So last night I got a call at 11 pm that Rhinelander was down. I couldn’t do anything until 8 am so I set it aside. At 1 am I got a call that Tomahawk was down. I decided to wait that one out too. At 2 am Tomahawk came back up. I napped for an hour or two until 5 am when I had to switch over a circuit for a customer. Back to sleep at about 6 am. Up at 9 to check Rhinelander. It was still down and the people at the site couldn’t do anything to fix it. (Hey, they are lawyers, not system administrators. What can you expect?) So I hopped in the car and drove 100 miles north. I moved some power cables around and headed back south to my office in Wausau. I took care of various stuff that needed doing and actually got pretty much caught up.

So I should have been feeling pretty cruddy. A little sick, not much sleep… But I was actually feeling pretty good. While I was on the road I got to listen to a lot of the podcasts that were filling up my iPod. I saw my first Segway in person. (Apparently an Einstein marketing promotion of some sort? I was driving by too quickly to tell.)

More importantly, I was feeling good because I was being productive. It felt nice to be going places, fixing things, handling issues, etc. I was the only person that could handle these things and I was doing a damn good job of it. I haven’t done that in awhile and I didn’t realize how much I missed it.

When I wandered outside, there was a concert in the park next to our building. I stopped and listened for awhile. Then I drove to Barnes and Noble and read some of their books for free. I drove home listening to “Duo in E” by Jacques Offenbach. I almost never listen to classical music but when I caught that piece as I was flipping through the stations, something about it grabbed me. (The next piece of his that they played, “Les Belles Americaines”, has a more interesting backstory but wasn’t as interesting to me musically.)

I also heard Johnny Cash’s new album American V on the All Songs Considered podcast. Apparently he wrote and recorded it in the months prior to his death. He knew death was coming and he faced it in his songs.

They played part of “Like the 309″ on the podcast. When it starts out he is singling slowly and quietly with few instruments. His voice is weak and it’s hard to recognize him as Johnny Cash.

It should be a while before I see doctor Death
So, it would sure would be nice if I could get my breath
Well, I’m not the cryin’, nor the whinin’ kind
’til I hear the whistle of the 309, of the 309, of the 309
Put me in my box on the 309

Then the song picks up, more instruments come in, and it takes on a different tone.

Take me to the depot, put me to bed
Blow an electric fan on my gnarly ol’ head
Everybody take a look, see, I’m doin’ fine
Then load my box on the 309
On the 309, on the 309
Put me in my box on the 309

It’s eerie to hear a man singing about his impending death and it certainly hit me a little hard. But it’s comforting somehow, the way he sings about it. He almost sounds cheerful about it.

So I am feeling healthier, more productive, and more clearheaded than I have in almost a month. Hopefully that will continue and I can take charge of things again rather than just kind of wandering around in a daze.

So, now what? I’m not entirely sure. Over the years I have had several plans for post-graduation. Now none of them really apply. My unexpected stay in Madison has kind of reconnected me to my original childhood plan of wanting to live in Madison. My uncle recommended checking out Epic Systems (which looks really cool). The job hunt will start in earnest soon. We’ll see what it turns up. (If nothing else, I need to pay for my car repairs…)

Database work does appeal to me, but moving to Rapids doesn’t. Things just haven’t been moving in the direction that I have been happy with.

The meeting ended a little early so I drove up to Stevens Point. I stopped at UWSP to investigate my old debts there. (I was pretty sure I had paid them off but my bank had mentioned that they still showed up on my credit report.) After I lengthy chat with Accounts Receivable I had a list of my debts and payments and other information to give to any credit agency that claimed that I hadn’t paid my UWSP debts. (Turns out that there weren’t any. My credit is clean at all three major agencies.)

Since that went so well, I figured I would press my luck. I went to the admissions office and asked what I would have to do to be readmitted to UWSP. Much to my surprise I found out that I was still a student at UWSP. Okay, I was on probation, but I was a student. All I would have to do is apply for readmission (which would be free since I was still a student) and I would be in. I grabbed the forms and walked out the office.

I was on a roll. I went to Records and Registration and got a copy of my degree progress report. More good news! I was still under the same catalog. I only needed to take a single course to fulfill my general degree requirements. Very good news.

My CIS (Computer Information Systems) major was a different story. Some of the courses date back to 1990 and as one of my wiseass friends said, “They have transistors in computers now!” I went to the Math and Computing department and spoke with the department head. He took a long look at my degree progress report, shook his head a lot, scribbled on it for awhile, and handed it back to me. The end result is that I would have to take four CIS courses and a math course. Not as bad as I feared, but not as good as I had hoped either. (When I left, I only had two CIS courses remaining.)

