Not that kind of camp

No, I'm not aware that I'm hogging a seat at all

Today I'm working in our Chicago Office and while I appreciate not having to drive to the burbs, this day started out with some low level dramatic foreshadowing.  The bus I caught to the Jefferson Park Terminal had the heat on.  Then on the train, of all the seats available a big guy decides sitting next to me is the best option.  We rubbed shoulders for a few stops when I opted to get up and move to the other end of the car.

I'm not opposed to anyone sitting next to me as long as they don't reek of some foul scent.  I just don't understand what thought process made him decide that seat was the best option.  Perhaps he likes that one because it's close to the door and facing a particular direction.  Or perhaps he walked from one end of the car to the other and was running out of options.  All I know is that it was hard to do the Sudoku with his shoulders rubbing against mine.



Yesterday I was at Microsoft Azure IT camp, which meant I got to be in my favorite place: Downtown Chicago.  I'm actually around the corner from the No-Name Software Company.

I signed up for this because I had a little bit of down time and thought it would help with KSA.  It is definitely useful information but I am a bit past the point of being the person who will build servers in the cloud.  Still, it's good to know how it all works and what the costs are.

Stray Observations:

• one of the geeks who wedged in our table has his Samsung phone on vibrate, and it is going off, causing the table to shake.  How does a person of his apparent age make it this far through life not realizing this is annoying?
  
• several people have arrived more than 30 minutes late.  and some bozo through a paper plate away in the recycle bin.
  
• Basically, a lot of the people here are working overtime to perpetuate the stereotype that geeks do not possess common social skills.

When the Expert is ignored

One of my friends -- a former co-worker from the Low Rent Consulting Company in fact -- posted this on Facebook.

The video, in case the link breaks or disappears from YouTube, is called The Expert.  It shows a meeting in which everyone is either ridiculous or obsequious. Everyone except Anderson the engineer, of course.

So many businesses truly run like this. So many times co-workers or clients will come to you and call you the expert. This is shortly before they tell you they know better.   I can definitely relate as I went through this last year with Mr Magoo and Sara.  It was a very frustrating time in my life at TopFive and I never want to go through it again.

numbers were thrown around

4/2/2014:  we went in for the genetic screening orientation, or whatever you call it.  For most people, this part is done much sooner but somehow it wasn't brought to our attention until a few weeks ago when we asked.  We were told that there wasn't much time because certain events have timestamps, shelf-lives and expiration dates and if I have to explain that to anyone, you're best off not knowing.

They tell you the risk odds of the various tests and naturally the more accurate, thorough ones are the more risky.  They tell you because they have to both mitigate litigation but also because they genuinely give a crap about you although from the number of forms we have to fill out every fucking time we come here and go to a new department you'd think they just secretly own stock in a paper company.

So naturally we decided that we went through so much effort and trouble to get here that we aren't going to take the high risk tests to determine if the babies have downs, though when the test comes back we still have at least 15 minutes to decide if we want to.  The test we are taking is 60% accurate?  I'm not sure, numbers were thrown around.

8/13/14: another ultrasound.  Natasha is still breech, but head on left side instead of right and weighs 4 lbs.  Boris is still sideways, head on left side.  He is 3 lbs, 15 oz.  Their heads are close together. He also is showing slightly larger kidneys which usually just means urine isn't flowing completely but in addition to the test we took back in April, his risk of downs is still single digits but slightly increased.  Technically, his risk hasn't changed, only the level of perceived accuracy. 

We think it will be fine.  In fact, we have no choice but to believe that because we are in the midst of some other hell going on right now with regard to my mom.  my mother is in the hospital.  We checked her in over two weeks ago after discovering that she downplayed just how sick she had become.