Random Meandering Ramblings

Hours changing again

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:01:25 GMT

For the last couple weeks, I was scheduled to come in at 1AM and work until 5AM. Most of the time, this mean I'd do whatever needed doing.

Thursday morning the stockroom floor was rewaxed, so I spent an hour moving backstock to a parked trailer and getting other stuff out of the stockroom so the floors were clear, then moving everything back after the waxing was done. I ended up staying until after 7:30 AM and spent the last three hours crushing boxes, including making two bales of cardboard and loading them into the trailer I just pulled all the backstock out of. At the end of the shift, the grocery manager thanked me for "doing all that B.S. work."

This coming week I'm scheduled for 3AM to 7AM which probably means my primary job will now be pulling down merchandise on the shelves, or facing the store, making sure everything's pulled to the front of the shelf and facing the same way so it looks nice for the first few customers who come in.

Facing is one of those never-ending jobs in retail, and I keep thinking I wouldn't have to do it if it weren't for the customers. It's also why I pull stuff forward when I'm shopping. After I grab a box of cereal I'll usually pull the one behind it forward so it lines up with the others on the shelf, just to save whoever faces that aisle later a little bit of effort.

Suffice it to say, I am not looking forward to this coming week.

Crazy ideas

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:59:57 GMT

Monday is my birthday. Traditionally, that's when I start a road trip that takes me to Arizona to see my family. But this year I have to work the days on either side of my birthday; no road trip this year.

I was panicking a little earlier, but then hit on the idea of making a day trip somewhere in Colorado. One of the first things I found in searching the internet for ideas was the historic town of Georgetown, Colorado, a mining town founded in 1859 and now a part of the Georgetown-Silver Plume National Historic District. There's a steam train that runs between Georgetown and neighboring Silver Plume.

It seems like a good idea to put on my steampunk finery (see userpic for reference) and wander the town. In the spirit of road-trip-ness, I plan to take US Highway 6 into the mountains, instead of I-70, adding 15-20 minutes to the drive.

Since Steampunk outings are more fun with more people, I invited my friend Andy (alarin612) and our friend Jeremy. Andy has plans for Monday, but Sunday might work better and he asked if he could invite the rest of his family that may also enjoy the outing. As I said, the more the merrier. Anyone else in Colorado want to come along?

I may still make the separate trek on Monday, but that one may only go as far as Tommyknockers in Idaho Springs. ;)

Things I just realized

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:52:10 GMT

In six days I will be 28 years old.
I've been awake for 16.5 hours
Jim Butcher may be my favorite author

Just by number of books, one could guess my top five favorite authors are in the following order:

Arthur C. Clarke
Douglas Adams
Jim Butcher
Neil Gaiman
William Gibson

Though Adams drops significantly if one counts HitchHiker's Guide collections as a single volume. (I have two collections, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide collecting the first five books, and an older tome collecting the first four books and "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe." The latter has a nice leather cover and silk book mark.)

Clarke: 19 novels and one short story collection (19 books - one of the books collects two novels: The City and the Stars and The Sands of Mars)
Adams: 11 novels and The Salmon of Doubt essay collection (five books)
Butcher: 7 novels (three Alera books, four Dresden books) (seven books)
Gaiman: 5 novels and a short story collection (six books) (plus 10 Sandman trade paperbacks)*
Gibson: 5 novels (five books)

Annoyingly, I started reading Butcher after I reorganized my bookshelves, so there's no room for his books.

*If I count comic books I'll have to reorganize the list somewhat to include Phil and Kaja Foglio and Brian Clevinger. I have Clevinger's novel, Nuklear Age, but if comics are included I'll have to count all the Atomic Robo, both individual issues and trade paperback collections. Then I'd have to go through my short-boxes and tally up the writers on all the old Uncanny X-Men issues I have. That sounds like a lot of work. Maybe one day when I'm extra bored.

I've been up since half-past midnight this morning. I need to fall asleep soon, but I had an energy drink at work this morning, after a week or more without caffeine while I was sick. (My diet largely consisted of chicken noodle soup, orange juice and decaffeinated teas.)

Actually, I haven't really been awake all that long, considering. It just seems like it, since I tried to go to sleep around 10AM earlier. As I said previously, my sleep schedule is all kinds of out of whack recently.

Applying for jobs

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:13:52 GMT

Friday night and much of Sunday were spent applying for jobs online. Tech jobs. Day jobs.

I got one call back from a recruiter this morning, for a job in Boulder.

Meanwhile, still working overnights. My sleep schedule is all kinds of mixed up now.

2009 Christmas Wish List

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:42:05 GMT

My mother asked, so here it is.

I've updated last year's list to strike out the things I have now. The rest of the list still stands.

