I am still here...!
I know it's been a long, long time. It's been a year, and 2 months. I have "moved on" with my employment recently. No more working at MS (at least for now, and I hope for a very long time. The last contract was working on the Expression WEb Team as a lab Engineer/Manager. It was a relatively small team, 4 FTE's and 4 contractors. The testers are all SDET's and v- (Vendor) contractors, they do not ahve to take the 100 day break being Vendors. I was, as usual, an a-. However, that is all over now, read on!). I am now working at Nokia (through Volt still). I am doing Lab Engineering for their test team. I basically keep machines ready and avaiable at all times for all test needs within the company. To see our work, go to http://www.ovi.com we are a media sharing site that Nokia picked up last year. The site was originally Twango.com and has recently been re-branded as "Share on Ovi" now that Nokia owns it.
The work is a lot of fun, and I have a lot of neat toys now. a couple of laptops, phone, etc... toys. And with these toys, I have found that a macbook pro titanium is the best hardware to run Vista on right now. I get an experience rating of 5.2 on my macbook pro. The last PC I tested was a 64bit box with 8GB RAM and a 3Ghz dual core proc and 256MB Video RAM and that got a 3.1 experience rating. The macbook has a dual core 2.66 Ghz Proc, 3GB RAM, and 256MB Video RAM, and it gets a 5.2 experience rating. And, it's running Leopard X on the primary partition and Vista on the secondary with Bootcamp. All in all, I like the setup a lot. My other machine is a ThnkPad. It's super light, 2GB RAM, Intel Centrino dual core 2Ghz procs and 512MB Video RAM in an nVidia Quadro NVS 140M display adapter. ANd it has to weigh less than 2 pounds easy. It is so light, it is now habbit for me to carry both machines with me. Oh, and the one item that makes my bench look great, I have a 24" flat panel monitor that I use for the ThinkPad. I am working on setting things up so I can use it for both laptops (I have the switch box, I just need to scrounge up the cables now). Then I'll be all set.
And of course, I have been provded with a phone and a bluetooth headset (one of the smallest in the world). The phone is a Nokia (of course) 6126 and the headset is a Nokia (again, of course) BH-800. I am not going to go into details about these. That is why I provided model numbers, if yo uare curious, you can go to the Nokia website and look them up.
So yes, I am still around. I did not have to take my 100 day break between contracts either. Actually, this one wroked out nicely. My MS contract ended Friday, February 1st, and I started here at Nokia in Bellevue on Monday, February 4th. All I had was a weekend off. Which is a good thing (and a bad thing). I am just very thankful it worked out the way it did and that I have work. A week off to relax would have been good, but, I wold prefer to have the work and no break given the choice. :)
So let's see, what else is new over the past year. Oh, about a month ago, I had to have Sinus surgery due to extreme Sinusitus in the left sinuses. They were so packed that I Was getting migraines every day, often several of them. And I am a person that does NOT get headaches. So, I saw the specialist here, and 2 weeks later I was iun surgery. It was a complete success, no more headaches, and I have clear sinuses. It's fantastic!. I have one more medicial issue to deal with now. I belive I have mentioned the peripherial neuropathy I have in my feet and legs. Well, it has been getting worse over time. I take pain medication, but most of the pain medications don't do much for neuropathy, they just help take the edge off. So, due to that fact, I am seeing a pain specialist (not a neurologist anymore, a pain specialist). This new Doctor has some options that the neurologist has not presented to me. I have already gone through his array of medications and none of them really helped. they didn't much (if anything) for the pain, but they did make me feel weird, and one drug, I got the highly unusual side effects and was directed to stop the medication immediately. And of course I did.
So now, I have one alternative left, and I like the option actually. It is a nerve stimulation device that is transplanted into the body near the waiste on one side, and it is connected to two wires (or probes if y ou will) that are surgically implanted in the body and run up the spine to the location where the nerve impulses from the legs enter the spinal column. One the wires are in, they are connected to the device that is not transplanted at this time (It is left outside the body for the first week to make sure things are working properly). If everything is a "go" there is one last surgery to have the device implanted. At that point, there is another device that stays plugged into the wall, and when the device batteries get low, you unplug this device, hold it up against the implanted device and it charges the batteries! Very cool. It also comes with a small rmote control so that I can "dial down" the pain level by controlling how many pain impulses get through to my brain. I absolutely love the concept of drug free pain control and treatment! I have an appointment in March to discuss this with the Dr. I do hope he thinks I am a good candidate. Then I just need to worry about my insurance and how much it will cover.
One more really neat thing happened to me (and my wife) this year. On October 5th, 2006 we celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary! 10 years! I would have to say that one of the key things that keeps us together is that we like to have fun with one another. The other, we love each other very, VERY much. That will never change, ever. My wife and I are in it for the duration, and loving every minute of it!