I thought a lot about my choices in the coming weeks. Many of my friends were openly encouraging me to finish the degree. (These were mostly the people that had been teasing me about not having my degree for the past decade or so.) Some people (my mother, in particular) wanted to remain neutral so that they wouldn’t influence my decision with what they wanted. (My mother wasn’t able to hide her opinion too well though.) One person was against my returning to school but she didn’t want to discuss it. The thing is, these peoples’ opinions didn’t directly affect my decision. My decision to not go to school for the past decade has been against almost everyone’s opinion for years. I wasn’t going to change my mind now just because people thought I should. I wanted to know why people thought I should or shouldn’t return. I solicited advice and opinions and added them to my own reasons and feelings.

Eventually I decided to return to school. I can take the 6 classes in a single school year. My mom offered to loan me money if I need it. I proved that I could handle 8 hours a day in an excruciatingly boring classroom when I took the Cisco class. Waiting any longer would only make it much more difficult (relationships, family, more classes “expiring”, house or car debt, career, etc.). Now is the time to do it if I am ever going to do it.

I prepared for my registration date. I was all ready to go but my back injury struck the day before my registration date. I couldn’t move, much less get down to Stevens Point. Because I hadn’t registered for classes last semester, I had to do it in person. Was this a sign? Time would tell.

I didn’t feel like I could travel until this past Monday. I had a meeting in Wisconsin Rapids again so I got up early and stopped at UWSP first. I spent a couple of hours being shuffled around. My old advisor was retiring, a different advisor couldn’t help me, I had some problems with prerequisites, some classes had closed, etc. I ended up leaving my forms with the department head who was going to try and sort things out. I went to my meeting and spent the rest of the day in Rapids.

I made it back to Stevens Point on Tuesday. I picked up the forms and chatted with the department head. Things weren’t the greatest but they weren’t that bad either. I headed off to register. I got bounced around a little (had to get my packet from Admissions, pay a deposit at the Bursar’s, and have Accounts Receivable add me to the system before I could register) but eventually I was standing with my class schedule for fall of ’05.

I am taking two 4-credit CIS courses. If things go as planned, I will take one writing emphasis course over the “winterim” and then two CIS and one math course in the spring. That puts a little more class load in the spring than I would like, but it’s my only chance of getting out in spring.

I am not sure exactly how this will all work out, but school is going to be my primary focus. That means that I will probably be moving to Stevens Point and only working part-time (especially in the spring). I don’t know how this will go over at my current job but if worse comes to worse I probably could swing being unemployed for 9 months. (I am sure I would find some sort of job though.)

After I registered I gave Robin a call. It turned out that he was in a computer lab in the same building so we went outside to talk for awhile. So there I sat with my old college roommate across from the house that we used to rent. We were both discussing the courses that we were taking (he is getting his teaching certificate). A girl came up to Robin and vented about another girl. The girls had the same names as two of Robin’s ex’s. Deja vu, but not quite. I think I’ll be getting that feeling a lot over the next year.

I traveled with Brian (my boss), Scott (Unix guy), and Gary (phone switch guy). We settled into a routine of meeting in the morning at the (rather nice) breakfast bar. Next we were off to the Cisco campus, usually arriving around 8:40 (10 minutes late). Class until about noon, quick lunch, class until 5 or 6. Head back to the hotel for an hour or so. Gary and I would always go somewhere in the evening, at least to grab some food. Brian and Scott seemed to prefer staying in their rooms about half the nights. Late evening was spent online. Sleep, wake, repeat.

Working at Cisco would be a nice gig. All the free beverages you want (I settled on Mountain Dew, Earl Grey tea, and orange/banana juice); a recreation room with free ping-pong, pool, and Stargate Defender; and a fairly upscale cafeteria.

The class was an odd mix for me. I was actually advising the instructors during the database section but that was only one afternoon. The majority of the rest of the class was above my head, but I was able to keep up with some struggling. I was completely lost on Friday and the end of Thursday, however. The break/fix sessions were fun. The WCTC employees were split into teams of two (because Scott and I hadn’t had the prerequisite course) and given a working telephone system. Then the instructors would break something and we had to diagnose it and fix it. Gary and I made a pretty good team.

At the end of it all I got my certificate that I had completed the course as well as a little Cisco cloisonné pin. Whee… (This doesn’t mean that I am actually “Cisco certified” in any way, as near as I can tell. That would involve taking some sort of test. This certificate just means that I paid my money and sat in the class.)

