We rented Apollo 18 last night…

I’d wanted to see it in the theater, but we never got around to it.  I didn’t feel like I’d missed-out on much since the ratings weren’t terribly impressive…  But I still wanted to see it, and I finally got my chance last night.

Downright creepy movie.

Vaguely reminiscent of Paranormal Activity, in the way subtle things happen and it isn’t entirely clear whether the characters are imagining them, or actually experiencing something unusual.

Definitely an entertaining couple of hours.

Made it through my second (and last) week of training.

I can certainly appreciate the goal of the training…  It’s definitely a good thing to learn about the company as a whole, the industry, the competition…  Find out how we fit into the bigger picture, and where our paychecks come from…  Especially since there’s such a disconnect between what folks believe about the industry and reality…

But, honestly, I feel like a lot of those two weeks was wasted time.

I don’t know that I really needed to learn about the first automobile to ever be built…  And I’m not sure the dealership visit was actually all that useful…  And I don’t think I really needed an hour presentation from every single department in the company…

I also really wish we could have spent more time with our respective departments earlier in the training process.  It wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon, after a week and a half of training, that I spent any real amount of time with my department.  Would’ve been nice to get a feel for my job and how I was going to fit into the company before spending so much time on training.

And it would’ve been great to shadow some more people.  We spent a couple hours shadowing one of our digital advisors, and then another couple hours shadowing someone in support – and both of those were incredibly enlightening.  I would’ve liked to shadow someone in development, or production, or some of the IT guys…  But I guess that might not be as obviously enlightening as listening in on phone calls.  I suppose folks without an IT background probably wouldn’t have a clue what they were looking at.

But, anyway, I’m done.  Monday I start working for real.  Well, mostly.

I’m going to spend a chunk of next week shadowing one of our Windows guys, and then another chunk of the week shadowing a Mac guy, and finally I’ll have some kind of “hand-off” meeting with the last workstation sysadmin.  So I guess I probably won’t be doing much real work for another week or so…

Huh.

I’m almost disappointed…  We were supposed to get some kind of horrific winter storm last night.  I was expecting a rough commute in to work this morning…  But there’s absolutely nothing.  No snow on the ground, clear skies, no sign of a storm at all.

I canceled EVE again not so long ago.  Signed up for the WoW yearly subscription thing, so I could get a free copy of Diablo III and entry into the next WoW beta and all that good stuff.  And I’m having great fun with it…  But there’s a very distinct feeling to EVE that most other games simply do not deliver.

There’s a feeling of loneliness and quiet desolation as you fly through space.  Thousands of kilometers between you and the nearest object.  Millions of kilometers between you and anything that could be called “civilization”.  A feeling of freedom, of being able to wander aimlessly wherever you want.

And the open-ended nature of EVE just isn’t replicated in many other places.  You can run missions, engage in piracy, build a trade empire…

But the X Universe games have always done a pretty good job of capturing that kind of feeling.  That same feeling of the vastness of space, and the open-ended possibilities.

So, I’ve recently started playing X3: Albion Prelude…  It’s the newest title in the X series.  I guess it must take place some time after Terran Conflict, but I have to admit that I’m not familiar enough with the setting’s lore to know what’s going on with any certainty.

Looks like there’s been some kind of falling out…  The Terrans appear to be at war with everyone else.  I’m not entirely sure what has caused this rift.  There’s an intro video that looks like it might explain what is going on, but it’s just a bunch of dramatic scenes.  And, honestly, I’m not sure that even matters too much.  The meat of the game is the free-roaming, open-ended gameplay that you engage in outside of the storyline missions.

I’ve just started playing around, and I’m horribly rusty.  Having a hard time navigating and fighting and anything else.  No idea what I’m doing.  And there isn’t much of a tutorial.

The graphics look pretty awesome.  Much improved from the earlier games I played.

And the game is definitely more mouse-friendly than it used to be.

But there’s still a distinctly X feel to it.  And I’m having fun wandering the spacelanes.  Can’t wait until I get the hang of things and really get going.

So, I made it through my first week at the new job.  Actually had a pretty good time, even with all the cheesy “getting to know you” activities.  I certainly wasn’t dreading going in to work like I have been at the hospital for the last few months.

But…  I really don’t feel like I know much more about my new job than I did the day I was hired.

Yeah, we’ve talked a lot about some of the different products and how the company makes money and the industry we’re in…  But I haven’t gotten to do any real work, or spend any time with my team – so I’m still not quite sure what that’ll be like.

Hell, I’m not even sure how I’ll be getting to and from work.

There’s a big lake in-between, so I’m taking a ferry across.  Last week I just drove my car onto the ferry, which costs about $7 one-way.  And that certainly adds up pretty quickly.  I’ll be spending something like $70 every week just on the ferry.

There’s talk of carpooling with a co-worker, but I haven’t really determined how/when that’ll happen.  There’s also talk of leaving a car on the other side of the lake, and having my wife drop me off at the ferry, which would cost about half of what I’m paying now.  But, again, I’m not quite sure how/when that’ll happen.

I don’t have  a badge to get in the door yet, so I’ve had to wait around until 8:00 when the door is unlocked.  And I’ve been doing the training thing from 8:30 to 5:00, which means I’m hitting the worst of the traffic.

The commute took roughly an hour the first day…  But then I got stuck in some horrific traffic the next few days.  There were some accidents on the highway.  So one day it took me two hours to get home, and the next it was an hour and a half.

I’m hoping that if I can work some slightly different hours – 8-4 maybe – then I could avoid some of that traffic and make the commute less painful.  But I don’t know if that will actually be possible or not.

So…  Yeah…

Still not sure what the commute looks like, still not sure how I’ll be getting to and from work, still not sure what the actual job looks like…

It’s weird.  I certainly appreciate the training.  It’s great to learn more about the company.  When I started at the hospital they just kind of threw me right into the fire.  Same thing at the job before that, too.  Very little training, very little understanding of the industry.  So this is definitely good.

But it feels like I’m wasting time.  Feels like I ought to be doing something more productive.  Doing work, or fixing something, or at least getting to know my team.

New year.  New job.  New me?

I’m not usually big on the whole “New Year’s Resolutions” thing…  Nobody really seems to take them seriously.  It’s just something to toss out as the clock is winding down.  I don’t normally even bother to come up with one.

But…

I’ve been fat for as long as I can remember.  And I’ve never been terribly happy about it.  I’m not miserable.  I don’t hate myself.  But I do kind of wish I was more fit.  More active.  More attractive.

And, lately, my weight has started affecting my health quite noticeably.  My back and neck are sore more often than not.  My left knee has started hurting, as has my right hip.  I get out of breath very easily.  And my clothes are fitting worse and worse every day.

So…

My new employer takes employee wellness very seriously.  They’ve got an in-house fitness center, complete with an assortment of classes.  There’s weekly chair massages.  There’s an in-house organic cafe, and discounts on local organic produce in the summer.  There’s incentives to get out and exercise and things like that.

I figure that if I’m ever going to be able to actually stick to a plan and lose the weight, this is it.

My New Year’s Resolution – lose the damn weight.