Where did JAM go?

So, you don't post for a few days and all of a sudden the emails come pouring in (by which I mean two). Gosh, what's up with that? I mean, I don't answer to you people... I really don't. If I want to sit in bed and read comics and eat ice cream, I can do that... Not that I have. (Ever, come to think of it...)

No, I spent much of the "long weekend" reorganizing the office (which I think I alluded to earlier was something that was bothering me). It was full of papers, computer boxes, papers, computer parts, papers, and many more papers. And while it was certainly an interesting (Huh, a birthday card from Waugh from 1997...), informative (wow, I had no idea we had this many colors of paper in the house... and who needs multiple post-it notes with Garfield on them?), and nostalgic trip (Hmm, a print out of nearly everything I did while working at Drew... why did I keep hard copies?), most of the stuff went to the recycling center. On the plus side, I can now see the floor and actually turn my chair around without jamming my toe into something (presuming the cat isn't at my feet).

But that's not all I did over the "holiday weekend" (which is a relative concept when you're unemployed...) MLW and I went to see The Ice Harvest with WPE (it was funny. Dark. but funny.) And I had a thoroughly "up with people" conversation with my sibling (is there any other kind?) Oh, and we got the six million -- okay, I exaagerate... 22 --storage bins of Xmas stuff out of the attic to begin "the great decorating process." (I can't tell you how little I care right now.)

I'm sure I'm leaving out various tidbits, but they're clearly so exciting as to have slipped my mind. I do need to tell you guys about my exciting trip to VA Employment, as well as my trip to CPI today (Tuesday), and I'm sure one or two more things. But they need to wait until tomorrow, as it's late and I have an appointment in the a.m. (No, don't get excited, it's therapy, not an interview...) More later, I'm sure.

Since I'll likely sleep through the parade...

...I figured I'd wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving right now. Don't eat too much (unless that's your thing, me I don't care for that bloated feeling...) And enjoy this little tidbits from our friends at blogthings:

You Are Mashed Potatoes

Oridnary, comforting, and more than a little predictable You're the glue that holds everyone together.

What Part of Thanksgiving Are You?

Mmmm.... mashed potatoes...

I have no idea what I'm talking about...

Um, okay. Orgami Slayer was on my case about this RSS feed stuff. I really don't understand it, other than that different people use different services. And I think they each helpfully tell you when I've updated the blog rather than you sitting there hitting the "refresh" button in the manner of a rat trying to get cheese in a lab...

So, if -- and that's a huge "if" -- I've done everything correctly, no matter which service you use, it should now be handled by Feedburner's single "smartfeed." You can click on that link on the button at the bottom of the sidebar and then no pesky waiting...

I think...

Scorecards, get your scorecards...

...how can you know your players without a scorecard.

I think I promised you an initial attempt at a cast of characters in the dynamic melodrama that is Hopeful Pessimism/JAM's Life. To wit...

• JAM = moi, yours truly, your humble author...
• MLW = My Lovely Wife. Smart, pragmatic, and while having questionable taste in men, an otherwise loveable woman. (Now I thought using her initials -- JOB -- might be better in terms of the Google Ad Sense search 'bots, but then I remembered, I don't really care what the ads are for.)
• MDFA = My dear friend Amy, who actually went to high school with JOB, she has become a fairly regaulr participant in our misadventures.
• WPE = One time fellow employee of CPI (actually he worked for me), sometime opera singing, and all time friend, WPE ofttimes has more powerful web-fu than I...
• Jado = the husband of someone MLW and I went to college with, I feel somewhat resposibile for leading Jado down the path to total web-surfing corruption, by introducing him to a number of sites that take up all his extra time at work... But he is a frequent reader and commenter of H.P. so...
• The Insidious Mr. Huge = Huge can only be one gentlemen (unless it's somehow Alan Moore), just based on his writing style. And if it's who I suspect it is, well, we went to high school together ("Freebird!!") -- he's a curmudgeon and a sometime wiseass, but we like him anyway. Most of time.
  
