Massachusetts
Friday, May 02, 2008
Jay: Sunday
Was supposed to be the annual Easter egg hunt for the little kids, at my grandmother’s house, but I don’t even need to discuss it with anyone to know it’s off. The weather is, well, the kind of weather that makes us do this well after actual Easter in the first place. Cold. Rainy. Completely unsuited to scampering around the yard on a search and consume mission for plastic eggs and their contents.
My mother would be handy in a drought. Pick a day, have her plan an outdoor event on it, and voila, rain. It’s very nearly uncanny.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Jay: Thinking Aloud
This is an exercise in helping me figure out what I am going to tackle today, and beyond, and wrap my head around what awaits my attention before I get all scattered.
I probably don’t need to mention the usual dishes to wash or load into dishwasher, of which there are relatively few because I’d caught up. I’ll want to just almost from this post right to the shower, so Deb can do laundry if her back is up to it. Poor back. (Sounds like it’s not.) Going to the store simply is, without option to avoid it. I could go to the bank while I’m out.
I have to take the registry thing to the town hall for an abatement on one of the excise tax bills, and pay the two of them. That needs to precede any visit to the registry, which needs to be preceded by contact with the insurance company. In Texas. Which probably means simply not possible to register car this week, before the gathering Sunday. Annoying. Also annoying that said gathering is at the same time as something else we were invited to first, which worst case I could have gone to with Sadie alone, since she’s the one near Dale in age, and it’s his birthday party.
I have e-mails to answer. Some are going on two weeks old.
We’re expecting my father to swing by late in the day, so I have to plan around that, even for a quick drop off of some stuff. That influences the timing of errands.
Yesterday I discussed a web site update with the former big client, who has realized that my original preference on something was right. I’d proposed to them a month to month flat fee for site maintenance and updates covering most anything short of a complete redo, since it’s not covered under the current support contract they have and I did the original based on their marketing/design person’s plan. They managed to get me to do a one shot update for the monthly rate, which ended up working out to no more than $12 an hour and required a ton of waiting. That’s long paid, but the last tiny bit is still not done, waiting for a photo. Obviously I am not going to make another change, which could involve changing every page, without another modest fee. I suggested an additional change to include and will hear back eventually.
I did site backups across the empire and was going to update WordPress on all the blogs that use it, starting with Dan’s, which I didn’t update last time. I was falling asleep at my desk last night when about to do that, so figured I’d better wait. I’ll want to do those before much time passes, so I don’t feel like I must do the backups over again.
I have some paying work I need to get cracking on, which among other things will require me to get more familiar with RSS. I have dabbled with RSS readers myself, but none have “stuck” and I always revert to reading from links. How 2003 of me! I guess I need a reader I like enough, and then to be careful what I include, or to be able to categorize it well. I could almost see an automated system being useful, so your daily reads would appear every day, keyworded stuff would appear daily even if it’s not a daily read, and a measured amount of “check weekly” and “check monthly” stuff would automatically be included in your daily reading, perhaps varied by day, so if you want to do more reading on the weekend, it can play catch up then.
That probably exists.
I also need to learn all there is to know about measuring RSS feeds subscribed/read for a given site. Heck, I have no idea how many people read us that way.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Perhaps I can fit in some of that project today.
I also need to work with/learn more about Facebook and some of those.
I’m still on the office reorganization, which spills into the kitchen, where I still have stuff on the table that was once in the office. That seems to work okay by pecking away at it, like when I crave physical work and need to get up from the computer.
Shoot, that about covers today, doesn’t it? Not even getting into posts to write, my book/series of posts idea to work on while timely, CotC, the business site needing updating, etc. and so forth.
Well, off to it. Don’t be alarmed it there’s a lack of posts or if I revert to drive-by commentary.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Jay: Crunch Time
This is going to be a different post from the one I started the night before last, with the same title. That one started out on the topic of needing to locate the taxes I’d done, for the partnership and personal federal, and to do the state ones and get them mailed. I since located the partnership ones and mailed them, along with two books from Deb’s book shop. One was an advanced computer book from my collection, so went for $17.50 at about the cheapest price available. For us that’s real money. When it arrives in the twice a month payout. I also rewrote the federal to be neater, and did the state, cursing Romney over RomneyCare. There’s now a form HC, which at 3 pages if you need the whole thing is longer than the main Form 1 at 2 pages. I had the urge to ignore it, but you are supposed to use it to determine your personal exemption. By running too low on money to pay the last $1300 of insurance for Deb and the kids to cover October through December, and failing to apply for subsidized coverage, we paid a penalty of $220 in extra taxes.
Anyway, that’s all done. I have to mail those today.
Looks like the interview last week was a bust, which is fascinating in that it was a temporary gig. Which I suspect they planned to try to get someone permanent out of, and looked accordingly. The interview the week before was obviously a bust as well.
I have a possible something in the works with an internet marketing business. I have someone putting in my resume for a well-paid support job that just happens to be in Lowell, so it’d be on the $25 a day commuting plan. If I can stop worrying about money and the household long enough to chase an income just slightly harder and keep the household, something - even something great - should come pretty fast. It’s probably a matter of keeping the balls in the air a few more weeks.
