Archive for Random Babble
Happy Late Pi Day and Early St. Patrick’s Day!
So Thursday we’re having highs in the 60s, then Friday it’s snowing. Makes no sense! Then again, I prefer that to the alternative of “grey and drizzly”.
So I have a job. Or rather, in a month, I will have a temporary job. I got hired as an enumerator for the Census. It’s full-time, and the position lasts up to two months. Which is unfortunate in that I’d like a less temporary position, but is good in that it pays rather well considering the work, and will help me gain charisma levels as I will be working with the public and all. That plagues me – that I might look great on paper, but get me into an interview and I’m awful at reading people, or knowing what they’re looking for, or I’ve read too many conflicting articles on how to act in interviews and I can’t combine all the info into a perfect demeanor depending on who I’m interviewing with. Anyhow, work is good.
I’m redoing my professional site, which is almost but not quite done. Had another website that I’d built disappear altogether from the internet, which is unfortunate as I really needed a decent screenshot of it. It’s all built in OsCommerce too, meaning I can’t just open my saved version of the site. So I cheated and used a screenshot from the PDF file where I designed the site in the first place.
On a completely unrelated note, I can’t decide if I should go ahead and stop watching The Office. See, it’s been on a downhill slide since Season 5, and it makes me sad. There is that trope of “TV show goes downhill when the romantic tension is resolved” thing, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case here, which makes it all the sadder. The first episode I ever watched was an early Season 4 one, so I knew from the start that Pam and Jim got together anyway.
Here’s the problems as I see them: First of all, the actress who played Holly left the show unexpectedly to pursue other things, and I’m pretty sure they’d planned out a bunch of episodes with her in them. Meaning the writers didn’t have much time to hash together a new plot direction. However, I still don’t understand why they brought Toby back. I mean, when Toby left, he was pretty clear about not coming back. But they brought him back anyway, and just didn’t give a strong reasoning for having his happen. Same thing with Ryan, in fact. It just made no sense that he would come back happily as a temp again. If I could, I would just erase the whole first chunk of Season 5, and start with the Charles Major arc.
The Charles Major arc was pretty much the best thing about Season 5. There’s a new interesting character, with all the new dynamics that go with such things. Plus, Michael left and started his own company. The show is more interesting when everyone isn’t in the same position they’ve been in for the past several years – office environments naturally evolve, people get promoted or move around, part of why it was so interesting in Season 3 to have Jim in a new office, or why Season 4 was fun with Ryan promoted above Michael’s head. Anyhow, Michael’s new company brought Ryan back into the story in a much more realistic fashion then the beginning of the season’s attempt to do so: I don’t think Ryan would happily return to being a temp from his previous status as a higher-up in management, but working as a salesman in Michael’s company is pretty appealing compared to working at a bowling alley. I was also happy to see Vicram again, as he was a fun character.
Incidentally I’m not too happy with Ryan’s character in Season 6. Apparently he went all indie/arty with no good explanation. I like the Sabre storyline, but I can’t help but feel like it’s too little too late. Also – I hate all the schmaltz surrounding everything Jim and Pam do. Like the wedding episode, completely unnecessary sentimentality! Made me greatly miss Phyllis’s wedding. Also, the recent baby episodes, too mushy. Not overtly mushy, but the mushiness was definitely still there.
I’ll probably still keep watching, just because I’ve been watching for so long. Now that Darryl is upstairs, maybe there will be some interesting interactions there. I’ve felt the lack of warehouse interactions ever since Roy disappeared, and especially since Kelly stopped dating Darryl. I’d like to see more episodes where Kelly and Kevin have stronger roles, as they are both ridiculous and fabulous. This seems to be the problem with TV shows in general, though, there are the lead actors and there are the supporting actors. Too bad that sometimes the supporting actors are more interesting then the lead actors!
Work, Dollars, Anime, Etc.
Work:
Teleconference yesterday, for the ultimate goal of getting this website launched in a week. Not fully finished, mind you, but finished enough to function. I’m currently working on making php generate a PDF form based on products selected + other stuff, what once seemed impossible is now at the “persnickety” level. This means that I for the most part understand what’s going on, there’s a bunch of fiddly things for me to do, and there’s the occasional out of left field error to work through.
