Long Time, No Blog.
Let this fall by the wayside again, I guess. I've had plenty of things to say, but I haven't really felt too compelled to "degauss my own coil" until now, I suppose. I have a rant about Verizon (two in one, actually), but that's a topic for a separate post, due to it's massive length and high quotients of stress and anger.
First, news on the job front. Well... you know the old saw "no news is good news"? It's bullshit. I have next to no news, and it's a far cry from a good thing. The sum total of 17 emailed resumes and 14 applications to various places is one interview, and two phone calls which were never returned. I had a call from the hospital that I applied for a job at, and they never called me back, that's been over two weeks. Then, there was the interview I got from the emailed resume from the craigslist posting. They never contacted me after the interview. despite explicitly saying they would be. Then. there was the manager of a liquor store that called me back at 10:30PM on a Saturday night, and didn't return my call when I called them back on Monday. That's the sum total of what I've found so far. At this point, I'm simply out of ideas. This Monday (for lack of a better arbitrary time) I'm going to go to that nice newer SuperTarget and apply there, in the hopes that the company will take me back. I don't see why not, but with the luck that I've getting a job elsewhere (even when really pandering) I can't count on it 100%. The whole experience has left me disheartened, and while not angsty or depressed, certainly filled with doubt about my employability and worth. All told, it fucking sucked, and I'm probably stuck working at Target for a very long time, if not the rest of my life.
The time that I've not been looking for jobs (weekends mostly... HR never works then, so Mondays are the best time to get ahold of them) I've been using to catch up on some personal projects that I've let fall to the wayside while I was occupied with working, sleeping, and trying desperately to find a new job. One of the ones I've made a lot of headway with is the massive MP3 retagging project that I've been undergoing. I've been trying to slowly integrate the piles of music I got from Nox (glowdragon ) and Aaron (ak111 ) into my own collection... but for several reasons, it's slow going. I often find myself asking "isn't there a way to...?" and coming up empty.
I missed being able to watch Leno and Conan, so I sucked it up and bout a cheap TV antenna so I could pull in a couple of broadcast stations. NBC is acceptable, a couple others are watchable... but even at it's best, it's grainy and has a lot of interference.I wonder if that will clear up once we're switched to digital? Anyway, it's nice to actually be able to watch a little bit of impromptu TV, since there were things I miss... like Law & Order, and Jeopardy!.
Finally got off of my ass and started on the ebay pile again. I've had better luck selling stuff than I was before percentage-wise, but the auctions aren't pulling in as much as I'd hoped ($2.50 for an 8-port switch? Really?). At least I'm getting rid of stuff, that's a plus. Whatever I don't manage to sell is going to end up going to the salvation army, just like last time.
Made a trip to my storage locker to drop off the bin with glassware and boxes of new hardware (the new router and switch). Also the duffel bag I stuffed all of my Target clothes (hats, sweatshirts, shirts) into. Though the way things have been going, I'll probably have to go bring those back home soon.
Recently, I ran across (and subsequently downloaded) a "complete" torrent of the Star Trek novels... all of them, supposedly. Very sweet. To my surprise, the lion's share of them were in .lit format (Microsoft Reader). The presence of 600+ books in that format (which, all things considered, is a pretty nice format) was enough to start me thinking about reading them away from my desk. An idea then occurred to me to take a quick look around on ebay and see if there might be a cheap Windows Mobile PDA, since MS Reader is part of the standard package. As it turns out, there was one...
a HP Jornada 520 going for a mere $3.76 mere moments from auction end. I actually got it for $10.50. Shipped, less than $20. Add a 512MB CF card for it for another $14 (those are getting hard to find in anything less than 1GB now!) and for less than $34 I have a cheap ebook reader with 600-odd books on it. Beats the fuck out of that Kindle thing, eh? The screen of the device is very nice, and the MS Reader software does a good job of making the text easy on the eyes, even on the 256 color screen. That "cleartype technology" thing really is more than jargon.
Today, I fixed something that was a long-standing concern for me. I have a plank (1"x12"x8') that I use as a shelf. It's supported for 12" on each end by my two media towers. I keep my CD/DVD binders on top of there. Now, as someone who's had a CD burner since 1997, I've generated quite a few discs over the years, and even in binders and not jewel cases, their combined weight is quite substantial. This caused the plank-shelf to sag. Naturally, being the worrier that I am, I have been concerned with the maximum amount of weight it would take for the plank to simply give way and that decade-plus of discs come crashing to the floor. I lived with this for a while, until I thought occurred to me as I was drifting off to sleep the other night: 2x4s. That's right, thicker wood. If I built a cross-brace of 2x4s, then the amount of wight the makeshift shelf could safely hold would be multiplied! The next day, when I gave more detailed thought to this plan, I realized that it wasn't feasible to actually build anything. While I do have a drill, I lack any sort of saw that I could use to cut wood. Then, I had a flash of insight. Instead of putting the 2x4s up like I-beams, I would lay them flat, and triple the thickness of the shelf. It wouldn't be as strong, but would still be more than enough for what I had in mind. A short trip to Home Depot today, and it worked like a charm. $8 for an 8-foot shelf capable of holding damn near anything... the boards I bought I tested in the store, and each one will hold my own body weight. So I think they'll be able to handle the 80 pounds or so of binders more than adequately.
