyright infringment, here is a little taste. Drop me a line if you read it: wintermute@jeffro.org
dropped by jeffro 8/25/2001 04:46:57 PM

Ba da pa pa ba da pa pa...

Come here
Pretty please
Can you tell me where I am
You won't you say something
I need to get my bearings
I'm lost
And the shadows keep on changing

And I'm haunted
By the lives that I have loved
And actions I have hated
I'm haunted
By the lives that wove the web
Inside my haunted head

Ba da pa pa ba da pa pa...

Don't cry,
There's always a way
Here in November in this house of leaves
We'll pray
Please, I know it's hard to believe
To see a perfect forest
Through so many splintered trees
You and me
And these shadows keep on changing

And I'm haunted
By the lives that I have loved
And actions I have hated
I'm haunted
By the promises I've made
And others I have broken
I'm haunted
By the lives that wove the web
Inside my haunted head

Hallways... always

I'll always want you
I'll always need you
I'll always love you

And I will always miss you

Ba da pa pa ba da pa pa...

Come here
No I won't say please
One more look at the ghost
Before I'm gonna make it leave
Come here
I've got the pieces here
Time to gather up the splinters
Build a casket for my tears

I'm haunted
(By the lives that I have loved)
I'm haunted
(By the promises I've made)
I'm haunted
By the hallways in this tiny room
The echos there of me and you
The voices that are carrying this tune

Ba da pa pa...

Poe -"Haunted"
dropped by jeffro 8/25/2001 04:39:11 PM

8.14.2001

Hey all!
Been awhile since i posted anything original so i though i would make a quick stop on the update tip:

The weekend of August 4th i got to go see Depeche Mode in Mountain View with my dear Sammy. It was from a deal i made with her a few months back. DM is one of her favorite bands and she wanted to go catch their show. I myself am not a huge fan but a good show is a good show so i agreed to go with her (ie: drive her ; ). After i got laid off i told her i didn't think i could still make it but her sweet auntie picked up the tab as long as i kept her baby safe. No problem! : )

Sam 3 days before the concert was just as just giddy as could be. She could not wait to finally get to see Dave Gahan strut all up and down the stage. She then tells me that Poe is opening up for them and then i got giddy. I have seen Poe once before when she came to Fresno but that was years ago. I love her music and i couldn't wait.

Overall the drive up was pretty uneventful, the concert was really really good! We had excellent seats in my opinion. We were pretty close to being in the center of the amphitheater. The front camera was only 2 rows below and maybe 10 seats to the right of me. We were about 7 seats from our left isle and during her performance, Poe ran off the stage and made her way up that row, stopping to sing with the audience every once in a while. Had we been just a few seats over, i would have been able to express my love to her in a way that would warm the heart, bring a gleam of joy to the onlookers enchanted faces, and no doubt gotten me arrested.

Although her set was wayyyyy to short (coming in at just about 20min) Poe rocked the house and got the crowd pumped for DM. They came out and rocked Shoreline to the ground. Like i said, i'm not a huge fan but these boys came out and just kicked some ass. The performance was great, the lighting was great, all in all i left very impressed.

The next day Sam and i drove up to San Fran and spent the day on Pier 39. (I took some pics that i will have up shortly) We ate lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. As you can tell it was a theme restaurant based on Forrest Gump (one of my fav movies, see the dvd note below). I really don’t like seafood, but they had a few non-shrimp meals to my relief. The eatery was right on the pier so if you wanted to wait for a good table you could enjoy your shrimp while looking out over the bay to Berkley. We were hungry, however, so we opted for the table with the wobbly leg near the bar.

I wanted to do a bay cruise around Golden Gate and Alcatraz but instead we paid a visit to the Aquarium of the Bay. There was a section of the tour where you walk through a glass tube with all the bay ocean critters around you. There were manta rays, starfish, and all kinds of sea life. It was pretty amazing and i was glad we went. The next part of the tour was 'Touch the Bay' where you got to touch the various critters you just saw. The rays felt more like a shark than a fish and the starfish were quite hard. I was expecting a soft, spongy animal...

