Back to Hell…

Haven’t updated in a while… sheesh, need to get back in the habit of writing my mini-novel journal entries 😉

When I left Tama, IA, the job wasn’t done yet – they didn’t have everything in place for me to complete the job. This is on top of all the other things that went wrong (being over re-enforced, manpower problems, technical issues, parts missing, etc., etc., etc.) I hoped they WOULDN’T accept the change order for demob / remobilization of workers to get the job done (funny – they didn’t want to pay for us to stay there all that time, but, they didn’t want to pay the demob/remob costs either!) That place is FUCKED UP. $60k for a network that could have been properly designed and installed for a little over $20k.

Anyway, the reason it’s relevant – they finally accepted the change order (and threw it on a new PO, making things slightly more complicated of course) and I’m going back. I’m shooting for heading up there the 21st, coming back the 25th or 26th. I can already feel all the stress of that particular job rushing back into my body. Not a good thing. But I will survive – heck, I’ll break a pretty good profit off of this job for that matter. Of course, there are already problems, and I’m not on site yet – the 16th they finally will have my boxes installed. The 16th Bill Wiley will be in town, and I’m doing some consulting, and the 19th is a Pampered Chef party that Heabo and I are hosting. They want me on site ASAP, but, I’m not going up there until the 21st unless I’ve got a “Do-It-Or-Else” ultimatum – and even then, I may consider the “Or Else” portion of it. 😉

Honestly, I don’t think this trip up there will be nearly as stressful – most of the really nasty work has already been done. This is this ‘final leg’ portion of it, and they have shaved off some of the work for me already (it’s supposed to be 14 four-fiber bundles, but, I’m only going to have to install 11 of them now – the rest were canceled when things got restructered just a little bit. And I don’t even have to pay them back for ’em 😉 I’ve got a pretty good grasp on how things are gonna have to go for me to get it done on time an under budget.

Funny part was, last night I was having problems getting to sleep – I have a cold, so that didn’t help, but, my mind started wanding into Tama, IA, and I was pre-planning how to pull off a couple of things (thier design sucks. I mean, REALLY sucks. They missed a couple o’ things, IMHO, so I’m compensating for that). I guess that was a sign 😛

Heabo and I are having a baby. Well, actually, we’re in the pre-planning stages. This all re-enforces what I’ve been thinking before – I can’t have a job that has my current travel requirements, and still have a family. It’s bad enough bein’ separated from Heabo, but when I have a kid, it’s just gonna get worse. See, I’m not going to have much problems with Heabo going off to school – that’s going to be a ‘norm’ for the situation, not a barely scheduled thing like work does to me. Sure, I’ll go to a conference every once in a while, but, those are scheduled months in advance, not days. Just up and randomly leaving like this would probably be too damned much stress for me.

I’m pretty happy and excited about the whole thing – kids are great!!! I’ve been wanting to have kids for some time now, but, the timing has never been right. Heabo deciding ‘screw it, lets have kids anyway’ was a bit of a shocker, but, handling the kids for a couple o’ years while she’s at med school isn’t a horrible thing – I’ll do fine I’m sure 🙂 I’d have rather waited until after she’s back from med school, but, the updated plan has many advantages – foremost, we start having kids sooner 😉

Ok, stepped away from the LiveJournal a bit, and got some other stuff done. Having problems with some hardware we put in at Boeing (to replace some hardware that was already having problems there), and got everything organized for Tama, IA. Looks like I’ll be leaving here on the 21st, coming back the 25th. Talked with the job superintendent for Creek Electric who’s out on the job, and got a lot of information outta him (including the fact that he doesn’t THINK they will really have the boxes set the 16th – the plant is setting them, and apparently they don’t move very fast. WONDERFUL. But, we also hit upon an agreement for labor (I’ll take some of his guys) which means I’ve saved myself some money alredy by not having to actually PAY the demob/remob costs for two extra workers! Bonus! Plus, part of the project may be completed before I get on site – he has problems with work being slow at the moment, so, he can shift some guys over to my project, and have them installing conduit and flex before I ever get onsite. Double Bonus! 🙂 (It’s great because it helps him out, and helps me out on getting the piping portion of the job done before I show up.) I may still pull this job off. Still some variables up in the air at the moment, but, that’s ok – I’ll handle ’em as I go.

Things for the game company are going very slowly at the moment, with some bright points. TZ work is going slow at the moment (bug whacking is the major compoent, and implementing a few last features for multi-player. Three new weapons should probably be thrown in there too – tractor beam, repulsor beam, and a laser, the latter capable of trick shots, the former designed to play pool with the items and other players. Nasty when you throw a prox mine in the mix!) For the BBS, things are going even slower – Lance and I work off and on for the new MUD editor that makes things reasonable to work with. But lots of other things concerning the BBS are still up in the air.

Also been exploring the option of opening up a game shop – IE, come in and play games, be it role playing stuff or video games, what have you. So far, I’m not finding a model that strikes that ballance between resonable cost, and profits. Profit is a bit of a problem 😉 I’ll keep hackin’ at it, and one of these days I’ll figure something out.

Heabo and I have also been working on the house – this time, in the front yard. We’re ALMOST done with it – I need to replace a valve, then plant my grass seed. It’s wonderful – it requires almost zero human intervention, so, it’s most likely to succeed of any plan we’ve had yet 🙂 Just what little we have done so far has made a tremendouse difference on the looks of the front of the house. Now if I can just get a nice green lawn…. 🙂