LAST UPDATE: 12/15/2009 1:15 PM (GMT -7)
As for the new stuff:

A new job. The one I have pays the bills, but is largely mindless and physically exhausting. Also, the graveyard hours are putting me at odds with my housemates.
A new battery for my laptop. Sony Vaio model VGN-FE780G A few months ago the battery stopped taking a charge at all, so for the moment I have a light-weight desktop computer.
In lieu of a new battery, a new laptop. Perhaps a netbook type: small and light with long-lasting battery power. I've been thinking about one off and on for a year or more, mostly to replace my paper notebook when I'm in a restaurant and writing.
LEGO Rockband (Wii) could be fun, but it would likely be little more than more songs for regular Rockband.
Same goes for The Beatles Rockband (Wii)
There's a LEGO Harry Potter game coming out, from the same people that made the LEGO StarWars, LEGO Indiana Jones and LEGO Batman games. I have yet to be disappointed by a LEGO game from the TT Games studio.
While I'm on a LEGO kick, pretty much any LEGO set. In the last few years I've emerged from what many adult LEGO enthusiasts refer to as "the dark ages" and my love of the little plastic bricks is growing again.
It occurs to me I do not have any long-sleeved shirts other than dress shirts. A sweatshirt or two might be nice. Probably 2XL
Memories of the Future: Volume 1 by Wil Wheaton
Also by Wil Wheaton, the audio book versions of "Just a Geek" and "The Happiest Days of Our Lives"
My wishlist at ThinkGeek.com
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere BBC Miniseries. I saw this at Mile Hi Con this year and quite enjoyed it. I have the book as well.
My wishlist at Amazon.com (I hope that link works)
Coraline (Widescreen) Gift Set I absolutely loved this in the theater, and I'm curious to see how the 3D works at home.
Stargate: Atlantis DVDs. At the moment I have none, so any would be a good gift.
A new digital camera. I'm not terribly picky, as long as it takes pictures.
A new blue tooth headset for my phone.
Sony PSP handheld gaming system.
Dungeon Maker PSP game
Scribblenauts (Nintendo DS game)
This American Life Live DVD (Return to the Scene of the Crime) or pretty much anything else from the This American Life store
Dungeon-A-Day 1-year membership
A new pocketwatch

Every day at work, two or three times an hour, I hear a commercial that starts with the line "Can you send money at the speed of love this holiday season?" It goes down hill from there and extols the virtues of using Western Union to send money to friends and family for Christmas. The commercial annoys me for many reasons, but as I compile this list, I can't help but think "You know, there are some things that are hard to describe. Cash or gift cards could be handy ..." but I don't think there's a way to get a gift card for HeavyInk, an online comic book retailer.

On being sick

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:52:24 GMT

It's been coming to a head over the past week, the sickness. Either from shifting my sleep schedule, something not-quite-right with the deli sandwiches I've been eating at work, or just from spending so much time in the store, I've been feeling progressively worse.

Two nights ago I went in feeling like crap, knowing it would only be a four hour shift. I was supposed to be off at 5, but didn't get off until 6, went home and slept for almost 28 hours with interruptions. I was too hot under the blankets, or too cold with the blankets to the side. I shivered and sweated, tossed and turned.

Finally, around 5PM, the nausea overcame me and I was very glad the bathroom is five or six steps from my bed. After the dry heaves, I brushed my teeth and went back to bed only to wake up and do it all over again three hours later. I called in sick to work and slept as much as I could.

I feel marginally better now. Dizzy, but food is staying down. Sore throat, bit of a runny nose. Still a touch of nausea. I don't have to work again until after midnight Tuesday. I intend to spend as much of the intervening time as I can resting and drinking fluids. Probably huddled under a blanket watching TV on my laptop.

As with the last time this happened, and I was living alone, I wish I had someone here to take care of me, to bring chicken soup and water, etc.

Working Man

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:31:47 GMT

It's been a few weeks since my last entry. The main reason for the delay is likely that in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving I was working 8 hour nights sorting and stocking merchandise. I found a good analogy for it though; imagine you're helping a friend move into a new house. For some reason, their boxes have been packed on to palates and wrapped in saran-wrap to keep from rattling apart in transit. To help them unpack, you have to sort the palates down in to 10 or 12 rooms (aisles) that the stuff goes into. Once the palates are sorted, you take the sorted boxes of things and put them near where they should go in the room (near the appropriate shelf in the aisle). Once that's done, then you can start opening the boxes and actually filling the shelves. Then you have to clean up the rooms by picking up the boxes, plastic packaging, and stuff that wouldn't fit. And, of course, all of the boxes are not a uniform shape, size or weight. We handle everything from the heavy items (25 lb bags of dog food or kitty litter, 40 lb sacks containing 8 five pound sacks of sugar/flour) to light boxes (packages of potato chips, boxes of paper towels, etc.)

In theory this should all take the night crew a little more than seven hours. In practice it always took more than eight, sometimes nine, depending on how much stuff there was.

And now the store internal politics are figuring in to the schedules. The store manager is on vacation, so while he's away the assistant managers are making a play for attention by cutting hours and giving as little overtime as possible. Last week I work five 8s that went long. This week I'm working five four-hour shifts and I am expected to be in the store for no more than four hours each day.

I guess it was silly of me to think I could avoid office politics in a job like this.

The grocery manager, on being told that there was to be no overtime, said something like "There goes the integrity of the store" meaning that without overtime the aisles would likely not be "faced" well: products would not be lined up on the shelves and look nice. The stockers, in general, just put the stuff on the shelf. Making it look nice is either someone else's problem, or something to be done later.

