Learn My lesson By Now in General

Week Two

Into the second full week of actually “working.”

Word I get is it will take me a few months to be able to work on my own. It doesn’t matter how smart or experienced you are. This is some Byzantine shit.

We are a small cell (10 people!) in a medium-sized subsidiary (8K people!) of an enormous company (100,000 people!).

“Engineering Planning.”

We task all the engineers and designers for our subsidiary. Using a cobbled together system of Deltec software and Access Databases.

I was good with access 12 years ago. The guy in our office who does what I did 12 years ago is an order of magnitude better that I could ever be – even if I hadn’t taken an early retirement.

First “Flex Test” come this Friday. I bought a standup freezer at Lowes last Friday. They are delivering it some time this Friday. I have hated my cabinet freezer for years. Mostly because it is impossible to keep track what the fuck is in there!

So an hour ahead today. 2 hours ahead tomorrow and Wednesday, then whatever I need to do Thursday to minimize how much vaca I need to use. Right now it is looking like about 2.5 hours. But I could also do that on Saturday.

I am currently working non-live projects as practice. Learning the software, and more importantly the logic matrix of scheduling the workload of a bunch of fifty pound heads.

Only seen a little drama so far. There is a lot of amorphous stuff we do. An engineer came in and confronted the guy who is across from me – having a full meltdown over how some tasks had been scheduled.

Good money though. I’ve effectively doubled my income. I was living comfortably on my Navy pension. Now I can afford to buy my condo, pay off the car and shove an unreasonable amount of money into savings. Or just spend it, considering inflation.

First full paycheck is next Wednesday. Let the fun begin.

99 Quicksand.

I’ve been reminded over and over today. In the news this morning and in the car, and with Google alerts.

It has been twenty years since Operation Iraqi Freedom kicked off.

I was the mission commander for a division (in this case 3 jets) flying back from Point Magu California to Whidbey Island Washington. We had been in California for a few days, but the weather didn’t cooperate. It would have been the most incredible experience. I was to be the range control officer for 12 jets firing missiles at a target barge that had been tower into the Warning Area.

Winds never came down within parameters and we were told to go home.

On the enroute decent into Whidbey, under control of Seattle Center we heard on the scanner that Events had commenced in Iraq.

We just missed it. We were two months home from Incirlik, Turkey.

Story of my life.