…7 more to go.

…10 more to go.

My supervisor started his vacation today, which means I’m the only person in IT for the next 11 days.

It’s normally busy around here with two people, and it can be a struggle to get everything done in a timely manner.  But now we’re down to just one person…  And we’ve still got plenty of outstanding projects that I’m supposed to be working on…  As well as whatever happens to break throughout the day.

It’s noon and I’m just now sitting down at my desk for the first time today.  I didn’t even have a chance to check the backup logs and swap tapes this morning.  It’s been non-stop from the moment I walked through the door.

Yup, even PZ Myers has something to say about Real ID.

Went to see Iron Man 2 over the weekend…

Received a couple free comics at the theater.  Enjoyed the movie.  Looks like They’re coming out with a Thor movie.  Saw a trailer for Super 8.

The trailer for Super 8 reminds me a lot of the trailer for Cloverfield – dramatic and vague.  It reveals basically nothing about the movie.  Nor does the official website.

And it is being directed by J.J. Abrams.

All of which leads me to believe that I’m probably going to wind up disliking the movie.

I was really not very impressed with Cloverfield.  It looked cool…  Plenty of running and screaming…  Good special effects…  But it was more like one long action sequence than an actual movie.

The characters were introduced before the movie ever came out, via FaceBook and MySpace and YouTube.  There was no exposition or development within the confines of the movie itself.

There was no exploration of what the monster was, or where it came from, or what it wanted.  No exploration of the characters – who they were, what they wanted, why we should care about them.  No arc to any of it.  Just a monster smashing things.

And, judging from the fans that crawled out of the woodwork to incinerate my opinion, this kind of crap is typical of Abrams.

BoingBoing | Adam Savage’s Speech to Harvard Humanism Society

I would love to see the MythBusters take on some religious myths…  But I somehow doubt if their lawyers would let them.  It would probably be too dangerous.

I made it through my first week at my new job.  I think I’m doing relatively well…  Folks generally seem to be happy with the work I’m doing…

There’s a bit of a learning curve – it’s a hospital, and they’re full of medical hardware and software I’ve never seen before.  But computers are computers pretty much everywhere…  I’ve got plenty of experience with Windows and Linux and Active Directory and Cisco hardware and all that good stuff.  It’s a new environment, with new problems, but it’s basically the same thing I’ve been doing for years.

The people, however, are intimidating.

I don’t mean that there are giant, hulking trolls roaming the hallways or people threatening me with knives…  But I’ve never been much of a people person.  It takes me a while to feel comfortable around someone new.  I’m not very outgoing.  I’m not very social.  And there are a lot of new people to meet at this hospital.

I spent almost my entire first day just shaking hands and saying hello.  But that wasn’t everyone…  I’ve been meeting new folks here and there throughout the week.

It’s a little overwhelming for me, to have so many new people around…  And to try to be relatively social and outgoing around them…  To chat, say “hello” when I see them in the halls, shake hands, remember names…

Still, I’m actually having fun.  I don’t really recall the last time I could say that about my old job.  It would have been before a couple of our network engineers left…  That would be at least two or three years ago.