So once this project is done, I can get dollars. And add this to my resume, and talk about all the Drupal modules I’ve built. In theory, this might make someone else want to hire me? We’ll see about that.
I’ve got a fabulous idea for a new website. It will involve cute food, it should be relatively easy to execute, and it will give me something to design as well as something to build with Drupal. I think I’ll have a better shot with getting development jobs if I hunker down and focus on a specific area, and at this point I’m liking how Drupal works and would like to get as proficient in it as possible.
Dollars!
Oh wait, that’s related to work, hah! Liberty does not give me many dollars. However, I am currently wearing a bra I can usually only wear in the summer, which is good. For those who are not me and/or don’t gain weight like me, this means that Liberty is saving me from the winter weight gain I always get. I really like working there, too. Some people get really excited seeing me out there with my sign. And surprisingly, it’s really rare to get obscene gestures. Usually every other time I’m out there, someone will flick me off. Once in every 8 hour timespan is acceptable, I suppose.
I blame Liberty for my cold. My never-ending cold, which remains at a low-grade “headache plus weird nose” status. See, it’s those free cookies. I cannot resist eating the cookies, and neither can all those disease-ridden children that come in attached to their parents. Liberty has an excellent set-up for people with kids: a little table with coloring books, other books, etc. plus those darn cookies.. And I’m sure I ate a cookie which was already touched by some germy kid. Le sigh.
Anime!
We finished the first season of Bleach. Definitely mixed feelings on it. I really like Chad and wanted to see more episodes where he was the focus. I wanted to see more background development on the characters – like the fact that Rukia is 40+ years old and stuck in this teenager’s body in a strange world. All we got about this was her not being able to stick a straw in a juice box. I really wanted to learn more about her situation. I mean, maybe it comes later, but at this point she’s not even on Earth anymore, so I’m not sure of the likelihood of this. I also don’t like the Hollows. Sometimes they stand around and talk to Ichigo and others in cunning ways, sometimes they stand around and make grunting noises like animals. Also, they like standing and waiting patiently while the main characters have dramatic conversation. Does not make sense. Anyhow, we may come back to Bleach later on, but for now we’ve moved on to other stuff.
Started watching Revolutionary Girl Utena last night, watched the first two episodes. I’m lost for a lot of it, but that’s pretty normal. It’s got some pretty interesting stuff going on so far (not the least is the song in the middle of both episodes singing about trilobytes, the Apocalypse, etc).
In other news, I need a tea vat with a drinking tube that just follows me around everywhere, it would be magical.
Whereupon I talk about being aimless and sick some more
Still sick. It’s weird, it started off like a normal cold – slight headache and scratchy throat growing into full blown cold. I had a few days of that, and then I woke up one morning and realized that I felt better. Not all the way better, though, and this is now day two that I feel that same as I did that morning. I’ve got my full-blown appetite again, no sore throat, but I’m stuck with a light stuffy nose, phlegm, and a headache that just won’t leave me. Not enough to really call it “sick” anymore, but just enough to be annoying. I’ve had this sort of thing last for a week or more in the past, and I’d rather not have that happen this time around. Now that I’ve added a blue-collar job to my repertoire, we’ll see how that effects the sickness. I’ve got a 4 hour shift with Liberty tomorrow, and I’m hoping (quite illogically, I’m sure) that with that long stretch of aerobic activity, the pseudo-sickness will realize that it has no place in my body any longer and will leave it for good.
Incidentally, I’m alone for the weekend. Had some plans for the whole V-day thing with Drew, involving going to some Cajun place whereupon I would gorge on shrimp, along with me making him something chocolatey and delicious. Alas, Drew has flown back to Richmond for Neil’s funeral, and shalnt return until Monday night. Being as I am poor and work Sunday, I stayed here. Estha needs company anyhow, and she entertains me nonstop with her pooping antics. I will spend a romantic Valentine’s day with her, playing with strings and pretending that when she meows, it’s because she’s telling me she loves me, not because her food bowl is almost empty. She doesn’t bother to finish the food first, she must preemptively let me know that she will need more food in the near future, and then she finishes it. Her definition of “empty” is when she can actually see the bottom of the bowl, even if the bowl’s edges are still crowded with food.