• Ultimate Brian = the first person I ever met at Drew University. Weird. He is now well into his quest to reinvent himself with some sort of supersoldier syrum or something (you can see I pay close attention) which you can read about on his blog...
• Orgami Slayer = wow, that pseudonym is so cool, it's almost like it's an anagram. I mean, it's no Amazon Haunt Jar, but still... Another Drewid, OS usually is available to explain things once I've stepped hip deep into a technological situation I know nothing about...
• Kevin = my former boss at...
• CPI = my former company (detailed in earlier posts)
• The Shark = while I don't think I've mentioned him yet (even though we had lunch yesterday), I'm sure he'll come up eventually. My former coworker and officemate (literally one I shared an office with for years), his nickname comes from our monthly poker gatherings...

So, there you are. By no means a comprehensive list, but consider it the cast in their order of appearance thus far. More to follow, I'm sure.

Vague progress report

Hey all,

Remember that job search? Yeah, I figured. Sometimes so do I...

Two minor updates:

1) Received an exciting packet of stuff from the VA Employment Commission (don't think I don't realize how many hundreds of thousands of tax dollars likely went into the committee decision to name it the "employment" as opposed to "unemployment" agency... got to keep a proactive, blah, blah, blah...) I was thrilled (and also underwhelmed) to learn that I qualified for the maximum weekly benefit amount, for up to apparently 6 months. Though if it comes to that... yikes! They also included a job placement form -- well, more like set of forms -- that needs to be filled out. This packet of course, seemingly sent independent of the letter I received last Friday which said I needed to come into the office to answer some questions about my initial status. So that's likely how I'll be spending next Monday...

2) As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had a strange situation last week in that I had to return a call from... someone. As I explained earlier, I left a whole bunch of messages. That was last Thursday. Not having heard anything on Friday, I made a point to try again yesterday morning before I left on my various appointments/errands. I am happy to report that due to successful decoding of the message (listening to it another dozen times or so) on the part of MLW and MDFA (who, for the record, only deleted the message because I told her to press the wrong button...) we determined a very likely alternate guess as to the caller's name. So I called Monday morning and said, quite bluntly, to the receptionist, "Do you have a _____ working there?" To which she replied, "Hang on I'll transfer you." I had several rings to wonder if I'd accidentally give a code command for something or another, but instead, I was connected with the very pleasant-voiced lady who had called the previous week. After explaining the sitch, she was very apologetic, and we moved on from there. The upshot being that I have two in-person interview type meetings scheduled in early December (which is not as far off as you might think).

So, I think that's about it for now. Though I have decided that I really need to clean up this home office, if I'm to make any sort of progress here. More to come.

MIA today...

...I know. I had a bunch of appointments, so I put them all in the same day. Then I had an HOA board meeting (you don't want to even get me started on that august body).

Just another so strange it has to be true bit brought to my attention by WPE, and then to bed.

More tomorrow, including a thrilling update on the job search. No, really. Really. Oh, and the aforepromised scorecard too...

I really wasn't going to post tonight...

...but then I found this (indirectly through Ultimate Brian)...

How Machiavellian Are You? (How could I not post that?) Results a bit surprising though. I can only wonder what I would have scored on this quiz during the college years...

You Are Somewhat Machiavellian

You're not going to mow over everyone to get ahead... But you're also powerful enough to make things happen for yourself. You understand how the world works, even when it's an ugly place. You just don't get ugly yourself - unless you have to!

How Machiavellian Are You?

Catch y'all tomorrow...

Summertime, and the livin' is easy (no, not really)

Well, I don't know where this week went... waitaminute, what's this handbasket about...?

I need to come up with a better schedule system. When I was at work I had this color-coded To Do list that worked nominally okay. I think I need to develop something better for here. (I could go completely digital, but then I don't have anything with me to refer to when I step away from the PC and immediately forget what I'm supposed to be doing...) I'll give that some serious thought this weekend.

My Lovely Wife (MLW) and I just got back from seeing WPE in "Porgy and Bess," which is where the title of this post comes from. While I was very familiar with the music (big fan of Gershwin), I'd never actually seen the opera performed, so it was interesting -- if nothing else -- to see the music in the story's context. Very well done all around.