Trouble is, we’re out of time, and while some awesome people have picked up distress, we haven’t been forthcoming on just where things stand. I’ve threatened to have a fundraising edition of Carnival of the Capitalists, even though I’m too busy trying to raise money to try to raise money. I’ve pointed out the resume, Deb’s Etsy shop and used book shop, and my availability for side work.
I haven’t asked for donations, apart from whatever is implicit in making the PayPal button available. And it feels wrong to do so, much as we get annoyed by unhelpful people who dwell on the fact history ought have been different, rather than acting on (or ignoring) what is. I could say and rue much about how we got here, but that doesn’t keep us from getting evicted.
Then again, I’d rather ask individuals for help than use public assistance paid for with stolen money. Or worse, stolen from the future, given the financing of so much of it through debt, creating a future need for inflation and/or higher taxes. But what do I know. I’m just a crackpot who saw the housing/credit bubble vividly starting years ago.
So yeah. Pretty much asking now, as I prepare to mail the tax returns and then throw ourselves on the mercy of the gas & electric department to avoid having those shut off tomorrow. When I gave them Henry’s birth certificate, which by itself should give us until August 20, they also wanted an income number. At the time, I wasn’t sure what I’d made last year. I would never have guessed it would be low enough for the EIC, or that rent, medical and health insurance technically took 2/3 of it. There was enough in residual, undrawn funds that it carried us a long time in the shutdown of the business (in which mailing the tax returns yesterday is the last major act, though I’ll have stuff to handle for a while).
If blogging is a bit slow, or you see as much on other blogs as here to keep them up enough to justify their value to advertisers, it’ll be because we’re scrambling. The ads, the selling things, the found money, the incredibly generous donations we already received, the Etsy sales - nothing to sneeze at but also in jeopardy because you have to have money for materials and shipping - and the bits of side work here and there only go so far. The fact I tend to stock the pantry as if I’m expecting to ride out the end of civilization - or something like this bad stretch - only helps stretch things so long before real money needs to be spent on groceries and sundries again.
Of course, if we lose power, that’s the end game. What money we do make is online. That would trigger a total meltdown of our situation. I don’t think that should be a problem, but we do have to start paying them Real Soon Now. We’ve been managing to get $250 or $300 a week to the landlord, staying basically half a month to a month or so behind. If we miss a week, game over, barring something like working with us because I just started a job and it’s all going to change. This week we’re sketchy but should manage it. Next week? No idea. I expect to do some small side work early in the week, but not likely enough.
Anyway, if you can hit the donate button, even in small amounts, that would be amazing. Alternatively, use the address deb at neatlytangled dot com for PayPal, as hers doesn’t have a transfer limit (to get it from there to the bank) and is useful that way. If we’ve ever entertained you through blogging, given you helpful advice, or even if you think I’m an idiot but want to keep the kids fed and off the street, perhaps it’s worth something.
Onward! Time to take care of business. Mail tax returns. Deal with utility crisis. Try to shake loose work. Planning to add Deb’s resume to the ones online and put a “hire us” box in the sidebar where “donate” is now, soon as I get a chance. So on. So forth.
Thanks for helping, or even just reading and quietly not saying or doing something unhelpful, no matter what you really think.
Update:
You guys are amazing. Not to replace individual thanks, but holy cow, we’re just blown away.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Jay: Shopping List
Don’t mind me. This is mostly composing aloud of my list of things I need to get at the store, following a quick run to the post office with another sold book. The budget for the grocery run is $25. Diapers should take $6.49 of it, unless I buy them elsewhere and juggle other money toward them, which is possible considering how ideal Market Basket is for buying food itself. I can look at this list here from the store if needed. Hooray for technology!
Besides the errands, I’m still working on the office, and today playing with some web and database code, which may be significantly easier than I had anticipated. Since working on code, be it that as a possible project, creating a portfolio of what I have done, or trying to dredge out stuff I can complete and make available, or fiddle with to learn more, means needing to hook up at least one additional computer and improve the lab environment, the office rearranging project goes hand in hand.
I still haven’t heard back on the contract I interviewed for. I need to e-mail the guy there and others. I did hear from the bank, where my online banking has never worked. Before they escalated it, they had me try it live on the phone to capture a server log of the attempt. It’ll be interesting to see what the problem is. I have to wonder if it’s FiOS or my router the FiOS comes through.
Anyway, what do I need to remember?
Meat. Depends what is on sale. We have none, period, and can use chicken and ground beef, for starters. Pork or unground beef are valid options. I could easily buy $50 of meat to restock, before even getting to anything else. With the dairy ban for Deb, we shoot for high fat more than we normally would.
Potatoes
Carrots (best price is there, or I might skip)
Beans, maybe lentils too (almost out of 64 oz bag of pintos, out of all else but split peas)
Frozen veggies (just a few cheap bags to interrupt the drought)
Cheese
Milk (not out, but cheapest place for it)
Pasta
Spaghetti sauce
Possibly some fresh veggies, sweet potatoes, butternut, or fruit depending on prices or sales
Bread
Yeast
Sugar
Maybe coffee creamer
Maybe coffee
Maybe tuna (goal of kids actually eating)
Maybe tomato soup (ditto)
Butter if still low there (ditto - Sadie can tell the difference, eats bread plain rather than with margarine)
I know I’m forgetting something and I’ll remember as soon as I walk out into the kitchen. I hope.
There are things low, like ketchup and rice, that can wait. I can do scratch rather than needing Bisquick.