I’ve got entirely too many things to do but still managed to waste away my Saturday. I finally beat Airport Mania, and spent some time on i-sketch.net. Pictionary is a magical thing. Tomorrow will also be spent romantically wrangling some data into an attractive PDF layout. I found a class that lets me do it in PHP, it just looks to be a bit of a pain from my current standpoint. But, it must be done.
In other news, I like dance music. Good, high quality wiggly-waggly dance music. I must find more to help the days ooze by like buttah.
My life as a statue
I’ve found employment. Not the employment I was really expecting to find, mind you, but employment nonetheless. Indeed, I am now one of those people that dresses up as the Statue of Liberty and dances around at the side of the road, trying to convince you to go get your taxes done at Liberty Tax. Part time, $8 an hour. But it works for now.
Here’s the thing: it’s pretty freaking disillusioning to spend large quantities of your time applying (and failing to get) jobs. Eventually you start wondering what the point is in the first place. My veeery sllooowly moooving job building the router site is, well, slow. Doesn’t take up a huge amount of time. And, I need money. Even if I’m earning a rather paltry sum, at least I’m earning something. There’s also the fact that winters are infamous for making me lazy and get no exercise. So, it’s like I’m getting paid to go to a gym/club. In theory, I’m also boosting my confidence, by waving at complete strangers and having them wave back. There’s the occasional middle finger, but for the most part (when people respond, at least), people are friendly and some downright bizarrely happy to see me. It’s also pretty fun to wear a costume. I would take on a job as a Chick-Fil-A cow in a heartbeat, incidentally.
I also find it easier to organize my time when it’s broken up into chunks. Now that Drew is at work all day, my day stretches before me like a vast plain, all to be spent in front of the computer doing *something*, in theory, that will propel me to the next job, or give me another thing to slap on the ole resume. With this part-time job, I *have* to get work done in the alloted time available. Also, dancing around for several hours in a row makes it much easier to sit in front of the computer for long stretches of time. I’m rather restless for the most part, and like to wander around, and the fact that I eat more then my fair share of sugar during the day does nothing to ameliorate this tendency. So, being exhausted helps with this. And, if things go well, I’ll be super-toned by springtime!
And that’s that. Here are other things going on in my life right now, in list form:
- Have more or less gotten the hang of Drupal hooks. Am looking forward to trimming up my new shiny module and maybe getting it published on the Drupal site.
- Have decided that, as we don’t have friends out here in Denver yet, it’s time to start watching more anime. I never saw Evangelion, so we just started watching that last night. And will apparently need to finish watching it very soon as well, as I’ve now got Bleach sitting at the library waiting to be picked up.
- We’ve been eating free Chick-Fil-A for several months now, at least once a week. We thought we’d get sick of it at some point, but no. I still crave it as much as ever.
- Did you know you can stick slices of tofu in the toaster? It’s pretty neat.
- At some point, I need to get a phone with decent web-browsing capabilities. I mean, how am I supposed to make sure websites are designed to look good on mobile browsers if I don’t even have a mobile browser in which to look at them?
- I got all extravagant recently and bought a cactus for $3.50. It’s succulent and adorable. There’s the best shop ever in Manitou Springs with a greenhouse-type room filled with cacti/cactuses/cactodes of all shapes and sizes. When I go in there it’s like I go into a pet shop. Even better, actually, because pet shops make me sad. I feel for the plight of those poor Betas trapped in those teeny little glass bowls.
- Grilled cheese sandwiches are the Fruit of the Gods.
Job stuff, rabid illness, etc.
So here’s the job situation: I have picked up a temporary job working at Liberty Tax to tide me over until I (hopefully) hear back from the Census people (apparently it might be a bit of time, I’m hopeful though as I scored 100% on the test), and that will tide me over until either the freelance web stuff picks up or I can land a more permanent web job. I am moving forward on my current Drupal project, though, went to a meeting last week and checked out some CNC routers. Once that’s done, I’ve got a giant list of side projects to work on portfolio-building until I can land something else.
