A funny thing happened on my way to Oz

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything but I’ll be catching up as I have time.

With Christmas and New Years rolling through, the first week in January was supposed to be my last week at work. The plan was to come in for four days, wrap up any paperwork, and basically cruise for four days before leaving on that Sunday evening.

Well, I was out of my apartment and living with my parents on LI. Leaving at 5:45AM, you don’t really run into any traffic going from LI to Westchester. That first Monday I get a call from the HR guy saying that I would have to be physically present at Regeneron on Friday the 13th if I wanted my bonus, even though I worked that whole year.

So the scrambling started. getting in touch with Oz to make sure I could push off my start date by a week. Clearing it with the parents that I could stay another week. Changing my flight on Qantas and paying $350 to change my flight. My boss was fine either way. I would have to burn 5 vacation days as I was done with everything, and there was no way I was going to drive in to Tarrytown another 5 days.

So things sort of worked out. The boss found some work I could do from home - report writing. I was putting together a year’s worth of experiments in graphs, tables, and a Word document. All the graphs had to be consistent. All raw data for all the graphs need to be tabled and inserted into the doc. All statistics had to be tabled and inserted. Everything had to be arranged and spaced correctly in the doc. And it turns out that Word doesn’t really like so much inserting and changing and started crashing on me every 3 actions or so. Joyous. Five days and 150 pages later, my 10 meg Word document was done, and that was just the figures, no text.

Long story short, I think I had to use 6 hours of vacation time instead of 5 days, so it was nice to get paid out instead of having to use it.

Back to more fun stuff - Friday the 6th was the rodeo. Pete did a great job organizing 100+ tickets and only came out one or two tickets short. Katie and I ended up helping with tickets, and I spent a good part of the rodeo getting people into their seats. We were in two sections so it was a little confusing. Spent a good amount of time talking with Asha and Reifel. Those Seattle girls are fantastic. I had met Tina and Tae on Marathon Sunday and knowing that I wasn’t going to get to know them better was the first time I felt bad about leaving. Tae has fantastic musical taste (thank you Spotify). Anyhoo, it was a good time, and I ended up taking Pete home after we closed down the bar.

It’s a good thing that my flight got pushed off. I didn’t make it back home to LI until Saturday afternoon and there was no way I was ready to start packing if I was originally supposed to do for a Sunday departure. The actual packing started a week later, and between my awesome mother and I, we got everything done in three days.

I did go back to work on the 13th for like three hours. Did some Chase stuff before going in, got a new ATM card (one that worked), did my exit interview, hung out for a bit, then we went out to lunch.

I got some interesting company news before I left. We’re in a hiring freeze and every position is being evaluated, which means some people are going to get shifted or fired. My position was deemed important enough that they are going to shift another tech from within my group from one scientist to my (old) boss. I think it was a good time to get out. I’m just going to miss the 13% raise they gave me and all those stock options.

Up next, the move. After the Giants game at a bar at 10am on a Monday.

I quit my job today. Unofficially.

I went in to my boss’ office and let her know that I accepted my new position and that I wanted to stay through the end of the year so that we could finish all the projects for this year and then I’d have a week to wrap up my affairs. She took it well I guess. She said she understood the reasons why and good luck, so I’m hoping that’s a positive thing. I would quit today if I could get paid out for the rest of the year. That’s what I’m really aiming for - getting paid for the week off between Christmas and New Years and then reaping the rewards of putting yet another antibody candidate on the path to IND.

Otherwise, things are going well. Friday’s wine event was super fun. Sent some QT with Ms. Brie there and afterwards at D&B. Saturday rocked - I did 4 jumps that were just easy and fun and a bit challenging. Got some great video that I really need to start putting together. Sunday was also really fun - UES for the Marathon, sipping a Blood Mary at 9am, then partying out with Pete for the rest of the day.

I finished my last BSM article last night and shipped it off. It’s nice to be free and clear so now I can wrap up all the little things, like putting together 4 months of video, starting to pack, and slimming down my life.

For whatever reason I’m awake and not sleeping on the train like I normally do. So I’m writing.

Off to work, for the last time where my boss thinks I’m staying. On Monday I become a short-timer. The beginning of the end is here. Wahoo!

Caught up with Sheamus and we’ll be heading up to the Ranch tomorrow. I’m going to have a lot of stuff to carry home and it’s going to be freezing. I was thinking of doing a mount to the visit of my G2 for the GoPro but I got lazy last night and it really needs a day to cure. Guess I’ll be cold tomorrow.

Ok…best NYC weekend of the year - GO!

Today my picture of Jess was featured on iloveskydiving.net. It was just a screen grab from her 300th jump two weeks ago off my CX300. It’s pretty rad though, her dancing on a field of clouds. I’m getting famous. That is all. Respect.

It’s ben a few days since I’ve written anything. I think with the excessive writing I did, I needed a break, but now I’m back. Train time is writing time.