Vegetable oil (using a lot where I’d put butter or margarine in pan to fry stuff, avoiding dairy)
Honey
Peanut butter, if they have a good price
Oatmeal, ditto
That may actually be it. It’s just that the innocent entries for meats and veggies could easily overwhelm the whole thing. Then if there’s a must have sale, that adds to it. Since I lost the flier, I should see if it’s online the way most are…
Huh. It appears Demoulas Market Basket supermarkets have no web presence. Weird indeed.
Anyway, off to it before the day slips any further.
Update:
I found the paper flier for this week. They have some nice sales, especially on beef and hamburger. That helps.
The kids are having a trauma over who will go with me…
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Jay: No Birthdays Today
Well, not in my calendar. Surely there are some, somewhere, for someone.
Today I am going to attempt to take Henry to my grandmother’s with me. Valerie had a recent turn. Sadie refuses to learn to use the big toilet, even though she’s getting too big for the potty, and we’re requiring her to do that before she goes visiting where that’ll be the only option. He can eat regular food, for limited values of same, so it’s his turn. This is the obligatory one for birthday cake for me and my mother, since ours were on Thursday. I need to get moving soon, as it’s starting to be late.
Ah, I hear kids.
Speaking of which, Sadie thought not being able to drive our new car until we “pay tax on it” (registration) was about the craziest thing she’d ever heard.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Jay: Birthday and Many Things
So yesterday was my birthday. And that of a lot of other people, now up to a total of seven on that day in my calendar. That may be the largest number on one day. (Pauses to check, because he’s such a geek, finds that it’s tied with July 28, but no other day has more than five so far.)
It would have pretty much sucked - well, it did - apart from getting a car, and a substantial donation.
My left knee, and to some degree my thigh, have been killing me beyond all reason. It may or may not be connected to gout, which had been quiet recently until today, when I seem to have a minor touch of it in my right foot. Nothing like it was. The knees have bothered me before, over the years, and can be sort of twisted easily, or hurt by kneeling on a hard surface, or standing in place too long (I tend to need to sit, or move around extensively, after sufficiently long food prep, for instance). This has been unusual, and tough to keep away because of the kids and the need for activity that stresses it.
Ironically, sitting in this chair tends to bother it, while taking a walk tends to help it. Stairs? Excruciating, once it’s flared up, bordering on impossible.
That was making me extra cranky. Part of today it was better, but we have kids and stuff. They are pretty much a guarantee I can’t take it easy on the thing, and Valerie managed to add a bit of back to the mix yesterday by doing a backward somersault off my lap and being prevented from landing on her head.
Speaking of Valerie, she needs to learn to tell us when she’s bleeding, rather than being fascinated by the artistic possibilities. Keeping a bandage on would be good, too, once Dr. Dad has ruined her fun.
So yeah, a car. My aunt got this silver/gray 1994 Buick Century with 86k miles on it in 2003 at a good price. She drove it to 174k miles, replaced it yesterday, and brought it to us.
She seriously downplayed its condition and overstated its degree of foibles, I think. It’s beautiful, body looking at least as good as he one on the ill-fated van of the same model year. The foibles are things like a fan blade on the AC being broken, so you have to turn it off and back on strategically. I seldom use AC, even in a vehicle that has it. The trunk apparently can leak some in heavy rain. There can be a little trick to opening the rear doors. There are rear doors! And room for three carseats, of which they left an extra, a spare of my mother’s, in the car. It uses a quart between oil changes, and she keeps it to 65 on the highway. We’d mainly use it on local roads, very limited driving to places we’d need to go together.
The trick now is to be able to afford to register it. That’s a tough one. My aunt is getting the form to declare it a gift and save us the sales tax, so that will help.
I’ve always been particularly fond of my mother’s sister, who is only 17 years older than me, but this is just amazing and a huge surprise.
Anyway, I parked it where we’d been parking the truck, moving the truck up into the main part of the driveway. We’d been using two spots deep in the driveway, then hogging a third, spare spot with the Sentra. That wasn’t considered a favorable spot due to the mulberries, and really neither is at least one of the others.
Today I got home from dropping off a trickle of rent to the landlord, ran into the gal upstairs, and she had moved her car so we could have our other space back, having seen that we got a second car. The very same day, they swapped his truck for something better, very nice. Funny how things synchronize that way.
I was amazed, as I figured we’d lost that spot fair and square. The spot we’d hogged with the old Sentra has a trailer in it now, which works out perfectly. They can be funny sometimes, in their youthfulness, but once again, the people upstairs are great.
What else?
I ended up doing a lot of dishes and cleaning. I took Valerie on errands with me, to the post office, Benny’s, the bank, and Stop & Shop, where her bladder almost made it through the entire lengthy trek. I was threatening to make myself birthday brownies, with a mix on hand, but never did get around to it.
That would have been no fun for Deb. On the off chance stuff bad for the baby translates into breast milk, she’s been off the likely suspects, bringing them back until it’s just eggs and dairy. She ate a single egg, in a sandwich with ham. He got rashy the next day. It’s back off eggs long enough to let him clear up and test it again. It could have been random environmental, or something stray he ate courtesy of the girls. He also tried pear, and while there’s room to wonder, that’s one of the least likely problem foods. I’ll give him more this weekend and see, maybe.
