My recruiter had an interview lined up for me when I got back, and it turned out that it was less of an interview and more of the guy having already decided he was interested in me based on my website, and just wanted to see if I was interested in the project. This still confirms in my head that I am bad at interviewing, since I didn’t really have an interview for this position. Also, there are other people working there who do both design and dev, so I was saved from the hated question of “which I like doing more”, which I think is only given by people who only do one or the other. Anyhow, it lasts a few weeks, since it’s just for a project, but assuming all goes well, it will make me more employable and give me money and all that good stuff.

I’m also in the middle of the DMS website (and by “in the middle” I mean, “busy hacking up Drupal and making a big ole mess”). Sometimes I’m uninspired for design, and I have that problem right now. So this is what I work on when I get home from the other job, since they want it done soon as well. I could also have a census job, the next round of followups, with training starting this Thursday, but I’m gonna have to call and cancel because I have no time. It’s like I went from famine to feast here. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, work is a good thing, it’s just exhausting when that’s all you do.

Also, this weekend I went to Drupalcamp Colorado, which was neat. I’ve got some fun ideas for new projects, once I have to time to get around to them, that is.

The training lasted four days, and mostly consisted of learning how to fill out the mounds of forms that are a supplement to any federal job, plus sorting through the piles of confusion. We started off with one crew leader and two assistants. As of Day 2, one of the assistants was assigned somewhere else, and as of Day 5 the other was assigned somewhere else, and we are assigned a second Crew Leader. So two people in our training class get promoted to Crew Leader Assistant. And then, as of yesterday, our original Crew Leader leaves as well. Aside from the shifting of peoples, there also seems to be general disagreement on how to fill out various persnickety forms, as well as disagreement on how to accurately obtain the census data itself. The first several days, we operated under the idea that you tried to do it as to-the-letter as possible, down to the “Are you male or female?” question on the form. Then, a higher-up comes in to give us a chat, and essentially sweeps all of this away, suggesting that we guesstimate a range of things based on what see see looking inside someones door (assuming that the persona at the door is refusing answers, at least). Thus far, my strategy is to operate somewhere in the middle.

So I’ve been doing the actual door-to-door for about a week now. The job is a mixture of enjoyable, tedious, and “making me want to quit” awful. The last part, luckily, has been a minority of the time, thus far.

The Enjoyable: It’s been beautiful outside lately, and it’s kind of nice to have a job that gets me out in this spring weather. My first day working, I was in a neighborhood beside a foothill with a path, so I took the opportunity to hike up it during my lunch break. I saw several species of bird I’m not sure I’ve seen before, along with gorgeous views of the Front Range as well as an interesting perspective of the nearby Coors factory.

It’s also pleasant to talk to pleasant people. People have various reasons for not having mailed in their census forms, the more common being “I forgot” or “I didn’t get one” or “I didn’t know what to put for ______”. People are often apologetic about this, and happy that, since I’m at their door and filling out everything for them, it’s one less form they have to do. Though I have not run into the mythical person that offers cake and/or dinner, I have had several people ask if I wanted to come inside and sit down. Alas, the job forbids me from doing this, but it’s a nice gesture nonetheless.

The Tedious: First off, we meet in some really strange places. It seems the classroom we were using is not available anymore, but we still need to have team meetings every day. Despite whatever stories about Census waste that are floating around say, there certainly isn’t money to spend on meeting spaces. So we’ve met twice in Denny’s. After realizing that a.) curious customers/wait-staff are not good to have around when you have work to do involving private information, and b.) we were occupying the majority of some poor waitress’s section, we’ve moved on to meeting in the lobby of a county building, and will continue to meet in that less the ideal space until a local college lets out and we can take up residence in their library.

Also tedious is the forms. So many forms! However, I get paid for filling out said forms, and the more I do the forms the easier they get, so this isn’t really a big deal.

The big tedious bit is finding some of these people. See, my job is to count the number of people in a given residence on April 1st. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. First, I’ve got to actually catch the people at home. If they’re not at home, I leave a slip of paper on their door with my number on it. Hardly anyone calls. I stop by at all different times of the day, but as I’m only allowed to go to doors until 7:00 pm, there’s gonna be some people I’ll just never catch in person. If that’s the case, I need to find a proxy – usually a neighbor or an apartment manager. It can be a bit of a pain to find these people too, and to convince them to answer questions. Which leads to…

The “Making Me Want To Quit” Awful: The Census is something that people are legally required to do. The information is mostly used to make sure communities get the money they need for schools, roads, etc.. Aside from that, it’s used for statistical purposes. The IRS will never see the information, nor will US Immigration Services. However, some people are fearful for their privacy. The minimal information I need to get is, well, pretty minimal – the number of people staying at a residence, their gender, and age. Anything beyond that is a bonus, and if people are uncomfortable giving any piece of information, they can just tell me so and I will skip that question.

