ravan

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Well fuck.

The first type of chemo failed, and put my wife in the hospital for a week in May.

We have now gone through two second opinions, and none of them will pull the thing out - "it's too risky" - the tumor is wrapped around the nerve root. Plus the next chemo is even more toxic.

They tell us that her time remaining is measured in months, not years. At this point she can't even really travel.

I hate cancer, and I hate Kaiser for slow walking this whole fucking thing.

And my heart is breaking.

So this round of chemo was worse than the last one. The second bag of stuff caused painful muscle spasms. I'm just hoping it does more damage to the fucking tumor than it does to her.

Our other cat, Coalette, had to be put to sleep Wednesday due to stage 5 kidney disease. Her sister, Speckles, died in December of the same thing. I am very sad, since we've lost the two littermates within 6 months of each other. They were both 16.

Hug and scritch your kitties today.

Update:

The roommate got his car back! (After several weeks.) They had parked it where they were about to do street sweeping, so Parking Enforcement found it and notified him. The only thing messed up on it is the brakes.

Last week I had to put my cat Speckles down.

She was not pooping, not eating, and had lost a lot of weight. I even let them keep her over at the vet for three days to try to get her kidney numbers down. It didn't work, so the only right thing was to end her pain. She was so weak, with a tiny meow.

I got her from simplykimberly (lj user simplykimberly) in 2006, and my wife got her sister Collette (aka Coal-ette). Wee bitty kittens, so adorable and cute. I have a few pictures from over the years, although she seldom stayed still for them unless she was sleeping. She was a fairly happy tortie with the requisite tortietude.

It is still sinking in that she's gone, no longer sleeping on me (and no longer deciding to make a certain area of my bed her litterbox even though we cleaned her box daily.) Her coat was always silky soft, and she liked to sit next to me as I browsed the computer, trying to strop her cheeks on my keyboard.

It will be a while before I get another cat. The vet cost me nearly $8,000, and two of our other cats are also 16 years old, which may mean more vet $$.

I got a letter from my mortgage company today. Effective immediately, my PMI is canceled/terminated. This means that after all the existing months work though the system, my monthly required mortgage payment goes down. That means if I keep paying the same amount, more goes to the principal, and less interest gets accrued. This is a very good money thing.

In other news, my mom is still at the rehab facility, with covid, but since she's vaxxed it won't kill her (I hope).

I have had seven (7!) phone calls or video interviews just today alone. I've had an average of two or more per day for the last several weeks.

Here are some observations:

Videoconferencing:
1. Microsoft Teams just sucks. Don't use it if you are interviewing a Linux sysadmin - it apparently doesn't work well on Linux, even though there is a client for Linux. Yes, I tried the client for Linux and it wouldn't even start. It also doesn't run well at all on Firefox, and only sort-of runs on Chrome.
2. WebEx is better, but not by a lot. Both browsers complained about video codecs that had to be separately installed, FFS.
3. Google Hangouts works okay, but it works better in Chrome than Firefox
4. Slack video huddles just kinda suck.
5. Zoom just works, even if the unpaid version won't let me blur my background

Recruiters:
1. Some are really great, and will admit when they don't know technical stuff
2. Some are so-so - they talk to fast, or are flakier than I can be.
3. Some overschedule themselves and then end up flaking
4. The worst are ignorant and pushy, and try to push you to take lower pay. I have my floor set for a reason, and it's not an unreasonable amount. If I were AMAB I'd be asking for twice as much and getting it.
5. I hate recruiters that lie, and say "Oh, yeah. it's remote" when they mean "remote unless local", "remote until covid restrictions are eased by the government" or "hybrid". No folks, as long as I can get a deadly disease by going into some nasty germ pit open plan, I'm not commuting to your damned office to sit out in the open with a bunch of strangers doing what I can do probably better from home. Don't bullshit me, I will find out the truth.

Interviewers:
1. Interviewers are all over the map.
2. The worse are the ones that try to "catch you out". Look, if you want to e adversarial in an interview, fine, but that doesn't say much for your culture
3. I don't memorize each different tool's special names for things. I didn't learn stuff in a boot camp, I learned it by doing.
4. I really get sick of what I call "Gotcha Boys" who just want to prove how smart they are at your expense. No, I don't want to work with assholes like that. BTDT, BTT.

Interview structure:
1. Coding tests - I know they are ubiquitous, and I intellectually understand why you have to give them.
2. God damn it I hate stupid hackerrank and other shared code challenge IDEs with a passion. They really suck.
3. If these people expect me to know everything about the tech or tools they are using, they are living in a fantasy. I've probably forgotten as many different tools and the modern "DevOps" person knows.
4. In five years the "new hotness" will have changed again, but the thing I bring to the table is the ability to learn, on the fly if need be, whatever I need to do the job. Sure, some stuff I don't *like* doing, but if it was needed, I'd learn it, do it, and hand it off to someone else as soon as possible.
5. Five hour marathons talking to half a dozen people - I don't know whether I hate this or "panels" more. Is your company run by a committee too? Let me talk with the people I'll be working with. You should have enough cross training on your team that they can ask questions in my domain.

Companies:
1. No, advertising your funky, but still open plan office will not make me want to go there. I get along better with people over chat or video than do in person. In person people expect me to perform gender for them, and judge me on what their perception of my gender is when I don't fit it well at all.
2. Remote it doesn't matter if I'm disabled, I'll never have to walk with you or climb stairs to your "office". I want to be judged on what I can do, not whether all my limbs work correctly.
3. Three weeks total "PTO"?? What skinflints! If you get sick, or have doctor or dentist appointments you don't get any vacation? Seriously, that sucks. Sick time and vacation aren't the same, stop treating them like it.
4. "Unlimited" vacation often means zero vacation, unless the company specifies a minimum each year. Sure, it's an accounting dodge, but it also can be used to burn people out by it never being the right time to "permit" a vacation.
5. While "total compensation" sounds nice, stock plans, and bonuses are often vaporware, and don't pay the bills. I have worked hard for my expertise, pay me in something real.
6. Quit looking for people who have the exact mix of skills that you think you need today, and instead hire someone who is accustomed to learning and teaching themselves new stuff. If you want a unicorn, you'll be looking for a long time. I can't get the horn to stick on my forehead.

May you have many more.

Happy Birthday to weofodthignen!!