Monday, February 04, 2008
Deb: Book Sale!
Ok, this is what I’m going to do: in accordance with Jay’s desire to give y’all first crack at what we’re getting rid of (which I agree with heartily, btw), I’m going to start listing items up here. I’ll give you title, author, format, and ISBN. I’ll give you a price. I’ll give you the e-mail address to contact me at. We’ll work out payment and shipping. You’ll have to pay shipping, but only the actual price of the shipping, hence the wanting to know what you want so I can figure it out, and hence the big discount if you’re someone we see. If I don’t know you, I have to ask for PayPal only. If I do know you, I can be flexible with payment. I’m planning to start with pregnancy and childbirth books, since I surely won’t be needing those again. Look for them in just a little while.
Jay: Whatever Shall I Do
I got about four hours of sleep before facing the chilly morning. More would have been nice.
There are no birthdays today. In fact, there are none until Friday, then Sunday, unless you count a dead President on Wednesday. If any of them count, Reagan does.
My typos long ago made me develop a holistic theory about how we remember words, at least in terms of muscle memory to type them. Which I bring up because in the previous paragraph I typed “could” where I meant “count.” What word is the more common of the two for me to type, starting with the same letter combination? So my fingers went with what was expected, no matter that my brain had another script. Those are the spell checker defying “misspellings” because they are usually legitimate words. Not that I generally use a spell checker. Except in Firefox now I do, either by typing into it, or paying attention to the red underlines when I paste. Which I don’t always, since what I paste may contain HTML codes that have a wolf crying effect.
In lieu of a birthday post, this is one of my “what to do today” posts that’s more for my own benefit than for y’all to enjoy reading. Notwithstanding that paragraph digressing into brain/finger wiring.
Deb made two sales since I went to the post office Saturday, so there are two packages waiting for me to mail them. That’ll be first thing after a shower and more coffee, so they get into the mail stream. As always, be sure to visit the Neatly Tangled shop regularly. It’s even better than donating, since you get something besides our charming posts for your money. If you were thinking of donating, there has never been a better time. Seriously. See the button at the upper right.
Now that I am approved by OnForce, it will behoove me to monitor that regularly. Kind of an ongoing to do, with a direct financial reason for being.
I’ve been fixing up Welcome to Help, which continues to need some work. I added specials and experience, besides having modified the other pages. Neither of them are necessarily complete, but they are there and have potential. The specials are what I need for getting work ASAP, and I may never be able to package the specific things for more than that. The trouble is, the first one will never be less than an hour, though it shouldn’t go over two, so it’s a discount of $41 to $131. The second one is usually not less than two hours if there’s anything amounting to anything there. It should never be less than an hour. So it’s the same thing, only more so, and more likely to run into the need for extended time. Which will still have to be dramatically discounted.
I’d also like to create a package for general support/assistance/coaching from wherever, so for instance you could e-mail a question and get an answer. The trick is figuring out how that averages out, and where to draw the line. I’ll probably offer up something prepaid really cheap because the money, yeah, imperative. Enough so for me to mention the donate button, even if it’s not quite “someone needs a transplant.”
Anyway, more working on the site.
More importantly, pimping it now that it is adequate. I need to compose e-mail to a few dozen prospects.
I also need to compose e-mail to a former client. Depending on the response, that may mean additional activity.
I need to look at listing the van for sale on Craigslist, which also means emptying the van, which could be interesting. One of the things in it is the nice Brother laser fax/copier from the old office, which I love, but is redundant. It was a smidge below $300 new It mainly got used for copying tax returns and faxing resumes for my partner. How’s that for a morale boost? The partner comes to the office and hangs out for the day working on his job hunting and faxing resumes. Or to work on personal side work, paid or free, bouncing things off me or outright getting my help. Anyway, it’s time to sell that off, I think. After bringing it in and testing to make sure it still works, apart from being low on toner. The rest is mainly art and car seats. There actually are places the art can be stored in here.
Let’s see, what else?
Check the domain auction and be annoyed again that I’ll be lucky to sell it within the 90 day period, even for the lowest amount I can reasonably expect. But I have to watch it, just in case there’s an offer.
I want to rejigger my LinkedIn profile again. Perhaps work on some of the other networking and job sites.
