One of my daily destinations is a guiding web page called New Life. A very simple design containing five key concepts integral to my new self. These are Sleep, Fancy Dresser, Grooming, Focus and Freedom.

Of all these, freedom, the most etherial has shown itself of late. For brief interludes yes but a perfumed breeze of moisture is far more than sufficient for a fremen. Invigorated and renewed I find it easy to continue the journey knowing that no matter what happens, I chose the right path.

Much of these feelings are thanks to my new freelancing lifestyle. I choose what I work on, who I work with and have no obligations as a provider until I choose to accept them. Thanks to careful selecting, everything I work on is a tremendous learning font. Each hand crafted creation empowering me with abilities needed for my lifetime goals. No effort wasted, a perfect journey!

When I was a child freedom meant my huffy bicycle. Now that I am older, more nuanced and most importantly, know myself, freedom is so much more. Still, a simple picture of open skies, a classic muscle car and an airport runway evoke everything I need to ascend into the feeling of freedom.

Freedom must be different for each individual but for me, I know what it is, I have tasted it and I will work for it. When it arrives, we’ll go for a drive together. Two old friends reunited at last and with no guilt for the past.

The open road calls. Won’t you join me?

Very much in my own personal style and flavoured with naval metaphors. Yum!

Letter of Resignation

This letter is official notice of my resignation. My last day will be July 26th, 2011.

I came to Mercy as part of an elite team of handpicked individuals under the leadership of the great Fernando Martinez. The goal, to turn Mercy around and become a shining beacon of the latest technology.  It worked too. We had virtual servers, full system encryption, intrusion protection and more years before anyone else. A golden age of tech.

Rough times were coming though. Economic hardships, budget cuts, management changes and other hardships. Fernando and the team saw that they would be forced to make compromises if they stayed so they rightly moved on to new projects and challenges outside of Mercy. A few of us stayed though. For very different reasons I’m sure.

For me, the mission wasn’t complete yet. I would be crafty, work harder than ever before,  use open source software and do everything in my power to keep Mercy cutting edge. It didn’t work out quite as planned. Information Systems lost people and resources while gaining more responsibility. Soon it was all that we could do but tend to a once beautiful ship, tossed and broken, lost in the high seas with no shore in sight.

Fast forward to today and the ship is docked in the kingdom of the HCA. She is being patched, has new crew and officers getting ready to sail to new lands.

My modified quest is now complete and I’m very proud of my time here. I’m especially fond of all the smart people I’ve worked, played and lived with. You shall be remembered.

Soon I shall be off to new Freelancing adventures and doing what I love the most. Working with technology and making people happy.

May the wind always be at your back and your crew by your side!

^_^

Daniel Gagan
PS – Fun fact, I was born on July 26th at Mercy, hired years later on the same day and now the circle will be complete as my last day will be that very special date.

I was saturated with requests but unlike previous years, there was no hope to catch up during typically quiet winter months. Working harder wasn’t the answer either. There is a certain unefficiency and dulling of the mind that comes with inhuman hours. No, the answer would be startlingly similar to a recipe from ”To Serve Man”: add more humans.

Unfortunatly there was a hiring freeze at the time. Volunteers woudln’t cut it either. No, I needed someone who could put in enough quality time to offset the allotment I would surely invest in them. Someone to toil over the horseshoes while I forged a mighty blade in the blazing heat and fierce colds of the server room. An apprentice!

The idea seemed like a perfect fit since I was already fielding web questions and assisting others with various side projects. Surely one of them would be suiteable and have a yearning for learning. So, I drafted a proclamation with an easy challenge and waitied with careful interest to see who would rise to this unique opportunity.

Two weeks later and nary a nibble.

I was ill prepared for the cornucopia of calamity which followed my failed squire search. Lay offs, forced days off , slashed budgets, added duties and more unbearables. This led to the great demoralization of the “survivors” which further shreded any vestigial feelings of hope I still harbored.

Quite some time has passed since the decumbent epoch. I am no longer demoralized, depressed or even depraved (unless it’s a real happening party). No, I’m resolute and proud of all I’ve accomplished. I’m even hopeful for the future again although I know my path lays with another company.