(Hmm, that reminds me... I should probably give you people a scorecard so you know who all the players in my various tales are... or at least their nom-de-Internet... I'll try to do that this weekend, too.)

On the job front (no, I have not forgotten my purpose in writing, I'm just taking the scenic route, as is my way), received a strange note (seriously, this thing was the lightest piece of paper I've seen in an envelope) in the mail today, announcing that was "found eligible" for a GS-13 IT position at the Department of Homeland Security. I have a vague recollection of applying for one or two things there, so I'll have to see if I can match the code on this note to a copy of the listings (which I hopefully saved). The note further indicated that I would be advised later of further developments. Clearly they're not big on speed or massive quantities of information there at the Dept of the Treasury, which I think was where the note originated.

But hey, at least that's something vaguely positive to report, right?

Okay, bed time, methinks. See you wacky kids tomorrow...

A "quick" update

Yeah, sure. I've been trying to type this for like 2.5 hours now. Dial-up blows.

Also, why do I still give the thought, Oh, I'll just check my email real quick any credence? Never happens, so why do I think that.

Today (as is often the case) the ADSW is sucking up all my time. For those of you just tuning in, I'm also President of the Board of Directors of the Art Deco Society of Washington. And since people like V, wonder if "this is a group sitting around in my basement" (actually, come to think of it, that has happened...), no, it's a small non-profit focused on historical preservation and cultural appreciation of the Art Deco era. You can read more on the website. But we're all volunteers, and it's just a time vortex, trust me...

Anyway, back to what was supposed to be the point of today's short missive... got a call-back on one of the job things/irons in the fire. Unfortunately, the woman who called back like coughed or cleared her throat as she was saying her name. I listened to the message 12 times, and I still don't know what her name was. So I called, and explained to the receptionist that I didn't know who I was calling back, exactly, other than that it was a woman and I thought her name began with a "J." So I then played a rousing game of "Let's Talk to People's Voice-mails" in theory, eventually speaking to if not the person who called at least the person who would know who did.

'Course, they can't call back, because I'm online. See sentence three of this post.

More to follow on that, I imagine.

Is it passe to tell people what you're listening to? Probably. I'm doing it anyway.

Currently listening to: ABC's "When Smokey Sings" (WPE thinks I like that song too much. He may be right. But it makes me smile.)
Current Mood: Vaguely frustrated.


Okay, I gotta get to the store before I hit rush hour. More later.

A few words before bed (which I should be in)

*sigh* So, first day without a job -- why do I feel so tired?

Still in the process of setting up the home office and configuring the new PC (a Dell we got it months ago) so that it is set up the way I like it.

Did manage to file for unemployment today... you can do it over the web (how convenient)... that was something I wrestled with for a few moments. But I finally decided that I paid into the system for 9 years, and I doubt I'm going to take 9 years worth out in a few weeks, so...

I also added some Google-based ads to this site. Hopefully you won't find them too distracting. I know that they will (shortly, once the site is indexed) be placing the ads based on the analysis of the words on the page. So one would think that if I say, "job search" enough, ads for stuff like Monster.com and the like would appear. I don't know what happens if I talk about robots, conspiracies, or say, sweet potatoes...

Did I mention I should be in bed? More tomorrow.

So, what is you DO, exactly...?

Okay, so it's come up as I sent out "change your address book" messages, that many people don't know what I do... did... or perhaps am looking for. I suppose that's not shocking; I'm not sure the people I worked with for nine years know what I did. Hell, sometimes even I wonder...

You know, in Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Robert Fulghum has an excellent set of essays on "what do you do." The point being that we -- as a society -- define ourselves a bit too much by our occupations.

But, since the question is being asked in the case of my job search, I suppose I can make an exception...

I started at CPI as a web devloper. Within a year of that I was in charge of a contract, and my application (which we didn't initially build, but inherited the maintenance and further development of) sort of led to the company (or at least my office) converting all our systems to Oracle powered, web-based applications. So suddenly I was managing a contract that revolved around an Oracle web-app, and I had to learn Oracle PL/SQL and so on. (Bored yet?)

