So after a week on a job I love with a great company and great people, and the guy who left three months ago came back asked for his old job back with a cut in pay and they said sure and let the contractor (me) go today. So, I'm back on the street again, looking for a job. Spent the rest of the day online checking the job boards and searching the lists of openings at places I'd like to work. After burning out from sending several dozen resumes and filling out those delightful online corporate job apps for the umpteenth time, I made a list of other places to hit first thing tomorrow after discussing the possibilities with MLM. Then I took a pain-killer (my shoulder was killing me by this time) and took a short nap.
Dinner was nice. I grilled some of the excellent brats from our meat market and glazed a pan-full of carrots. Yummy.
So now we're spending the evening enjoying our late dinner and watching a new anime series. Ah, the mixed joys of idleness!
Kinda got out of the habit of watching the Olympics - there's only so much beach volleyball I can take! This is a frickin' Olympic event?! And they're dropping softball just because the US team dominated for the last four times? I seem to recall the Russian pairs figure skaters getting the gold for, like, three decades and they still have that. Go figure. One of the guys that works a bit for MegaTokyo reporting he's in Korea this week and really enjoying the Olympics. Here's how he put it: "Best thing about watching the Olympics overseas: No hint of gymnastics coverage anywhere, and no 10-minute human interest interludes. Just the sports, ma'am. I've seen more judo, fencing, and archery over the past 4 days than I've ever seen in my life." Sounds good to me. Oh, and I mentioned last time that we'll have to wait for the DVD to see the whole openinig ceremony without commercials; well, they started advertising it on NBC so I checked it out at their 'store' - $30 for a two disk set! Ack!! Guess I'll wait for eBay or NetFlix or the library and rip my own copy. Oh, not really. That would be wrong.
As Rosanne said when the lights went out in their house, "Well, middle-class was fun."
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Friday, August 08, 2008
Back on the Job!
So, last week a recruiter called; said he had a couple of openings available and could I send him my current resume, so I did. Called me back a couple days later to say he wanted to submit me for the network admin job; I said fine, go ahead. Called me back later that day to schedule a phone interview with the IT manager; I said okay. Couple days later spoke for about half an hour to the manager - seemed like a real nice guy; we seemed to get along okay. Couple days after that the recruiter called and said I had the job and I start Monday! Whoa! Felt like the late 90s for a change where a good resume and a pleasant attitude could get you a job in no time! Happy day! Anyway, I start Monday on a three-month contract-to-hire position with a company in West Chicago which is about a 25 mile drive one way, so gas may be an issue once again - on the other hand, I'm getting more pay here than at Abbott so that'll make it better. So, all you who were praying for me, thanks!! Nice part is it's a stable firm with a great reputation making a product I have greatly admired for years. It'll be great to be a part of that! Whew!
Lessee, my daughter, Kelly, just finished taking the Rhode Island Bar Exam - Yea, Kelly!! So I congratulate her on that and with her the best on a high score. This is her second exam since she already took the Massachusets exam when she graduated from Boston College. She and her hubby are living in Providence right now 'cause he has a teaching job there and she has a law firm job part time that will probably go full time once her scores come in, so since it looks like they'll be there for a while it made sense to take the exam again for that state. Hard work for that, though. She is to be commended.
Aaand after having Comcast off for a few weeks we're back online with them ("All ya need is dough; Yat-da-da-daaa!") and we took the opportunity to get hooked up with HD since we got an HD flat screen TV for Christmas and right now we're watching the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. Looks gorgeous! 'Course, the problem is that NBC and Comcast cut a deal for joint presentation and the opening festivities are chopped to hell with commercials - very disappointing! I looked all over Comcast and online for a commercial-free presentation but none was to be found. Apparently if you have a satellite feed you could see the whole thing live and uncut. Guess we'll have to wait for the DVD.Anyway, we're appalled with the crass commercialism and the disrespect shown the event and the athletes by NBC et al. You guys suck!!