I did splurge on flour tortillas, so we had chicken burritos for supper. That was popular. He’s had seasoned chicken since we started reintroducing stuff, but I cooked a little chicken by itself for Henry, just salt and a little pepper. He loves chicken.
For that I pulled out a tiny frying pan I never use, big enough to fry a single egg, and now I want to use it again and own more like it. It’s stainless steel with a thick copper bottom. Yeah, I needed more oil than I am used to using, because the second I turned on the burner, it seemed, the pan was sizzling hot and the meat wanted to stick to it. But oh, it cooked so nice. I think I’m in love.
And hey, the non-stick pans are starting to lose their mojo. They end up with a spot in the center, where the heat focuses, that the coating loses its ungrip. Once that gets serious, you may as well have a traditional pan. The really bad one is Deb’s deep frying pan with a glass cover, which gets used constantly. I wouldn’t mind having more than one of those, including a larger version, if I were outfitting the kitchen more completely.
What else?
Today was better. Overnight was weird, in that I was up most of the night, but during that time the knee was better, after a couple hours of sleep. The very best thing for it is to lay down a certain way on the bed. I can coddle it some laying on, say, the floor, but the bed is better, and then sleeping while it rests is better still. It got worse again as the day progressed, but it does that. While it may be nauseating at times today, last night I experienced a revelation of understanding how someone can pass out in response to pain.
Ibuprofen is shooting up the “must buy some” list.
I have an interview Tuesday in Needham. That’s a Good Thing. Same former colleague who landed me the main interview Monday got me another, but this time it’s his own employer, for a 2 - 3 month contract supporting a new software rollout. Beyond that there hasn’t been much activity, besides a ton of additions in LinkedIn and correspondence stemming from that, including with my last manager from VB support, who was awesome.
I did up the root of elhide.com to be a resume links and simple supporting text page, to give it the shortest possible URL without setting up a new domain. Plus elhide.com is more memorable than, say, gphmo.com. Which stems from when I was going to setup a new business as “Geek Practitioners.” The HMO in this case, besides a play on the medical theme, stood for “home, mobile, office.”
Still have to do a blogging-oriented resume. Still have to retrofit the blogs with “hire me” sidebar sections prominent. Still working on the odds and ends side work, but that’s going a little slower than expected.
Anyway, off to bed, I guess. Wanted to do a post for the day and talk about the birthday and the car and such. Got delayed and now it’s after midnight, but oh well.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Jay: Happy Birthday
To me! An amazing 47 years ago, near this time, a modest walk from this place, I was born on my mother’s 26th birthday.
Apparently I was born hungry, because at 5 days old they were supplementing me with cereal.
At 17 days I went into the hospital in Boston with meningitis, for 11 days, and unexpectedly lived.
Henry is a mirror in more than appearance, as I apparently had a similar personality. I also talked fast, walked fast, and was apparently way ahead until about four years old, when I slowed down to the point it seemed there was nerve damage.
Anyway, mostly to me it’s another day, though there’s a brownie mix I’ll probably make in lieu of cake. I might try making a scratch cake, but we’re low on flour and it might have to wait for me to buy more, and someone gave us the brownie mix, which has been calling to me.
I am getting one big birthday present, the timing of which is coincidental. My aunt is picking up a new car today, and is giving us her old one. She says it’s big enough to fit three car seats in the back. If I keep feeding Sadie like yesterday, perhaps she’ll get to 40 lbs soon and be able to get a booster instead. A shame we lost one of our parking spots to the upstairs neighbor. And that we can’t afford to register it until whenever. Then again, the neighbor is using the two spots most directly in the line of fire of the mulberries, and the big car will be easier to get in and out of the driveway near the street.
That should be good enough to do what the van couldn’t even handle, simply getting us to my grandmother’s or brother’s or other local places as a whole group, without heavy driving in between.
Anyway, enough with the post. I need coffee, and to work on the “how to pay some rent next week” project.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Jay: Perhaps I Can Sneak In a Post
People are eating or occupied. I managed to spill blood and have to bandage my foot last time I started actually doing something away from the computer or without a kid on me. We need to resolve the kid on one of us problem, but I fear that’s a matter of waiting it out for a couple more months.
Or not.
Okay, done with Valerie and talking.
I was going to tell about the whole interview thing, in some detail, if not in a single post. Let’s do the short version, even though I closed my door, since I closed the door to do work, and 2/3 of the kids can open it anyway. (Okay, maybe not such a short version, ultimately.)
Train arrived on time. I was hopelessly confused about where to go, even on foot, even with good directions, because it’s the city. It was cold and sleeting, which didn’t help. I managed to find the building and then had to call when I was on the right floor, because I had the wrong company name. He’d never said, but I found him online under the name of the business before he merged with a larger firm. I still almost made it by the tentative time of 11:00.
We talked apparently for close to an hour. I figure it’s possible but not likely I will get the job. If I do, it may start as a 1099 trial basis, or be because of what he hears from references. He’s mulling it over a few days. The biggest problem is lack of focus. Ideally there’s a label he could apply, where I’d be the X expert - setting up servers, deploying desktops, programming, whatever. That’s a matter both of my skills and my preferences, and my preferences, weak in the first place, don’t fit well with what there’d be demand for at their size. On the other hand, my location is good for where they are starting to expand - most work being from home to clients, rarely involving the office (though many clients are in Boston).
