Upswing Downtown

Thanks to a much-needed tip from my boss, I am now in contact with actual swing dancers in Colorado Springs. Turns out they rent out the dance floor of a VFW (of which it turns out this town has more than most, and of which only one hosts swing dancing). They had a crowd of maybe 50 people, thirty of them women, and the average age was probably 25. Which means I'm going back. I made it through about twenty girls before one of them turned me down for a dance. Of course there was the one jerk couple who wouldn't ever change partners with anyone else, but it's their loss, since they won't learn a fraction as much from each other as from the room at large.

They're actually having an aerial clinic next week, but the ceilings at the VFW are only eight feet high, which doesn't leave much room for showing off. The other really exciting thing was that they had probably the best swing DJ I've ever seen there. All of the tracks but like two were recordings I hadn't heard before, and if there's one complaint I had about Samford, it was the lack of any attempt at musical diversity.

On the poker front, things are pretty consistently underwhelming. I've about determined that game has more to do with dumb luck and ego battles than actual math. When you find out that the strategy has pretty much already been solved, it takes some of the fun out of the game. I won third yesterday, busted out early Saturday night (with a full house - queens over kings - no less), played poorly Friday, but won a free drink as a door prize, did mediocre on Thursday, and got third or fourth on Tuesday. I think that brings us back to Monday night, when I had second, and lost to the bartender. It's kinda fishy when the bartender wins a free tab; what's she gonna do, tip herself?

I'm all settled into my room now, and it looks like I'll just make it to Thursday, which is payday (observed). That probably makes my creditors happier than it makes me, but what the hey. All I've got left to buy is dancing shoes, a card counter, and a TiVo, and I'm home free. I've got all the computers I can stand at work, and buying a PDA wouldn't help much, as I'm not exactly mobile, and when I am, I don't wanna think about work.

Anyway, speaking of not thinking about work, my lunch hour is almost over, so I'd better get back to it. Ciao.

So Productive I'm Practically Useless

Well the saga with the furniture continues unabated. I've got some pictures to upload as soon as I get back to my home computer. The predicament with the couch has to be seen to be believed.

In the meantime, I got some sheets, pillowcases, and a comforter from Target. I ended up going with bright red sheets and a khaki comforter, which, coincidentally, matches my car. All I need now is the Honda logo embroidered onto it.

I slept the last two nights on the mattress, even though it's not installed into my room yet. It looks like roommate #2 is going to have to go to work on the window in my room to create an escape path for the couch. If it were up to me, I'd dismantle (read: obliterate) the thing, but it's not my couch, even if I did rent the space out from under it.

I played some more Holdem last night at Sticks, but only got fourth place out of 20. They gave prizes to the top three, naturally. I might've had more fun if I'd enjoyed the players' personalities, or if they'd had any. Really only one other guy looked like he was enjoying himself, and there were no women this time. At least they have two more games tonight I can choose from.

I'm supposed to be learning Visual Studio 2003 .NET over the weekend, which is not so much hard as it is mind-numbingly complicated. Imagine everything you hate about Windows, double that, and then take out the good parts. Maybe I'm being a little harsh, but I guess I just feel bad for selling out.

Anyway, I've been having fun with several new (for me) Firefox extensions. I've got one now that automatically generates random passwords and remembers form information and passwords for all the sites I go to. I've got it running off a USB stick, and it's secure, as long as I don't release the master password. I won't use it in the classified room, of course, since USB drives are forbidden there. That and the internet itself.

Well, I'd better get back to work. Those missiles aren't going to blow themselves up (I hope).

Texas Fold 'Em Already

Well they say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. I'm working on that step at the moment with regard to playing poker. I've played five games already this week, came in third Sunday afternoon, twelfth Sunday night, then like fifth in a little "turbo" round, then busted out last night at the seven o'clock game (lost 4000 chips with 3 kings; it happens), but finally got second place at 12:30 this morning at a different place.

I'm not playing with actual money, but there are prizes for winning, including free food, beverages, and pool, not to mention all the glory. One kid in particular has been infuriating me, as he beat me twice on Sunday. I played him again last night, but he busted out early on a hand I had folded on, so I didn't get much satisfaction that way. He's up to $300 in free stuff that he's won playing around town, and wants to play in the Denver Poker Tour for $50,000. I'm not at that level yet, but it wouldn't hurt to have that kind of cash at my disposal.