The four hour shifts feel absurdly short. There's no lunch break. With ten minutes left in the shift, I asked the foreman what I should do. He said "Well... you picked up the aisles and did the repack for 2 and 3? I dunno. Boxes are crushed... go home? or hang out for another ten minutes." So I meandered. I actually wasted more time on that shift than I do on an 8 hour shift, I think.

On a slightly related note, my perception of what day it is has completely gone out the window. Once I was out of school, what day it was stopped mattering as much and my internal perception started slipping. The only reason to know what the day was was for weekly meetings at work (easy because they came after the weekend). I think that's part of why I started reading so many webcomics: knowing that these comics only update on Mondays or Wednesdays made me take time to think about what day it was before I clicked their links. Then I switched most of my reading list to RSS feeds and was more or less unemployed. My grasp of the days faltered again.

Now I need to know what days I work, and I have those set up in my google calendar and the calendar on my phone, but the 8 hour shifts span two days, starting at 2230 one day and continuing until 0700 or later the next. At least the four hour shifts are on a single day, from 0100 to 0500. For most of Saturday I thought "tomorrow" was Monday. This is not helped by my sleep schedule having shifted roughly 12 hours. I blacked out my window with tin foil and cover the cracks around my door as best as I can to manage how much light gets in during the day. I should probably have gone to sleep an hour or two ago, so I can sleep while Mike and Amy are at work and not have to worry about them waking me up when they get home round 1700.

News and things

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:23:31 GMT

This morning I got a call from the interviewer at King Soopers, the local Kroger grocery store. She offered me the Overnight Stocker job, and I accepted. I start Monday at 8AM for orientation and ~7hours of training. Then, presumably, I start working overnight.

I celebrated by going to Borders and picking up a couple of books, using a coupon I got in my email this morning.

I finished listening to Small Favor, a novel of the Dresden Files, yesterday and started on Academ's Fury, book 2 of the Codex Alera. I reasoned that I shouldn't stop reading entirely just because it's NaNoWriMo, but I should try to read in moderation, not spending several hours and staying up well after I should have gone to bed reading. Also, I find it hard to resist Jim Butcher's writing.

The weather turned snowy this afternoon, and seems to have all but stopped now. At least I had an excuse to wear my bowler and duster long-coat when I went out to get the books.

Weddings and more

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:25:31 GMT

First, a quick updated on my NaNoWriMo progress: 2808 words, well short of the 18,337 I "should" have by now. Stubbornly refusing to admit defeat and waiting for the story to catch fire that will get me caught up. Or at least closer to caught up.

Is anyone reading the story so far over in karakwrites? Any comments / criticisms of the story so far?

This last weekend I attended two weddings; both had an undercurrent of "It's about time!" though this was stated overtly at the first and more subtle at the second.

The first was for a pair of friends I met within the last few years through alarin612 and they have both agreed to be a part of the Alternia Comics family. They had been dating since high school and friends and family expressed the "it's about time!" sentiment during the reception. The wedding itself was simple, short and beautiful. The groom, a self-described steampunk, wore tux-tails and a top hat, and was actually ten minutes later to the chapel than planned because he went to different coin shops to find a victorian-era silver six-pence for his bride to put in her shoe. There were less than 75 guests, I think. The round of toasts ended with the groom saying that when he and his now-wife sat down to make the guest list, they decided to only invite those people they would be happier if the invited was present than absent.

The second was for a family friend. Up until 2002 or 2003, most if not all of my Thanksgivings were at their house. This wedding had a longer guest-list, upwards of 150 people. While the first was indoors, the second was an out-door, evening affair near the shore of a reservoir. Beautiful, but chilly, and the wind played merry hob with the microphone. One thing that sticks out in my mind is the music that played as the groomsmen walked alone to the altar: a violin instrumental of U2's "With or Without You." The couple wrote their own vows and both referenced that they had known this wedding was coming since they met at age 13, 11 or 12 years previous. The reception felt crowded, and definitely lacking in seating. I was with my mother and sister at this wedding, and we left early to get dinner.

One thing I've found about being open about my current employment status (unemployed and looking) seems obvious: in talking about it, employment opportunities present themselves. Case in point, at the first wedding, I talked with a new friend about helping him out and taking extra IT work when he's overloaded. And another friend asked me to help her transfer some files archived on 3.5" floppy disks readable only by an Apple IIc Plus, which of course has no ethernet, wifi, USB or firewire capability.

I found a piece of software (ADTPro) which can be used to transfer data from older Apple computers to modern computers over the Apple's serial interface. In trying this program, I ran into a stumbling block I hadn't anticipated; the Apple's serial port looks nothing like what I'm used to calling a serial port. Confusingly, it does have a 9-pin port on the back that a serial cable can plug in to, but the Apple doesn't send serial traffic over that port. Instead, it's ports are round, mini-DIN-8 serial ports, now commonly used in computer audio equipment. For now the project is on hold while a DIN-8 cable is being shipped from an online seller. Since the client is a friend, we agreed on a relatively low hourly rate for this sort of work, and I noted that I would not demand payment if I was unable to resolve the situation. She has, nonetheless, insisted on paying me at the end of two two-hour sessions that have yielded little result so far.