Oh, the Belgian student’s name is Alain, not Alan. Not that he’ll ever know I misspelled his name…

Our popular hangout was a joint called Bone Daddy’s but it certainly wasn’t because of the food. We went there a couple of times and my coworkers seemed to have a lot of fun. Personally, I preferred Uncle Julio’s or the Texas Land & Cattle Steakhouse. Heck, even my first visit to a SONIC was more interesting than the second Bone Daddy’s visit. I have to admit that I ate very well on this trip. If Texas knows anything, it’s how to cook up a cow.

My most interesting excursions were one with Gary to the Galleria Dallas and the four of us stopping by the IMAX to see Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag on the way back to the airport. I really am regretting not striking out on my own for at least one evening. It would have been nice to get a feel of Texas that didn’t involve strip malls, restaurants, classrooms, and hotels. Maybe visit a friend or two. Ah well, next time.

The flight back was fairly uneventful. I managed to leave my copy of Angels & Demons on the Dallas-Milwaukee flight but luckily I had already finished it. We had a three hour layover in Milwaukee. We spent the first hour having a good old Wisconsin dinner (Friday night perch fish fry and cheese curds). The rest of the guys went back to the gate to wait but I gave JoAnn a call. She and Rob were actually only about a mile or two away at the local Blockbuster. They were nice enough to swing by and keep me company for an hour or so. The visit really rejuvenated me for the last leg of my flight.

The 19 seat plane seemed more cramped on the way back than it had on the way down. The cloud cover made looking out the widow a completely useless endeavor so I plowed my way through a Wired magazine until we touched down.

Endo gave me a call just as we touched down at 11:30pm. He had just gotten off work from Best Buy and wanted to know if I would join him at Buffalo Wild Wings with a coworker of his. Well, sure. I finally limped home somewhere around 2am, a very tired boy.

Epilogue: I found out on Saturday that my mom had been in the hospital for viral labyrinthitis while I was gone. She is doing fine and is back at work, but it’s always a little scary to find out what can happen while you are gone.

I have had a cheap bright-blue nylon bag since the 80s. It served me well, but it was showing its age. I was always afraid that the zipper would break and the contents would spill out. Since I didn’t want to put up with anything like that on this trip, I went luggage shopping on Saturday. Younkers had a nice sale and I have stepped into the 20th century of luggage (in spruce, no less!). It’s a joy to travel with. Unfortunately the snap on the “deluxe, 3-compartment toiletry kit” broke. Oh well, I’ll see what Younkers will do about it when I get back.

I headed out to the fabulous Central Wisconsin Airport on Sunday. I met with my boss and a couple of other CWTC employees, checked my luggage, and headed through security. This was my first time going through airport security in the post-9/11 era. Things went smoothly and I didn’t have to shuck off too many clothes.

The snow was coming down pretty hard while we waited for our plane to come in. We ended up boarding about 45 minutes late. The plane was a little two-propeller, 19 seat thing. The flight was cramped and noisy, but blessedly quick. We were worried about making our connection since the original layover was only 35 minutes and we were running 45 minutes late, but the Dallas flight had also been delayed so we had another 45 minutes to kill in Milwaukee. The next flight was on a spacious Boeing 717 and we got fresh chocolate chip cookies, which I consumed while reading Angels & Demons. In the end they made up the time and we arrived almost exactly when we were supposed to.

Texas was pleasantly cool without a trace of snow on the ground. We got our Durango and headed to the hotel. I have to say that I am disturbed about staying on East George Bush Turnpike, but these digs are pretty nice. We went out to eat at Humperdink’s and then stopped by Wal-Mart to get supplies. Sleep came slowly that night (as it usually does for me on my first night in a hotel).

We got up early, partook of the complementary breakfast, and headed to the Cisco campus (which is only about half a mile away). The class has the obnoxious ratio of 9 students to 3 instructors. To make things even more odd, 3 of the students are Cisco employees. One employee is from Belgium (Alan, pronounced Eileen), one is from Sweden (Björn), and our main instructor is from England (Richard Dawson). (No, not that Richard Dawson!) I’m hearing plenty of accents in Texas, just not the ones I expected.

The training itself is pretty annoying. So far it’s been almost all telephone provisioning. I am here for the database stuff, which takes up all of one afternoon. Otherwise I am sitting silently confused with acronyms flying around that I have never even heard of. I think some of it is sticking but I am way out of my league. To make matters worse the student/instructor ratio makes it impossible to do anything else without getting caught. But I found out that I get a certificate at the end, so it’s all good. I’ve decided that I want certificates and the like on my walls.

The instructor told the following joke. “When two men are on the phone, it’s half-duplex. When two women are on the phone, it’s full-duplex. When a man and a woman are on the phone, it’s simplex.” Not only did everyone get it, the frightening part is that it got a huge laugh from everyone in the room. I am in the company of the geekiest of the geeks…

Lunch was at Hooters and dinner was at a tex-mex joint. At least I am eating fairly well on this trip…

So far I can’t tell I am in Texas. Okay, it’s somewhat warmer here, but I am in an endless land of frontage roads and strip malls filled with all the same chains that you can find anywhere in the US. I am pondering renting a car for a couple of days and wandering away from the strip on my own. We will see if that pans out.

