Job Hunting
Friday, May 02, 2008
Deb: This is what you do…
if you haven’t managed to find a job that pays all the bills: you find a job that pays some part of them, however small. So tomorrow morning I’m due to show up for orientation for my fancy new gig stocking shelves at a local branch of America’s most hated RetailMegaCorp.
So many things I could say about this, starting with how amusing I find the full-circle aspect of the job and ending with how much I hate so much of the bashing on this particular company. But I’m short on time today, so I won’t.
Just wanted to share a little update with y’all, since you’ve been hanging in with us through all of the drama.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Jay: Blargh
I feel lousy this morning. Got enough sleep, even if much of it was in Sadie’s bed because she apparently decided our bed would be better and warmer. Well, “even if” makes her bed sound bad, and actually it’s awesome. I may have gotten deeper sleep there. I noticed Valerie eventually abandoned her bed too, presumably joining the crowd in ours.
I woke up from one of those crazy mashed up dreams. It involved starting a job, and the place or aspects brought in elements of multiple past employers and situations. The place was named Halliday, which is one job. The lobby was right out of Corporate Software, which later became Stream. I was supposed to start at $8.00 an hour, which happens to be minimum wage in Massachusetts currently. I speculated they might start at slightly higher, which Flatley Company did when I worked at Waterford Village. Minimum wage then was $2.90 and they paid $3.00. Then minimum wage went to $3.10 and they paid… $3.10, which completely destroyed some notions I had.
I was talking with someone, speculating that the company might pay me a little above the minimum. Sure enough, it was going to be $8.02, which somehow morphed into the exact same thing as the $12.02 I started at with Corporate Software. Anyway, even the reference to pay rate is a reference back to prior jobs.
The exterior of the building was some kind of generic cross between places, hard to say one more than another, but there might have been elements of a Christy’s Market, adding another old job.
Later, when I was on the job, there was a scene in an apartment. Apparently apartments were part of what the place did, which goes back to Waterford Village. It was vacant, had been mine, still had some of my stuff in it, and was not going to be rented any time soon. This was like the office I had in Easton, which took me a month extra to move out of after the last official month, with them in no hurry for it. A guy named Matthew showed up in the dream. We once shared an apartment in Greenfield, and I was telling him he might soon want to get his stuff out of this one that he’d left it in with me. He hadn’t even realized I’d moved. Shades of former partners having left stuff in the office in Easton, which had to go to them, be disposed of, be adopted, or be stored.
Confusingly, in a related sequence, I was showing someone how many bookcases I was going to be able to fit, in a ridiculous arrangement, in just the entryway/kitchen area alone. The someone was an amalgamation of a former partner and someone I didn’t work closely with at Stream, but who was similarly brilliant.
Very strange. I also remember thinking that I could crash in the apartment if needed, like if I needed to stay over at work since the place was vacant, I had access to it, and they’d made me welcome to use it, short of actually moving in.
Lots of stuff to do today. Hope I can remember what it is! I have some e-mailing and calling and going and researching and writing and food storing and cleaning and organizing and so forth to be done.
We received a book yesterday that we’d order super cheap from Half.com, a used copy of Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. I need to do more than skim the intro, but it should be interesting. Sadie is beyond ready. She fell asleep last night with a book named “Ted” open, pages down on her chest. She studies and recites books from memory. She knows the letters. She has an idea of some words, like the Q thing she identifies with closing a program (Quit), that made he so excited to learn about how q and u go together.
This morning she spent some time on my lap while I didn’t write and I did an impromptu tiny lesson on m and s, which are the first ones covered in the book. She can point them out on the keyboard (and sound like I’m stupid to ask her) and I had her say the sounds. The actual lessons take about 15 minutes. Not a bad amount of time to devote, once or twice a day. I doubt she’ll need the whole thing or want to be held back to that speed once we’re rolling.
Anyway, I need to go take care of stuff in the kitchen. And post the birthday I didn’t know about before I started this. Sooner or later I’ll have no birthday-free days.
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.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Jay: Preoccupied
I was working on a post about recent work experiences, but decided I’d cut to a this and that post and save the other for later.
Things got more interesting again with the baby. Henry is apparently allergic to milk. He got into a sippy cup one of the girls had, got a meaningful amount, and where it dribbled down his front, he got contact hives.
So we are up to milk and presumably milk products, with it all the clearer the big incident was cheese-related, bananas, apples, grapes, juice of the above, apparently broccoli, and I could swear I’m forgetting something else. The seems to be able to eat/touch column includes rice, oatmeal, potatoes, chicken, beef, pork, butternut, carrots, and sweet potatoes. We’re reasonably confident about pear. He tasted Valerie’s cranberry strawberry juice today with no obvious or immediate consequences, but hard to say. The girls aren’t going to be easy to train. I got cranberry specifically because we know apple and grape juices are bad, and in case it’s good for Val’s urinary system. At the same time, wanting it so tasty she drinks plenty and stays hydrated.
Good thing he loves rice cakes.
