Category Archives: Work

Back To “Normal”

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It’s been over a year since I last posted, and a lot has happened this year, especially in the last 6 (or so) months of it.

The biggest thing is maybe that I’ve flown on not one trip but two trips, and have managed to avoid COVID in doing so. (The last flight there might still be pending, since I just got home today.)

This summer we felt like we really needed to start doing something to get back to normal, since the world was clearly moving on without us, we clearly couldn’t go the rest of our lives without ever flying again, and the pandemic situation was clearly never changing significantly from its current state. So we decided that the safest thing to do was to book an international trip to the UK!

It sounds crazy, but it actually makes sense if you assume (like we did) that the riskiest part of travel is the airports (rather than the planes, which circulate air so rapidly and also filter it) and indoor spaces. London Heathrow is one of a single-digit number of international destinations that the Pittsburgh airport directly services so… London hiking trip it was!

Photos are here, here, and here, and ignoring the indoor breakfasts at small B&Bs (with like… two other groups at most) we had only one meal indoors at a restaurant. We also found that Heathrow immigration into the UK is totally automated and takes literally 30 seconds. From deplaning to heading to the train was less than 30 minutes.

The weirdest part of it (after the initial shock of “I haven’t been in an airport in three-and-a-half years”) was how basically no one wears a mask while flying. Like… COVID is still a huge thing? And airplanes and airports are great places to catch things? Maybe wear a mask just for this part?

The second weirdest (or maybe I just never noticed before) is how inconsiderate people are now when they cough. No covering of the mouth (with a hand or otherwise). No mask for people who are very clearly sick with some respiratory disease. Yeah, get on a plane and cough into the air for your neighbors to breathe thanks that’s a great idea we appreciate it.

In any case, despite all of that, the trip as a whole made me comfortable enough to travel in person to my teams’ release planning this past week, for the first time since summer 2019. And this trip really pushed a lot of my comfort zones.

Starting with… an airport transfer, so it wasn’t just the relative quiet of the Pittsburgh airport and the quick exit through SFO. We also had to deal with DFW (and, unexpectedly, ORD on the way back) which are extremely busy and have nary a mask in sight (although SFO seems to be better at this than anywhere else, which is maybe not surprising). Then also sitting in meeting rooms all day with dozens of other people for most of a week. And eating indoors at team dinners. And attending an (indoor) team event with over a hundred people in attendance.

I’d purchased an N100 mask specifically for the office, and while I’m sure I looked ridiculous in it, it apparently worked because I have successfully returned home without COVID (although we’ll find out about the return flight in a few days, so hopefully it’s not premature to make that statement). Photos from this trip will be on the photos site at some point. If the last set is any indication (Carnival 2023 photos posted in November) it might be next year. We’ll see.

There are so many other things I should probably write about, like how the elevators in Salesforce Tower in SF are the worst and made me literally 20 minutes late to a meeting waiting for them, or how I amusingly tried to meet my coworker Paul in the UK and couldn’t make it happen but ran into him (repeatedly) in SF during planning, or how I’m amazed that my team at work is now over a hundred people and I don’t know half of them and met a bunch of people I work with daily for the first time in person this trip, or how I’ve been playing a lot of roguelike deckbuilding (computer) games recently and really enjoyed Slay The Spire and Roguebook while not really being a fan of Banners of Ruin, or how I’ve started getting (somewhat) back into coding at work now that I can delegate more of my architect duties, or how we’ve watched through almost all of Picard and how I enjoy the series if you think of it as not being part of the Star Trek universe because the characters are just all completely out of character, or about how I was supposed to be home from the SF trip on Saturday except we hit a flock of birds on takeoff causing us to return to SFO and making us miss our connection and therefore continuing the trend of plane issues that has seemed to plague all our friends recently…

I could write a lot more things, but I think this trip has just made me tired and sad at the state of the “pandemic” (which is so clearly over to everyone else) because it’s just a reminder of how much I’m missing by trying to stay safe when the rest of the world refuses to do its part. So I think I’ll just stop here.

Tee Vee

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Work continues to be a thing. The more senior architect in my area left the company recently, and it feels like I’ve been taking on at least some of his duties in his absence. This has meant that I’m involved in significantly more high-level planning conversations and discussions, leaving even less time for me to spend on actually dealing with coding-level things across my (increasing) teams. I suppose this is technically a good move for me, and it’s actually felt less stressful now than in the past because it has come with an increasing number of strong technical leads across my teams (and the other remaining amazing architects I have the pleasure of working with) that allow me to increasingly delegate team-level duties outward.