By the time we did some shopping (Sam found a Tinkerbell something or other that she didn't have...i found some amazing photography prints i could never afford) it was time to head home. We stopped shortly at Casa de Fruita for some garlic and other shit for her aunt.

Good trip, everyone had fun, and no one got hurt.

Before i go some dvd news cause i love dvd's : )

I got the special edition of both Dogma and Akira. Both are 2 disk sets, both are chock full of all sorts of goodies, and both have taken freakin forever to finally hit the market. If you collect dvds and you love good movies. Get both. Now.

Soon on the release list are a whole slew of good movies and sets to look for. I plan to get each and every one of em:

The Goonies - aug 21
Forrest Gump: special edition - aug 28
The Simpsons: The complete first season - sept 25
Starwars Episode 1 - oct 16
Shrek: Special Edition - Nov 2
The Sopranos: The Complete Second Season - nov 6
Friends: Best of disks 3 and 4 - nov 20
Tron: 20th ann. Special edit. – jan 2002

im out like Milli Vinilli,

jeffro
dropped by jeffro 8/14/2001 09:32:21 PM

Happy Fathers Day Cyberspace!

On this day, say thanks to your dad (or approprate father figure) and tell them how much you care about them. Let them know you are thankful for things like working to put food on the table and keeping the lights on. Take a quote from Chris Rock: "Thanks for knocking out that rent , dad!" or "it sure is easy to read with all these lights on!".

In other news, so ends the first weekend of my unemployment (i still hate the sound of that) and tomorrow brings a day of uncertinty, fear, and a gleam of hope. If nothing else, i dont have to be depressed about the incompitence of the company i work(ed) for, i dont have to worry about end users bitching and moaning, and i dont have to worry about the company declining into insignificance because it's already happening.

I also want to say a huge, supersized, bottom of my heart, i truly dont deserve it thank you to everyone who has been so supportive in person, over the phone, and on the messageboard to the plight i share with the other 46 souls that were torn away from their 'family': your kind words and heartfelt thoughts truly touched me. I was suprised by how many people i affected there and how many of those same people affected me. We were truly a family and it looks as though many of us will still be in touch after the dust has settled, regardless of where this life takes us.

That said, i have a few shout-outs to give:

Joe, what can i say man. I hated the fact that i had to tell you good bye like i did, seeing me out back, not allowed back in...even way back when, when i thought i lost your Eminem cd, you were always cool to me. Im glad we got to know each other. BTW, hows your thumb from loading those .357 slugs? ; )

Glynn: im sorry i will not be able to trade movie quotes everyday : ( That was one of the things i looked forward to everyday. Seeing if i could get that "i know i know this movie, give me a sec" look. Do me a favor, every once in awhile, just give a hearty "you're not allowed to rent here anymore!" to anyone who may be near.

To all the occupents of Area 51, it was great to have such a passionate, uncontrollable mob of thugs to work with everyday. I will miss seeing all of you daily.

Fatmike: you amazed me with the stuff you came up with, man. I still think between you and Pnut you can drive Jon nuts : )

more later but its time for dinner and im hungry...

peace,
jeffro
dropped by jeffro 6/17/2001 06:47:27 PM

6.14.2001

well i have heard people are waiting for me to update jeffro.org witht he events of the day so here we go:

As of @8am Thursday i was laid off from my supervisor position at Firstworld. I was asked to come in early for a meeting. Now it was pretty much known that there were going to be layoffs today, rumors have been flying for weeks and to add insult to an already frightened staff, a large pallet of folded boxes was shipped to the callcenter last night. Pretty much everyone knew what was coming.