Another opportunity presented this weekend was for a nationally-recognized aerospace manufacturer with an office in Colorado needs a SharePoint administrator. I am reticent to say more at this time, but I remain hopeful.

Gaming Musingings, Possible Employement, NaNoWriMo Update

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:58:07 GMT

First the short bit: the NaNoWriMo update. The poll results are in and the audience overwhelmingly demands science fiction. I only hope I'm up to it, as I felt that was the weaker of the two ideas, not having had as much time to germinate and I was dubious of it's abilities to support a novel-length story.

However! I attended MileHiCon 41 this past weekend, having purchased my registration at MHC 40 last October. MileHiCon is a convention about science fiction, mostly focused on writing. I attended several panels on writing, space flight, the new moon program, and met several professional writers. This year's toastmaster was Brandon Sanderson, the fantasy author chosen to write the last two books in the Wheel of Time series. I may have to start that series before long...

I returned home Sunday, exhausted, but woke up on Monday excited about writing science fiction and The Sky Calls To Us has been moved forward to the front burners of my mind; hopefully it will reach a boil by Nov 1.

I had an interview today at a local-ish bookstore. It's a national chain, with the store in a mall not too terribly far from my house. I think it went well, but then I almost always think interviews go well. I spoke briefly with a couple of other employees on my way out of the store, and they bade me good luck. I should know more in a few days.

I also had $1.42 store credit at that store that would evaporate on Nov 1, so I decided to spend it toward an audio book. I do so love audio books, and Small Favor: A Novel of the Dresden Files was on a markdown shelf. Other Dresden Files audio books were upwards of $30 or $40, but this one was $10. I could find no explanation other than some cosmetic damage to the packaging, mostly to the shrink-wrap. The cashier applied a 30% coupon to the purchase as well, taking the price down to $6.99. All told I paid $5.99, including tax, for a 12 CD audio book by an author I find compelling, read by James Marsters (most notably Spike from the Buffy-verse).

On my way home, I mused about how little I remembered from the phone message and subsequent phone call that precipitated the interview. On Saturday one of the managers called me. My cellphone had run down its battery and I'd left my charger at home when packing for the con, so my phone was off until Sunday night. I got the message and called them back Monday morning and set the interview for Tuesday afternoon. I thought about how I'd heard the manager's name in the phone message, but hadn't really bothered to remember it because it was stored in voice mail if I needed it.

That thought lead me down a path thinking about video games, as most things do, role playing games specifically and Fallout 2 and 3 in particular. Treating the interview as a quest to be completed, the analogs are obvious; The message starts off the quest chain, and if I need details later I can review it. The manager I spoke to on the phone is a Non-Player Character (NPC) related to the quest; he gave me more details and a next step. All I wrote down was the time and place, not the manager's name, so when I got to the store (the next quest location) and asked the cashier for a manager (interacting with the next NPC in the quest chain) I had to try to remember the manager's name. Now almost all of that information can be forgotten again as I wait for an NPC to contact me with further quest instructions.

I wondered if I would have been more diligent in writing down and remembering names if video games hadn't trained me to mostly ignore NPC text/speech, trusting that relevant details would be recorded in my Quest Log if I needed them. Now that I think about it, the Diablo games World of Warcraft reinforced that pretty well too; in Diablo, the quests usually amounted to "go here, kill everything, maybe bring some item back," and in World of Warcraft the complete text of the speech the quest-giving NPC is recorded in the player's quest log, with bullet point summary at the top (also generally amounting to "go here, kill things, bring back some number of items.")

Remember in The Legend of Zelda how the game didn't record those things for you? If you met the guy that told you how to get out of the Lost Woods, but didn't write his directions down or didn't remember them when you were in the Lost Woods, you wandered through the same screen for hours? To this day I know you have to go North, West, South, West and it's never been useful except on that one screen. That knowledge also increased the humor in some jokes, but not many.

Perhaps I've put too much though in to this...

NaNoWriMo 09 Poll

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:29:07 GMT

As mentioned in karakwrites, I have two ideas to turn in to a novel, or at least try turning in to a novel. I'd like some help deciding. ;)

Either way, I'll be posting my progress in karakwrites, and word counts on nanowrimo.org, so if you're interested in reading along as I write, what would you rather be reading?

View Poll: NaNoWriMo09

And if the text box is too limiting, you can always leave a comment. And if you don't have a livejournal account and can't vote in the poll, you can also leave a comment.

I'll tell you which I'm leaning toward in a few days; I don't want to bias the poll. ;)

NaNoWriMo 09 Announcement

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:39:57 GMT

I plan to participate in this year's NaNoWriMo. This will be my second attempt at writing a novel in a month. The first, in 2006, stalled out a week or so in. The novel it started lives on though.