This means Deb is back off dairy again, and I’ll avoid it for cooking anything we’ll all eat. We really need to find margarine that contains no dairy products.
I have so much on my plate, I’m lucky to slip in a post. I had a crazy, way underpaid bit of work Sunday and Monday. I helped someone with a computer speedup and de-infestation yesterday. Apparently I have some big fans at the old stomping grounds. The bit of work yesterday might lead to more. I have some work we’re calling tech-marketing that I need to ramp up and spend some real time on, getting a handle on it. The cool thing is it reminds me of my favorite college class, which was named management seminar, and was a graduate-style case course on strategic management and, by extension, business development. It’s like being handed a case to work on for real. There’s some writing work still pending, which I need to check on, status-wise.
There’s everything being made interesting due to the baby’s medical/diet issues.
There’s an ongoing, fits and starts reorganization and cleanup of the office and the house generally, purging stuff we don’t need, traveling a bit lighter.
There’s the project of thanking all the awesome people who donated to us recently, which is up near the top of the priority list for today.
There’s marketing. It looks increasingly like I may be able to piece together a living from this and that, and may be able to do that and spend a lot of time on the home front, while Deb has the potential of some supplemental outside work. However, the marketing includes of her, on the idea we can both do this and that without more than part time or hit and run outside the house work.
So that’s the stuff I’m working on or concerned with, that may mean a post is slow to appear if it’s somewhat extraneous.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Jay: Busy Today
In an odd sort of way. It’s so nice, I should probably take the kids outside, but I think Deb may do that for a while to help along my attempt at productivity. At the same time, I’d wanted to try to give Deb some less encumbered time to work toward restocking the shop, which did land office business the last few days. We’ll get there.
I’m writing thank you e-mails to people who donated, as a big priority. We’re still just blown away.
I have a bit of work lined up for tomorrow, late afternoon. The rate is reasonable, as far as a flat rate that makes it worth an estimated 2 hours or so, plus a half hour or so round trip. However, there’s a huge amount of time involved in reading and digesting the red tape to be handled, and the instructions for something unfamiliar, easy as it may be (swapping POS system components). It’s probably closer to 4.5 hours total work. Reading that material is on the agenda, though I relaxed when I became reasonably sure I did not have to call anyone involved until I arrive on the scene.
I have a smaller bit of work at a time to be determined the first three days of the week. It’s pleasing that between them it’s most of a week’s rent, or enough to put the car we all fit in on the road, or whatnot. The smaller bit of work is likely to lead to a little more of the same, when every little bit matters.
I managed today to get back to the guy I’ve been discussing a different sort of work with, involving blogging, social media, and business development types of activities on a tentative, exploratory basis. I’m psyched about the possibilities.
There are some WordPress sites we run that I need to upgrade. One needs a different template, as I suspect that specifically of being a security hole.
Then there are other work-seeking efforts to be done, and so forth. I may be a little scarcer about posting here than otherwise might be the case, though I may put some pictures up, as it’s been a while and there’s an accumulation. Back to work…
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Jay: Interview With Carly (No, Not the Irish Singer from AI)
Sean Hackbarth interviewed Carly Fiorona, with economic policy questions for John McCain. It’s interesting and not all that long, so you might like to check it out. It includes a question from me, which I gave to Sean phrased as:
Maybe ask if he’d do anything to stop the ethanol-from-food madness, encourage waste biomass or alternatives instead.
It is worth noting that, like me, Sean is looking for work. I’ve known him since 2003, when I started blogging. He’s been blogging longer than most of us, and has some cool experience.
Jay: On Today’s Menu
Wow.
I have to run stuff to the post office, as people have been cleaning Deb out. Like 1/3 of the Etsy shop and several items from the book shop, and there was only one order ready to ship before the post office closed yesterday. I’m looking at 7 first class or priority packages, and packing slips for a couple more.
That’s first, because it’s about prompt shipping for which the shops have become known.
Then I need to do thank you e-mails. Lots of thank you e-mails. Sometime in the next day, I figure. We’re just… astonished.
I also need to do my planned “hire us” item on the sidebar, which would have been better done before yesterday’s post went up. I didn’t ask for anyone to link it, and have no idea how the heaviest of hitters knew about it almost as soon as it was posted. So I didn’t expect anywhere near the traffic or response.
I have an American Idol post to write.
Maybe not today, but very soon there will be an edition of CotC. While I may still call it a fundraising edition, and if that catches a few more people who’ve appreciated or are attached to it then great, the impetus now is that so many people donated here and mentioned CotC in conjunction. Plus I’m going to burst if I don’t do something soon with all the links I personally have been accumulating, let alone whatever is in the mailbox I haven’t looked at lately.
It’s a good day to put the resume and/or work solicitations in more places.
I need to look at some information worth knowing in advance of a likely phone screening for the far away support job possibility. No matter how massive your background, it seems there’s always a “really like you to know...” that you don’t, or have not even heard of.
Okay, off I go. Just wanted to fix this stuff in my mind and put forth what’s up, for the curious, as something besides birthdays.