Okay, enough of that. I'm gonna go play Nutrinopets for a while and add some more YouTube videos to my sidebar for your enjoyment. Aaaand watch some more anime! (they're re-running the opening ceremony at 1:30 so maybe we'll try it again with, hopefully, less commercials.)
Oh, found an AWESOME website for anime images - wallpapers and scans - at http://www.animepaper.net/ check it out!
Lessee, my daughter, Kelly, just finished taking the Rhode Island Bar Exam - Yea, Kelly!! So I congratulate her on that and with her the best on a high score. This is her second exam since she already took the Massachusets exam when she graduated from Boston College. She and her hubby are living in Providence right now 'cause he has a teaching job there and she has a law firm job part time that will probably go full time once her scores come in, so since it looks like they'll be there for a while it made sense to take the exam again for that state. Hard work for that, though. She is to be commended.
Aaand after having Comcast off for a few weeks we're back online with them ("All ya need is dough; Yat-da-da-daaa!") and we took the opportunity to get hooked up with HD since we got an HD flat screen TV for Christmas and right now we're watching the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. Looks gorgeous! 'Course, the problem is that NBC and Comcast cut a deal for joint presentation and the opening festivities are chopped to hell with commercials - very disappointing! I looked all over Comcast and online for a commercial-free presentation but none was to be found. Apparently if you have a satellite feed you could see the whole thing live and uncut. Guess we'll have to wait for the DVD.
Okay, enough of that. I'm gonna go play Nutrinopets for a while and add some more YouTube videos to my sidebar for your enjoyment. Aaaand watch some more anime! (they're re-running the opening ceremony at 1:30 so maybe we'll try it again with, hopefully, less commercials.)
Oh, found an AWESOME website for anime images - wallpapers and scans - at http://www.animepaper.net/ check it out!
Monday, August 04, 2008
The More Things Change... Yadda Yadda Yadda
Back in the saddle again. No posts for weeks now. I think I need to post more often just to keep my head clear, y’know? Lotsa stuff going on I’d like to discuss so maybe I’ll start talking about it here instead of in my head (big time circular arguments there).
Anyway, I’m unemployed again. Again?! Yes, again. The contract at Abbott got shut down early so me and the other contractors were cut loose the middle of June (just as well since I was pumping about $100 a week into my gas tank for the commute – gah!). So, I updated my résumé – even got MLM to vet it for me – and commenced e-mailing them out through listings on Dice, CareerBuilder, etc. The activity hasn’t been too bad – I get submitted by recruiters several times a week and I’ve had a few interviews that seemed to go well, but no offers yet. :( You may have noticed the economy is quite sucky right now – thanks a helluva lot Dubya! – so it’s an employers market. They’re taking their sweet time and sometimes doing two and three interviews before they make a decision – basically seeing how many hoops we can jump through!
To top it off I had a snafu with my unemployment checks from the state – seems the week I worked at Northwestern generated an odd ex-teacher’s query form that had to be filled out and reviewed. Then, since the unemployment office is so overwhelmed with claims right now – thanks a helluva lot Dubya! – they couldn’t schedule a review of my case until the end of July. This means no unemployment checks for over six weeks. At least it’ll be retro’d so I will get everything coming to me eventually. In the meantime we’ve gotten monetary assistance from my family, MLM’s family, and the Church of course. Thank God for all of you for that. We’ll be okay in the long run.
Comcast cut us off last month - seems they expect regular payments - so we had no cable, broadband, or telephone for about three weeks. Luckily, we had our cell phones for communication, and some unknown neighbor of ours has an unsecured wireless network that we could glom off of (when it was working, which was about 60% of the time), so we managed to struggle through that. But the antidepressents just don't cut it sometimes.
