unsustainable work schedules v1 + weirdly meditative experience on X-Flight

It's not fun when work pulls a fast one and tells you on Monday, "Oh, by the way, we are working on Sunday night." when we normally only do that once a month (which is still dumb. This is computer science, not IT support. Even IT support is better because you at least know what time you are logging off.) 

CI/CD, people. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE USE JENKINS SOMEONE PLEASE I AM SO TIRED OF HAVING TO SHUT DOWN THE SYSTEM AND DEPLOY CODE ON RANDOM NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS. I HAD A CHICAGO TRIP PLANNED. 

90s-ass software development. Why. Adobe was not like this. Sling was not like this. BYU ASG wasn't like this. DreamWorks wasn't like this. Even SimpleNexus wasn't like this. All of my previous companies had actual deployment pipes!!!!

This is why I am going to be leaving like Jesse McCartney once possible. 

THE SUNDAY OF AUGUST THE 24TH

4:30 AM Illinois time wake up after 9.5 hours riding coasters at Six Flags Great America the night before and sleeping just under 6h. Drink Crystal Light Energy and Monster Zero Ultra 

5:20 AM head to airport. 

6:25 AM get lost in random Chicago neighborhoods trying to find a working gas station for the rental, return rental 

6:45 AM breakfast at Dunkin 

8 AM flight home

11:45 AM Utah time some lunch at panda express in order to distract myself from the abyss we've been hurtling toward since birth 

12:15 PM IBS (I Be Suffering) in the SLC toilets 

1:30 PM work because the field maps forms got sooooooo fucked 

3:30 PM holy hell my back hurts, take walk at Riverwoods and pop Tylenol

5:30 PM dinner 

6 PM work 

7:07 PM stop and wonder WTF just happened, adrenaline and caffeine crash begins 

I gotta say, though, Six Flags Great America is pretty awesome. I got 15 new roller coaster credits, bringing my total count of roller coasters ridden to 165. I'll come back because 2 coasters were closed, and because it's a solid, super fun park! 

Riding on X-Flight, in particular, was legitimately meditative, much like its tamer cousin Gatekeeper at Cedar Point. Flipping in the air and facing a baby blue sky with puffy clouds on a warm summer day is...incredible. Like one of those rare moments where you go "man, maybe everything really is going to be okay."

(Gatekeeper is amazing -- my favorite Cedar coaster that isn't one of the Big 4: Mav, Millie, SteVe, and TT2. Left side, edge seat is best because you can watch the waves on Lake Erie. The whole ride is just so relaxing. It's like being rocked to sleep. X-Flight is similar, but it's more intense)

And I DID get last train of the night on Goliath which was pretty sick ngl. I've found that I have to put my hands up on it to avoid the worst of any early-era RMC roughness. And it's more fun that way. Meanwhile on American Eagle 🇺🇸🦅🦅🎆🎇🔫🍔🍟🌯🥤😭🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🌎🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🏈🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅 I was gripping the bar the entire time to brace myself and that made it way more fun to minimize the rattle. I did NOT think Wrath of Rakshasa (which I like to call Wrath of Shakira because my brain read it wrong at first lol) was that rough and I found it to be quite fun. And Sky Striker was my favorite of its general type of flat ride. It's a Giant Discovery. FAR scarier than Crazanity and Maxair (Giant Frisbees), both of which are all bark and no bite, once again like being rocked to sleep -- not so with Sky Striker. Actually Sky Striker gave me similar feelings to the KMG Black Out and Speed rides. Exhilarating. And this little kid next to me was sarcastically going "ooh, so SCARY" the entire time 😂

Also, someone jacked my Rockbros shades at Batman. Now I am going to have to buy more and those were not cheap. That's not going to look good at the pearly gates, bro. Stealing is bad, dude. Now pardon me as I go to pirate some anime...ahem. 

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