Oh yeah! Need to post about Henry aging a few months yesterday, and how cool that was.
Jay: Happy Birthday
To blogger Daniel Johnson, Jr., who has multiple blogs, including one on job hunting, which it seems he too is doing now.
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…
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Jay: Who Knew?
I started to write about the interview today and have no idea what I was saying, looking at what I started earlier. The short form is it seemed to go okay, I was more nervous than the last one, got a little more experience and prep for next time, and I should know this week. I had no idea what to say I expected. I’ve had $25 - 30/hr in my head as a likely range if it’s not really lowball, and if it isn’t relatively higher than I’d expect for the nature of the work. I’d take it for less at this point, despite being contract, and I’d be delighted if it were more.
The place was easy to get to, not that far really, and the people seemed great. The products involved sounded quite cool.
I overdressed again, but it’s hard not to. Once I am dressing uncasual, putting on the full regalia feels like putting on a uniform. I know it matches. I know it’ll never be unacceptable. Deb says it seems natural on me, which actually makes sense.
Anyway, one thing I took away from the two interviews, to my surprise, is that had I kept even a little more of a hand in programming, I could either waltz into a programming job, or more easily get one that might potentially tie into that. I’ve been wanting to play around more with some new things, like some of the web development options, but I had no idea I’d come across as being painfully close to the droid they were looking for.
And that reminds me of the observations people have made about me. When I am writing code, it’s like watching unadulterated joy, to interpret one of them more poetically. One of the best programmers I’ve ever encountered, a former partner, scoffs when I belittle my own ability and potential in that area, and works well with me because I understand him. Which in a sense is a more generic thing - I can supervise and orchestrate programming work.
It’s one of those ultimate things that’s hard to enter into halfway, though. I have trouble if I can’t write in an uninterrupted stretch until the thought is out. I even have trouble prepping, planning, even cooking food with excess distraction. Not as bad, in a way, but you can’t engage me in conversation when I am, say, cutting stuff.
Still, I’ve wanted to dabble in it, playing guitar, as it were, but thought it would have no point, so I didn’t. I’ve even felt guilty about wanting to, be it generically playing with a language, or modifying an old program. The closest I’ve come, since I last tried doing code for the old business, was modifying, and wanting to modify somewhat more, the painting program for kids. Sadie learned to mouse with it, and still plays with it some. I’d been thinking I’d clean up some test code, change a couple things slightly, make it so you could toggle easy mode where moving the mouse draws without holding down the button, and make it available for download free.
Thus the title. Who knew that programming might have been something I could hope to get into? Or that a strong interest in it would be helpful when interviewing even for work that didn’t seem related.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Jay: Tuesday
In case I don’t get time to post in the morning, I do have a couple birthdays to post later, and will presumably have an interview experience to mention retrospectively. I’m due in Needham at 10:00 AM for one, where I should also get to see the former colleague who has been responsible for getting me two interviews so far.
The truck is gassed up. It’s about 38 miles each way, which is expensive these days. It’s momentum, anyway. Temporary or not, I feel good about it.
I also have at least one tiny bit of client work expected next week. A little grocery money, anyway. Speaking of which, tomorrow I need to stop on the way home for Benadryl for Henry. He needs some most days. At least today we confirmed he is bothered significantly by the bath. Even Valerie seems to have been affected by it. Either there’s residue or growth that’s not obvious and hits hard, or something about the water itself, or something about the tub itself. In retrospect, this started when he started bathing in the big tub.
Tonight no soap was used while he was in there, and the temperature was reasonable. He went in there fine. He came out as rashy as he ever gets, which is in proportion to the length of time. It seems worst where he most touches the tub, counting that he gets on his belly and crawls/swims around. The thing is, his very worst spots are where his face gets washed regularly, usually with just a damp cloth - water with no soap, plastic, rubber, etc., and a cloth that shouldn’t hurt him that gets laundered in detergent we have no evidence hurts him, as it shouldn’t.
Further experimentation will follow, obviously, including no baths some days, either at all or going in the shower with one of us instead, and the cleaning to end all cleanings.
It remains clear that he handles bananas badly. It remains clear that something happened that was most likely related to dairy - probably a specific package of cheese and its histamines - or eggs, and was more topical than internal. It’s unlikely now that either Deb eating eggs or him eating raw pears was a factor recently. It’s unlikely he was bothered by anything he might have ingested in trace amounts yesterday. It’s clear that washing his hands with Dial was bad. It’s clear that he reacts either chemically, texturally, or both to some of the screen printing on my T-shirts. He can eat rice, oatmeal, apples, butternut, carrots, and unofficially peanut butter and raisins with no apparent issue. He’ll probably get to eat sweet potato tomorrow, as I made extra tonight to save for the purpose. That’s likely to be fine, too. But you can see how confusing it would be to feed something, then have him broken out in rash in the evening… after a bath.
Stay tuned for another exciting episode of As the Rash Reddens…
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.
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.
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