Staff Letters: Phil

...Then the unnamed feeling, it comes alive...

Another month already. Hmm, its been more than a month, oops. =) September was extremely busy, and the first half of October has been busy, and emotionally, um, full.

Lets start with Metallica related stuff, though. St. Anger was put back in my car's CD player a week or so after I got back from my trip - and hasn't left since. This album is just amazing, I can't stop listening to it. Everytime I think "Maybe I'll put in another CD this morning," I get in the car, and just can't turn off whatever song it's on!! This album gets better by the listen. It fucking rocks. Shoot Me Again and Unnamed Feeling seem to be the ones I've put on repeat the most lately, and Some Kind of Monster is defintely up there for songs of the month.

Every now and then I reminisce about being on the road. I covered in my last letter, as well as in the review you all get your hands on soon, what an amazing trip it was. But now that its over, and now that I've put hours upon hours into this review, I'm realizing it wasn't just awesome, it was... a different way of life. You think about things differently, and you feel differently, and you act differently when you live from city to city and day to day for that long. Its really quite awe inspiring.

So I just went through a re-org at work. I'm relatively unaffected, but my boss got fucked over big time. Basically they took management and made it verticle. They just added a bunch more levels, so everything's taller and skinnier in the org-chart. Its really rediculous. They made all these little groups of sysadmins that are primarily responsible for specific things -- but that doesn't actually work. I have a new boss, but its someone I've been working with for a while, who is very cool and I don't mind working for him; I just feel bad for my old boss who got a promotion... but a demotion at the same time because they really fucked everything up. They've made groups that don't really make sense (the group I'm in makes some sense, but none of the other ones do), they've put the "new" (hirable) positions in the group that requires the most technical understanding of how things happen at USC... it's all odd. I don't know what they were thinking. But, as I said, I'm relatively unaffected: my title is the same, my pay is the same, and in general what I do is the same. As they say, reorgs just reorg management, and the workers just continue doing work.

Hmmm. School (or since it's only one class, perhaps I should say "class"). So far, it has kicked ass! We got a 33 out of 30 on our first project (bonus points baby!), and I got a 42 out of 50 on the first test. I'm waiting for grades on the second project and the second test. I think we did awesome on the second project, although I'm not sure how well I did on the second test. But the class is a lot of fun. Its rediculously time consuming, but I'm learning tons and having fun (this is one of the few classes in college I've learned something from).

Also, I told you last month that IPOM would be getting back to full speed soon, and it has! My review will be out soon, and lots of other updates happened this weekend as you can see on the news page or in the newsletter!

Lastly, I wanted to include a few pictures of my new car. As I said in a previous letter, its a 2003 Honda S2000. Six speed manual transmission, 240 horsepower, light as a feather and convertible. Red lines at 9000 RPM! This thing flies. And it was a dream throughout the whole trip. All of the 'yellowed' ones were taken before my trip. They came out yellow because I accidentally had the white-balance on the camera on at the time. The last one was taken tonight, cause I just got my vanity plates on Friday.

Oh, and one more "hi" as well as a "thanks" to Rachel.

See you next month!
Phil

GOOD

St. Anger
Rachel - Yup, she's still hot as hell!
My new plates
Getting closer to both old and new friends
The first weekend of this month was stellar
Doing well in class (bonus points)!
Getting to the gym again

BAD

Best friends living in various far away parts of the country
Not enough time for everything
Accidentally leaving your fridge open all day

MOVIES I SAW

Kill Bill
Head of State
Die Another Day

MOVIES I WANT TO SEE

Intolerable Cruelty
Underworld
School of Rock

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