I’ve been mentally recomposing what my tech oriented resume might look like and today would be as good as any to work on it, especially with the WTH experience page and reviewing LinkedIn freshening things in my mind.
Oh right. I am the host of this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists at Bizosphere. Fortunately, I have a good host for the next edition. Beyond that, well, I hope I can attract more. I’ve given most of the submissions a preliminary look and have been accumulating links of my own, as well as blogs to revisit looking for more if needed.
In there somewhere may be blog ad related activity, though I may want to give it a day if I don’t hear from people.
Guess I’d better get to it, since it’s already late.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Jay: Happy Birthday
To my mother’s cousin Nancy, who is 68 today.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To former colleague Lala Mamedov.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To blogger Patti at White Pebble.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Jay: Blarg
I feel like crap, probably a combination of lack of decent sleep, weather, and standard sensitivity to airborne whatever.
Sleep last night was decent enough from perhaps 12:30 to 2:30, when bladder and Sadie woke me from a sound sleep. Instead of laying down with me, luckily she demanded I go in her room, where I saw the flooded bed. Diaper overflowed. She and the bed had to be changed, which was traumatic. She is extremely bothered by leaks or accidents in the first place, because it’s an imperfection. No idea where she could have inherited those genes. I laid down in there. but never slept, ending up at the computer at 4:00. Shortly after that, she came to get me and again I had to go in her room, once it became clear that I was going to fall asleep with her on me in the desk chair, except it wasn’t going to work because it was the desk chair.
New parents: Holding a baby can be the most relaxing thing in the world, to the point of making it almost impossible not to fall asleep. Sadie was doing that, despite being a big kid.
I did a better job nesting in her room that time, probably falling asleep by 5:30 and waking up at 9:00, feeling like it was 7:00. Sinuses are a mess and the left eye is doing the thing where it can barely be opened and feels like it has something in it or has welding flash.
Speaking of which, I love the Star Trek teaser trailer, where they show guys welding, building the Enterprise, and give a glimpse of the scale of the ship to those guys, and the whole thing under construction.
When I got up, Sadie did too, and insisted on occupying my lap.
Which may be part of Valerie’s problems. She stayed up super late, with hyperactive brain, weather discomfort, and apparently envy for Sadie’s tendency to monopolize us for things like book reading. Sadie picks the books. Sadie sits on my lap. Sadie won’t allow Valerie on the lap if she can help it. Val was pretty distressed by it last night, then this morning Sadie did the same thing, when what I really wanted was neither of them. I try to make up for it with Valerie whenever I can, and she’s just so sweet and cuddly.
I managed to get Deb’s latest sale to the post office before 12:00, which is great because it can mean a package ordered late Friday could get to the buyer Monday, versus at least Wednesday. The line was absurd, which is the downside of last minute. They move it right along, though.
Then I remembered I needed to replace the passenger wiper (at least), but couldn’t puzzle out from looking or the tiny diagrams on the package just how to get the old one off. Need to look online or get a magnifying glass.
I’m still waiting for the ATM card for my new account. Got the checks. More so, waiting to be able to access it online and tie it to PayPal. In this day and age, taking over a week to create a new account of that sort seems absurd. Good thing I’m not relying on that quite yet, though I was thinking the next chunk of rent I pay might come from ad sales, which would mean PayPal.
I got my final OnForce approval in the wee hours. It actually arrived during the 4:00 AM hour when I was at the computer, with a mailing time of 2:30 AM. I had figured it wouldn’t be until Monday. So one of the weekend things will be to get acclimated there and start monitoring it for prospective work orders. Which is the other thing that will be tied to that account.
As for selling things, I remembered this morning we need to buy a scale. Presumably about $20 at Wal-Mart for something that’ll do.
(Insert long pause here that included making French toast regular and banana bread for lunch.)
Since the only thing we’ll really miss at a store by tomorrow is bread, and I didn’t grab some yesterday or think to get some when I went to the post office, Deb suggested I make more bread. Which, as she said, would go well with the pea soup I plan to make. I investigated the “ham bone” we were given and found it includes major amounts of ham and has not, as I naturally feared, spoiled yet. I’ll just need to scrape off some of the impressive amount of pineapple.