And, I’m sick. Came down with it yesterday. Might be cold or flu, not really sure. Headache, fever, chills, fatigue, sore throat, occasional cough. And I threw up today. Feels really weird to have things in my stomach. I think that my stomach’s weakening with age. I didn’t use to have stomach queasiness with illness, but lately I’ve gotten that. Also, in the last few years I’ve started experiencing queasy stomach after roller coaster rides. No good at all! Also no good is my period this time around. It’s really awful to have bad cramps while also sick. I’m still playing around with giving myself doses of zinc to help out. I wish zinc didn’t make me nauseas, and I need to drill into my skull that 15 minutes of nausea for a few days is a lot better then days of devastating pain.
Oh, and that avocado contest I entered? I did not win. Well, I did win a cookbook and a t-shirt, both of which should come in the mail at some point, but no dollars. It’s all good, though, I felt like I learned a great deal of Flash, which is something.
The long drive back from Tennessee
So, last Wednesday night we ended up leaving for Nashville at about 2 in the morning. Errr, we left for Nashville early Thursday morning (somehow, it doesn’t seem to be the next day until the sun actually starts rising). I drove first shift, and got to see a fabulous sunrise in Kansas before attempting to conk out in the folded down backseat of Drew’s car. There’s enough room for a person to stretch out and sleep, but it doesn’t work so well when the car is driving and I’m used to a glorious mattress. We got to Nashville at 11:00 central time. Unfortunately for us, most of the people there were East Coast elitists, so they had just finished watching the ball drop when we went inside, declared it a new year, and went to bed. New Year’s Central Time went unnoticed, and we were conked out in bed by the time Mountain Time New Years happened.
Now here’s something I’m curious about: New York has the ball drop and all, but what about the other time zones? Seems to be that Chicago should have a ball drop for the Central time zone, Denver for the Mountain time zone, and I suppose Seattle for the Pacific time zone. Don’t let New York get all the glory! I’d suggest more southern cities, but it seems that people have this idea that the holidays should be all gobbed up with snow, even though many parts of the US don’t see snow around the holidays at all. However, I’m open to a ball drop in
We were there 2.5 days, whereupon I received stuff and ate stuff and hung out with Drew’s relations. We decided to split up the drive back into two parts, and ended up getting a motel room in Topeka after having eaten some incredibly delicious BBQ in Missouri earlier. I need to either make or get ahold of some St. Louis style BBQ sauce, as it’s really good. I’m a sucker for some sweet and smoky. We might have driven further that night, but at some point the roads got slushy, then icy, and it would have been a waste. It’s interesting to observe weather driving west. It was really cold in Nashville with no snow, bitterly cold in Topeka with bunches of snow, and the further west we drove across Kansas the warmer it got, and it’s gonna hit close to 50 in Denver today.
Incidentally, next time we’ve got this kind of distance to go, we’re gonna try to fly instead. Driving is fun if you aren’t really familiar with the route so much, but we’ve both seen the 430 mile stretch on I-70 across Kansas waaay more then we need to at this point.
And here’s a few thoughts on hotels. I like nicer hotels, but only if someone else is totally covering it. As Drew and I were splitting the tab, we stayed at a Motel 6. In terms of cheap hotels/motels, it often seems better to choose chains over non-chains. With non-chains it’s questionable as to how livable the room will actually end up being. However, it doesn’t matter much for that chain if whoever stays there thinks it sucks, as they’re just passing through and so repeat business isn’t too much of a concern. So, if they’re sheisty or lazy, they can get away with lower standards. However, staying at a chain place, there’s a possibility that you’ll continue to visit their other locations when you travel. Thus, the Motel 6 was as bare-bones as the price suggested, but had the benefit of being appropriately clean and not being sketchy.