My boss asked me to follow him and he slowly walked me up front. I knew at this point i was gone. Just like that. I was led into a tiny office where a man i once respected told me that we had worked together a long time and he hated what he was doing. I tossed my badge onto the little table and looked at it as it fell: I have worn it for so long and it looked strange laying there. It hit me that i would not be able to see my second family everyday.

I got halfway to my car and i flung the packet of paperwork they gave me in disgust. Fuck this company and who the hell do they think they are? I was here since day one. I helped build that tech department and i helped make the procedures we still follow. I helped write the training manual we trained our employees by. I was the guy in the office that handled Mac problems and schooled thetechs in all things Apple. I picked up my packet and walked back up to the office and knocked on the door. My boss opened the door and only had a blank unemotional stare and a half hearted appology when i asked if i could at least say goodbye to everyone.

That is what hurt the worst. The job: fuck the job. It sucked and the company is oblivous to the harm they are doing to their customers, but the only reason besides the paycheck that i came back everyday was the people i worked with. They were the greatest bunch of people you could ever hope to work for. I couldn't beleive they handled it the way they did. I would have went quietly, telling my friends goodbye and getting peoples numbers and email addresses but im sure they thought that i would poison the callcenter with the knowlage that one of the tech supervisors, a supervisor that the employees accually liked and cared about the people he worked with, was being let go. People in the callcenter have saidd that if i was to ever leave then they knew the end was near for the callcenter. I thought this was very sweet and touching. Unfortunatly it would prove to be not far from the truth: once they were done with me they started calling people to the front office. I was told one by one they were walked to the front, given their information, told that their stuff would be shipped back to them, and shown the door.

One of the techs put up a "FW layoff support" messageboard as sort of a support group : ) We are all meeting at livingstones tonight to cry in our beers. Hope to see alot of people there.

I may put up some more thoughts later, but since jeffro.org is hosted on my sirius account, i cant be sure how much longer my site will be up untill i can find another host.

If you got chopped in the crossfire, i am sorry and everyone will be in my prayers tonight.

Well, this is where i get to say the goodbye i was denied by FW. I really loved working with everyone at the callcenter. Through good mood and bad you all supported me and gave meaning to my otherwise brutal job. You all were the reason i woke up every morning and came back to work, knowing that the day would be filled with broken servers and angry clients. You asked how i was felling when i was sick. You asked if i needed anything when my heart was broken last year. You all respected me no matter how pissed i was that you brought me a pissed off user. Those things made me fight for the techs when situaltions would arise where FW would try to screw us...

On the positive side, at least another tech super was kept, that honestly i thought was going to go also, who has a family and needs his job. To him i would say im glad he was spared. Losing a job would be much worse for him. Also, i will not have to answer another call from some backwoods end user complaining that she hasn't been able to get her email for a week because we suck ass and shes not smart enought to find a new ISP. I dont have to deal with that any longer.

To FW i can say only very little for fear of retaliation: you screwed folks that had devoted themselves to helping the customers. they came here day in and day out knowing they would get their asses kicked, yelled at by clients and staff, get little to no thanks and still come back the next day to do it again. If you think you can fix your issues and turn the company around by laying people off and screwing customers you are sadly mistaken and in the end you will have squandered the loyality of the employees, the business of the customers and the investments of others. I hope you can sleep with yourselves tonight as we go home to tell our families that we dont have a job anymore and you get to think about how many employees are accually going to stick around to see the end.

See you all at Livingstones tonight at 7pm!

jeffro
dropped by jeffro 6/14/2001 04:22:25 PM

well i have heard people are waiting for me to update jeffro.org witht he events of the day so here we go:

As of @8am Thursday i was laid off from my supervisor position at Firstworld. I was asked to come in early for a meeting. Now it was pretty much known that there were going to be layoffs today, rumors have been flying for weeks and to add insult to an already frightened staff, a large pallet of folded boxes was shipped to the callcenter last night. Pretty much everyone knew what was coming.