Mostly, I would manage the contract (did the staffing, budget, etc.) and I did the functional analysis. I would meet with the various clients and find out what business process(es) they needed help with and then figure out what we could do to help. Then I'd spec out some initial logic and take it back to the programming team and say, "I think this is what they want, and this might be the way to get started." Sometimes things changed dramatically from that point, sometimes not.

I know enough programming to be dangerous, (and to know when one is lying to me when they say it will take four weeks...) but I don't consider myself a programmer. I'm fairly decent at managing people. I'm pretty good with requirements and functional analysis, and program management. For better or worse, though, my knowledge is all experience-based/learned on the job, so I have no certifications and no formal training.

Oh, also, I believe I write pretty well. (You may disagree.)

Oh, and for those keeping track at home, I thought we should give some intial statistics. Pre-blog counts:

Resumes sent out: I have no idea -- a bunch.
Interviews (including phone interviews): 4

Let's see if we can't bump those numbers up.

So for today (now anyway), I'll leave you with this:

"I've always thought anyone can make money. Making a life worth living, that's the real test." -- Robert Fulghum

Holding photos back...

...at the beginning of (blog) time.

All things (good, bad, or indifferent) must...

...come to an end.

And so it was that I had my last day at CPI today. (Nearly) everyone went out to lunch. It was very nice.

Kevin (my boss) said that it was "a sad day for CPI," and while it took me a minute, I realized he didn't say it with a hint of irony. He verbally took everyone back to Day 1 of the nine years I've been here, and skipped across the years (mostly focused on the good stuff, as is his way). I promised myself I would not cry...

But no, seriously, it was really very sweet. They gave me this framed, matted print of the application [I worked on for all that time] logo and they all signed around the frame. Of course, being CPI, the print is in the frame upside down...

You know, it's funny, I really figured I was so over this place that it wouldn't matter if I left or not. But, well, it's nice to be missed, I guess. And in turn, it makes me miss these people more than I thought I would. Hey, I kid because I love, guys...

Though I'm sure I haven't heard the last of some of them. And they of me.

And, of course, tomorrow is another day....

What Has Come Before....

Or "Some Background is in Order"

Okay, so tomorrow, after nine years, I'm leaving my comfy job at CPI, and... Well, and nothing. I don't have a new job yet. So I'll be looking frantically.

It occurred to me sometime in past couple weeks, as friends and family emailed or IM'ed to say, "Hey, how's the job search going?" that I was spending a lot of time, answering the same question over and over. Time I could spend sending resumes, etc. But I can't fault people for caring.

So I jokingly thought to myself, "Gee, maybe I should start a blog*" But I was only half serious. Yet everytime I started answering an email or describing the same interview to someone I kept coming back to the same notion.

And as with any crazy/half-assed idea I have, I decided to bounce it off my incredibly practical wife. So after forgetting to mention it to her for days (I'll explain that phenomenon later, I'm sure), I mentioned it to her on Friday. Her immediate reply, "I think that would be an excellent idea."

"Really?" says I, less surprised by her answer than the speed with which it arrived. (Because, I gotta be honest here -- I was "between jobs" once before and well, my dear heart is as supportive as all get out, but at some point, when you come home, and JAM is still in his pajamas, playing Civ (again), and it's going on month two, and you're starting to wonder how long the money is going to last... well, yeah, right there with her. So I thought anything that would distract me from sitting at the computer for 8 hours a day sending out resumes -- except gods willing when I'm off on an interview -- would be considered a bad thing. How naive of me.)

"Yes," she says, no doubt wanting to leave it at that, but sensing I needed more, "if you have a forum where you're publishing every day or so, it's far more likely it will keep you on track. Because otherwise you're going to have to write, 'Slept really late. Watched Oprah. Didn't send out any resumes. Again.' [pointed glance]."

I'm sure I'll say this again in these pages, but I love my wife. She's smart.

So anyway, this then, is a chronicle of my job search from here on out (and maybe some stories about stuff that's happened already). And being me, we'll probably talk about some other stuff, too...

Thanks for coming along on the journey.


* = Because if Brian Madison can have one, anyone can have one.

Testing, testing....

1... 2... 3...

Is this thing on?