Thus it would appear my afternoon will center heavily on those two things. Want to be careful this time not to liquefy the peas completely, and make it a bit less spicy. It ought to help that I have a bag of whole peas (as well as a bag of split peas I already had on hand. The bread gives a lot of down time. Speaking of which, I’ll have to remember to buy flour. Each two loaves of bread take close to a third of a bag, so it’ll go fast.
There are things I can poke with a stick in the down times, so that all works. In fact, about the time I finish getting the bread to where it must sit and rise for 90 minutes or so, it’ll be a good time to start the soup. Here goes… (At least I’ve started feeling better now, if still a bit dull and sinus-burdened.)
Jay: Happy Birthday
To Kymberley Brooke Riley, my former sister-in-law’s daughter by her second ex-husband.
She is the half-sister of my oldest niece and nephew. Along with her, there is a half-brother on that side, and then the three additional kids my brother had. That gives my oldest niece and nephew each a total of six siblings, after growing up as a twosome.
Ah, modern families. If people who have nothing more than a genetic relationship can be called that.
On another note, this would be Ayn Rand’s birthday, if she were still alive.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Jay: That’d Be One Venue-Bursting Family Reunion
All blue eyed people are related? Imagine that! Next thing you know, they’ll be telling us all people are related. Oh wait, a bestselling anonymous author already did, thousands of years ago.
But seriously, it’s fascinating, and akin to the recent news about red hair genetics. 6,000 to 10,000 years isn’t all that long, really.
It’s also fascinating that it’s just one step to get from blue eyes to albino.
At any rate, I’ve always assumed that darker skin and eyes were more the “natural” condition, with lighter being a mutation/adaptation along the line.
Jay: Lightening Up
Apart from any other consideration, like needing money that badly, we’re looking at lightening up on “stuff” by selling some of it off. That way if we do change states (if not spins or flavors), we’ll have less to move, or to shed at the last minute. Whether we move will depend in part on whether RomneyCare or something like it goes national, and on the economics of it all. Obviously we have to bootstrap back up to where we could even think about moving.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking it might be worth offering any given thing in question via the blog(s) first, for “things we’d ship” items.
Thoughts? On the whole ‘selling things off” exercise in general?
We’re looking at Amazon for book sales. eBay seems like something we might prefer to avoid, but we may wind up there. I understand Craigslist might be ideal for larger and more locally targeted items. Then again, it has wild west elements as well. It’s kind of disgusting to look through it at people offering computer work at unsustainable rates that range from below market down to barely above free.
Listing stuff here doesn’t get the traffic it might elsewhere, but it would be satisfying to give our smaller community first crack.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To blogger Becky McCray.
Twitter is turning out to be a great new source of birthdays for my collection.
Jay: Yasoft? Microhoo?
No birthdays.
Big news this morning: Microsoft bidding big for Yahoo! Not unexpected per se, but landscape shifting.
Erm… let’s see. Just trying to dump what’s interesting and can be typed fast so I can move along.
Today I need to run to the post office to send a package to Australia. Seems like not only will there be more business from there, but also Deb has found a winning focus for her shop. Which you’ve visited, right? See the sidebar. Also need to hit the store. Should try to get outside before the rain hits. Need to put at least one of the new wiper blades on the truck. I seem to recall they were a pain to install last time.
I need to correspond about an upcoming job wiping and reinstalling a computer that’s had way too much trouble for the owner and I would have flattened, or flat out replaced, long ago. Friend of mine doing the support for it free for a friend of his, now lives a few states away so for the hands on they’re paying me. Thought it was going to be a while, but it’s moved up to almost immediately. Which also means I need to review the dump of support correspondence between my friend and Microsoft and Adaptec and be sure I am firm on the situation. Though as much as anything I figure I’m the knowledgeable hands on-site, with my friend doing some of the driving otherwise.
I need to continue the web site updates and flier project. Actually, I should do sample fliers and show them to my landlord, who suggested the concept.
I need to compose another e-mail soliciting work from a few dozen people.
Then there’s another e-mail I need to compose, that could result in money.
Today or tomorrow I’ll want to make a pea soup. My mother and grandmother had a plague of ham bones and already made three in rapid succession, so the basically insisted I take home the one they had in the freezer, plus a bag of peas. That’s thawing in the fridge.
Enough typing. Gotta get rolling.
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