It’s weird, and I’m still not sure how much I really like not being an IC anymore, even though that change has been years. But it feels like it’s working. So it goes.

Other than work, life continues. We’ve been taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather to host cheese parties on our back deck, as well as taking opportunities for outdoor dining while they still exist (because the pandemic is still a thing despite what everyone else seems to think). Oakland trips over the weekend to grab food from various places and eat it out in Schenley Plaza (or similar), followed by bubble tea from Fuku, has also been a thing. So that’s been nice, at least.

I’m fully expecting the election this upcoming week to send me down another depressive spiral of despair, so before then, I figured I should make a post about something less negative.

A large part of my free time lately has been spent watching (old) TV shows. The biggest one recently was Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which was a recommendation from a friend, and it’s also become one of my all-time favorite shows. (How many does that make now? :P) I was immediately drawn to it because it’s a musical series (and Glee, despite its many, many, many flaws, still holds a special place in my heart because of that), and I’d previously seen many of the music videos online. But the show itself is… ridiculously, amazingly, unbelievably good. I feel like it approaches characters and relationships and sexuality and mental disorders in such a responsible and caring way, and it also is ridiculously fun, besides. (It’s also ridiculously cringe at parts, but uses that discomfort as a narrative tool so well that I couldn’t stop wanting more of it all, even the cringe parts.)

The music videos also hit very differently in context, which I don’t think I really appreciated (or thought I would appreciate) until I actually saw the first one I recognized. Not only do they all stand on their own as extremely well-done and entertaining pieces, they also are incredibly well-blended with the plot and episode and characters around them.

The show didn’t quite leave me a sobbing mess in the same way Schitt’s Creek sometimes did, but it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath anyway because it is truly a masterpiece, and I’m so thankful it got its full four-season run, because I think ending at any of the other points would have been an utter travesty given the character arcs and development.

I recommend checking it out, but if you don’t, you should at least look up some of the music on YouTube because it is glorious in its own right. Highlights for me include (in no particular order): A Diagnosis, I’ve Always Never Believed In You, No One Else Is Singing My Song, I Hate Everything But You, Let’s Generalize About Men, The End Of The Movie, The Moment Is Me, This Is My Movement, Let’s Have Intercourse, Face Your Fears, and I Gave You A UTI. (As I said, responsible and caring about sexuality. :P)

Speaking of music and musicals, I also finished watching through the two seasons of Smash today. I approached it with a small bit of context from seeing a couple of the songs on YouTube previously (primarily Rewrite This Story and Caught In The Storm, via YouTube recommendations after a bunch of Jeremy Jordan videos, but a few of the others as well), and with knowing that critics had largely panned the show and its plot and characters (but without knowing any details of those reviews). And I have to say… I was pleasantly surprised by the entire thing. The songs here also hit differently in context, and are tied in beautifully with the plots and characters. While I would generally say the first season of Glee was better than Smash as a whole, Smash is significantly more cohesive, consistent, and overall better than Glee as a whole (which quickly derailed during its second season and became unwatchable during its third and onward).

The consistency is particularly important to me, and Smash does switchups in a way that feel significantly more natural and believable. For example, in Glee, we always have “new songs” for the big competitions, often justified in the narrative in the flimsiest possible ways (“show up in New York with no songs written and write them, instrument them, and choreograph them the night before!”), while in Smash the “new song” was done in a narratively-consistent way (“hey, experienced songwriters who have been working on this already, you have a few hours to figure it out and finish it, and also stage it as identically to the opening number as possible to make it learnable, and also all the other show songs are ones we’ve seen already”). Not to mention that Smash also does a ton more original numbers, and they connect in-universe with the characters and stories much, much better than any original songs Glee ever did, even though those were supposed to be “from the heart” and “what’s going to win us Regionals”. It just flows better, as a show.

Catching up on the critics’ reviews afterward, I find myself agreeing with a lot of it (yes, I noticed that Katharine McPhee wasn’t the best at emoting, even while watching it myself, and yes, the show does a lot of “telling but not showing”), but actually disagreeing with most of it. No, both actresses were reasonable choices for Marilyn in different ways. No, Katharine McPhee is actually hella talented and can sing really damn well. No, some of the “super cringe” story elements (particularly with regard to Kyle) weren’t actually that bad. No, the “wandering plotlines” in the first season were not out of place because they gave each character a plot point and some focus. No, Dev actually served an important purpose in the first season.

Maybe I just watch TV for fun too much to be quite that critical of it, and can forgive a ton of plot or character issues as long as I’m enjoying myself and it all makes reasonable sense, for some definition of “enjoying myself” and “reasonable sense”.

