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Last night Lori and I went to go see Constantine, a movie based on the DC/Vertigo comic Hellblazer. I haven’t read the comic, but from what I’ve read the movie deviated from it quite a bit and missed the mark. I personally wasn’t too impressed with the movie. Keanu had more wooden acting and the plot was very contrived. That, and I couldn’t really suspend my disbelieve with all the mangling of theology that was going on. The effects were cool, though.

It was also hard to enjoy the movie with what inevitably happened in the theater…

Keep in mind that Constantine is an R-Rated movie with lots of scary, demonic imagery and violence. But the lady sitting behind us brought her little boy who looked to be 3 or 4 years old! I knew we were in for a fun time, especially with the mother talking all through the previews to her friend sitting next to her.

The first scene of the movie the boy blurted out, “This is scary!!” and the lady just kind of laughed! If the poor kid was scared by that, I knew we were in for a long movie.

At about that time, her cell-phone rang. For a long time. The lady didn’t even try to silence the ringer. Then she had the gall to answer the phone and start talking! I shot her the evil eye as did some other people around me, and she finally left the theater with her phone call. Halfway through the movie it rang again, but this time she didn’t answer it; she just let it ring until the person on the other end hung up.

It felt like the scene in Scary Movie in the theater. If someone had gored that lady, the audience would have just cheered him on.

Why are people so inconsiderate? Why do people insist on dragging their kids to movies they really shouldn’t be seeing and laugh at their fear? I paid $7.50 to sit through that crap and it wasn’t fun.

Grr..

Friday was my last day working as a .NET programmer for Car-Mart. I have to say that I gained some valuable experience working there, and I’ll miss most of the people I worked with.

I’m moving on to my new position at Wal-Mart on Monday. Heh, I guess I enjoy working for /[\w]{3}-Mart/ companies. This is great because I finally feel like I’ve obtained my career goal of being a successful computer guy. I have arrived, and hopefully it will be a long time (if ever) before I have to turn in my notice again. Hopefully Wal-Mart is the company I could stay with for a long time and be happy with my career.

At least now I’ll get a chance to flex both my Java and .NET muscles. I can’t wait!! There’s so much I can learn there and so much opportunity for me to grow and branch out into other platforms and areas. I’ll hopefully become a well-rounded programmer at Wal-Mart. I’m actually looking forward to eventually wearing one of those “10 year associate” badges. I’m being sucked in already! hehehe

Mike Nash, Microsoft’s new Chief Security Officer, just made the claim that Windows is more secure than Linux becuase they “fixed 15 vulnerabilities affecting Windows Server 2003″ for this year and Red Hat and SuSE Linux users have patched 3 or 4 times that many vulnerablities.

Now, before I start bashing, keep in mind that I am a .NET developer. I use Windows daily. The Microsoft platform is what puts food on the plate. But when I read stuff like this, it just boggles my mind and makes me say, “WTF??” (Yes, I actually pronounce it as wutuf).

I mean, come on! You can’t base the product’s security based on the number of patches released without considering severity or other unpatched security vulnarabilities still out there in the wild. Microsoft has a long history of patching only the security flaws for which exists an exploit. The others they tend to leave alone. On the other hand, the Linux community is quick to jump on ANY security hole and have it patched almost immediately. That would be the reason for the higher number of patches.

Pretend you were evaluating server software for a company. If you saw that company A released patches for problems that have been exploited, and company B released patches for all known problems, wouldn’t you be more inclined to consider company B as more secure? I know I sure would.

Check out the Secunia link for Windows Server 2003 and Secunia link for Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 3. Windows has 5 of 44 security vulnerabilities unpatched to date (oddly different than Nash’ statement), and Red Hat has 0 of 130 unpatched security vulnerabilities. Hmm… Would you really trust a system with known security flaws where a patch isn’t available?

It’s no secret that for a long while I was dissatisfied with my job as a web programmer for Arkansas.Net, a local dial-up Internet service provider. It was a dead-end position with no future in a world dominated by broadband. However frustrated I was by the job, I gained some valuable experience with the software engineering aspects of the “software development life-cycle” and other such buzzwords. I learned there in two years more than my years of college ever could have taught me.

After my buddy Joseph left the company for a wage considerably more than what we were both making, I decided it was time for me to move on as well and take advantage of the experience I have gained. In the IT world, two years is a long time and you can learn a lot in that time frame. So I started my search by submitting my resume to Wal-Mart. Every time a job opened for which I was reasonably qualified, I immediately sent in my resume and a nice cover letter.

For six months I did this, also submitting my resume to jobs listed on Monster.Com and Dice.Com with hopes that someone would recognize my skills in spite of not having a degree.

The reason I focused on Wal-Mart so much is the fact that it is the biggest IT employer in NW Arkansas. In fact I’ve long since considered Wal-Mart to have one of the best IT departments in the nation and credit them with the success of the company as a whole. Without IT, Wal-Mart’s supply chain would not nearly be as effective and they wouldn’t be leaps and bounds above the competition. I’m also a big fan of the company because they treat Lori well. Plenty of goodies and a decent salary, plus she seems happy there (most of the time). So in essence I’ve wanted to work at Wal-Mart since I moved here to Arkansas, but never really thought I could make it happen.

Joseph, whom I worked with at Arkansas.Net, left that company for Car-Mart, which is a local used-car retailer. It is so obvious they are trying to copy the look and feel of Wal-Mart that it’s not even funny: the lots even look like Wal-Mart with a blue background and big block letters on the building. Soon they needed another programmer and Joseph recommended me. I jumped at the first chance to advance my career when an offer was made. While not Wal-Mart, Car-Mart has much more of a future than a dial-up ISP does and they could offer me a higher wage. I also love the fact that it is so close to the house. I save a bundle on gas money and eating lunch at home is healthier and cheaper.

I’ve been with Car-Mart since the first day of December, so today is my 2 month anniversary. What I haven’t really mentioned is the fact that a week after I accepted the position at Car-Mart and started working there, I finally got an e-mail from Wal-Mart. They were interested in conducting a phone interview!

I almost turned them down having just accepted the position at Car-Mart, but curiosity got the best of me. I agreed to the phone interview, and the next day a manager called and we just chatted. It felt very informal and the guy was real friendly. He asked if I would be interested in doing a “technical” phone interview and I agreed. He quizzed me on a bunch of Java programming language questions, and I feel I did alright especially when he asked me about things like design patterns.

He said the next step would be to schedule an on-site interview. Some time went by, and I assumed that I didn’t do as well in the technical interview as I thought. But eventually I received an e-mail from a recruiter, and they set up an on-site interview, which was intense but cool. I met with 6 managers and a vice president, and they even took me out to lunch. I was very impressed.

Last week I heard from the recruiter, and they extended me an offer! Not only that, but the package they offered me blew me away. I never thought that a guy without a degree could do so well. In fact, for the first time since we’ve been married I’ll be making more money than my wife. I think I’m still in shock.

So of course I decided to take the offer. The decision was a no-brainer based on their offer, but it was also made easier due to some personal problems I have with my current employer (of which I will not speak in this public forum). But anyway, I start Wal-Mart in two weeks, and I get to give notice to my boss tomorrow, which will be interesting (unless he reads my blog, in which case it will be MORE interesting, hehehe).