Today's OCD section:
Cingular has that seizure waiting to happen Frantic by Metallica as a ring tone. And I still can't get Freddie's Dead or B.O.B. Bastards. I even tried a few other sites with no luck. Jamster wants a monthly fee, which I could do and cancel after getting two ring tones, but they don't have Freddie's Dead. A couple others had a function to test your cell phone, but they never arrived. I tried twice to download from Sony, and neither of those ever arrived, either. It's a conspiracy! So, Creeping Death, maybe?

I don't know what was wrong with me Saturday. I didn't get enough sleep, as usual, but also woke up with one of those needling headaches that made me want to cradle my head in my hands and avoid loud noises and bright light. Add to that my lack of appetite and not enough water (and the heat), my batteries were dragging. (If only I could sustain thatlack of appetite...) We did manage to hit a few more antique stores. One was in an old building in my hometown. It smelled so strongly of mildew that it burned my eyes. In the back half of the store past some bookshelves used as barriers, there were just huge piles of crap. Over those, as well as a few other areas, were places where the ceiling had sagged and fallen from leaks. Blegh. I bet those couches will smell of mildew when someone buys them. And still no luck on a cabinet.

I may be given responsibility for a system at work that is now being handled by a lady who is retiring in a week. I was told that it may be worthy of a promotion, which is the only way we have been able to get a raise in several years (beyond the 2% yearly performance increases). I'm always reluctant to push for a promotion. At every step, I've resisted. The first one was after being here 6 months, from programmer to programmer/analyst (or P/A I). It was my understanding that this usually happens after a year, so of course I was nervous. I just usually don't feel like I am worthy or self-sifficient enough to deserve these promotions, and I feel the same now. With the constantly changing environment (I haven't mentioned the newest steps to simply compile a program to the test environment, with more steps to come), new systems, and the fact that I started learning web development on the job, I'm always asking for help (which they don't mind and encourage, but still). This goes for when I'm on call, which I'm sure I've mentioned that I hate. Of course I try to retain this information and not repeat the same pleas for help. Speaking of that, if this goes through I could be taken off the regular rotation of the call list and be on call at all times for this system, which has gotten around 10 calls since last July. Not bad.

It remains to be seen how management feels about this. My boss was to meet with them this afternoon. He is also concerned that the lady is retiring, and we may not have time to gather all of her information on this system. Granted, this should have been looked into a year ago, but was not. Another possible option is to hire her on as a contractor temporarily to train people. We'll see.

And now that the couple of people who read this are bored to tears...