I’m at least starting to write this at KATL (Atlanta Hartsfield). I’ve got 2 hours before departure, we’ll see how far I get. I took the early flight out of KPHF (Newport News), leaving the hotel at 5:30 EDT. It’s a long day no matter what, might as well get home mid-afternoon rather than dinner time.

$customer for $big_project seems a bit annoyed at the time I’m spending on $new_project. Of course it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that $customer is the same for $big_project as for $new_project. However, $cutomer is so large that the two projects are completely separate groups of people, located far away from each other. So they may as well be separate customers. Still, I find the idea that $customer thinks they get to dictate what I work on and what I don’t to be a bit insulting. If I don’t get experience on different projects, my value to the company is lessened, and therefore opportunities for advancement and promotion are also lessened. Besides, one never knows when experience gained on one project might prove valuable to another.

$customer is essentially saying I should derail my career for the sake of $big_project. $big_project is big enough and long term enough that we’re not just talking a couple years here. We’re talking possibly the majority of my remaining working years. Now, $big_project is incredibly cool (so is $new_project for that matter), but no amount of coolness of project is worth sacrificing my career. I’m doing well at this company, and I enjoy the work. But I’m not adverse to jumping ship if I find the company has given in and pigeonholed me. My boss certainly doesn’t want me pigeonholed, but $customer is large enough they could exert pressure higher up. Meh, I’m probably worrying for nothing.

My boss is off to Europe for a conference, and I’m covering the stuff for $big_project he would normally cover. A bit frustrating for me that we’re both on travel, but I have to cover his stuff as well as my stuff while he seemingly goes lost comm. That’s a separate gripe, but probably just a case of my being low man on the totem pole, and his knowing I’m overly responsible so he knows I’ll keep it covered. Oddly, this gives me reassurance my boss would fight any move to limit me to $big_project. My boss knows the key to keeping me is keeping my opportunities with the company open, and he knows he can rely on me to get what needs doing done.

After posting my last diary, I found a deal-breaker for Vista 64. We use the Cisco VPN client at work, and Cisco seems to have no plans to support Vista 64. Evidently when I asked our IT, either I forgot to say Vista 64 or they didn’t know Cisco’s Vista VPN client is 32 bit only (since we don’t use Vista). I suppose Cisco will eventually make a 64-bit VPN client, but at this point, I may as well go for XP. I don’t know if MS will face a lot of pressure from large customers to continue XP full support well past the current “extended support” start date. I’m not too clear MS cares much even about those customers, after all, switching to anything else is incredibly difficult for large organizations.

I remember the pain of switching from dumb terminals to desktop PC’s at the first place I worked out of school. It was long and painful, even considering we could use a terminal window to get to the mainframe apps while we switched. Switching O.S.’s now would be a monumental task for a company currently reliant on the MS OS + Exchange + Office suite. Virtual machines would have to “just work” with virtually all current apps. So it’s hard to envision a scenario now where even moderate size companies can really afford to switch.

I'm not sure if I should get 3 gig or 4. It seems the max I could get usable is about 3.5 gig and that seems iffy. I can’t tell if the /PAE switch would work with just 4 installed or if it requires more than 4 gig. The stuff I’ve found online is too vague. It also reads like programs need to be specifically complied for the /PAE switch to help, and that the switch might cause other problems. Add in the additional cost to go from 3 to 4 and unless I can find some compelling reason I’m really leaning towards 3 gigs. The only reason I can think of is if a miracle occurs down the line and MS fixes Vista with SP2, then I would likely prefer to have 4 gigs for the “upgrade” to Vista 64. Not sure I’d be able to get drivers even if I did want to go that route in a couple years or so.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got at KATL. Flight boards in about 10 minutes, and I need to put this (loaner) laptop away. If I come up with anything else I’ll add it, but otherwise I’ll post when I get home.

Oh, yeah, a bit of explanation there. The laptop was paid for by $big_project, and we’re not supposed to use it for anything else. This trip is a grey area though, as I was using the laptop to VPN into work, and spent at least some time each day catching up on email traffic on $big_project. Also, since it isn’t assigned to me I can’t install whatever I want on it. So even though I sort of have a laptop to use for travel, I’d like one that is free an clear to be used on any project.

With all due respect to smokers, WTF is up with smoking in your car with your kids in the back seat? I saw this several times in VA. Even discounting any possible cancer risk from second hand smoke, it’s at the very least an irritant. I’m quite spoiled living in CA, with the non-smoking restaurants. I’d certainly lose weight if I moved somewhere like VA, since I’d never go out to eat. I’m not trying to start a smoker’s rights flamewar here, but I’m divided on the issue. Left to make their own choice, restaurants would all have smoking sections because there’s not enough people like me to provide a market for restaurants that didn’t allow it at all. On the other hand, I’ve certainly no “right” to a smoke-free restaurant.