Authority Zero – Get It Right

I gave 3 weeks notice at work. 2 to do the right thing and wrap up a release, and an extra to burn down vacation. LiveNation stopped paying out vacation balance; all in all just another brick in the wall.

I had only ~4 days of work to do in that time, and the spaces in my Outlook calendar became a methadone program. The first day i forced myself not to check email at 9pm i got tremors. Other days i filled with bikes, house projects, trips to the pool. I finished Project Firebird, and tried new restaurants. Maad and I kayaked Saguaro Lake in the morning then installed blinds in the rental house – it was like a regular weekend day, including doing all the grocery shopping and not really feeling off work at all. I re-read my Java textbook – all 670 pages and a few of the indeces. It weighed more than my laptop, but i hauled it on commutes to work, to snatch some passages during the day and train a little. I slogged it on walks with Kila. When i was in Tent City there was this skinny, greasy dude passed out on his cinder-block sized bible during nearly all 7 hours in holding. I saw him the next day at kickout for another 3 hours, still wearing the dirty windbreaker, whispering his words, carrying his bible. Takes a junkie to spot one, i guess. A clean break, a payout, and a week off would have been smoother, but i’m not so sure better. A wean is more holistic.

I borrowed a big bike for a week, and hauled it up Mt. Elden, having so little fun i thought i’d skip replacing the Heckler entirely. It payed off on the downhill. I got this rock on Wasabi for the first time ever (pic, not of me, ganked off MTBR. thank you unknown photographer).

We daisychained onto Beckie’s Arizona Economic Roundtable Conference for 4 days in a nice hotel in downtown Flag, and didn’t move the car for 91 hrs. I couldn”t stop checking work email between trips with the girls around NAU, to Thorpe Park, the library, and Sunset Crater.

Cybro and I spent a lot of time together.

The 3 hrs I’d be in the office every other day, I mostly hid in my cube or scurried to the kitchen with my eyes down. Once I started shutting off, it was easier to continue distancing myself. The day after i dropped the bomb was filled with heavy conversations, which mercifully slowed or i subsequently managed to avoid . You get closer than you think after 7 years, and i struggled to balance closure with the reality that we hadn’t ever hung outside of work and weren’t about to start. Freedom to delete any incoming email that struck my fancy balmed a lot of the burns. All the shit i’d wanted to blow off i could, and tossed one deserving dilhole under the bus.  I went back for thirds on donuts and meeting leftovers and waved 6 times. I worked until 2:30 on my last Friday on an emergency release. Respect for great teammates. Then i wiped my drive.

My final week ‘at work‘ was about as much fun as you can have in Phx in summer. I commuted, then took the kids to the pool. I drank beer and got up at 4am for shuttles on Somo. On our first drive up the mountain we watched a cat bolt across the street with a dog right on its ass. It hucked itself up this saguaro, but was gone by the time we came down Geronimo. Pic courtesy of LateDropBob.

3 rides in armor and a full-face had me dizzy after the short climb on National to the dropin on 24th Street. It was worth it, to just geek out on trying the big bike. It was too big, literally, i needed a S not a M, and 4-5 lbs overbuilt for me. I liked it on the rock slots, where the wheels pushed back against everything that bucked me. I cleaned Trip to the Dentist on Holbert for the first time, and rolled the rock bridge and its exit and half of the boulder garden. It was partly me, partly the bike. The Heckler was a 4 yr old single pivot with a flexy rear, a 32mm fork and shitty rims. How can the next bike not be better, even if its not a 38 lb chro-mo sled?

Pro’s Market reopened their Central Avenue location. I brought home queso, pork, and a sack of roasted jalapenos.

I drank beer and got up at 4am for my first ride to Bartlett Lake. 65 miles, 4.25 hrs, and a lot of climbing. It started with a ~19 mile gradual ascent punctuated by a 3 mile climb up to Seven Springs Road. The drop into the lake was almost 14 miles, all but 4 of them down, and those 4 hurt. Statistically, the ride compared closely to Tortilla Flat, but felt little like it. The road was designed for cars with no speed limit less than 30. I hit stretches where I went almost 40mph for a minute at a time with no fear. It would be long slow death coming back up, with no switchbacks or narrow walls to distract me from my suffering. The three climbs out hurt, hurt less, and hurt more. I sailed home in under an hour.

hey buddy, there’s bacon a mile north!

The last day at work I commuted in, cause it was my idiom, and i was going to a happy hour. Another group of coworkers took me out to lunch. The 2 nicest places i’ve been in downtown Scottsdale. Outside of work, doing day-to-day things, watching people eat, i was overcome with melancholy. Work, workout, kids do not leave a lot of bandwidth. You miss out on good friends that way.

I see an Onion article out of this:

New Employee Won’t Stop Talking About Awesome Old Coworkers. Said new teammate Cybrothavan Gupta: ‘He’s sharp and easy to teach. We had a great lunch at the indian buffet. But he kept inviting us to a ‘street’ taco place near his old office. 15 years in software development and he ‘forgets’ about Hindus and cows? What a dick.’