Frankly, I could see being called in on a temp basis to help on projects, if I were continuing to otherwise freelance, and I might suggest keeping me in mind for that in any event.
It did go reasonably well and I liked the guy. We had a fairly animated discussion. I was embarrassed at how poorly we did focusing and marketing XTreme, and how little client base we had, but the whole thing was weird and I was there so long mainly out of stubborn inertia and sense of obligation to the one big client. I tend to downplay myself, so it was interesting near the end when I talked about having setup SBS (Small Business Server) 2003 for a client, from scratch, with e-mail and so forth, and he was impressed because he considers that hard and requiring comprehensive knowledge.
Look for post(s) soon where I muse aloud about focus and what I want to be when I grow up.
When I left there, I was only mildly confused getting to my other destination. I’d noticed funky cherry pickers with bright lights shining on a building at High and Oliver Streets, but thought nothing of it. Even asked a couple of guys manning one of them for directions, thinking they were construction, and they pleaded having just come in from out of town. On my way out, at that corner a crowd of people were watching the windows a few floors up, where the lights were directed, chattering about Sandra Bullock filming there. I saw her on my first look up there, then once more after a while, but I saw a lot of an unfamiliar actor. They were filming something called The Proposal, which is apparently shooting mainly in Gloucester, according to IMDB.
That gave me an excuse to stand around less obtrusively, pecking at the Blackberry and being amused by the crowd and the situation. Having gotten my bearings, I headed off to the building where Rob Sama works. I met a friend of Rob’s on one floor, to discuss a possible two week temp gig covering a vacation. We immediately concluded that he needed someone more up on the latest stuff and able to hit the ground as an advanced admin, but it was great to meet him, and he went up with me to see Rob. Then I hung out with Rob for a while, talking about this and that, until I thought I needed to move it to get the train. It was great to meet Rob in person after “knowing” him since 2003, early in my blogging.
Turned out it was closer and faster than I thought, getting back to South Station, but that’s not a bad place to hang out.
I’d been thinking it’d be fun for the kids to ride the train sometime, but it made little sense without a destination. Turns out the Children’s Museum is right near the station, so there you go. Eventually. If we can keep a roof over our heads and everyone fed in the meantime.
Other takeaways, besides the focus thing, included the need to do the blogging version of the resume ASAP, the need to push the side work, and a heightened perception of the side work as being potentially more than side work. That and an appreciation of my former colleagues, and good turns apparently coming around. The resume got to my interviewer via a guy I used to go out of my way to give rides to work, back in 1994. Wow.
Okay, enough writing and resting the gouged foot, on with the day.
Jay: Regarding Yesterday’s Adventure
I’m thinking it might work best as a series of posts on specific elements, observations, and so forth. Like riding the commuter rail from Lakeville to South Station, and back. Which was great, and I can see doing regularly, as well as taking the kids on sometime just because.
I confirmed you can indeed pay cash on the train, rather than going to an out of the way store and buying tickets from a bored clerk. Apparently there is no surcharge, either. There are bathrooms on the trains, though I didn’t check them out myself.
Parking seems to be adequate, at almost 900 spaces.
The trains are comfortable. It was more so on the way in, and I am not sure how much of that was being on lower versus upper deck, versus any differences in the track or driving style. It was less smooth farther north.
On the way in, they collected tickets and fares after each initial stop, and left a cardboard marker on the back of each seat for each person who’d paid. Once they were north of a certain point, I think where it starts to double as part of the T, they took the markers and didn’t do any further collecting, etc. On the way south, the only time they did any of that was at South Station, though I would presume in theory people could get on at, say, Montello and go south to, say, Lakeville or Bridgewater. It struck me as relatively easy for someone to bypass paying a fare, at least selectively, but probably not worth the effort and schedule disruption it would take to avoid any free riders.
North ran precisely on time. South rand a few minutes slow and you could tell it was happening, because it crawled what seemed painfully slow in places it shouldn’t have, apparently due to rail traffic flow.
I forgot to grab a book, but it worked out between the first timer looking out the window factor and the Blackberry, which had good reception every time I checked going in, and most of the way coming out. I can see wanting a book or laptop or such if it were a regular thing.
The trains weren’t at all crowded. It was one person to a seat except by choice, and many seats empty.
At South Station and especially Lakeville, there was plenty of time to board. In the morning they seemed to go out of their way to wait for people to walk in from the parking. At the other stops, if you weren’t by the track ready to step through a door, you might have been left behind. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.
Being early for parking insurance is fine, but if I do it again, I’ll sit in the car until it’s almost time for the train to arrive. It was cold.
The view was cool, because it’s a completely different perspective. You see everything from the roads all the time.
I guess that about covers it.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Jay: I Once Had A Title In Mind
So today should be fun. I need to take some rolled coin to the bank for more readily spendable and carryable currency, so I have enough to buy train tickets for Monday morning, and potentially a small bite to eat or whatever if I have to, entirely aside from the cash being useful in a couple days when we need more something like milk from Hannaford or Stop & Shop. Maybe I’ll deposit $8 in change too, so I’ll have $10 available on the debit card.
Train? That ought to be an adventure. I have an interview in Boston Monday morning, which will probably be followed by meeting with someone nearby who has a potential temporary gig during part of this month.
I’ve never taken the commuter rail before, but it’s great it’s so handy. I need to check out precisely where and how for getting into it and buying tickets and all that.