Keeping a written journal has never been something that I have really liked doing. I have done it from time to time, but usually it’s only when I have something that is inside of me that I can’t get out any other way. And that’s rare. I much prefer to talk about things directly with people and let the thoughts in my head escape in an interactive manner where other people’s feedback helps me clarify and distill my thoughts. But she is insisting that I update so here I sit, writing this instead of playing The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures. I am not sure why it is so important to her. I am not sure why I am doing it even though the blog is not important to me. And I am pretty sure that I shouldn’t think about the answers to those questions too much.

Anyway…

Two years.

Two years ago I was just settling down in Wausau after moving up from Milwaukee. My life was very different. My father was alive (although the cancer was having a visible effect on him). I had all four of my grandparents. I was in love with a woman who was perfect for me. I was in debt to many creditors. I was starting a new job as a database administrator for DataWave.

I had a plan. It’s interesting to see, two years later, how things turned out. Most things happened about how I thought they would, but there were a few surprises.

My father passed away about five months after I moved. My main reason for moving was to be closer to him during that time. I am very grateful for that opportunity. In the next four months or so, I lost three of my grandparents. It was a hard winter, a winter that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. But spring came.

As for the woman who was perfect for me, well, I wasn’t perfect for her.

I managed to shed all of my debt through a combination of luck and planning. I am financially well-off. I have managed to build up some nice savings while also acquiring some items that I have wanted for awhile. It’s a different feeling to be in front of of that 8-ball instead of behind it, but it’s a feeling that I could get used to.

DataWave was bought out by WCTC. It’s the fourth time that an ISP has been bought out while I was working for it. I have gone from being the “database guy” in a department of five people to being the head sysadmin (for the DataWave entity) in a department of two people. I have had to learn a wide variety of things very quickly. It’s been a challenge but it’s been satisfying.

I have been putting on some weight but I just managed to get my dad’s bicycle in ridable shape this spring. I hope to be doing a lot of riding this summer and shed a few of these pounds.

Now what?

Wausau was always supposed to be a temporary stop for me. I was planning on getting to about this point and then running off with that aforementioned woman. Now I am ready to go but I don’t have a destination. So I have been thinking a lot about “now what?”.

I am not happy with my job. The main concern is that I am being phased out. Slowly the old DataWave systems are being converted into systems that I have no access to and no control over. My input is ignored. And I am not alone. WCTC is slowly digesting the old DataWave and discarding people as it goes. I don’t really want to sit around until WCTC discards me. It also doesn’t help that I am drastically underpaid, overworked, on call 24/7, and doing things other than what I am really good at.

Wausau is nice, I suppose. It’s a little too small for me though. I miss Milwaukee. (Although what I really miss is just the feel of a larger city, or at least one a little less in the middle of nowhere.)

So I think that I want to get a job doing database or network administration somewhere with access to a larger city.

I have obtained some study materials to help me become a Cisco Certified Network Associate. It’s the first step on the Cisco Career Certification paths. The nice thing is that I already have a good grasp on the concepts and much of the knowledge. Even before any studying I was scoring about 50% on the practice tests (and that’s without any guessing). It shouldn’t take too long before I can easily score the 75.5% needed to pass the exam. The letters “CCNA” on my resume should make me much more attractive in the job market.

Once I have my CCNA, I have a big decision. I need to decide if I am going back to school or if I am staying in the job market. I have no debt, no family of my own, no reason to be in a particular place, etc. It’s an opportune time to go back to school. I need to ask some schools just how much time and money it would take to get my degree. If I can do it in a year or so, it would probably be worth it. If it would take longer than that, I probably am better off following the certification path instead.

The other question is where should I live? I know that I don’t want to stay in Wausau. In the absence of having a “significant other” in my life, I would like to stay in the Wisconsin area. (I don’t think I would do well completely on my own in a strange state.) So, unless I go back to school at Stevens Point, I think I will be searching for jobs in Milwaukee and Madison. I like both cities, I know people in both cities, and they both offer me the things I am looking for in a city. Right now I am favoring Milwaukee but I intend to go looking in both locations.

So that’s my life, June 18, 2004. Or at least the broad brushstrokes of it. Now I need to get ready for my trip to Door County this weekend with my mother, brother, and his girlfriend. I am doing something unheard of and taking a Friday off. (It helps that if I don’t use some vacation by June 30th, I will lose it.)