More details about this year's quest can be found over at karakwrites: National Novel Writing Month 2009

Another update, mostly on job prospects

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:47:50 GMT

Not a whole heck of a lot going on with me recently. I was not hired for the ViaWest job; they sent me a politely worded rejection letter through the US mail.

I applied to a couple of interesting looking jobs through CraigsList, after being disheartened by all the jobs I am not qualified for on dice.com: one Web Administrator job and one Overnight Cashier position at a store inside Denver International Airport. I also applied for a data entry position at a Denver law firm and they recommended me to their process server company, as the process server is in need of more drivers.

I got a call yesterday from the Web Administrator job, and a call today from the Process Server. Apparently the job at the law firm is "half open;" the department recognizes they need another person or two, but they have not yet convinced the lawyer in charge of hiring people.

In the mean while, I'm house-sitting for Mike's parents while they enjoy a 3 week cruise. One of the major advantages to staying here is there's a hot tub out back. When I started house-sitting a week or so ago, my back was angry with me and complained if I stood up straight, or really switched from laying down to sitting to standing. The hot tub was instrumental in a speedy recovery.

A disadvantage, and the main reason I'm here, is the cat. Large, sort-of angry, demanding, and usually hungry. She's overweight, so they have her on a diet: three scoops of dry food a day. The scoop is either 1/3 cup or 1/2 cup; it's not labeled and I haven't measured it, but somewhere in that range. Most of the daily routine goes like this: I sit at my laptop at the kitchen table. The cat sleeps in the living room. The cat wakes up and walks over to me, meowing. If I don't get up to feed her, she'll sit there for a few minutes then wander off to investigate her food bowl. If I do get up, she'll trot along behind me and sit in front of her food bowl. About half the time, she has plenty of food in her bowl. I tell her this and she stares at me, meowing.

I've taken to tricking her when her food bowl is full. I take the bowl up to the counter and take a scoop of food out. I then put the bowl back down and let her watch as I pour the scoop back into the bowl. This is usually sufficient to convince her she has more food and she'll begin to eat.

I'm not sure if I'm actually more allergic to this cat than Momo, of if I just think I am. Either way, I've been washing my hands often.

I also have television again, which is weird. It's neat being able to watch shows I haven't bothered finding online, but I also caught myself turning it on for background noise then spending hours watching it...

I do to you now the enormous hurt!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:13:42 GMT

This evening I was sort of surprised in to playing Mechaton, the table-top strategy game built of LEGO bricks. I was in a sort of blah mood to start with, and after we built our armies we went to Dairy Queen for ice cream since it was 10PM. Mike was on a sugar high and kept noting that these rules seemed awfully complex and confusing as I read them. I offered him the print out and he declined to read for himself.

Miscommunication abounded in the first round of the game. More than a little frustrating. If I had been more prepared I probably would have at least skimmed the rules again and suggested we play the Short game instead of the standard game..

We each built four mechs. I had the fewest total attachments so I had the highest points-per and started the game with 36 points. Mike started with 30 and Erik with 24.

We discarded the initiative rules and instead rolled initiative and defense for each mech at the beginning of the game and left those numbers alone.

I rolled poorly for one of my main defenders and it was taken out mid-game. On the last turn I lost another mech and one of my stations, leaving me with 18 points to Mike's 30 and Erik's 28 (Erik captured my station)

We all agreed it was a fun game, but the rules seem overly complex at times. Complexity for complexity's sake, as Mike noted.

Tomorrow is the start of Nan Desu Kan. I'll be offline all weekend, with probable updates to Twitter.

Slipping away

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:01:44 GMT

Things are slipping away.

I meant to write a new short story for Friday's update, and in fact did write the beginnings of one on Wednesday, but then I never transcribed or finished it.

I started the next part of the ongoing story Colony Beta, working from notes I wrote last week, but Sunday got away from me until late in the evening, so I didn't start it until Monday morning, figuring a late update is better than no update.
Monday has, mostly, slipped through my fingers. I went out for a jog around 17:30 and decided instead to walk at a fast pace for as long as I could. I ended up walking three and a quarter miles, arriving home again around 18:15, nearly exhausted. I knew going in to it that I could walk as far as I needed; I've walked long distances before. This time I wanted to keep up a good pace, instead of a resting walk. Not quite a power-walk, but enough to maintain an elevated heart rate and make me focus on my breathing.
The rest of the evening has been spent recovering, but after fifteen minutes of rest and some food, I felt rested enough to do it again.

In slightly-less-recent news, I interviewed with ViaWest again, this time with the Regional Manager and the manager of the facility we met at. Technical questions were asked, and overall I think I answered them well. There was a sticky spot where the Regional Manager was trying to ask leading questions to get me to an answer, but I wasn't sure where he was trying to lead, so I mostly stumbled along, eventually answering as he expected. He said I should expect to hear from them one way or the other early this week, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Here's hoping.

Status Update

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:47:24 GMT

I've let August slip away with only five entries here. Here's hoping September will see more frequent updates.