This also means having to dig out clothes that might be remotely appropriate for an interview. I’ve spent too many years casual, and with clothes one of the last spending priorities on too little income. A casualty of insane housing and even more insane medical insurance costs, you could say.
Shoes? It’s going to have to be my almost formal looking black sneakers, because I last got new shoes 20 years ago, and if I can find them, I can’t wear them without them scraping my feet raw. That’s if the gout is calm enough to get them on, which it may be, since it seems to be attacking my knee instead. Or that might be something else, but it’s that kind of painful.
At least I’ve lost enough weight that I have pants that aren’t jeans that should fit me.
The last time I interviewed for a job at a company I wasn’t already part of was 1994. Internal interview was 1997. The closest I came since then was 1999, when my partner who was the face of the business to the big client left for a day job and I had to talk them into keeping us, pointing out that in reality they may have noticed I’d been doing most of the support for them for months.
I always had a hard time getting to an interview, and an easy time getting a job based on an interview.
Apparently my resume and the internet and my networking are taking car of the first part for me. Besides those two, I have an e-mail about a WordPress development gig, which is intriguing, but I cautioned them I am far from a PHP expert, which is what they say in the description.
I need to find a bread recipe that doesn’t take milk, as Deb is going to try adding back wheat, but not milk. I still haven’t found milk-free margarine in a store. I can’t believe it all contains milk, when the point was that margarine is a sub for butter. Also need to make banana bread today, or else accept throwing out some bananas at that stage of ripe.
I really hate taking the first two hours of the day to dash of a 15 minute this and that post. Plus I should probably post to the other blogs instead, since this one lost Page Rank, those didn’t, and those could use a traffic/activity boost.
Let’s see…
Did I mention I need to setup a computer for Henry, on the living room floor, so he has that as a distraction?
Today I’d like to make significant progress in my office arranging and cleaning project, which stalloed yesterday and went backwards as Valerie trashed things, even stuff that had been in reach for months and not touched.
Off to it, I guess. If there was anything else, I forget. Oh, I stopped at my grandmother’s and picked up a special mattress cover my mother’s cousin bought for Henry. It’s pretty astounding that a cousin I’d forgotten existed until a few years ago heard about his problems and did something like that. Apparently she has major allergy problems herself, so knows all the places and stuff to get from them. Even if all this means is he can nap in the crib for a couple hours at a stretch, that’ll help. Previously he couldn’t go more than half an hour before he was awake, scratching himself frantically and complaining. Poor kid. But he still can’t be exempt from being put down sometimes. We go entire days sometimes with him on one of us for all but a couple waking hours, tops. And when he’s on one of us and awake, he wants to be active. All your keyboard are belong to us.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Jay: Obligatory Post
Actually, I didn’t have a birthday until I saw one mentioned elsewhere, so I’d planned this to be something for a “no birthdays” morning post.
I was sad but not surprised Amanda Overmeyer was executed last night. Kristy Lee Cook is one lucky country-twanged long-legged hot blond in a short dress. I might prefer to see Amanda to her if I were attending one of the concerts, but I won’t be, it’s not that strong a preference, and this means, as I noted, Kristy needs the performance of her life next week. Though a couple others flopping sufficiently might be enough, if she’s adequate and being cute.
I was shocked that Carly was in the bottom three. She was too good for that, so there has to be some combination of the controversy sucking away votes, people thinking she’s safe, her support not being as strong as I might have thought, or David Archuletta’s lopsided vote totals sucking the oxygen out of the room and making funny things happen with the rest of the totals. Face it, unless there’s enough controversy, backlash, or something, Achoo is the winner and this is a race for second through fourth now.
Today I have to call the nice lady at the hospital whose sole job is to line people up with insurance if they lack it. Because this Republican Socialism thing, it won’t add bureaucracy at all. Probably about the time we’re squared away with free insurance for the poor, I’ll land a job that includes it.
I’ve been meaning to do a giant fundraising edition of Carnival of the Capitalists. It might be worth a few hours of that to fetch a little grocery money or even an additional week of rent and make me think people actually appreciated my efforts all these years. Which I know they did, and not just the few who have expressed an interest in still seeing it or helping. I’ve been told I should emphasize it and look for business development work, or something like that. That may be gotten to soon, before it becomes moot. I’ve been accumulating links for it.
And yeah, fundraiser notwithstanding, you are always welcome to use the PayPal tipjar button, now more than ever. Or use the address for Deb’s, which is actually better, deb at neatlytangled dot com.
It’s so cute. Valerie has taken to putting a mitten on a foot, like a very heavy sock. She just had me put a shoe on the other foot. She loves to change clothes and play dress-up.
Speaking of money, there’s nothing like going to the store with $16 available, needing diapers and groceries, and being focused on eliminating certain things from the diet.
Although we think we have a good idea what is going on with Henry, and what the allergic reaction was about. That and the idea that food proteins consumed by the mother survice intact in breast milk appears to be bogus, if you research it sufficiently.
Still, the discovery that corn, usually corn syrup, is in almost everything was rather startling and something we’d like to start avoiding. It’s also shocking that companies would put known likely allergens in some of the earliest foods one would feed a baby, thinks you buy because they are safe. I’m also wondering about my own levels of food sensitivities, which are not the same as allergies, for which I once tested negative.
