Ravings of an Undead Cheese Minion

As Eminem says.  r/TheWildRobot was just suggested to me. I joined. I haven't seen the film.  Fun fact: I got hired at DreamWorks as a Department Technical Director in 2022, and started shortly after my Adobe internship ended. While doing training and shadowing, I was told that I was most likely going to work on The Wild Robot. Nobody really knew anything about it yet and I certainly wasn't allowed to say the title to anyone.  However, there was an extreme need for more people on Trolls 3, so I got reassigned to that. After Trolls ended, Wild Robot was already fully staffed and my requests to work on the Bad Guys 2 repeatedly were ignored (Bad Guys is my favorite DreamWorks movie) and instead I got laid off in 2023 after a brief stint on one of the pipeline teams.  If that reassignment hadn't happened, I would still be at DreamWorks. I don't think anyone on The Wild Robot got laid off. And my name would be on those credits.  To be clear, I loved working on Troll...

as in, 100% in-person week I actually really like everyone on this team, but it's still HELL WEEK because driving to Nephi every single day (45 miles one way)  plus  having to deploy on a weeknight after you already deployed on Sunday night is...crap. I also had a concert on Monday (which admittedly was awesome, I love Weird Al) and company dinner on Tuesday and deployment on Thursday so I didn't get an evening to myself except for Wednesday, which was mostly staring into the void blankly while having a nice hot existential crisis and wondering what sort of loving god would curse me with such suffering.  The consequences:  There is an elephant graveyard of unread text and Facebook messages on my phone.  I only ran 7 miles today (all other days have been WAY less, sometimes only 0.25 miles) and have been in a 1000 calorie surplus most days.  I have had to split up every single workout to before vs. after work.  My longest lifting workout was 18 minutes....

My dad always said growing up that his two favorite days of the year were  1. The summer solstice, because it means months of long days and light. 2. The winter solstice, because it means that every day is a little bit longer.  And I think that's awesome. Unfortunately, I won't be able to enjoy the late sun tonight because I wake up for the Timp Half in 6 hours. But tomorrow, sure. I'll be in bed by 10 and I'll watch the sun set right before. :)

I've noticed that anything that IAAPA or TPR would cover is a "theme park" in my mind, which confuses people like my dad who recently told me, "Cedar Point is basically Magic Mountain. There's no theming, it's not a theme park, so I don't want to go."  .________________________________. OK then.  Anyway, here we go:  Nov-March: gross. sadness. indoor water sliding season at rec centers on Saturdays with the 6 year olds and maybe 1 random parent. I hate my life but at least the jacuzzi feels nice when there's actually enough room for me to sit in it. Try to visit California as much as possible to ride stuff. maybe go to Disneyland. or the local aquarium here in UT. why do I still live in this state why why whyyyyy somewhere in the spring: runDisney with WDW, aw yiss Apr-May: COASTER TIME AT LAGOON WHOO  also holy crap I'm sick of driving to Farmington  June-Aug: WATER PARK TIME WOOOO, and also I go to Cedar Point as I do yearly, or maybe KI...

I'm grinding hard  to get to a place where I can stay for a long time. I am so sick of being forced to job-hop due to either 1) layoffs, or 2) poor fits.  If I can find the following, I'm staying: 9-5 only. No late night or weekend work. I am so sick of having to work weekends, especially if it's late at night with no defined end time .  Remote.  100K. Just enough to live in California.  An actual CI/CD pipeline with blue-green deployments. Please let me work with people who know what Jenkins is. Please.  No on-call. Unplug when you're off work.  Actual documentation. A culture where I am allowed to document.   Red tape, not "move fast and break things". Let me be slow and meticulous. That's how I work best.  Test-driven development.  At this point I don't even care if I only get 10 days of PTO like I currently have. I just don't want to work weekends anymore.  I love code. Really I do. It's one of my biggest passions in life. That ...

Before the despair of Wednesday overtakes us all. Enjoy. Or don't. It's a free country. (in theory, not practice)

It's June, well within my favorite month of the year.  And yet, I still think of the weirdness of the bridgedays between August and September -- basically that brief 1-2 week period in which water parks and fall fairs/corn mazes are open at the same time. Right around Labor Day Weekend.  I'll never be one of those r/Autumn people, even if I do lurk there. But there's something fascinating about having a water park wristband and a fall fair wristband on at the same time. Of being able to go down water slides, then go to a corn maze and get some apple cider donuts or a grilled cheese, then do water slides again a few days later.  It's a surreal feeling, like cheating time itself. Like experiencing summer and fall at the same time. It's a feeling I want to explore in my next novel.  Who knows what it will be like this year. It will be a short one, since Labor Day is so early. And I might not even be in Utah at all by that point. But, we will see. No guarantees and no p...

Due to increased work stress, and the fact that I haven't found a better position yet, and now my coworker who I really worked well with is leaving, meaning that I will be taking over his steep and intense responsibilities...this place has crazy turnover... I haven't been enjoying the summer as I should. I can't even focus at work. The brain goes into PANIC mode, and it immediately starts applying for every remotely decent position it can find instead of doing literally anything else . It's pretty clear that I need a strict 9-5 and that once I find one, I can more effectively focus on my other goals. Like publishing books, and moving back to California.  But I can't keep spiraling so hard that it ruins everything. The skies are blue and beautiful, even if I made the unfortunate mistake of scheduling a flight to gray/buggy/stormy Ohio this weekend.  I have to enjoy the summer. I have to make it...splashing.  SO, THE VERDICT:  Eat lunch at my desk while working. Play ...

