Let's see. What I did today. I've decided to give this diary entry in bullet-point format.

• Headed to the savings bank this morning. Got to the teller's window with my passbook, drivers' license, and withdrawal slip for $2500. The envelope managed to fit in my front pocket. Hey, I got shit to put money on this week, plus a trip to Chicago this weekend.

• Exchanged some emails with "arbus", mainly regarding apartment life, Newton-area living, and the Southpark-Style characters we made on that site. I still can't believe she's never seen an episode of that show.

• Loaned two UNIX instructional videos to Tim, the guy at work who's using UNIX. I got them from Lucent, but I can't remember how these ended up in my possession. I think they were in an abandoned cubicle.

• Dug up a laminated UNIX reference sheet that I had buried in my cubicle and forgot about. Loaned this as well. Tim flipped. "Where did you get this?!? This is great!" "Uh...I think I bought it at a bookstore, when I was still at Lucent."

• Dug up the similar laminated Perl reference sheet, that was with my UNIX sheet. I gave it to Bob, who was asking for Perl books before. Shit, I could have used that sheet myself last Friday! I can't believe it was sitting on the shelf right above my head with just a few binders and books.

• Harry and I follow Kole to L's office. L is the DBA. Kole always has this idea that people should basically drop what they're doing when she comes into their office. Now maybe that's somewhat understandable with us, who she's boss of. But managers, directors and administrators of other departments? Even when their office door is closed? I was taught at my first post-college job that a shut door meant "do not disturb; come back later". Anyway, she tracks down L, but L talks her into coming to her office to meet at 1;30. Oh, by the way, Kole has no concept of lunch either ("Where's Daisy?" "Um, it's 12:30...ya' think she just might be at LUNCH?").

• Deposited my wad of cash into my checking account. It's incovenient having savings & checking at two different banks, but when you compare them financially, it's a good move.

• Grab a sandwich at the place I go to a lot. Hmm, I won't be going there for too much longer, when the company moves to a new town. But I've been getting lunch at this place at least once or twice a week for over 3 years (my present and previous job were both in the same area). Maybe I'll give that guy a Sabbath bootleg before I go. He'd like that. We talk about that music once in a great while.

• Have the 1:30 meeting with L. Kole, realizing that she doesn't really have to listen to this since she's not testing this part, announces so and leaves 1/2 way through the meeting. Harry and I try our best to refrain from rolling our eyes.

• I start typing an email out, making changes, saving, but decide not to send it. I was going to ask some of my co-workers to make a geeky bet with me: I bet anybody $1 (nice and low, just to avoid potential problems with "gambling on the premises" or some bullshit like that). I would bet anybody $1 that I could get Kole to voluntarily say "DBMS", instead of "database". It's a set of terms she's been misusing forever. But, no email of the bet was sent.

• Decided to tell my manager Kole about my program. (No, she doesn't look like the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert, but sometimes the lack of certain technical skills bears a resemblance.) She's thrilled. She even wants to expand this into one of those year-long goals. This is a good thing.

• Wait a minute, I'm still a QA, right? Not a programmer? I still don't to program for a living. But this is a fun exception. And it certainly won't look bad if I ask about moving up to a Senior QA title a year from now.

• Daisy tells me about the temporary hire they're getting to replace Anita while she's on maternity leave. After interviewing several people, they really wanted this one guy. He really knew his shit. One lady who was also applying didn't seem to know much at all. Guess who the manager hired? The second one. Why? Kole knew her from her previous job. And that's what Daisy said the two of them talked about most of the time during the interview. "Oh, remember when..." It will be interesting seeing how this goes. This hire is supposed to ultimately GIVE us more time to get more stuff covered. I hope we don't end up spending MORE time having to teach her EVERYTHING. I especially hope she turns out OK for Kole's sake as well. I'm no corporate ladder expert, but if a manager hires somebody who turns out to be horrible, especially when the rest of her team had somebody else picked, how is that going to make her managing skills look?

• I see L as I leave for the elevator. We walk over to the garage together, the same destination, talking. "Yes L, I got your email. So the databases are ready? That's great, thanks again." I'm grateful for her skills and for doing this crazy request. But damn, it does mean that a shitload of work starts tomorrow. Again, it's going to be a REALLY interesting time seeing how the hell our team is going to test this whole release, in a short amount of time, in the middle of an office move, with Molly still on leave (she was a snitch, but hey, she was still a set of hands for the team like all of us), our teammate who was a project leave going on maternity leave, a questionable temp to replace her, and all the combinations of stuff we have to test.

• Cut a bunch of checks and...

• ...signed the lease for an apartment. One bedroom (so I can once again set up my oh-so-evil stuff on the walls in that room, and simply close that door on the rare occasion that a prudish relative or what not come to visit), a mere two miles from the new office-to-be (as opposed to 20 now!), under $1000/month (which is quite good for that town), minutes to several major highways, AC, garbage disposal, on the 2nd floor, good neighborhood, includes parking & hot water, and the thing looks pretty new.

• Called my brother, who was trying to reach me at the office. He needs help with his domain name again, to get an email going. After the call goes nowhere, I log into the register/redirect company site for his page. Shit, I think his webmaster is doing all the serving and stuff from his own machine. I tell him my hunch.

• Watch some episodes of the Daria marathon I taped way back when. Damn, those lines still crack me up.

• Responded back to that guy who wrote about my Satanism-related site. I'm still not sure if he wants me to buy a copy of the zine he says he's going to make, or take some part in it.

• Added a diaryland.com entry. Wow! Bigger than I thought.