I am not only down 29 lbs from my high plateau and 39 lbs from my absolute high (and annoyed it hasn’t budged further for a few days), but also thinner than the current weight would imply. I went from 42 required to falling off to 40 fitting comfortably to 40 wanting to fall off. Which means some of the tighter pants in that size I have somewhere should fit.
This was supposed to be quick.
The job hunting proceeds apace, subject to excitement and interruption and confusion and mild sickness and such. I have to make a list and follow it today. I’ve been doing a lot of networking-related activity.
Okay, I can’t remember anything else I might have intended to say. I need to get to the actual stuff to be done, starting with an announcement about CotC and link to the resume over at Bizosphere.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Jay: Just to be clear on the migration thing…
The discussion of moving is little more than fantasy at the moment and probably for a couple years anyway, notwithstanding that we’d have probably packed and moved this week had we been financially able.
To move in the near term would require winning the lottery, which I can’t afford to play because a dollar is a lot of money just now.
It might be possible relatively soon if I got the right offer of work that would cover the cost of such a move up front, or would allow for my getting there and getting crash space while supporting the cost of this place and accumulating enough to consummate the move. Or something similar that would involve two locations.
Otherwise? If I get enough work for long enough here, sure, but then if I have such work, there will be a disincentive to move and a pull toward staying. It’d end up being a decision for a time when whatever I do next for primary income tied to this area came to a logical and natural conclusion. But since people take jobs with big companies and keep them for thirty years, then retire wealthy, unless they are lazytard slackers who are disgraces to their families, even if nobody else has that fantasy job either, a bout of employment drawing to an end would never be an issue until it was time to decide between dueling retirement heavens in Florida and Arizona.
We’ll see, but if I get a great keeper job in Massachusetts, it may be worth the risk of having to fight with or move out of a local school system over the right to educate our kids properly, and worth having to avoid certain people other than through distance.
Time to make supper, I guess.
Update:
The main thing is it’s been a tipping point. When I met Deb, I had the option of moving to California, or of both of us moving elsewhere, but I was tied to the business, and I still wanted to be near the family and didn’t have as much political reason to want to leave. Frankly, I couldn’t picture leaving the state. It felt scary and unsettling, close as I came to it once before.
Now it doesn’t. It feels desirable and perhaps inevitable. The buildup toward it started long ago, and it would have probably gotten there eventually. It’s just sooner rather than later that the mental switch inside me flipped.
Jay: Google Earth Is Fun
I’ve been playing with distances between family hotspots* and prospective states we could ultimately move to, starting with Indiana, which is near multiple people we’d be happy to be near. I always forget just how close that part of the country is to the east coast. It’s less than half the distance from here to there than from Fresno or Beaverton to there.
Houston comes close to being equal between here and Fresno, which is why we’ve joked about Texas it for a long time. I’d be near a cousin, which would give some people added incentive to make the trip. Then again, I’d be relatively near a cousin if I were in or close enough to northern California, and the same thing would apply. As it would even more for being near my brother. Or sufficiently in or near or on the way to Florida. Heck, there’s even a cousin in Missouri. Georgia. I think still in Minnesota. In Arizona, but I don’t think they’d want to see most of us, but there’s step-family there too.
You just have to dismiss some factors as too unimportant or inescapable.
Idaho would be the opposite. It’s relatively close to the west cost family, but particularly far and inconvenient for the east coast. They’d have to watch me be old and fat and unable ever to get a job again for the rest of my life as a result from farther away.
What’s funny is the perceptual thing. To me, Indiana is half the country away, and California is the other half. I know that’s not so, intellectually, but there’s the mental image kind of thing at play.
It’s fun having such a handy tool for getting an idea of driving distances. Gotta love the intarwebs.
* Whoever wrote the spell checking dictionary for Firefox must despise the German language. The rule seems to be that if it’s a compound word, it’s not in the dictionary. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s so striking and persistent.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Jay: Flight Analysis
We have to regroup before we can go, but the feeling that we’re in danger combined with the increasing conviction that we’d be better off away from much of the family has led me to start analyzing more formally the relocation thing mentioned earlier.
One of the things that came up was “shall issue,” which led me to this entry of interest, mainly in that it includes this cool animated GIF.
Based on the most recent year displayed, Alaska and Vermont are the best states, the bulk are now acceptable, and the ones absolutely ruled out by that would be Illinois and Wisconsin. That’s without reading or more formally looking up details.
We also figure about four hours drive time from here, or really from anyone with whom we’d prefer to maintain a friendly distance. I should figure out what that rules out offhand, but pretty much anything in New England, if you count not wanting to shovel roofs.
Okay, Google Earth puts New York City just over four hours away. Albany is about an hour closer. Syracuse is over 5 and Ithaca (where I once had a remote office of sorts) is over 6. Parts of New York, then, though upstate gets you into that shoveling the roof thing in some cases. Then again, there are worse things. I’ve thought for many years that Montana or Idaho might be nice.
Looks like we’ve ruled out seven states and parts of one, strictly speaking. More, if we rule out “may issue” states.
Again, without knowing if the source is reputable or researching further, this page tells us the best states for homeschooling are Texas and Indiana, which I already knew, Alaska, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Oklahoma.