But enough about that. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Disappointments for MLM lately. Her shoulder surgery has been rescheduled THREE times during the month of July; each time by the surgeon because he was unexpectedly called out of town or some such. Mary Lynn has been discouraged and depressed about it big time, needless to say, since she really needs this done. Her shoulders are much worse now and need help desperately. Scheduled now for August 25th, so pray for her if you will. We’re also having to come up with some big bucks for some of MLM’s medications as she is in the Medicare prescription “gap” where we have to pay all of the cost. Luckily, she shopped around and signed up with Aetna to administer her Medicare and they do pay for all generics with just a $12 co-pay. Trouble is, she has some meds that have no generic and they cost up to $500 for a 30 day supply. Thanks again to Mary Lynn’s parents and the Church for help with this. We have been looking at getting these from Canada and I think we’ll start doing that this week – can save up to 90% that way. Go figure.
One thing we’ve been doing a lot of with this time on our hands is watching a lot of anime. I’ve assembled a pretty good collection from sales and free downloads off the net as well as getting them from our local libraries which have a surprisingly good selection. We discovered an awesome series call Last Exile which may end up being our favorite anime ever. So, I think I’ll discuss that and some of these other anime in the days to come. They’re more fun to talk about than how I don’t have a job yet. ;-)
Later.
Anyway, I’m unemployed again. Again?! Yes, again. The contract at Abbott got shut down early so me and the other contractors were cut loose the middle of June (just as well since I was pumping about $100 a week into my gas tank for the commute – gah!). So, I updated my résumé – even got MLM to vet it for me – and commenced e-mailing them out through listings on Dice, CareerBuilder, etc. The activity hasn’t been too bad – I get submitted by recruiters several times a week and I’ve had a few interviews that seemed to go well, but no offers yet. :( You may have noticed the economy is quite sucky right now – thanks a helluva lot Dubya! – so it’s an employers market. They’re taking their sweet time and sometimes doing two and three interviews before they make a decision – basically seeing how many hoops we can jump through!
To top it off I had a snafu with my unemployment checks from the state – seems the week I worked at Northwestern generated an odd ex-teacher’s query form that had to be filled out and reviewed. Then, since the unemployment office is so overwhelmed with claims right now – thanks a helluva lot Dubya! – they couldn’t schedule a review of my case until the end of July. This means no unemployment checks for over six weeks. At least it’ll be retro’d so I will get everything coming to me eventually. In the meantime we’ve gotten monetary assistance from my family, MLM’s family, and the Church of course. Thank God for all of you for that. We’ll be okay in the long run.
Comcast cut us off last month - seems they expect regular payments - so we had no cable, broadband, or telephone for about three weeks. Luckily, we had our cell phones for communication, and some unknown neighbor of ours has an unsecured wireless network that we could glom off of (when it was working, which was about 60% of the time), so we managed to struggle through that. But the antidepressents just don't cut it sometimes.
But enough about that. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Disappointments for MLM lately. Her shoulder surgery has been rescheduled THREE times during the month of July; each time by the surgeon because he was unexpectedly called out of town or some such. Mary Lynn has been discouraged and depressed about it big time, needless to say, since she really needs this done. Her shoulders are much worse now and need help desperately. Scheduled now for August 25th, so pray for her if you will. We’re also having to come up with some big bucks for some of MLM’s medications as she is in the Medicare prescription “gap” where we have to pay all of the cost. Luckily, she shopped around and signed up with Aetna to administer her Medicare and they do pay for all generics with just a $12 co-pay. Trouble is, she has some meds that have no generic and they cost up to $500 for a 30 day supply. Thanks again to Mary Lynn’s parents and the Church for help with this. We have been looking at getting these from Canada and I think we’ll start doing that this week – can save up to 90% that way. Go figure.
One thing we’ve been doing a lot of with this time on our hands is watching a lot of anime. I’ve assembled a pretty good collection from sales and free downloads off the net as well as getting them from our local libraries which have a surprisingly good selection. We discovered an awesome series call Last Exile which may end up being our favorite anime ever. So, I think I’ll discuss that and some of these other anime in the days to come. They’re more fun to talk about than how I don’t have a job yet. ;-)
Later.
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