Let me see, ... is there anything else..? Well, I still have my kitties. Edgar, the big gray one gets into fights if he stays out after dark, so he can go outside, we just have to get him back in before dusk, or that's it... he will be out for the night. So he is our biggest challenge in the house. Our little girl kitty is the perfect one. She comes in when she is called. She never has the desire to stay out all night (unelss it's summer time). So that's the beef for now. Anyone who reads my blog knows I say more to follow, and then I forget to write. Well, I am going to try to change that. I am not making any promises, but do check in from time to time to see if I have added anything new.
Peace.
The work is a lot of fun, and I have a lot of neat toys now. a couple of laptops, phone, etc... toys. And with these toys, I have found that a macbook pro titanium is the best hardware to run Vista on right now. I get an experience rating of 5.2 on my macbook pro. The last PC I tested was a 64bit box with 8GB RAM and a 3Ghz dual core proc and 256MB Video RAM and that got a 3.1 experience rating. The macbook has a dual core 2.66 Ghz Proc, 3GB RAM, and 256MB Video RAM, and it gets a 5.2 experience rating. And, it's running Leopard X on the primary partition and Vista on the secondary with Bootcamp. All in all, I like the setup a lot. My other machine is a ThnkPad. It's super light, 2GB RAM, Intel Centrino dual core 2Ghz procs and 512MB Video RAM in an nVidia Quadro NVS 140M display adapter. ANd it has to weigh less than 2 pounds easy. It is so light, it is now habbit for me to carry both machines with me. Oh, and the one item that makes my bench look great, I have a 24" flat panel monitor that I use for the ThinkPad. I am working on setting things up so I can use it for both laptops (I have the switch box, I just need to scrounge up the cables now). Then I'll be all set.
And of course, I have been provded with a phone and a bluetooth headset (one of the smallest in the world). The phone is a Nokia (of course) 6126 and the headset is a Nokia (again, of course) BH-800. I am not going to go into details about these. That is why I provided model numbers, if yo uare curious, you can go to the Nokia website and look them up.
So yes, I am still around. I did not have to take my 100 day break between contracts either. Actually, this one wroked out nicely. My MS contract ended Friday, February 1st, and I started here at Nokia in Bellevue on Monday, February 4th. All I had was a weekend off. Which is a good thing (and a bad thing). I am just very thankful it worked out the way it did and that I have work. A week off to relax would have been good, but, I wold prefer to have the work and no break given the choice. :)
So let's see, what else is new over the past year. Oh, about a month ago, I had to have Sinus surgery due to extreme Sinusitus in the left sinuses. They were so packed that I Was getting migraines every day, often several of them. And I am a person that does NOT get headaches. So, I saw the specialist here, and 2 weeks later I was iun surgery. It was a complete success, no more headaches, and I have clear sinuses. It's fantastic!. I have one more medicial issue to deal with now. I belive I have mentioned the peripherial neuropathy I have in my feet and legs. Well, it has been getting worse over time. I take pain medication, but most of the pain medications don't do much for neuropathy, they just help take the edge off. So, due to that fact, I am seeing a pain specialist (not a neurologist anymore, a pain specialist). This new Doctor has some options that the neurologist has not presented to me. I have already gone through his array of medications and none of them really helped. they didn't much (if anything) for the pain, but they did make me feel weird, and one drug, I got the highly unusual side effects and was directed to stop the medication immediately. And of course I did.
So now, I have one alternative left, and I like the option actually. It is a nerve stimulation device that is transplanted into the body near the waiste on one side, and it is connected to two wires (or probes if y ou will) that are surgically implanted in the body and run up the spine to the location where the nerve impulses from the legs enter the spinal column. One the wires are in, they are connected to the device that is not transplanted at this time (It is left outside the body for the first week to make sure things are working properly). If everything is a "go" there is one last surgery to have the device implanted. At that point, there is another device that stays plugged into the wall, and when the device batteries get low, you unplug this device, hold it up against the implanted device and it charges the batteries! Very cool. It also comes with a small rmote control so that I can "dial down" the pain level by controlling how many pain impulses get through to my brain. I absolutely love the concept of drug free pain control and treatment! I have an appointment in March to discuss this with the Dr. I do hope he thinks I am a good candidate. Then I just need to worry about my insurance and how much it will cover.
One more really neat thing happened to me (and my wife) this year. On October 5th, 2006 we celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary! 10 years! I would have to say that one of the key things that keeps us together is that we like to have fun with one another. The other, we love each other very, VERY much. That will never change, ever. My wife and I are in it for the duration, and loving every minute of it!
Let me see, ... is there anything else..? Well, I still have my kitties. Edgar, the big gray one gets into fights if he stays out after dark, so he can go outside, we just have to get him back in before dusk, or that's it... he will be out for the night. So he is our biggest challenge in the house. Our little girl kitty is the perfect one. She comes in when she is called. She never has the desire to stay out all night (unelss it's summer time). So that's the beef for now. Anyone who reads my blog knows I say more to follow, and then I forget to write. Well, I am going to try to change that. I am not making any promises, but do check in from time to time to see if I have added anything new.
Peace.
posted by Jim at 2:25 PM
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