The worst are supposed to be Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. Basically if you have to ask permission to educate your kids, which is the way it works here, even though lots of people do it and there doesn’t seem to be a big deal - but that depends on school district, then it’s not acceptable.
So wow, I could start a map based on all that. Finer points, sure, but it’d get the ball rolling.
I did a map then thought to look for tax comparisons, which for the moment are coming from the 2007 listing here. I messed up by starting with state burden and then switching to overall burden. The distinctions can be small enough that this is less important than some things.
So here’s the map so far. Brown states are ruled out. Green states score best. I’d tend to rule out Alaska, much as I’d love to visit. Purple states were good for homeschooling and shall issue, but without the added benefit of being in the lowest of the low tax states (well, the lowest 20). Conversely, blue ones came up good for taxes but didn’t fall on the best or worst home schooling lists. The mustard yellow states were in the worst 20 for tax burden, but otherwise didn’t register one way or another. White/blank didn’t have anything to flag. Either of those might be acceptable if looked at more closely, with the green, purple and blue shaded states presumably falling in that order of preference based on what I know so far. This is pretty minimal research, for which I so don’t have time, but it was cathartic or something. Like a goal setting thing. By the time moving would be possible, we’d be past the current danger, but other factors won’t have changed. I’m to the point where instead of it seeming weird to move out of the state, it seems right and inevitable. Which could change if I get an amazing job here, but hey, worth a look.
Looking at all this, refined from the original post, any thoughts?
Oh, almost forgot the map! Here it is (click for larger, as usual):
Monday, March 03, 2008
Jay: Location is Everything
In some ways we love Massachusetts more than you would expect. Especially this part of it, between it being pleasantly purple and being in one of the most “southern” climate zones that cut through the state. It always fascinated me that the seed catalogs showed, if I recall correctly, five climate bands going through Massachusetts. Not a surprise, based on the actual weather variations. The one I was in growing up in (not sure I’m allowed to say what town that was), which is probably this same one, dove surprisingly deep into the south. The taxes aren’t as absurd as generally reputed. The dominance of democrats in the state is of an odd sort, almost like the politicians of the one party are of multiple parties, and it’s just that you have to claim to be a democrat to have any chance to get elected.
However, there are various reasons we might like to leave eventually. It’ll take some time to work around to it, and it might not happen if we get sufficiently entrenched in a “tied to location” sort of way again, as I was with the old business. Which may be fine, if it’s worth my while.
We’re relatively open to the many available options, but there are certain preferences and requirements to consider…
No offense to some of you, but we’ve been increasingly interested in living not-so-close to so many relatives. An exception would be Wayne, which makes Ohio, Indiana or Kentucky sound more intriguing than any of them might otherwise. Except Ohio is an especially high tax state, and they arrested and created a living hell for an old friend of mine for legally carrying a gun through the state.
Obviously the lower the taxes, the better.
Obviously the closer to “hey, we read the 2nd Amendment with the reading comprehension of a 1st grader and didn’t ignore it” the state is, the better.
Low cost of living would be helpful, at least in proportion to available income.
Though obviously if it’s low but nobody can find work, that’s kind of bad, depending on…
Ease and cost of getting solid broadband is vital, especially to the degree there’s not local work and you have to do all the more online, not to mention it’s good in connection with…
Home schooling. This is perhaps the single biggest factor, not having a hassle about that, since we are ever more sure we just can’t inflict the insane system on these kids.
Availability of reasonably priced rental housing of adequate size would probably be helpful. Not like we’d be moving there and walking into a house purchase. We have a lot of recovering and houses have a lot of market adjustment to go before that’ll happen. Plus it’s healthy for there to be rental housing, and a range of available options, rather than a monolithic landscape of houses of a certain size.
Religion is fine if it’s your thing. We’ve been known to have friends and get along well with people who swing that way. However, even if it’s a substantially or monolithically religious area, it should never be uncomfortable or oppressive for those of us who don’t partake.
Despite the school system seeming crazy, this is one of the more libertarian-leaning parts of the state. If we can’t get a state like that, the least we’d prefer is another local area along those lines.
I’ve probably forgotten something, as it’s taken me much of the day off and on to peck this out. I guess distance from family could be a factor in terms of starting distance. For instance, it’d be kind of silly to move to Rhode Island and be essentially as handy to the psychic locusts as we are now. I also meant to note that in general warmer is better than colder, and I wouldn’t rush to move somewhere that requires snow to be removed from a roof lest it collapse more than, say, as a once in a lifetime anomaly.
People we know in the area, but who are low stress, would certainly be a bonus enticement.
We’ve thought about Texas over the years, which is about as easy as it gets for homeschooling, as I understand it. It would triangulate to about the maximum distance from both sides, even as we could tout it as offering equality of access and being fairer. We’ve thought about Alabama, in part because of how much Deb liked the Gulf Coast area in the past. South Carolina seems to be the current fad, and I can see that. Kentucky strikes me as an interesting possibility, mentioned earlier. Not sure all the details of how those states really would be for the main goals.
Oh! Forgot one of my key points and almost posted without it. The whole health insurance thing. RomneyCare has to go. Getting rid of it personally by moving would be great, assuming it hasn’t gone national by then. If it hasn’t, we’d still be paying some attention to how difficult it might be to get individual coverage in a given state, at what cost and with what gotcha regarding anything that could be called a preexisting condition.
Thoughts? Where would you move, if you felt free to do so?
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