Unfortunately, some people do not seem aware of any of the information in the preceding paragraph. I had a person who called me, yelling about privacy violations and the illegality of what I was doing and how this is harassment. She insulted me, left me feeling quite harassed, and I dealt with it by crying in my car for the next 20 minutes and then drowning my misery in Burger King. I was seriously ready to quit after this. Yesterday someone slammed a door in my face – not nearly as bad as getting yelled at, but it still stung.

Maybe part of the problem is me – the last “customer service” style job I’ve held was Food Lion, and I didn’t interact with customers much beyond “How thin do you want your ham sliced?” Since then, the only customers I’ve had to deal with are web design clients – sometimes a pain in their own way but generally with problems that I have some power of fixing. With this job, though, there are people that are angry because they perceive me as the Government trying to invade their space. They want to vent their anger, and I’m a nice soft target. And while logically I can understand that it’s the badge I wear that they’re angry at, it still hurts to be treated this way.

It’s a definite minority at least – most people are at least compliant, even if not totally friendly. But, it still stresses me out and I have to fight off thoughts of “What am I doing wrong to make them so angry and why can’t I fix it?” Things like this simply reaffirm that I’m designed to work better with computers then with people.

The team I work with is really nice, though, and my various leaders are supportive. If nothing else, the job pays well, is flexible, and will be over in about 2 months or so anyway.

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.

I finally beat Oasis on Insane. Were this 2004, when the game actually came out, it would likely be much more exciting. Nonetheless, Oasis has provided me with months of gameplay, and was totally worth the $6 I paid for it. On a similar note, rumors have it that a version of Civilization will be coming to Facebook this June. Aside from my occasional Scrabble obsession (and whenever someone flings a Pathwords invite at me), I’m not a big Facebook gamer. Yoville got tedious, and I haven’t logged into my account in months now. There’s a bunch of others (Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc.) I signed up for, played once, and then promptly forgot about. I think a problem with these games is that they’re mostly about doing the same thing over and over to acquire more stuff and build your character. None of which is all that interesting to me. One thing that is immensely interesting, however, is Civilization.

Job prospects = still slow. Didn’t get the job I interviewed for this past Friday. They might have a temporary use for me for a project that may or may not happen, however, which would be nice. I’d like to get more hours at Liberty, as though the pay is meager, it’s actually pretty fun to jump around by the side of the road all day long. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this healthy in the middle of winter before.

I wish another Chick-fil-a would open up out here. This is because I want to do another First 100. Preferably without the blizzard this time around. I also really just want to eat chicken constantly, because it is so freaking good.

I finished reading “Jonathan Norrell & Mr. Strange” by Susanna Clarke recently. It was fabulous, a very British early 1800′s take on magicians and magic, quite long and involving with quirky characters, I highly recommend it. I’m currently reading “Nature Girl” by Carl Hiaasen, which is quite funny.

Finished watching Evangelion. Apparently the ending was poorly executed due to budget issues, and I thus need to see a movie called “The End of Evangelion” for proper fulfillment. I really liked the concept behind the ending, and we can hopefully get our paws on the movie sometime soon. Started watching Bleach, am enjoying it but with mixed feelings. The more it veers away from the “I need to kill this giant Hollow” plots, the more I like it.

Oh yeah, I totally scored some free fabric off of Craigslist. Giant bag, some scraps and some decent-sized pieces. I’ve got a pair of black shorts with a drawstring that never really fit me right, and I’ve got this great idea to convert it into a skirt, adding some fabric to the bottom in ruffles or something. I’ve got plenty of fabric to do this, now it’s simply the matter of locating said shorts. There’s this black hole that follows me sometimes, and likes eating things I’d prefer not to have eaten. I picked up a tank top from Old Navy with the final dregs of my gift card, and as a tank top it’s entirely too long, but with some fabric on the bottom it would make an awesome dress. I need to find a fabric really similar to the tank top’a fabric to execute this, however. Now, once I have made these items, I need to find or create circumstances where I would actually wear a skirt or a dress. Pants are just such a nice default, but it’s a shame that I keep making all of this crap and never wear it anywhere for the most part.

Oh yeah, crispy chocolate in my near future. Old Towne Arvada is having some sort of chocolate festival, whereupon I will enter items into their cookie contest and, with any luck, will win a giant pile of chocolate. Which would be good timing, as our Christmas chocolate is slowly running out!

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.

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.

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!

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.!!!

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.