Dream In Red

God, I think I have to go back to my therapist. Not that I'm that guy. You know - the type with a therapist. I started going with my ex to try and save our marriage and I just don't have anyone to really talk to these days.

My family means well, but they are far from objective. They would be on my side no matter what I did short of rape or murder.

I am tired constantly. It's true that I'm busy - very busy. Between settling in to the house in Barboursville, two visitation schedules, registering the kids for a new school system, a huge project at work, and all of the house work (painting, etc) I did before I left it feels like I haven't had a still moment in months.

That isn't the true source of my constant bone-weariness. Maybe it's depression. I'm not sure... maybe I'm getting old and this is what exhaustion feels like now. I've never been this constantly and persistently tired before.

I had a dream last night, too. It woke me up at around 3 AM - covered in sweat and breathing hard.

In this dream I was escaping from somewhere - an insane asylum? I was running, trying to get some sort of clothes off my chest. I'm not sure what it was, but it was very restrictive and gave me a panicked feeling as I ran headlong through some swamp, dogs barking in the distance behind me. I never actually looked down at the piece of clothing I was trying to get off of me.

They were coming for me. I finally shook off the claustrophobic article of clothing and ran bare-chested at full bore through the swamp. The dogs were getting closer. As the sound of their barking drew near something grew inside me. As the panic in me rose, it turned into something animal.

I gradually started running slower, but not from fatigue. My breathing became slower, more measured and I turned to face the dogs. There were two of them; both large and both fast. One trailed the other slightly. As the first one leaped for my throat, I intercepted him with my hand, spinning to deflect the second dog with the first.

My fingers sought and found the dog's windpipe. I pushed my fingers together to make them meet in the middle of the dog's throat and pulled it clean out of it's body, tossing the dog aside as I did.

Somehow I had a stout stick in my hand, and I used it to crush the other dog's skull in an overhand stroke that sent both splinters and blood flying.

I was seeing red. I knew the dogs' handler would be soon to follow. So I walked back in the direction the dogs came from. I walked quietly and slowly, keeping to cover, and managed to surprise the dog handler. He was wearing some sort of uniform and had a revolver in his hands. I woke up after about the third time I brutally hit him in the head with my club.

It was one of the most vivd dreams I've had in a long time. I got up and took a long pull from the glass of water by the bed. I stepped out on the porch, turned on the overhead fans, and had a smoke while the sweat dried.

I felt very calm by the time I went back to bed and fell into a deep, black sleep.

Teh H4x0r

Main Entry: Teh H4x0r
Phoenetic Pronunciation: \tay hack-sore\
Function: noun
Date: Late 20th century

1. an elite computer programmer, technician, engineer, or systems architect.
2. anyone who can bend a computer to their will.
3. me, muthafucka!

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I've been banging out so much code over the last week. My job entails much more than just programming, but I've been finding all sorts of ways to solve problems with my code-skillz lately.

On any given day I could be called upon to perform Oracle database administrative tasks, develop .NET code for web apps or services, troubleshoot client side problems, advise on third party solution architecture, or manage and coordinate project teams and activities. Oh yeah - I forgot I also do both end-user and technician level training classes. I've probably forgotten a task or two...

All of this and I serve on a rotating weekly on-call schedule with three other guys. On-call is 24/7/365 between the four of us. Hospitals never sleep, you know. Oh yeah... haha. I also develop the training material for the classes I give as well as develop the documentation for all of the systems I develop and/or support.

Anyways - back to the code. Over the last week or so I have been a veritable Indian sweatshop of code output. In this short period of time I have:

1. Added a historical record revision tracking system to our web based Change Control system (which I wrote originally)
2. Created a record reconciliation routine with excel spreadsheet output and configurable parameters to compare items sent and items received between two different systems here at the Hospital.
3. Detected, isolated, coded a fix for, tested, and deployed said fix for an issue with an Oracle monitoring service (that I wrote originally) whose output had come under criticism. In all honesty, it was a bug in my software but it was a bug that only manifested itself when a certain other group did something they should never do to my precious server.
4. Overcame our LAN group's excessively restrictive security policies in order to coordinate a vendor installation of software on a load balanced server arrangement. ("That didn't work?" Hmmm... troubleshoot, test, troubleshoot, test. Call LAN group "Hey, open up permissions on such and such registry key.")

All that and I fielded a few HelpDesk tickets, too. I'm on call this week.

Teh. Fucking. H4x0r.