I'm not a fan of the "Open Office" concept.

I get that it's supposed to foster creativity and collaboration. That productivity is supposed to increase. A worker in an open office is more approachable and communication increases.

Perhaps that's all true. Personally, I don't buy into it. I think rather than fostering collaboration it's fomenting animosity towards fellow co-workers. Case in point: my desk is maybe 4' x 2'. I have a side divider that's probably 16" inches tall, and a divider on the back of my desk that's maybe 2, 2 1/2 feet. Before I switched from sitting on the left side of my desk to the right, I was literally about a foot away from my co-worker (thankfully, no one sits to my right). The person who sit across from me is at least 6'2" and likes to stretch his legs out under the desk. I don't blame him at all. We end up kicking each other a lot, as I like to do the same.

Weather wise, it's been a weird week. Sunday and Monday it was cold and snowing. Wednesday and Thursday, it was gorgeous, high 70s. Naturally, I rode the bike in to work both days. Today, it's supposed to be in the low 70s. Riding to work this morning, it was cold, and there was patchy fog. My cheeks were freezing when I got here. I hope it does get to that promised 73 degrees.

I'm settling into my new role as QA tester type person. On my first "real day" of working as a tester, they gave me some stuff to test (naturally). Real basic stuff, entering difference values for different parameters for our new bug tracking software. I changed a few things, everything was good. Then I thought to myself "well, what if I did this?", and ended up breaking the whole system. I broke our bug tracking system, but not only that, I apparently broke the system it was based off, as well as created some firewall issues for the west coast people.

Man, do I know how to do my job or what?? What's even better is the fact that I get to break it and don't have to fix it. That rules.

I spent this past weekend in Cleveland, working. A coworker and I had to update a bunch of Internet Appliances that we support, that are all located in the luxury suites of the Cleveland Browns football stadium. So Friday morning I was up 3:30a.m., to catch a 7a.m. flight out of BWI. I say I was up at 3:30: Actually, my dumb dogs had started barking about 1:30 and as a result, I never really got back to sleep.

So the alarm goes off at 3:30a.m. I head for the shower, cursing the dogs for my lack of sleep the entire time. Get myself out the door and on the road in good time. Make it to BWI just before 5, only to realize that there is absolutely no parking. For some reason it never occurred to me to check on parking. Yeah, sure, I know this is the busiest travel weekend of the year. But do you think I stopped to wonder what all those people did with their cars while they were flying? Apparently I assumed they were magically transported back to their homes, leaving me plenty of parking.

Well, obviously not.

Our 4th of July weekend was a blast. Gail's parents came out from Tucson, and we took them out to Ida Lee park in Leesburg, where we've gone every time since we came out to the East Coast. We keep meaning to get into D.C. to see the National fireworks, but something always precludes us from going. Aside from the extra tight security and terrorist threats, there was the heat to contend with. And truthfully, I think I was more concerned with the heat than the other stuff. Besides, Ida Lee usually puts on a fantastic show. They had several moon-bounce things for the kids, vendors selling your typical carnival food, and a live band, The Fabulous Hubcaps. We had a great time, and the fireworks were probably some of the best I've seen.

Other than that, it's just been work. Work, work, and more work. We have a huge project, and the launch date was moved up by almost a whole month, so everyone is scrambling like mad. Truthfully, I shouldn't even be writing this. I should be trying to figure out why my stuff doesn't work like it should. But I've been working 70 and 80 hour weeks, so I thought I'd take 15 minutes to update my journal. Poor thing probably feels neglected. :)

Hooray...I think I've gotten all my Xmas shopping done. I think. I hope.

In all honesty, it's NEVER done. Someone gives you a gift out of the blue, you feel as if you should return the favor. You see the one thing, The One Thing that would make a perfect gift for someone 2 days before Xmas. It never ends. There's people who go to the after Amas sales to start stocking up for next year. Ugh.

Not much going here at work now. We finished our big project, and as everyone else is slowing down for the holidays, there's not much to do. So, whilst I'm at work, I'm going to work on getting my new layout working with my journal. It's gonna be interesting. Wish me luck!!!