Many many things have happened since I last posted. Let me explain.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

The Job
Several months ago, I applied to various and sundry tech jobs through dice.com. One of them, ViaWest, responded to my application asking me to come down and take a skills assessment test as part of the pre-interview process. It was 15 questions as I was told to expect to take 15 minutes filling it out.
All were multiple-choice, and some of the questions were ridiculously easy, such as "A customer complains about having trouble receiving their email. They are able to send email and browse the web without problems. What settings would you ask them to check in their mail client? A) POP3 settings, B) IMAP settings, C) SMTP settings, D) Internet Connection Settings" Only answer C has to do with sending mail.
Some were a bit trickier, like "Circle all that apply. Which of the following are listed in the output of the command 'ipconfig /all' under Windows XP"
Overall I spent 7 or 8 minutes on the test, checked my answers, handed it in and left. The receptionist explained that they have no openings at the moment, but the hiring people like to have candidates ready so the openings are not vacant for long.
Weeks went by and I wrote it off, figuring nothing would come of it and feeling a bit silly for driving ~25 minutes each way for a 10 minute test.

I focused on what needed doing to get things together to get a loan to start The Gamers' Bookshelf, a retail store selling role playing game rule books, board games and accessories.

A little over two weeks ago, Mike & I were talking about next steps for the store, and whether it wouldn't be better to start it as an online store, establish the business, then go to the bank and say "See! We know what we're doing! You'll totally get your loan money back." Our discussion was interrupted when I got a phone call. Ben from ViaWest would like me to come down for a pre-interview interview.

We discussed my background, experience, the job requirements, brief company history, and went over my test. The only questions I missed were the three "circle all that apply" questions and he gave me partial credit for answering them correctly before he told me the answers. Then we went on a tour of the datacenter, one of four in the Denver area. They have additional datacenters in Portland, OR, somewhere in Utah or Idaho, and one in Texas, I think. It sounds like I may bounce around the Denver ones for a bit until I settle. I would be one of the guys in the Network Operations Center (NOC), answering support calls from business customers and assisting customers on-site, maintaining the integrity of the internal network, and other fun stuff. The position is called Solutions Engineer, but Ben acknowledged it's a bit vague and misleading as a title. He said mine was the best test score he'd seen recently, and noted he would have hired me right away if there were a position available. He put in the paperwork to promote one of the Solutions Engineers and was waiting on it to be processed, so he expected an opening "soon:" anytime from a week to a couple of months. I bade him farewell and walked to my car with a hopeful step, but made plans to get another job anyway, just in case.

Last weekend was Lauren's birthday, so in preparation for that I went to a couple of book stores to find a book she wanted. She wanted the hardcover edition, but since the paperback had come out, every store I went to only carried the paperback and could order the hardcover to be delivered in about a week. This was, of course, too late to have it in time for the party, so I opted for a gift card instead. But, of course, I can't just go in to a book store, grab something, and leave. I have to wander around a bit. I found the Jim Butcher section of shelf, and picked up Storm Front, book one of the Dresden Files. I'd been curious about the series since watching the TV show years ago. Turns out the pilot of the TV show covered book one reasonably well. The book was more interesting, more background and more plot lines, but the show got the basics: wizard protagonist works with lady cop on strange murder case, demons summoned, wizard protagonist being watched by wizard antagonist because protagonist killed a guy with magic in self defense and now the antagonist is waiting for him to do something similar to justify execution as punishment, hilarity ensues.

I fell in to the book and read the last half of it last night, finishing around 2:45AM. I looked at my phone and said "You'll make noise in a few hours..." and turned the alarm off. I thought for a moment as I put the phone back on the shelf next to the bed that it would have been easier to turn the ringer volume to "off" so it wouldn't make any noise, but let that thought drift away as my head hit the pillow.

Around 10:30 the phone rang. Ben was calling me back to schedule an interview with the Regional NOC Manager, Chris, who would make the hiring decision. Thursday afternoon at 3PM in Aurora (a little over half an hour's drive away). I thanked my past-self for turning off the alarm and not the ringer. About an hour later Chris called me to confirm our meeting and ask a few non-technical questions: Are you available to work at any of the Denver facilities, did Ben explain the shift rotations (he did), when would you be available to start, will we find anything in the background investigation (which I gave consent and filled out the paperwork for -- some of the servers host data and/or sites for government agencies; I didn't sign a non-disclosure agreement, so they didn't tell me anything more than that), etc. Both Ben and Chris noticed I had lived/worked in Portland, OR and noted they have a datacenter there, in Hillsboro actually, a neighboring city just South of Portland proper.

I don't imagine the interview going poorly; they'll ask me technical questions and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to answer them, or at least say "I don't know for certain, but I would search these key words and phrases
online." I know they don't expect me to know everything; that's what their training is for.

The Convention
Nan Desu Kan is a hair over a week away. A few new costume pieces have arrived in the mail recently, and I picked up a new shirt and bow tie last week. Slowly adding more and more to my steampunk costume, and there's a steampunk gathering on Saturday, 10 AM, near the registration tables. Should be a lot of fun. I seem to have forgotten to pre-register for the convention though, and of course pre-reg closed weeks ago, so I'll be there bright and early Friday morning to get a badge.

