Unemployment, Days 7&8
Monday was a week since I was laid off, so it was time to get serious about the job hunt. Nora and myself used a shared Google document to work on my resume - a former colleague and his wife helped as well. At one point there were 4 of us all editing the same document (oh brave new world). Once we were happy with it, I applied for two jobs - one at Google (just for shits and giggles, I don't think they would give me a job in a million years) and one at MIT (a bit of a stretch, but it was good practice at writing a cover letter and it gets me in the system). I also updated a recruiter I had been working with before and sent him my new resume.
I registered with the Massachusetts Unemployment people to get that going (hope for the best, plan for the worst) and got a few job-searchy books out of the library. All in all, a productive day. Having the office nice and tidy really helps, psychologically speaking.
While I was doing the job stuff, I was also cleaning and sanitizing bottles. I took a midday break for lunch and to bottle my Lavender Saison. It finished very dry, which is appropriate for a saison, but I think it might take a little while to come into its own.
Once I was done with all that, it was buckle time! Nora's been pushing for a blueberry buckle since we saw it on an episode of Good Eats. I didn't have enough blueberries, so I bumped it up with some macerated strawberries - Twoberry Buckle! It was really easy to make and it came out so delicious that I fear for my marriage if I don't make it at least once a week.
Tuesday was planned to be a day for brewing and chores, but I ended up doing a fair share of job stuff as well. After dropping Nora off at the station, I set to brewing up a black saison, or saison noire, if you prefer. This was an all-organic brew. Midwest brewing sells three varieties of US organic malt at a good price - a 2-row base malt, a medium crystal and a chocolate malt. I have a few ounces of organic hops left in the freezer from my big order last year. I used Pacific Gem for the bittering (I had been wary of using it because it has a bad rep, but the raw hops smelled great) and a dash of New Zealand Cascade at the end. I used yeast that I had harvested from the Lavender Saison on Monday. I got much a much lower efficiency with the grains from Midwest than I have been getting from the grains from Woburn. I think it's because the crush was much coarser. The upside was that the sparge was quick and easy.
While the wort was boiling, I checked my voice mail and found a message from a former colleague who is now a recruiter in Boston. I called him back and we had a good chat. I emailed him my resume and he said it looked good. Nora said that she would work on tidying up the Word version of my resume (Oy, Google, your conversion to Word format sucks!), since Word is one of my many kryptonites. Once that was done, I forwarded it to another former colleague to forward to a recruiter that he and his wife have used before.
After brewing, I met up with Law at the farm to split our share. The fruit share has started, so I came out with two and a half pounds of peaches in addition to all the veggies. I picked ludicrously long green beans in the field. After that it was just chores and cleanup. I didn't bake anything.
I registered with the Massachusetts Unemployment people to get that going (hope for the best, plan for the worst) and got a few job-searchy books out of the library. All in all, a productive day. Having the office nice and tidy really helps, psychologically speaking.
While I was doing the job stuff, I was also cleaning and sanitizing bottles. I took a midday break for lunch and to bottle my Lavender Saison. It finished very dry, which is appropriate for a saison, but I think it might take a little while to come into its own.
Once I was done with all that, it was buckle time! Nora's been pushing for a blueberry buckle since we saw it on an episode of Good Eats. I didn't have enough blueberries, so I bumped it up with some macerated strawberries - Twoberry Buckle! It was really easy to make and it came out so delicious that I fear for my marriage if I don't make it at least once a week.
Tuesday was planned to be a day for brewing and chores, but I ended up doing a fair share of job stuff as well. After dropping Nora off at the station, I set to brewing up a black saison, or saison noire, if you prefer. This was an all-organic brew. Midwest brewing sells three varieties of US organic malt at a good price - a 2-row base malt, a medium crystal and a chocolate malt. I have a few ounces of organic hops left in the freezer from my big order last year. I used Pacific Gem for the bittering (I had been wary of using it because it has a bad rep, but the raw hops smelled great) and a dash of New Zealand Cascade at the end. I used yeast that I had harvested from the Lavender Saison on Monday. I got much a much lower efficiency with the grains from Midwest than I have been getting from the grains from Woburn. I think it's because the crush was much coarser. The upside was that the sparge was quick and easy.
While the wort was boiling, I checked my voice mail and found a message from a former colleague who is now a recruiter in Boston. I called him back and we had a good chat. I emailed him my resume and he said it looked good. Nora said that she would work on tidying up the Word version of my resume (Oy, Google, your conversion to Word format sucks!), since Word is one of my many kryptonites. Once that was done, I forwarded it to another former colleague to forward to a recruiter that he and his wife have used before.
After brewing, I met up with Law at the farm to split our share. The fruit share has started, so I came out with two and a half pounds of peaches in addition to all the veggies. I picked ludicrously long green beans in the field. After that it was just chores and cleanup. I didn't bake anything.