We got back last night around 8:30, and Estha was super glad to see us. We now have giant piles of crap sitting everywhere which we should probably deal with at some point. Also, so much junk food. My goal is to not eat it all today. Incidentally, my New Year’s resolution is to not gain too much weight. Screw losing weight. And screw not gaining weight. I’ve accepted the fact that, every winter, I put on lbs. Conversely, every summer, I lose those lbs. All I want is to not gain so many lbs that my bras stop fitting, as that is a royal pain. Mind you, I’ve got summer bras and winter bras for this precise purpose, but when I start outgrowing the winter bras things start getting really pissy for me.
Anyhow, we scored a giant bag of miniature candy (kisses and teeny Reeses cups and such), which pleases the little Martha Stewart part of me as it means we have stuff to put in our candy dish for the next month or so. Incidentally, we decided that we’re gonna keep our Christmas tree and lights up until the beginning of February. See, I get depressed in the winter. I think the excitement of the holidays helps, but January is generally pretty bleak. So, I shall experiment with leaving bonus Xmas light cheer up, to see if that combats seasonal affective disorder type issues.
And on a final note, today is Drew’s and my 4 year anniversary, yay! Unfortunately, Drew is currently passed out in bed with whatever disease he picked up on this trip. We’ll be hitting the Macaroni Grill later for anniversary dinner, whereupon I will gorge myself on sea life and exciting beverages. Until then, I will hang out with Drupal and try to figure out what the heck to get Drew for our anniversary that he hasn’t already received over this long holiday season.
Drupal, the holidays, etc
I feel like I’ve cracked a major milestone, or something, regarding Drupal. I finally figured out how to write a basic module, and it works. Still needs a lot of finessing, but it gives me confidence that I can finish this project I’m working on without that pesky guesswork of knowing what I needing to do, but having no clue how to do it and no clue how difficult it is to do it. I’m really hoping that I can clean up my module and make it more user-friendly, so I can publish it with other modules and future people could find it useful.
I think I might go ahead and convert the Salami Day website to Drupal. I was originally using it as my CakePHP learning experience, but since not getting the job that I originally tried to learn CakePHP to impress, I feel like Drupal is just a better direction to go in, for now at least. That was an unfortunate job experience, anyhow. It’s really crappy when you go to an interview, find out that there’s something they really want you to know that they never bothered to tell your recruiter about, or bothered to mention in the telephone interview you’ve already had with them. Then, when you mention you’ve been thinking about learning it and can pick it up in the next week, they give a dismissive comment, as if they don’t believe you. Pretty much my entire design/development career has consisted of “Hey, I need to learn this program to do this thing. Guess I better do it.” I mean, that’s how you learn, right? Mind you, I didn’t have any sort of fabulous grasp on CakePHP, but after a week I’d rebuilt Salami Day and had a decent enough understanding of it’s structure. The job looked pretty nice, too. Oh well. Considering how many applicants they might have had who actually *knew* CakePHP, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I didn’t get it. Nonetheless, I wish I could just jump up and down and flap my arms and scream that I’m a hard worker and love deadlines, and have them listen and fall in love with me and give me a bucket of dollars. If only!
In other news, I’m getting sick of ham + salad. We did Christmas with Drew’s aunt Pam, and as she was fortunate enough to get invited to a friend’s timeshare in Hawaii for the remainder of the holiday break, we got to take home all the food that Drew’s cousin Travis wasn’t going to eat. So, we have this gargantuan bag of salad, along with a nice pile of ham. Thus, ham salad! Goes great with Ken’s Steak House honey mustard dressing! Also, mmm, Christmas latkes. They went fast. We also have a metric ton of chocolate. Pacing issues with that, of course. Also, a post Christmas present – me finding a workout machine for free on Craigslist! It’s some sort of step resistance machine, nothing too fancy, but it’s free, and that’s the important part.
We leave for Nashville in two days. Drew’s family reunion and all that stuff. I get my sewing machine back, which shall be glorious. My butt will also get numb and fall off from the driving. Less glorious.
Also! On the 6th, I go in to take an application to become a Census worker. Could be fun! I have been spending waay too much time playing Oasis, which is this fabulous “Civilization meets Minesweeper” type game, which came out a few years back and I’m playing on my computer and is really cheap through the Amazon game downloads section. Andrew has been similarly productive, in that he just finished reading all of Dragonball. Which is a godawful quantity of manga.
