Steve Gadlin's piece of the Internet

When withdrawing money from the ATM, I always bypass that Fast Cash! option. Even when I’m withdrawing the same amount of money anyway… I’ll actually select withdrawal, go through all of the options, and get my cash the slow way. That Fast Cash! option always seemed so irresponsible.

This morning I used Fast Cash! I wasn’t even in a hurry. Becky left for St. Louis this morning, I’m feeling wild and irresponsible… so I withdrew cash from the ATM by pressing fewer buttons than normal.

Tonight, I’m going to eat dinner at my parents’ house.

I think that they have changed Lifesavers. I haven’t purchased a roll of those standard 5-flavor Lifesavers in a while, but I remember them taking more than 30-seconds to dissolve in your mouth. Either I’ve purchased a roll of pre-sucked Lifesavers, or they’re making them out of weaker stock nowadays.

Edited to add: No, wait, I see the problem. I was biting.

I am not dressed for today. Then again, how does one dress for whipping winds and showers of ice chunks? And how come everyone else in the city is walking casually and comfortably with their umbrellas, while I’m having to grab mine with both hands and brace my entire body, lest it whip me around the sidewalk?

I suppose I lose umbrellas so much because I hate them so much. I must have missed a very elementary lesson early on in life that makes me so inept at using one of these simple machines.

On the way to work from the train I had to take cover in a building entrance, because the wind was so insane, and the hail was stinging my whole body. I stepped out to give it a second try, made it ten feet, and was then pushed back ten feet, right back into the doorway. Meanwhile, little girls were prancing by with their pretty little pink umbrellas, cutting through the wind like a knife through butter.

Why is it that once you learn a word for the very first time, you start hearing it everywhere, as if the whole world had been using that stupid word every single day. Suddenly, it’s like, hey, this is everyone’s favorite word ever, and it has always been everyone’s favorite word ever, and everyone in the whole wide world is hip to how cool this freaking word is but you, and you’re a big dummy, and also you stink like a butt.

So, yeah. Yesterday, Becky was lamenting her complete lack of espadrilles. Had we not been wandering around DSW at the time, I would have assumed she was talking about flowers. I would have come back with something witty like, “Hey, we don’t even have a garden, toots!” Instead, I looked around the shoe store dumbly and said, “what’s an espadrille?”

Well, now I know. It’s some kind of show, with some kind of tie thing, and lots of ropy things, or something like that. See, up until now, I’ve been stupidly using the word shoe when the whole freaking world has been saying espadrille.

Welp, here it is, my last week at my job. The new guy has been trained, and this week I’ll be letting him do most of the work while I peer over his shoulder and make “tsk” noises when he does something wrong. But once Friday rolls around, the web sites are all his. I feel like someone who has just given up their teen-aged children for adoption.

Today I released the first episode of the Chicago Improv Network Podcast. This will be exciting to very few people, so don’t click on that link unless you’re prepared to be a little bored for 15 minutes.

DSTW went very well on Saturday. We packed up the house. We can officially chalk up last week’s tiny audience to Easter weekend, as we played to full houses in the shows surrounding it on either side. We don’t have a show this upcoming Saturday due to the Chicago Improv Festival, and it will be nice to have a week off. Becky leaves for St. Louis on Wednesday, so I’ll go a few nights without her. I’m glad we won’t have to rush off to DSTW when she gets back into town on Saturday.

Becky leaves for St. Louis on Wednesday, you say? Oy! How will I make it on my own for three nights? She said she was going to pack up some dinners for me, but I have a feeling more than one night will be spent passed out on the couch in my underpants next to an empty pizza box, some beer cans, and an XBox controller.

I kid.

I do not trust the Travel sections of our major online news outlets. Head over to MSNBC.com, or CNN.com, and click through the travel articles. They’re all ads. One of today’s articles even touts the glorious travel rewards programs of several major credit cards.

Yeesh.

Last night Paul and I performed some Sasha and The Noob bits at the Schadenfreude Rent Party in Bucktown. It was a neat crowd, and a fun show. After our performance, I had a spazmo allergy attack, and couldn’t stop coughing. I think it was the closest I’ve ever come to an asthma attack. It was pretty rough. Once I got outside, though, and caught some fresh air, everything was cool. I think the smokey bar, in conjunction with my already-restricted breathing, just pushed me over the edge.

This morning I’m A-OK.

After today, I have one more week of work in this cubicle farm.

