I start January 7th.

http://www.actsolution.net/

I’m a geek again.

I had a positive interview this morning, and I have a callback tomorrow. Prayers, thoughts, and good vibes happily accepted.

Unsurprisingly, this lead was from a networking contact, not a job board or headhunter. Networking feels like a hassle until you really need it!

I had a gig this morning. It ended up only billing two hours, but it was better than nothing. I had forgotten how customers think.

“You haven’t made any changes to the network or the server in the last few weeks? No software installed, no configuration changes, nothing like that?”
“No, nothing. We never mess with that stuff.”
“And the problem just started for no reason on Friday? You can’t connect that to anything that anyone did that changed the environment at all?”
“Yeah, it just started out of nowhere, it hasn’t worked since Friday morning.”
“It looks like Windows Firewall is enabled and is blocking the ports to your database server. Has that always been installed?”
“No, we did that last week. Installed the firewall, I mean.”
“When, exactly?”
“Thursday night.”

I see. Well, it’s fixed.

Not sure if today’s nibble will become a bite.

I had a phone screen this afternoon with a hiring manager. Application company, very cool stuff. The talking part went fine; we discussed organizational fit and my history. Then she went through a list of technical interview questions and that part didn’t go as well.

It was frustrating for a couple of reasons. Most of the questions were fill-in-the-blank kind of nomenclature and factoid questions. Name the specific app you use for this. What service pack is this software currently on. What four types of objects can you address in this way. That kind of stuff. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of knowledge that rusts a little in two years. I was hoping she’d give a scenario and we could talk about troubleshooting thoughts, or that I could give examples of problems I’d solved. That may be the case in the sit-down interview, but for the phone screen I guess there’s no time for that degree of interaction.

So I’m not sure what kind of impression I made. I still think I’d be great for the job - it’s like they wrote the description to suit me exactly. And the knowledge I was scraping for is the kind of stuff that’ll be picked up through osmosis in super short order when I hit the job. I have all the principles. I just hope I get to the next phase.

My housemate/packing helper efficiently and wonderfully packed up the cds today. I am consigned to radio pop.

Freecycle is a local Yahoo group on which people post things that they no longer want and then other people who would like those items email the poster about their interest.  Saturday, I posted a bunch of textbooks.  Am I ever going to peruse that Differential Equations text?  I don’t think so.  But I’m not able to give up the Complex Variables or Abstract Algebra text just yet.  Why?  Do I really think that one day I’ll sit down and try to reteach it to myself?  Actually, I was able tp let go of the Calculus book by thinking that one day I’ll have to tutor calculus and will need to get the student’s book anyway. 

Back to Freecycle.  I posted my textbooks and received several replies asking for them.  How to choose?  Ir’s very hard for me to decide on anything.  So I decided to choose the replies that used capitalization and punctuation. 

I picked:

Hi Kathryn,

I would like the accounting book and any of the chemistry/math books
that you can spare.  I can pick them up today…just let me know what
time would work for you.

Instead of:

I feel old.

I’ve been experimenting with shipping homebrew. It’s less questionable with wine than beer and spirits. I shipped 2 bottles of tomato wine to Washington last week, and they’re shipping me 2 meads back. UPS ground seems to work okay on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” basis. USPS is flat out illegal.

I’ve gone downstairs to post an update, since the hospital that sells $50,000 open-heart surgeries can’t swing wifi in the rooms, but the bagel shop downstairs that sells $4 sandwiches has an information superhighway on-ramp. Hospitals without web connections in the rooms will be first against the wall when the revolution comes…

I can’t read the blog main page to check comments because someone put a nasty word on it that bounces off of the childproofing filter at the coffee shop. Maybe it was me. Hmm…

Economic pressure on Atlanta has forced local businesses to diversify just to stay alive. This business, across the street from our farm, offers tires, pets, live bait, and tax services all under one roof!

Kinda makes you wish I’d posted this BEFORE April 15th, doesn’t it?

I shouldn’t make fun. The owner is probably an entrepreneurial renaissance man. For all I know, I’ll one day have a gas station that offers computer repair, custom ironwork, and a brewpub.

I slept in until early afternoon, and was given Silly Putty (glows in the dark!) and the game Pillars of the Earth. We played the game tonight with the Shumans, who brought over dinner. A relaxing day to turn 34.