Hmm, about time for another infamous ham salad. Hope everyone has a Happy New Year!
On jobs and programs and that holiday thing going on right now
First off, Drew has a job. Yay! He was supposed to be just part-time, but they want him to go full time. He’ll be doing recruiting for an online college. Another phone job, which is admittedly what he was doing before he got his degree, and doesn’t have much to do with political science. Apparently one of the people who interviewed him has a masters in international relations, so it’s not like he’s the only one being hired outside of his degree area. Being that it’s for a college, they had strong preference for people who had degrees anyhow, so it works out.
I’m still poking along, and am dealing with the slowness of people who need websites as a side thing to their real work. I’m gonna try to get a temporary job with the census, most likely as an enumerator. I can go door to door with a clipboard! I’ll need to take a test of some sort which will likely be ridiculously easy, and then see if I’m needed in my area (along with the gazillion other people who probably applied to do this as well). It would be evening and weekends mostly, so if my web work picks up, it would not interfere with potential meetings and such. Waiting to get a call back to take the application test currently.
As of right now, I’m back to learning Flash. I have high hopes for this time around, as I have an actual project I’m working on. Avocado animation ahoy! Making a video to enter to win $2,000. Going slow but steady at the moment, I’ll be sure to post it here when I’m done.
I am nauseous from mint bark. It is ridiculously easy to make, mostly involving smashing oreos and melting heaps of chocolate in the microwave. It is also ridiculously easy to eat too much of it.
Oh, and we’re apparently going to Nashville for New Years. Nice long drive, there. Drew’s got a family reunion dealio going on, and it will give me an opportunity to retrieve my sewing machine and paintbrushes, both of which I managed to leave behind in Richmond and both of which are quite necessary for my general well being. We’re taking Drew’s car, as the back seat folds down and has enough room for whoever’s not driving to nap. First, we’ve gotta get Drew’s oil changed. Looks like we’re getting about 6 inches of snow by tomorrow, so that’ll need to go away (or we’ll need to find a nice clear lot) before we can deal with the oil. I just really hope his oil filter and other bits aren’t in completely ridiculous locations. He’s always changed his oil in a shop, and I really hope they didn’t use a machine to screw and unscrew the plug (Jiffy Lube is particularly bad with that), cause that makes it a real big pain for those of us with weak arms to loosen said plug!
Anyhow, Happy/Merry/Kwazy Christmas/Yule/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus/etc.!!!
Impending Christmas and such
So Christmas shopping is almost over! I got (mostly) everything boxed up and shipped stuff back to Richmond yesterday, we’ll see if parcel post comes through and allows things to get there by Xmas. If not, no biggie, it’s kinda exciting when you’ve got bonus presents to open after the 25th anyhow. Shipping was painful, however. It helps that the majority of the presents I’m doing this year are handmade (or pseudo-handmade, at least). Still need to do stuff for Drew, but that’s complicated as he’s here all the time as the Job Fairy has not blessed him yet.
Oh, Job stuff. I was employed for a day. I neglected to realize how freaking long it takes to drive to Boulder (and North Boulder at that) during rush hour (1.5 hours, to be precise). It didn’t pay enough to make it worth the drive. At this point, I’m keeping my eye out for something part-time, as I’ve got a web job coming up for a research center which should fill out the rest of my time OK for awhile.
Every two-three months, I get really dissatisfied with my personal site and decide to poke at it, which I’m currently doing now. I’d say that maybe someday it will be perfect, but I’d be lying. I’m also not sure if I design websites right. Seems the hip thing to do these days is build it entirely in Photoshop first and then begin hacking away at it in html/css. Thing is, as someone who fears clunky code, giant images, and the giant load time that goes along with it, I’m more inclined to build where all the content’s gonna sit, and then figure out how to make it look good from there. In other news, I really need to join one of these local designer/developer groups, as I lack friends to talk to who design/develop.
And on a final note, I have eaten a metric ton of sugar cookies in the past few days. This is both delicious and bloating.