Crafting Skill Increase!
In a fit of pique a few weeks ago, we tore out the wooden deck on the front porch. The wood was splintering and cracking with age anyway. Mostly we tolerated it because it seemed like a lot of work to tear it out. And it was. We found that it had been constructed largely of pressure-treated lumber that should not have been exposed to the elements, and was covering the original cement porch and front steps that had sunk four to ten inches at some point in the past. Now the front of the house looks nicer, and has a big step up to the front door. That was really more deconstruction than construction though.

We borrowed a carpet shampooer and cleaned the carpets, then decided to rearrange furniture since it was all moved about anyway. We ended up getting rid of the TV stand that had been the entertainment center in the basement and put up three adjustable shelves to hold the video game consoles and dvd player. The TV is a flat screen mounted to the wall. While moving my shelves of DVDs off the carpet, I went the lazy route and moved them full of DVDs. Two of the three shelve survived. The third was a cheap piece of crap I hadn't really been happy with since I put it together the first time. It barely survived the ten block move from Erik's house to Mike & Amy's house, and only survived the move from Portland because I took it apart and packed it back in its box. We went to Home Depot and picked out lumber for two projects: building me a new DVD shelf and building Amy a book shelf to hold her collection of books. Until now, most of the books have been living in boxes either at her parents' house or under her bed.

I didn't actually do any of the cutting or drilling on my shelf. Mostly I picked out the wood and suggested a design. It ended up being four feet tall and three feet wide, with five shelves spaced dvd-height apart, with thin dowels in the back to prevent the dvds from being pushed through. Mike learned a couple of good lessons from building my shelf: Measure Twice, Cut Once, and Never Trust Cuts You Didn't Make. Most of the shelves he cut were close to 34 inches. One was 36, and when we tried to force it in, figuring the vertical board was warped, it yanked the screws out of three other shelves. Mike remeasured and recut the problem board and everything went together like clockwork. I think it looks fantastic and even putting my video games on it, I still have almost a full shelf of empty space.

Game Store Update
Mike and I have discussed it and have come to the conclusion that starting The Gamers' Bookshelf as an online store makes the most sense. We can store the inventory at the house to start with, or at a near-by self-storage lot if need be. The website would essentially be free since we can do all the work to set it up. It opens up a broader audience, since we'd be dealing nationally instead of locally. We can also have an etsy-like section where crafters can sell their wares through our site. Some possibilities for the latter include jewelery, custom figures, terrain pieces and custom made terrain boards for tactical games like Warhammer, costumes and costume accessories, and adventure modules. We figure we can start the store this way with no loan, in our spare time, for less than five or six thousand dollars. And if the site doesn't work as well as we thought it would, we can recoup much of our cost by selling the inventory to other local stores.

In other news, Alternia Comics is still going, new stuff almost-daily. Part of my problem with writing is I got used to writing in restaurants, which is expensive to do regularly, especially while unemployed, so I haven't done it, and the frequent updates quickly drained my backlog of short stories. At restaurants, I don't have other bits of my life to distract me: no laptop, DVDs, video games, people to talk to, etc. just my pen and the blank page. I haven't been able to recreate a similar space in the house. I've gotten writing done, but not as much as I used to while I went out for lunch and writing almost every day in Washington.

Coffee Story

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:35:07 GMT

Drinking coffee at IHOP last night, I was reminded of a story Mike's dad, Ray, told. Ray is a world renowned geophysicist, though you wouldn't know it to talk to him.

One day, several years ago, a small group of Italian geophysicists were visiting the US and he was giving them a tour of his facility and the surrounding city. Everywhere they went, they ordered coffee and complained about the quality (to the group, I assume, not to the waitstaff). Finally, Ray's curiosity got the best of him and he asked "If it's so bad, why do you keep ordering it?"

One of the Italians responded, "Well, it's terrible, really. But they give you as much as you want!"

Writing Accomplished

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:12:29 GMT

I did get Chapter 4 of Colony Beta written with time to spare Sunday. I'm not sure I meant it to be only about Kevin, instead of half Kevin, half Jen & Paul, like the previous chapters. I'm happy with it though. Will I start switching off? One chapter for Kevin, one for Paul & Jen, until they either meet up and split up, or another group is introduced. I know where the story is going now, just not quite how it will get there.

I have something like nine days to either write a new character introduction or wrap up a partially completed story that could become self-contained episodic short stories following the adventures of a small group.

I running in to naming problems in the latter story, and setting questions in the former. For the former, it's mostly a question of whether I want the characters to stay in a futuristic setting the routine space flight, or if I want to try to shoehorn them in to the cyberpunk-sans-spaceflight setting. They're both the same universe, but one is obviously farther in the future than the other. For the latter, what do I call the groups of adventurers that are hired by individuals or corporations. In the Shadowrun game setting, these groups are called Shadow Runners, and their society is often called The Shadows. Also what should I call the series.

This last weekend felt like the sort of weekend that, if I was still in Portland, I would have driven to Seattle for no reason other than it seemed like a good idea. I thought about it on Saturday. Then I thought "That's a really long drive now..." so instead I just drove South or West on various roads. I followed Alameda until it turned and I didn't and I eventually came to Morrison Road, which brought me back to Wadsworth. Sheridan seems to turn in to a planned community of some kind, not too far South of US 285.