My boss asked me to follow him and he slowly walked me up front. I knew at this point i was gone. Just like that. I was led into a tiny office where a man i once respected told me that we had worked together a long time and he hated what he was doing. I tossed my badge onto the little table and looked at it as it fell: I have worn it for so long and it looked strange laying there. It hit me that i would not be able to see my second family everyday.

I got halfway to my car and i flung the packet of paperwork they gave me in disgust. Fuck this company and who the hell do they think they are? I was here since day one. I helped build that tech department and i helped make the procedures we still follow. I helped write the training manual we trained our employees by. I was the guy in the office that handled Mac problems and schooled thetechs in all things Apple. I picked up my packet and walked back up to the office and knocked on the door. My boss opened the door and only had a blank unemotional stare and a half hearted appology when i asked if i could at least say goodbye to everyone.

That is what hurt the worst. The job: fuck the job. It sucked and the company is oblivous to the harm they are doing to their customers, but the only reason besides the paycheck that i came back everyday was the people i worked with. They were the greatest bunch of people you could ever hope to work for. I couldn't beleive they handled it the way they did. I would have went quietly, telling my friends goodbye and getting peoples numbers and email addresses but im sure they thought that i would poison the callcenter with the knowlage that one of the tech supervisors, a supervisor that the employees accually liked and cared about the people he worked with, was being let go. People in the callcenter have saidd that if i was to ever leave then they knew the end was near for the callcenter. I thought this was very sweet and touching. Unfortunatly it would prove to be not far from the truth: once they were done with me they started calling people to the front office. I was told one by one they were walked to the front, given their information, told that their stuff would be shipped back to them, and shown the door.

One of the techs put up a "FW layoff support" messageboard as sort of a support group : ) We are all meeting at livingstones tonight to cry in our beers. Hope to see alot of people there.

I may put up some more thoughts later, but since jeffro.org is hosted on my sirius account, i cant be sure how much longer my site will be up untill i can find another host.

If you got chopped in the crossfire, i am sorry and everyone will be in my prayers tonight.

Well, this is where i get to say the goodbye i was denied by FW. I really loved working with everyone at the callcenter. Through good mood and bad you all supported me and gave meaning to my otherwise brutal job. You all were the reason i woke up every morning and came back to work, knowing that the day would be filled with broken servers and angry clients. You asked how i was felling when i was sick. You asked if i needed anything when my heart was broken last year. You all respected me no matter how pissed i was that you brought me a pissed off user. Those things made me fight for the techs when situaltions would arise where FW would try to screw us...

On the positive side, at least another tech super was kept, that honestly i thought was going to go also, who has a family and needs his job. To him i would say im glad he was spared. Losing a job would be much worse for him. Also, i will not have to answer another call from some backwoods end user complaining that she hasn't been able to get her email for a week because we suck ass and shes not smart enought to find a new ISP. I dont have to deal with that any longer.

To FW i can say only very little for fear of retaliation: you screwed folks that had devoted themselves to helping the customers. they came here day in and day out knowing they would get their asses kicked, yelled at by clients and staff, get little to no thanks and still come back the next day to do it again. If you think you can fix your issues and turn the company around by laying people off and screwing customers you are sadly mistaken and in the end you will have squandered the loyality of the employees, the business of the customers and the investments of others. I hope you can sleep with yourselves tonight as we go home to tell our families that we dont have a job anymore and you get to think about how many employees are accually going to stick around to see the end.

See you all at Livingstones tonight at 7pm!

jeffro
dropped by jeffro 6/14/2001 04:14:10 PM

5.25.2001

lordoftherings.net has posted the link for the new trailer for the Lord of the Rings. This is a longer, more glorious look as to what we can expect come December when this movie blows everything out of the water. I can not wait.

so quit reading this crappy webpage and go watch it already!!!

jeffro
dropped by jeffro 5/25/2001 01:17:59 AM