8:04a

I got here about 10 minutes ago, but had elevator problems.

See, the stairs are locked on the ground floor until 9:00a. Class starts at 8:30, so that’s not going to cut it. You have to use the elevator.

There are two elevators. They unlocked ONE of them at 7:45a. The other one is still locked now. Every time I called an elevator to go up, the LOCKED one showed up. For the life of me I couldn’t get the unlocked one to appear.

Eventually someone came DOWN in the unlocked elevator, so I was able to snag it before it disappeared on me again. Argh, how annoying.

Didn’t really do much last night other than park in front of the tube. Cleaned a little, cooked some dinner, that’s about it.

8:53a

Done with review of yesterday and lab.

10:08a

Lab time. This time it’s on XML Web Services, which I took the week-long course for, too. It’s a good review, but I’m still waiting for the last couple of chapters on configuration and security.

10:34a

Done. The next section is on managing state and should be a good one. This is where it starts getting interesting.

12:22p

Done with the lab on session state. This was actually a pretty good section and filled in several gaps I had on state management.

The next section, I believe, will be even better - configuration and deployment.

1:23p

I couldn’t help myself - I bought some of those “Natural Cheetos” I was mentioning the other day. They’re actually pretty good - they taste a lot like SmartFood popcorn.

I got an email from my boss saying something along the lines of “When are you coming back? We miss you.” I replied that basically I’ll be back but am reluctant due to the disgusting commute and the lack of desire I have to work on the project I’m currently assigned to. His response to that was that maybe I should change my drive time to better accommodate the traffic.

For those unfamiliar with Highway 26 in Portland, it’s a four-lane highway (two lanes each direction) that extends from downtown Portland to Hillsboro where all the high-tech jobs are located. Regardless of which direction you travel - into Portland in the morning or into Hillsboro - the commute is awful. All the time. Seriously. You can get on the road at, like, 10:00a - the rush hour should be over, right? - and it’s packed. The schedule is something like this:

• 5:30a - 10:00a: Morning rush “hour”
• 10:00a - 3:00p: Lunch rush
• 3:00p - 8:00p: Evening rush “hour”

So the alternative, then, is for me to work 8:00p to 5:00a, which isn’t really an alternative because then I have no social life anymore. I can’t win.

The real answer, as much as I hate to admit it, is to live closer to work, or at least somewhere such that I don’t have to drive Highway 26. I like living where I do, and I hate the Hillsboro area, but I don’t see any decent alternative other than that. Quit, maybe. But then I can’t pay for stuff, and that’s not good.

I’d also accept not having to work on the project I’m assigned to as a viable solution. I’m really sick of it and am tired of constantly battling with things to make them work. It’ll be nice to finish, but in all honesty, even once it’s “done,” I don’t see that I’ll be able to escape the maintenance and administration of the beast.

They definitely don’t pay me enough for this.

2:34p

I just tried to buy one of my own shirts from my Junk Store, but the Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (the stupid proxy) keeps fucking up the page that CafePress is trying to send me.

One more reason proxies are a huge bitch.

Guess I’ll do that from home.

2:46p

Here’s an interesting thing: Microsoft, in the certification exams, pimps the Windows Installer setup method of project deployment.

They don’t even talk about it in the ASP.NET class I’m in. They talk about the file-copy method, but don’t even refer to setup projects.

Weird.

Oh, and I thought of one other way I could maybe be happier at work - half days. Getting out early enough to get stuff done in the evening is huge for me. It makes me feel more alive.

Okay, last lab of the day.

3:24p

Done. I’m Audi.