Somewhere out there is a group of free thinkers, hard workers and dress code violators. I hope to join them soon and together we’ll make wonderful websites.

• Ended the World of Warcraft obsession and freed up 6+ hours each day. I believe I overdosed for quite awhile and finally reached the point where I felt I had experienced everything I wanted in this game. Level grinding to 60, no thanks. Since there is no ending I suggest making up your own (if you are extremely goal oriented like me) or playing very casually and enjoying for a longer period of time with friends.
• Finding out a family member may expire before their numerals reach the answer to life the universe and everything. The optimist in me believes they will come through although those around me are not quite as hopeful.
• Resuming the great VHS escape project. Hundreds of hours of ancient cartoons, old commercials and the occasional Ewok Adventure all in very good condition. The goal is to digitize all of it, ditch the tapes and make a dent in the herculean tasks of cleaning the Odn Stables. Only seven tapes left to convert!
• The realization (through great Parr research) that after two years of hard study and the potential extinction of our savings would leave me looking for a job in an industry that churns out a lot of bad titles, demands 80+ hours a week and pays less than what I’m currently earning.
  • I got married for a reason folks, to be with Parr and believe me, she is infinitely more rewarding than a killing myself for a career. I think I’ll do things on my own terms, make things I want to make and enjoy the experience instead of depending on it.
• Finished the live broadcast of a rather graphic knee replacement surgery. Taking live audio/video streams, encoding them, splitting streams to internal servers and external partners along with many other assignments. I’m damn proud of myself and must say that my realm in this major production went puurfectly. Major, major brownie points at work, especially figuring we have saved many, many thousands of dollars vs. the old style of doing these productions.

I had put off a proper vacation until after the live broadcast and now I find myself drunk with lack of sleep, highly elated at finishing this gauntlet and looking forward to relaxing properly tomorrow night. Life feels slightly reset, as if I can assign new stat points after a major XP gaining quest.

Tonight I sleep good and tomorrow I breathe a sigh of relief, do a bit of work, maybe some lunch off campus and have a night of free thinking. Ah, yes, that will do nicely Mr. Odn.

Nighty!

Speaking of no brainers, sometimes work makes me dull, mentally. Probably because of the lack of creativity needed for certain projects. Actually I think I’m just on some kind of crash period because we recently launched the new website which was mondo fun to put together.

After this short crash period comes a fun media streaming project and then… who knows… perhaps it shall be time to investigate Full Sail.

For now, a bit of World of Warcraft should hit the spot.

Get a job! What, you need some bread? Well get a job in a bakery fool!

Actually, the only reason I can make this posting today is because things finally went really well. It started with a quick-fire triple semi-major problem solve followed by oodles mini task completions. Things went so well that I actually left work at 6:30pm and not 9pm as usual.

Of course, being the salary man that I am lately, work does not stop once I get home. I take a quick break, maybe squeeze in a Dr Who episode, Japanese Drama/Comedy or just leave a comforting MST3K vid running while I get back to work via our VPN.

Armed with this VPN (Vital Personal-time Neutralizer?) I have been working till 2-3am reliable, even on some weekends.

Ack! It burns me. My muscles atrophy from lack of exercise. My gut twists from a bad diet and my eyes water from the electro glow of a million monitors.

I know it’s bad for me and I know I grow more inefficient when I push past a certain human limit. I just can’t seem to stop sometimes. My guilt, my honor demands that I keep pushing for the good of my tribe. One more victory, one more battle. Tomorrow will be a rest day…

*alarm buzzes*

No… time… for rest… must get to work.

*Odn stumbles out of bed, leans against a cool calming wall and stares blearily into the bathroom mirror. An aging man looks back with remorse on his face.*

When did I start looking like this?

*Odn runs a veiny hand through his thinning hair, shakes off the fear and stumbles into the shower*

Tomorrow will be a rest day. I promise.

—dust—

I wouldn’t mind so much if this was a project done on my free time or if I had to build a cabbage launching device with the A-Team, but please, not for work. They pay me to be professional, not run Junkyard Wars.