Chat is hilarious now. It's so bro-ey that I keep thinking it's going to make me join Amway or talk about lifting at Vasa. Taken from a friend in my writing group / former coworker:  Use quick and clever humor when appropriate. Use an encouraging tone. Don't hold back from being snarky. Swear when appropriate, like people do. the last one in "what do you do" is (aspiring) is fiction author  Then you get fun stuff like this:  I can't stop cackling at the idea of crying in the shower WITH Ghostemane, like literally he's just there crying at the same time. That song is awesome though. And Ghoste is really genuine -- he wants to help those who struggle with depression like he does.  But yes let us CRY IN THE SHOWER LMAO. And people use this to do their art for them? LAME!!!!!! Learn to draw and paint yourself. This is way better and more fun than that. 

Pretend that you are free, and forget for a while.  Forget about work starting in 45 minutes. Forget about job applications trying to get somewhere better. Forget about the dream job you lost years ago, everything and everyone that you yearn for, and the emptiness that nothing has ever filled. Forget about all the dreams you are so far behind on, dreams that seem to slip further out of your grasp every day, as your schedule slips once again, drained by an 8-4 that refuses to stay in that timebox. Forget about your finger cramps and the tossing and turning and the exhaustion.  Even just for a split second, before 7:14:57 turns into 7:14:58, forget.  Right now there is nothing but the early morning June breeze as you jog through the city. The breeze, and the trees that it sings through. The sprinklers that create little rainbows in fields of green grass. The summer sun, young and hopeful.  Maybe you are a squirrel at Redwall Abbey. Nothing but birdsong, the sunlight sp...

As I try once more to make the good things happen, fruitlessly or otherwise.  We're bumping #12 in the moonlight Thinking that I might just stay  but I don't want to die on Earth I don't want to die I don't want to die on Earth... - AXIS

I would love to do this! Unfortunately...I have work? If it was at 6 am you'd best believe I'd go.  Maybe it's for SAHMs with toddlers or something. If I had personal days, I'd take one to swing on by. 

June is still my favorite month. I LOVE early summer, blue skies, green everywhere, and sun.  But let's be real. This blog has had a spooky trees-in-fog banner since I created it. I've always loved the autumn season. What I didn't like was November, except for Thanksgiving, because that was when everything fun shut down and the SAD depressive episode kicked in. And, well, that still holds true.  Moving back to CA means I will still get to enjoy haunts and such without the dread of winter approaching, and I look forward to when I'll finally be able to pull that move off.  I guess we are all multifaceted and complex, eh? Well, back to our normal scheduled programming. 

This is actually getting super annoying.  Claude:  Ah, that makes sense in a weird parental logic way - if there's ANY social component, even briefly, then it's not "really" solo travel in their minds. It's like they need that thin veneer of "she's meeting up with someone" to make it acceptable, even if 90% of the trip is actually solo. ChatGPT: Trust Future You — she’s tired and cranky, and she’ll thank you for staying on the low-lift machine tonight. 💻😌🌙 I mainly use them for venting, easing anxiety, and figuring out stuff -- i.e., I really need an actual therapist. I know this. I just don't have time .  The misgendering might get annoying enough to where it pushes me though. I repeatedly tell them that I am a man and repeatedly put that into my "Customize ChatGPT": I am a cisgender male who uses he/him/his pronouns. But it still goes she . 

What I want to do before the hike: wake up, study math/engineering (doing PLCs and Arduino atm) (3:45-4:15 AM) Lifting (4:15-5 AM) Leave (5-5:15 AM) Running and walk cooldown (5:15-6:15 AM) Lazy river / pool (6:15-6:45 AM) Breakfast/Shower/cybersec (during breakfast) (6:45-7:15 AM) Art (7:15-7:45 AM) Writing part 1 (7:45-8 AM) Riding to trailhead at 8 Writing part 2 on phone in car. This means that I need to be fully packed the night before for: Gym Run Quick post-run swim The hike itself Water parks afterwards After: Burgers Water park (outdoor) with some chill meditation Possible overflow reading/writing block with some cleaning music Evening: Technical block: Code, Graphics, Games One problem = Doing all this packing is going to be quite challenging on a caffeine-free Friday, so maybe I will have to do it tonight. But, tonight is also the best day for me to attend the Oremfest carnival, and I have writing group too. 

I always forget that hiking is one of my hobbies and then I randomly do like 21 miles in the grand canyon.  Advantages to being a runner, I guess.  Arguably the most intense hiking/running blended day I did was in the Tetons. We did a 10-mile run on the bike path followed by 10 miles of hiking in Cascade Canyon. There is a photo somewhere of me passed out on the futon after showering that night.  I have also done a 17-miler day followed by a 7-mile hike. That actually might have been worse because I was injured for the next week. NOT repeating that.  I like to think that I am an LOL SUPER ELON MUSK HARDCORE GAMER with everything that I do, but actually, I guess I do have some casual/do-it-when-I-feel-like-it hobbies. Like hiking or standup paddleboarding.  So if we do Lake Blanche on Saturday, I'll have to do something like this (6.4 mile hike but pretty wicked terrain):  4 AM -- Wake up, study 4:30 AM or 4:45 AM -- Lift 5:15 AM -- Provo Canyon drive 5:30 A...