Sometime within the next day or so there will be a post of some links I'd like to share with you, and then one detailing my tribulations with Verizon, both of goodly length in their own right. Then, hopefully I'll get back to being semi-regular with updates less long-winded and rambly than this.
First, news on the job front. Well... you know the old saw "no news is good news"? It's bullshit. I have next to no news, and it's a far cry from a good thing. The sum total of 17 emailed resumes and 14 applications to various places is one interview, and two phone calls which were never returned. I had a call from the hospital that I applied for a job at, and they never called me back, that's been over two weeks. Then, there was the interview I got from the emailed resume from the craigslist posting. They never contacted me after the interview. despite explicitly saying they would be. Then. there was the manager of a liquor store that called me back at 10:30PM on a Saturday night, and didn't return my call when I called them back on Monday. That's the sum total of what I've found so far. At this point, I'm simply out of ideas. This Monday (for lack of a better arbitrary time) I'm going to go to that nice newer SuperTarget and apply there, in the hopes that the company will take me back. I don't see why not, but with the luck that I've getting a job elsewhere (even when really pandering) I can't count on it 100%. The whole experience has left me disheartened, and while not angsty or depressed, certainly filled with doubt about my employability and worth. All told, it fucking sucked, and I'm probably stuck working at Target for a very long time, if not the rest of my life.
The time that I've not been looking for jobs (weekends mostly... HR never works then, so Mondays are the best time to get ahold of them) I've been using to catch up on some personal projects that I've let fall to the wayside while I was occupied with working, sleeping, and trying desperately to find a new job. One of the ones I've made a lot of headway with is the massive MP3 retagging project that I've been undergoing. I've been trying to slowly integrate the piles of music I got from Nox (glowdragon ) and Aaron (ak111 ) into my own collection... but for several reasons, it's slow going. I often find myself asking "isn't there a way to...?" and coming up empty.
I missed being able to watch Leno and Conan, so I sucked it up and bout a cheap TV antenna so I could pull in a couple of broadcast stations. NBC is acceptable, a couple others are watchable... but even at it's best, it's grainy and has a lot of interference.I wonder if that will clear up once we're switched to digital? Anyway, it's nice to actually be able to watch a little bit of impromptu TV, since there were things I miss... like Law & Order, and Jeopardy!.
Finally got off of my ass and started on the ebay pile again. I've had better luck selling stuff than I was before percentage-wise, but the auctions aren't pulling in as much as I'd hoped ($2.50 for an 8-port switch? Really?). At least I'm getting rid of stuff, that's a plus. Whatever I don't manage to sell is going to end up going to the salvation army, just like last time.
Made a trip to my storage locker to drop off the bin with glassware and boxes of new hardware (the new router and switch). Also the duffel bag I stuffed all of my Target clothes (hats, sweatshirts, shirts) into. Though the way things have been going, I'll probably have to go bring those back home soon.
Recently, I ran across (and subsequently downloaded) a "complete" torrent of the Star Trek novels... all of them, supposedly. Very sweet. To my surprise, the lion's share of them were in .lit format (Microsoft Reader). The presence of 600+ books in that format (which, all things considered, is a pretty nice format) was enough to start me thinking about reading them away from my desk. An idea then occurred to me to take a quick look around on ebay and see if there might be a cheap Windows Mobile PDA, since MS Reader is part of the standard package. As it turns out, there was one...
a HP Jornada 520 going for a mere $3.76 mere moments from auction end. I actually got it for $10.50. Shipped, less than $20. Add a 512MB CF card for it for another $14 (those are getting hard to find in anything less than 1GB now!) and for less than $34 I have a cheap ebook reader with 600-odd books on it. Beats the fuck out of that Kindle thing, eh? The screen of the device is very nice, and the MS Reader software does a good job of making the text easy on the eyes, even on the 256 color screen. That "cleartype technology" thing really is more than jargon.
Today, I fixed something that was a long-standing concern for me. I have a plank (1"x12"x8') that I use as a shelf. It's supported for 12" on each end by my two media towers. I keep my CD/DVD binders on top of there. Now, as someone who's had a CD burner since 1997, I've generated quite a few discs over the years, and even in binders and not jewel cases, their combined weight is quite substantial. This caused the plank-shelf to sag. Naturally, being the worrier that I am, I have been concerned with the maximum amount of weight it would take for the plank to simply give way and that decade-plus of discs come crashing to the floor. I lived with this for a while, until I thought occurred to me as I was drifting off to sleep the other night: 2x4s. That's right, thicker wood. If I built a cross-brace of 2x4s, then the amount of wight the makeshift shelf could safely hold would be multiplied! The next day, when I gave more detailed thought to this plan, I realized that it wasn't feasible to actually build anything. While I do have a drill, I lack any sort of saw that I could use to cut wood. Then, I had a flash of insight. Instead of putting the 2x4s up like I-beams, I would lay them flat, and triple the thickness of the shelf. It wouldn't be as strong, but would still be more than enough for what I had in mind. A short trip to Home Depot today, and it worked like a charm. $8 for an 8-foot shelf capable of holding damn near anything... the boards I bought I tested in the store, and each one will hold my own body weight. So I think they'll be able to handle the 80 pounds or so of binders more than adequately.
Sometime within the next day or so there will be a post of some links I'd like to share with you, and then one detailing my tribulations with Verizon, both of goodly length in their own right. Then, hopefully I'll get back to being semi-regular with updates less long-winded and rambly than this.