I’ve also watched through Lower Decks, also at the recommendation of a friend, and also partially because we’re working our way through all of Star Trek (currently on season 7 of Deep Space Nine). It is… not good, which is maybe amusing given the paragraph immediately before this one. Season 1 was okay enough, I suppose, and had a lot of good moments (including one or two where I actually laughed; almost every appearance of the doggo in “Much Ado About Boimler” was gold), but it as a whole just feels too fast-paced and a lot of it feels like it falls flat for me. Season 2 just feels like a lot of really cheap jokes that don’t really land and also feel even more out of place in the Star Trek universe.

Contrast that to Better Off Ted, another comedy series that I think lands every episode and nearly every joke. It has some cringe-worthy moments, but as a whole it’s witty and funny and feels overall well-written. It seems like a huge shame that Better Off Ted only lasted two seasons, while Lower Decks is ongoing (four seasons, now), in the same way that it feels like a huge shame that Smash lasted two seasons while Glee did six.

I’ve also watched some other things that aren’t worth commenting on quite as much, and have purchased a couple more series on DVD that I’ll need to start soon (primarily Warehouse 13 and Community). I suppose that’ll be my entertainment for the next however many months, and what’ll help get me through the mess that is sure to be next week.

Anyway. Happy continued pandemic, everyone. :\

Where to even start…

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I feel like I owe the internet an update, but what could I possibly say to cover the craziness that has been the past two months?

This Coronavirus thing was a thing. I had a Thailand trip planned for 3 weeks in February for my dad’s funeral, and spent the week leading up to the trip worried… not because I thought I was at risk of catching it, but because the US had just banned travel from China, and I was concerned about being stuck in Thailand (#2 in the world at the time, after China) for an indefinite period of time.

Bought a couple travel-sized containers of hand sanitizer and some travel alcohol wipes, and dutifully went on the trip, flying through what (at the time) was one of the most affected countries in the world (Japan) to what was the second most affected country in the world (Thailand).

The trip itself was good. I didn’t get sick, and it was nice to see my relatives again (for the first time in years), and it was also a good break from work. The funeral itself was also really nice.

The time to return home came basically just as cases around the world were becoming a huge issue. Flew home through Japan (now the #2 most affected place) and through the bay area (the #2 most affected place in the US) to Phoenix, where the plan was to stick around for a week, head to San Francisco for a week for the Architecture Summit, come home to Pittsburgh for another three weeks, then return to San Francisco for release planning.

It was that week that Seattle got really bad, and SF started having more serious issues. I ended up cancelling my SF trip on Thursday evening (the last chance for refunds on hotels and such, since I was supposed to fly out Sunday), and got an email Sunday morning that Salesforce was now prohibiting even domestic travel for work, so it turned out I made the right decision after all. (I was thinking that three days in a conference room with hundreds of people from around the country eating at a shared buffet was not a great idea given the outbreaks.)

One of my coworkers wasn’t quite as lucky: He was stopped at the airport before boarding his flight by the company travel managers. But I dutifully cancelled my other planned trip and spent another week in Phoenix, which also ended up having the nice side effect of being 13 days from my Thailand flight, pretty much ensuring that I hadn’t caught anything in Thailand or on the international flights.

The Southwest flight home was great — the flight attendants came around at the beginning of the flight with a trash bag for everyone’s alcohol wipes, and I was mostly relieved when the day arrived that they hadn’t banned domestic travel, sticking me in Phoenix (after having already been away from home for 5 weeks). Got home Thursday evening in time for board games. Was feeling pretty tired from flying (and stressing), but got some nice gaming in, and made arrangements for games the following week. Also did some stocking up on groceries.

Russell came the following Sunday to work for a week, and there was rock band and beat saber and generally nice socialness. The shit really hit the fan that week, culminating Wednesday night when the US finally started reacting to the ever-increasing cases and locking down cities. We cancelled board games, and then other board games, and started isolating ourselves preemptively. The grocery stores got crazy busy, and Aldi’s was sold out of meat, bread, most kinds of fruit, and toilet paper, kleenex, and paper towels.

Pittsburgh really started being affected this week, starting out with “stay at home” recommendations followed by recommended shutdowns of businesses, followed by restaurants changing to carryout only, followed by (tonight) statewide closure of non-essential businesses.

There’s now 18 cases in the county, including some that are community spread. We’ve been pretty much locked at home since last Thursday, although we make time every day to go on a walk outside (keeping 6 feet away from anyone else).