I’ve been “Netflixing” episodes of The Ali G Show over this past week. I’m not actually a Netflix subscriber… I subscribe to Blockbuster online. But Netflix has become the verb, and it would sound silly to say, “I’ve been Blockbuster Onlining episodes…”

I have the same problem with my ReplayTV, and often end up using Tivo as the verb, so I don’t have to explain what a ReplayTV is.

Anyway.

The Ali G Show. The guy behind this stuff is a freaking genius, and he is so freaking brave. I’d rank him up there with Dom Joly, the guy behind Trigger Happy TV, as one of the most important pioneers in the history of the Prank Television genre.

This stuff is so much more important than it’s given credit for. With the millions of poorly produced and weakly thought-out iterations of prank television on the tube nowadays, it’s easy to cast it all into the same silly category. But some of this stuff is really great, and really pushes the genre forward.

ASdglaghasg. I sound like a dummy defending this stuff. Pick up season 1 of the Ali G show if you haven’t seen it yet. Funny stuff.

Tonight, Paul and I head out to the Gallery Cabaret to perform a 5-minute slot in Schadenfreude‘s rent party. We’ll tell a few jokes, and maybe even sing a song. There will be plenty of other acts performing as well. I think we’re going up third.

7 days left at my current job…

My replacement at my current job starts today, and I get to start training him. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been the sole webfellow here for almost four years now, and thus far my code has been very private. There’s always so much more to the actual code for a project than the part that the users see on their screens. So any kudos I’ve received thus far for my work has really only been acknowledging the thin skin of user interface on top. The code has been a black box to everyone but me.

Today, though, I get to show it to somebody! And soon, instead of being my code, it will be their code.

I’m pretty sure they will roll their eyes several times at my code. I never took part in any real programming curriculum. I’ve taught myself most of what I know, and I’ve developed some pretty strange programming methods. The new guy has been trained in a fairly traditional manner, and I’m sure that much of my code will appear ridiculous to him. Or… brilliant. Either way, it gets the job done. Most of the time.

Including today, I have 10 more days of working as the webmaster for a real estate investment firm. After my last day, I’m taking two weeks off to wrap up a bunch of freelance projects, play the heck out of a new video game, and do a little traveling.

Shwap!@#

Lessee… it’s been a few days. Where to start?

I’ve been pretty busy with freelance projects over these past few days, and have also been battling some pretty hardcore allergy attacks. Joy.

I think, though, that I’m approaching the tail end of them. My eyes are somewhat stable now, and I think I can cope with the chronic stuffiness for a while. I have a big ol’ nose. It takes a lot to get it real stuffed up.

I think that’s it. I will spend much of this weekend coding. I have two more weeks at my current job. When April is complete, I will take two weeks off before starting my new job, the web guy for Chicago Public Radio.

I’m looking forward to the two weeks off, though “off” probably isn’t the best word to describe them. I’ll take that time to wrap up several lagging projects. I’m also going to take a trip to Columbus to visit some friends that I keep promising I’ll visit.

If there’s anything this last month has proven to me, it’s that I’m damned good at what I do. And while certain people always leave me feeling incredibly inadequate and unfocused, that’s hardly the truth of the matter. This has also been a month of learning that it’s actually pretty easy to figure out who your real friends are, if you just trust what your gut is telling you.

Some month.

There are great things on the horizon!

I think the Jack in the Box is the perfect metaphor for my life. Not so much for the way it leaps out and startles people, though that’s something I enjoy… moreso for its need to explode ruthlessly from its comfortable little box in a very measured, predictable way.

I put in my 3-weeks notice at my job at the end of the day yesterday. I’ll be starting a new job in May, a very exciting job that I just couldn’t pass up. Still, though, putting in my notice was a very heavy event. I’m glad the awkwardness is out of the way, but I still feel like I’m carrying a very big weight on my back. Leaving a job when you’re 30 is a lot different than leaving a job when you’re 26 (my age when I left my last job). It just feels like one of those decisions you’re not supposed to make, even when it’s the right thing to do.

Over the next few weeks I expect that worry to disappear. Every time I think about this new job, I get excited. I’ll be leading web development for a large-market public radio station. The environment will be far more comfortable for me than the uber-corporate cubicle farm I’m in now. They’re currently occupying temporary office space at Playboy.Com’s old office, so when I start working, I’ll be walking on purple carpeting. In my Chuck Taylors. And my jeans. Old jeans.

Just typing about it is helping.

I scheduled some down-time in between jobs, so hopefully I’ll have a chance to work on some personal projects, and travel around a bit to visit old friends.

I’ve spent the last 4 years building a very stable, responsible, and boring box around myself. I’m about to ka-splode out of that box with my silly hat, and waggle this way and that…