Rough Shots in Trichotomy

Move-blocked

I had a meeting with the hiring manager and tech lead of the education team a few weeks ago. I met with the manager first and made it sound like it was going to be a boring job in the first year (basically to set up their job and database configurations, which is something the reliability team usually does), but the tech lead explained the decisions that go into the job, and that sounds much more like a challenge. And the longer-term objectives are much more interesting, so I decided to move forward with the move.

Then New Hip Company announced a company-wide hiring freeze the next day. So no team can add people to their payroll, which means internal transfers are also frozen. The announcement is also very vague about when the freeze is going to thaw. So we’re now in a holding pattern. I’m going away on vacation for 2 weeks; I hope the opening is still there when I’m back.

Luckily I’m only working on performance testing in my current team and removing code I’d written for the cancelled project, so I’m not making new investments. I’m not sure I would have felt motivated otherwise.

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Run of the House

La Professeure decided to foster a rabbit. There is a rabbit rescue on Long Island and they got us a black-and-white bunny.

His name is Swiss, after the cheese; he is part of a litter born from a rescued rabbit, all named after cheeses (so there was a Brie, a Fontina, and so on).

We set up half the living room for supervised on-deck time, but it was early apparent that he likes to explore. Luckily he does not like hardwood floors (it’s too slippery for him to get a solid footing), so if we don’t put down rug or carpet on the floor, he won’t venture onto it unless a human is nearby. Still, I set up a barrier between the piano and the rabbit area to protect Petra. The barrier is referred to as the “beer wall” since part of the wall is just boxes of beer we bought for the July 4th party that got cancelled due to La Professeure getting Covid, the other parts are turned-over folding tables.

Swiss is a chill rabbit. He sleeps during the day and is active early in the morning (when La Professeure wakes up) and late at night (before I go to bed). So we don’t get to interact with him together. But we would compare notes about his behaviour. He likes exploring so I’ve set up a highline (lined up chairs), created toys out of cardboard, planted treats in different toys, and re-arranged the rugs so they lead to different part of the living room. I think he enjoys the changes (he would “binky” when he is satisfied with exploring a new part of the room).

I think La Professeure is now on the fence about adopting him outright because of the changes to the house that necessitates. He is certainly not as affectionate as the rats, and a lot more work.

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First long trip since Covid

We’ll be off on our “10” year anniversary trip next week. We are a bit apprehensive about all the flight cancellations and delays, but hopefully it won’t affect us too much. It’s been so long since we have done a long trip that I don’t even remember how to do it. It’s like an old muscle that we haven’t used.

The good news is that the piano factory is supposed to be open so I’ll get to visit Petra’s birthplace - and it happens to be on my birthday, so it should be extra special. The river cruise itinerary changed a bit as well, so we won’t be seeing the exact same ports as 9 years ago… we’ll have 3 nights in Vienna, so I’m looking forward to that, and we’ll be making a day trip to Salzburg from Passau (which we’d visited before), so that will be exciting too.

I’m very much looking forward to this trip.

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