Speaking of being professional at work… everyone kept suggesting that the kiosks looked like video game cabinets. These comments became so prevalent that I just had to bring them to life in the form of one very expensive and slightly, um… misused piece of equipment. The 2.4 GHz Pentium IV powered MAME emulator!

It’s a good thing we had those extra 2.397 GHz too. The emulator is set to mimic a 3 Mhz CPU and the left over cycles could come in handy to keep the frame rate up during those daring getaways through the side tunnels on either side of the screen.

My job may be hard sometimes but the fun factor can’t be understated.

Batduck is very good at Street Fighter 2. He actually beat the CPU with one punch key before we figured out how to remap the keys!

By my estimates, the arcade machine emulator has killed at least 5 hours of other employee’s productivity! Teehee!

Mercy is downright spoiling me this season and I like it! The gift certs were $25 for Publix and Target which is perfect because Parr and I go there anyway.

The free food, which was totally a surprise, consisted of mashed potatoes, green beans, salad, a meat type looking thing, cheese cake and egg nog. Yum! I was even greeted by the head sister who (miraculously remembers the name of everyone in the building) offered me one fine and tasty piece of multi flavored cheesecake.

I really appreciate the all the extra little things Mercy is doing for its employees. It really makes me feel wanted and dare I say it… loved.

To continue the “feeding odn” theme, I went out with Parr, Tzurriz, Mhc, Mr Roboto, The Greatest American Hero and my new replacement at UM for Tzurriz’s going away party. It was held at a most outdoor place called the Nexxt Cafe on Miami Beach. I hadn’t been to the exact area in a really, really long time and it’s odd to see it so popular and filled with life. I guess I kinda like that part about miami beach. The energy, atmosphere and variety of people. I can definitely do without the traffic, parking and prices though so I think I’ll stay where I am for now.

We had way too much food, friendly conversations and a lot of smiles. I quite enjoyed it although I will be missing Tzurriz very much. She is one of those women I genuinely like but can only express it by annoying her. I guess its like a silly game, kinda reminds me of high school relationships with the female species. No wonder I was always single.

Anyway, I’m having a blast and lots of good things are happening right now. I guess that’s what you get when you spend boat loads of money around christmas.

Tomorrow is the Mercy IT party to complete the third day of the free food theme. Plus, we are also getting the lines run for our new T1 connection run. Muhahahaha!

It was either that or move into an apartment and get $50 a month DSL. The T1 + free rent was cheaper so here we stay for another year.

With all this bandwidth I will be able to do some serious upload damage using bittorrent and even streaming audio/video. I might even play around with hosting my own radio station like I’ve always dreamed of. Teehee.

Fun fun fun. Peace out!

When I say bad times I’m usually referring to me not feeling productive. Projects that involve too many (unresponsive) people usually do me in. In these situations I tend to get an overwhelming feeling of frustration followed by desperation. It’s not healthy especially when I realized today as I was driving home that I didn’t want to have another frustrating night at home, thinking about work, drowning my sorrows in a video game I’m not enjoying for the right reasons.

I think it was the crisp freshness, a familiar cold breeze of memories of other geographies that inspired me to look at myself in a different light. I now realize that I had channeled almost all my self worth into my job performance and because of this I have been miserable.

So when I got home I decided to spend a bit more time around Parr, read leisurely though a new mobile pc mag and finish off with two non-stop sets in Dance Dance Revolution.

With the balance of different activities I’m already feeling more balanced and bend in the wind without breaking.

Bend like the reed my student… No, not that reed you fool! *SMACK* Like Reed Richards!

I plan on hanging these up in my office and letting people borrow them for ad hoc gentle beatings of coworkers. I myself can attest to their great efficiency as I beat up no less than seven people with no complaints and even received two compliments on their massaging effect.

I think they should make further Moshi equipment for the office such as the soft floppy numbchucks, big slab o’ soft shield, squishy pectoral implants t-shirt and maybe even the mighty Tauren moshi log!

Daniel sneaks up on co-worker. *CLUMP* Gotcha!

Hard bodies are out and soft bodies are in! *wurble* *wurble*