I’ve been cooking basically daily (multiple times a day, sometimes) for the first time in probably a decade, and working through my 2-week stockpile of food. We’ll need another grocery store trip probably next week, and I’ll try to find a time when not many other people are shopping, if there even is such a time anymore. We have had two restaurant meals (both takeout, of course) since Thursday.

Not much of my work situation has changed, because I’m permanently WFH anyway, but all of my coworkers are having fun figuring out their desk and computer setups and how to handle the different video conferencing systems we have.

My social life has been replaced with video calls and attempts at online board gaming, that we hope to expand in the near future. In theory, the lack of other things to do should mean more time to do computer things (like sort through Thailand photos), but I’ve also been in this weird miasma of worry about the world that makes it hard to actually get anything done other than work. (Sometimes it makes it hard to even get work done.)

We’re supposed to go to a wedding in May, and I’m supposed to go to Origins in June. I have no idea if they’re still on, or if they are, if I’d even be interested in going anymore. I guess we’ll see what things are looking like in a month or two.

This post was supposed to have a bunch of photos from my trip, but those photos are still sitting on my hard drive, unsorted and unedited. Maybe next post.

All I can say is… I hope this huge mess that is the world right now drives the right kinds of changes. Health insurance, and healthcare in general, can’t be tied to work. We need better societal safety nets when people can’t work or lose their jobs through events that are no fault of their own. We need to recognize that the workers that are so often put down as “unskilled” or “replaceable” are also the ones who are the most important right now.

I’m one of the fortunate people since the next few months will be, at worst, a slight inconvenience for me… but there’s too many people in this country (and around the world) for which this will mean a potential loss of their homes and not being able to eat. And that’s really not okay.

Life (phew)

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Well, it’s been over three months since I last updated. I guess I’m getting pretty bad at this blogging thing.

Life has been pretty crazy, mainly because work has been crazy, lately. So rather than go over all that stuff, here’s some photos from my recent San Francisco and Phoenix trips.

Salesforce had an Architecture Summit where all the company’s architects gathered together for three days to hear about current projects in the company and generally network and mingle. It was the first conference I’d ever been to, and it was exhausting, but overall a very worthwhile experience.

It was particularly memorable because of the food: Catered breakfast and lunch, plus two snack breaks, a day… and then organized dinners besides.


Oh yeah. My team had a presentation, too.

Afterward it was off to Phoenix for a week, with even more food.

Also saw Cirque de Soleil Amaluna with my parents. It was impressive.

Other than that, life has been board game-y. Photos of those are on my photos site, which I guess is the only thing I really keep up to date anymore.

Hopefully it won’t be another three months before the next post. :)

Craziness! (San Francisco, Carnival, cards, life)

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I’m, uh… really rather behind here. Which is matching the rest of my life pretty well, so I guess that’s not a huge surprise. Life’s photojournal and stats pages have finally been updated, a bit later than usual, mostly because I’ve been super behind in photo sorting and tagging recently.

Anyway, lots of things have been happening lately. Let’s see how many I can remember…

We’re in something like year six of four weddings per year, except last year which only had three. But this year felt like it had to make up for last year by having six weddings. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, for travel), two of them are on exactly the same dates as two others, so we’re only going to four. But one of those is in Hawaii, a week before I have to be in SF for work again, which is in turn a week before another wedding in Chicago. Which is a week before another wedding in San Francisco. It’s going to be an insane travel time.

Speaking of insane travel, I was in San Francisco for work in April, and it was a nice time.



But I had to rush back, without the usual Phoenix stopover, because the following week was Carnival! We had fewer guests in our house this year than last (two kids and three adults, compared to last year’s two kids and six adults), which I think was a lot more manageable. Carnival itself, however, made up for the relative calm at home by being both a reunion year and being the KGB 30 celebration, which meant there were lots (and lots) of events to worry about.


After the craziness of that stuff died down, work started picking up again. I officially got a promotion to Architect, which is insane and also means I’m dealing with things across four different teams now. Which I’d been unofficially doing anyway, but somehow it just feels a lot more serious now or something.

I also bought more Dragon Ball Z card game cards. Lots and lots of cards. 12,460 cards, give or take a couple booster packs. So, with that, there’s been a lot of pack opening and card sorting and things that I generally find relaxing and soothing. Which is nice, except it means I’ve been neglecting other personal projects like photos. Still have over half of it left to open, but I don’t have to deal with it all now.

In more recent things, winter seems to have finally ended, and Brian hosted a rose wine party to celebrate. We drank a lot of wine, but I guess we were also a reasonably large group, so it’s not too crazy.

Here’s hoping I can catch up on photos and things before the insanity of weddings begins…