I did a ton of shopping this weekend, and now I'm the owner of a sho-nuff queen-sized bed, dresser, and matching end table. I still have the problem of cajoling my roommate with the pickup truck to help me move it, not to mention actually getting the stuff in the room. I think I'll make getting it home my goal for today, and if I have to take a poker break, so be it.

One thing I have going for me in poker is the fact that very few people can figure out what I'm thinking at any given time, even if I try to explain it to them. Poker is one of the very few avenues where this inability to communicate to people is an asset. I tend to play excellently when there are six or more players, but when it gets down to three or four, I have trouble knowing when to bluff. My thinking is that bluffing is an unreliable strategy if employed more than absolutely necessary, but on the other hand, I now have a reputation for having cards to back up my chips when I put them in, so it goes both ways. I should make a habit of pulling at least one cold bluff a night just to stay unpredictable.

Work is going well. I went to a meeting yesterday that consisted of 98% acronyms, 97% of which I don't know the meaning of. I suspect that half of those were made up on the spot for my benefit, and the other half describe classified activities that I'm not even allowed to know about. There's always something. I now have a candy jar on my desk, which makes it more fun to be at work than at home.

I'm gonna have to find a poker game where the other players don't smoke all night. Half my wardrobe smells like Camels now, and the other half is dirty. There isn't enough air to go aroudn as it is up here, and polluting it just doesn't help matters. I guess I'll have to win quicker in the future.

Last Post as an Ignoramus

This morning I'm supposed to get my Interim Secret Clearance, along with a detailed security briefing, mainly covering what I'm not allowed to see or speak of, which is apparently a good deal. Though no one has mentioned this forum yet, common sense will require an abundance of discretion on my part in commenting about work here. If anyone knows where I can get some of that (discretion; I have work for the moment), let me know.

Apparently the difference in the Interim Secret and Permanent Secret clearances are as follows:

Q: What is the difference between an interim and a full security clearance?

A: Interim clearances are granted in exceptional circumstances where official functions must be performed before completion of the investigative and adjudicative processes associated with the security clearance procedure. There is no difference between an interim and a full security clearance as it relates to access to classified information. However, when such access is granted, the background investigation must be expedited, and, if unfavorable information is developed at anytime, the interim securityclearance may be withdrawn.

That's according to the FBI. Now I'm not sure if it's them, or the OPM, or the DSS that's doing my investigation, but I know that I'm not in a DoE process at the moment.

So that's fun. I'm working now on not being frustrated by institutional red tape, and remembering that some of the people tasked with sticking me with it take their jobs seriously and don't appreciate the inefficiencies and loopholes in the processes pointed out to them, even when they act like they agree. Nothing new on that score, but I have to remember that the company is big enough that not everybody is an engineer.

One side project I want to get good at is recruiting fellow workers. HR has a bounty on exempt new hires that's nothing to sneeze at, although apparently you have to "know" the person you recommend and all that jazz. I'm not much of a judge of people, although I can typically sort out the competent ones.

I think I've found the kind of phone I'm gonna get, although I'm worried that connectivity to the comptuer will require additional investment, and might have to eBay my little bluetooth USB thingie that I used with my T610. As soon as I have a number for that, mark my words, I'm gonna update all the people whose addresses and contact info I have as to my new numbers and stuff. Then I can probably order business cards, although they'll be printed with invisible ink...

Political Dialogue

I'm sitting here, inexplicably, watching a debate between Hulk Hogan and Sean Michaels. I think I've been too hard on professional wrestling. It seems to get a bad rep among people who consider themselves literate, but I'm finding that I really admire it for what it is. I keep thinking back to last year, and wishing that what the debaters had to say was delivered with half as much gusto, or that they had anywhere near the commitment to enlightened discussion that these two gentlemen posess.

Granted, it's slightly surreal, and pretty bizzarre if you think of it as reality, but politics works pretty much the same way. At the end of a wrestling match, at least, there tends to be little debate as to who the winner is.

Hulk should be our ambassador to the UN. If nothing else, you know he'd be heard.