proteanme

Dorencbecher in mist

Originally uploaded by proteanme

This is what it looked like last Tuesday up where I work. No matter what window I looked out, it was thick with mist every where, like a loose fitting cloud bank had draped itself over the campus. I wouldn’t call it magical, but it was a little other worldly. I had a hard time concentrating on getting my work done; I wanted to check out the ghost world from as many vantage points as I could. I guess it’s a result of the micro climate of the West Hills where OHSU sits at about 500 feet elevation – twice the height of good old Paoli Peaks. By the way, did anyone ever go there? If I remember right, there was a ski club at IU and they planned trips to Paoli Peaks, but even then, before I moved to Portland, skiing in Indiana seemed kinda silly. But I’m digressing. The mist gave way to sun shine in the afternoon and I got to ride home in an unusual blast of warm fall air. I’m getting more settled in at my new job, but I hope I never get so accustomed to it that I don’t notice the amazing stuff outside my window.

It’s been about 2 months since I gave notice at Rejuvenation, which is hard to believe because it seems like that happened just yesterday and at the same time as it seems like that was eons ago. It’s been a quiet and restrained kind of whirlwind since then – a whirlwind inside – and in lots of respects I closed the shutters for a little while, made myself as unexposed as I could so I could manage the stress of change.Leaving Rejuvenation was bitter sweet, for a lot of reasons that I don’t want to go into because this is not the best venue for that sort of thing, and I knew that when I left the job I was going to go through a period of regret and missing certain things terribly. It took a couple weeks for those feelings to kick in, but they did, of course. And knowing I was going to feel that way helped me a little, as far as not taking the feelings quite so seriously, but it didn’t make me feel any less crappy. And riding out the crappy feelings kinda sucked. Thank goodness for RU. And thank goodness that crappy feelings don’t last forever, at least the garden variety kinda crappy feelings don’t.As of today, I’ve just buttoned up a month’s worth of work at my new job and I’m starting to feel that the dizzying experience of change is unwinding. Whew. I noticed last night that I was feeling a little less hunkered down. And today at work, the learning curve felt a little less steep. Sitting here tonight I feel a little more like I am me again. Changed a bit, of course, but it’s nice to be out from under the cover of my protective shell and a little more open to the experience of newness.

Bitter melon really is bitter. I don’t why this comes as a surprise to me, but it does. I saw this recipe and the photo looked so good, I thought to myself how bitter can a melon be? Plus, I wondered if the name was a bit of a misnomer, like head cheese or sweetbread or Welsh rabbit. So I made it. Tonight. And man oh man, I couldn’t not get past the first bite. It felt like my whole face puckered up into a long “eww, that’s bitter.” Luckily, RU loved it. Love with a capitol “L.” She loved it so much she’s already lamenting the fact that I’ll probably never make it again.

I was going to try to tie in this bitter melon discovery to what it’s been like for me to start my new job. For a moment there seemed to be some obvious connection between how sometimes things are exactly what they say they are and how sometimes a new job is just a new job, but the analogy I came up with sounded a lot better before I started writing it down. Maybe it’s enough to say that “new job” like the term “bitter melon,”  is not a misnomer. It’s a job, meaning there’s work to do, and it’s new, meaning there’s a whole lot of stuff to learn. I’m still feeling a little stunned that I made such a big change, and at the same time I’m pretty heads down in the world of object oriented php, working at command line and figuring out the ins and outs of a using on a Mac. Like I said sometimes a new job is  just that.

tram at top deck

Originally uploaded by proteanme

This is how I get to work at my new job. Trippy, huh? But seriously, I’ll be riding my bike to the south water front and taking the tram up to and down from the OHSU campus everyday.Or at least that’s the plan, It’s like the Jetsons or something.

Front door

Originally uploaded by proteanme

On Friday I got obsessed with trying to capture how the sunlight was filling up certain spaces in the factory where I work. I locked up that day so it was just me, the sun, the shadows, and the creaks of warehouse. I only got two good pics (camera phone), but I think this one maybe gets at the experience a little.

Yesterday witnessed the pleasure of unexpected company and more sun and blue skies. I wore flip flops, which almost seemed decadent. Today I think I might drink some lemonade.

Still life

Originally uploaded by proteanme

If you sat at my desk and turned your head to the left, this is what you’d see, unless you were wearing the headphones and then of course they’d be out of the picture.

I kinda like the way the camera phone shoots. The light gets blown out a little and there’s no getting a close up. Reminds me of the Kodak Instamatic I had as a kid.

The king is dead; long live the king.

Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

‘Nuff said.

Yeah. Seriously. We had layoffs today. Across the company. I’m ok. For now. But for more than a handful of folks it was not ok. Not ok at all. It was grim. It was brutal. My heart is breaking here.

Seems everybody’s on Facebook these days and hardly anyone is blogging anymore. On one hand, I like being able to see what’s going on with Jim or Bec or Chris, on the other hand, I miss being part of a loose blogging comnunity.

I really love where I work, in large part because I get to do the work I love and my work is valued. But also because I have a voice here and because I can be sincere and ambitious about getting things done. Also, it feels good to work some where that has good politics.