Cool shit.

I started out researching buckyballs in greater detaila nd and I learned all this cool shit. I finally understand the geometry of a truncated icosahedron courtesy of Wikipedia, after wading through several other pages that just didn't really have the diagrams for me to wrap my brain around it. I had never realized the connection of buckyballs to carbon nanotubes before--and have you seen what they're going with carbon nanotubes and batteries? Oh my gods. I'm particularly intrigued by the notion that they could be bioimplants. Talk about a way to power a pacemaker. And they could defeat a lot of engineering obstacles involved in constructing a skyhook. I love the notion of building really, really big engineering out of really, really small.

kitten heels are not my friend

Today's burning questions are:

Why is it that shoes mostly fall into two categories: ugly shoes that hurt my feet and really great shoes the chiropractor has forbidden me to wear?

What the hell is nougat, anyway?

What is a gluon? Or rather, why can I suddenly not remember what a gluon is? I know it's a sub-atomic particle, I just can't think of the specifics. Which, really, means I know more about sub-atomic particles than nougat.

The job . . .

. . . proves no different at the end than it has always been. A lot of things are just going to drop, beginning next week. I tell myself I can't feel responsible, but I don't like thinking that "fucking April" will be heard around the department for months. (Inside joke. Not terribly funny).

This weekend, I celebrate getting a new job for my birthday. And boy will I be celebrating.

Quote of the Week

"Why do IT's desks always look like this? You can walk into any IT department, anywhere in the world, and the desks are always covered in papers and spare parts."

"Because when you live in an artillery range, you tend to build up piles of stuff to take cover behind."

--first source unknown, paraphrased; Robert Bruce

A job.

It's official. I've been offered a job and turned in my resignation. It's actually rather galling that my current company didn't just escort me out of the building when I gave them two weeks' notice. With what they've done to me, I ought to be disgruntled. They shouldn't trust me. It's like they don't even realize they've treated me so badly that if I were a vindictive or less professional person, they'd be in a heap of trouble.

It's not a terribly exciting job, and it pays about the bottom of what I think I can scrape by on. But it shouldn't be as crazy-making, and it doesn't have to be forever. Eventually, I'll get in with the county or the city or the U or something.

So . . . I feel a little disassociated, but I'm not all the way to relieved, yet. I walked in today, prepared to present my resignation to my boss, only to get a call from her that she's in the ER. She's had ongoing medical problems for a year. We've had ongoing staffing problems for longer than that. It's a bad time for me to be leaving, and yet, there's no good time. There never will be, any more than working for their IT department will ever get any better. That's what I told my boss's boss, too, when I handed him the resignation letter. It's a bad time, but there's never a good one, and I won't do this to myself anymore. (The last bit is because he kept pressing, trying to figure out how they could keep me--I finally gave up and gave him a health-related excuse. Told him I wasn't as noble and self-sacrificing as my boss, to put myself in the hospital or the loony bin trying to keep up. Well, the phrasing was a little different. And told him they need to outsource, in full or in part, at least temporarily).

We agreed not to tell my boss today, while she was in the ER. Maybe I'll feel differently once we have. Or maybe it won't really be real until I start at the new place.

The new workplace will be no jeans, no t-shirts. I have to go out and buy slacks. Dammit.