Finally got back to the gym this past weekend. Been way to long, but felt good, that sore hurt feeling that you’ve done something. I’m wondering right now if I’m going to punk out tonight and not go. Come on, determination!

My visa is almost done. Applied for health insurance and got approved, but there was one flaw. I don’t know if it was an error on my part, but instead of starting in January (01), the paperwork has the insurance starting in October (10) of next year. I wrote them back immediately to fix the error but that was Sunday and I haven’t heard anything from them yet. It’s getting irritating. I hope I don’t get ill or anything. God know how long that might take.

Went out on Tuesday to see Chrissy on her return. She was back to get her working visa for Italy. She seems pretty happy living abroad. It was reassuring to great that she’s handling the experience well. We all got pretty wasted on wine and then they gave us a bottle of colored sugary alcohol, which rated like ass but Andy, Erin, and I finished. Horrible hangover the next day- too much sugar and once again I really didn’t have dinner. Again, my own fault.

So here I am at the precipice of my favorite weekend of the year, Marathon weekend. Leta is flying in for a wine event, going to the Ranch on Saturday to clean out my licker for good, then marathon drinking for the Marathon on Sunday.

Then on Monday, I quit my job. I’m giving Vika 60 days so she can bridge the gap. Hopefully she’ll be amenable to the schedule I’ve worked out. I really just want to be around long enough to get my bonus. After that I couldn’t care less. I’ll give my official notice right before Christmas. Get paid for the week between Christmas and New Years, then cash out.

I’m thinking of making a Dead mau5 head for NYE. Getting the base items and cutting it all should be easy. Doing the outside fabric might be tricky. Plus I’m not sure what theme I want to do. Any electronics will be extra and more tricky.

63 days left. Making them count. Train time over.

A great chillaxing weekend. Slept in on Saturday, got breakfast before the rain turned into snow, updated my logbook, transferred video, and played five hours of Dead Island. Total heaven. Heard from Gwen briefly and decided to blow off Halloween. It’s a great holiday, but I suck at making costumes. I don’t know. The Ranch party was postponed by a week so maybe I’ll put something together. Whatever.

Slept in again this morning, went to the gym, got breakfast, and now I’m watching the Giants suck it up against the Dolphins. Probably going to do some video edits later. It’s still pretty gross out. Snow in October is lame.

Two days in a row with Jasmine. I think we’re going steady. Pumpkin carving tonight.

Today wasn’t so bad. My eye is feeling better. Less tearing, less swollen. Work wasn’t too bad either. Got a bunch of work done, plus I took a nice chunk out of my Socks article, enough that I’m going out tonight. A decent thousand words but it’ll need some reorganization. I can take care of that tomorrow.

I couldn’t imagine writing all the time, or even a novelist. My head hurts trying to get out a two page article.

Still waiting on medical stuff for my visa. I told Michelle that I was leaving. She was excited but I think she’s going to miss my plotting. I told her about the plan for Larry. We worked out some possibilities for her getting paid more for being a manager. It’s a work in progress.

On my way home from work on metro north. I’m not going to miss this commute at all. I can say that it’s a big contributing factor as to why I’m leaving. I’ve given three hours a day over the last 7 years to traveling by train to work. I’m going to have to check my math on paper but at 3 hours per day, 5 days per week, over 7.5 years, that’s almost 8 months of 24 hour days that I’ve lost to commuting. Unbelievable.

Anyway, it’s day two are having my bleph fixed. I feel like it’s slipped a little but it’s still markedly better than before. Still swollen and it still looks like I got mashed in the face, but I’m healing.

I didn’t do any writing today and I don’t plan on it. I needed a break. The Socks article is pretty complex, and I’m going to have a time figuring how to get it to flow. The themes are there, I just need to get it jump started and it’ll go. Talked to Rob lsat night and his perspective is definitely going to help.

What else…working on health insurance for AUS. Need that to come through for the visa application. It’s hard being 14 hours off. Communication takes an extra day for everything.

Spending some quality time with Jasmine tonight. Watching a scary movie - Paranormal Activity 3. Should be good. Maybe pumpkin carving tomorrow, but I really do need to get this Socks article going.

On the Grand Central 7 platform, so I might as well write some more. Talked to Larry yesterday about stepping in to the hole that I’m going to leave. It’ll be my last, or close to last schemeat work. The way I figure it, he could move into a better working environment with Vika, and he could actually get something out of it, like a respectable bonus at the end of the year for pushing forward new drug targets. I’ve gotten three across in the last four years while most people haven’t gotten one. He’s worried about causing WW3, but there’s not much anyone could do about it if Vika agrees. Esther will be pissed, but fuck her. She doesn’t have anything to back up her place except 14 years of producing nothing. She would have been fired from almost any other place. Imagine she had to work off of grants? It’d never work for her. Anyhoo, I have another week and a half to work on Lars before I throw in my unofficial notice.