I ended up at an IHOP at Sheridan and 285 for dinner, around 10:30PM, and ordered some sort of new dish they were testing out in that store: the Spinach & Cheese Scramble. Scrambled eggs with spinach, served with a slice of cheddar and shredded cheddar jack on top next to hash browns, bacon (or sausage) and pancakes. Seemed like a good meal for just shy of $10 (including coffee).

In lieu of fiction

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 05:54:30 GMT

As previously mentioned, I have some writing to do. I cornered Alarin and nailed down the plan for the coming short stories week, figuring out which needs to be written still. All I have to write is another character introduction for Ex Machina, like Doc Winnen's intro. Everything else for next week has already been written. I'm glad we have this back log to work from, but the backlog was written when we were both writing sporadically about whatever happened to catch us at the time.

Sometime in the next 24 hours and 42 minutes I have to write the next chapter in Colony Beta, but as I posted to twitter a little bit ago, I'm almost willing to do Drupal work as a distraction. Almost.

I think instead I'll write about my day. It might help me stop focusing on some of it and it'll at least get me writing something.

Today was ... weird. I woke up and washed some dishes before eating breakfast, then I went out to the garage to see what Mike and Amy were up to. Mike's car was on jack stands and Amy was on the driver's side, working the clutch to remove air from the system and get good fluid in its place so the clutch would actually work again. I came in at a very bad time, apparently, and startled Mike (not near the car at the time) who was in a foul mood to begin with as his favorite flash light had suffered a fatal mishap. I took his reaction as a cue to leave and pretty much hid in my room for the rest of the afternoon.

Tried watching some TV shows on my laptop, but kept getting interrupted by IMs. I didn't really want to talk to people, but didn't really want to just sign off either. Eventually I got in my car and just drove. I had no destination in mind, and wished my Garmin had a "random" button so I could have it lead me somewhere I probably hadn't been before.

I found myself heading South on Kipling and stopped when I got to a shopping center at Kipling and Bowles. I realized after I was in the parking lot that it was the home to one of the Elvis Cinemas, discount movie theaters, showing second and third run movies for $2-$3 per ticket.

I wasn't in the mood for a movie, so I drove on and found myself back on Wadsworth Blvd, heading South. I kept going until the road seemed to turn in to a driveway for a Lockheed Martin compound. I pulled in to the visitors' parking lot and turned around.

I got home shortly thereafter and found Mike and Amy had already left for Mike's birthday party at Amy's parents' house in Golden. I checked my phone and found no messages, but I had an IM from Mike waiting on my laptop. It said they were heading to the party and I was welcome to join the party if I liked. The timestamp was from about ten minutes before I got home.

The party was fun. I arrived in time for dinner and cake. The candles on the cake were small letters spelling out "HAPPY BIRTHDAY." Mike excused himself to the restroom while the candles were being applied to the cake and lit. I think the candles expected him back sooner, as they had melted on to the frosting and burned themselves out within two minutes of being lit. These candles were definitely designed for one-time usage.

My drive to the party and the drive back were characterized by bad drivers. There's a tricky intersection at 32nd & Youngfield heading West, under Interstate 70. There are three lanes, one of which is a turn lane (left) on the other side of the overpass, and one of which is a turn-only lane (right) a block West of the overpass. I was in the middle lane, headed straight through the intersections and toward the party. I was the second car back from the light, and when it changed, the lead car on my left sidled in front of me without signaling. An annoyingly common occurrence at that intersection.

On the drive home, I was mostly on highways, though it seemed like whoever was in front of me in the lane was determined to drive five miles per hour slower than the posted limit, no matter which lane I was in. Unless my speedometer is reading 5mph slow for some reason. On US Highway 6 (6th Avenue) I was changing lanes from the left to the center after passing one of these people going 5 under, when a Ford Bronco merged from the right to the center lane. He was a bit ahead of me when we both merged, but I know I signaled before merging and I didn't see him signal until he was half way in the lane. And then, of course, he drove 5 mph slower than the posted limit.

It didn't end until I was two blocks from the house. A club-slash-hooka-bar has opened up on Florida, about a block from Wadsworth. I drive by it every time I come home from the West (like tonight). Two cars were ahead of me in the turn lane to turn from Wadsworth to Florida, and both of them drove slowly and finally made a slow left turn in to the club parking lot. And by "slowly" I mean 15-20mph with a posted limit of 30.

At least I got home without incident.

Realization Dawns

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:35:53 GMT

Another fortnight has gone by at AlterniaComics.com. Five long-form stories updated, followed by five short works of fiction. In getting ready for the next round, I realized I have to have the next chapter of Colony Beta written by midnight Monday morning (the midnight between Sunday and Monday).

I have no idea what will go on in the next chapter. Will Kevin join up with Jen and Paul in the Library? Will any authority figures actually come looking for the kids who wandered away in the middle of the school day? Maybe it'll be another page or two from Jack Marten's journal, maybe something more about the politics of the colony.

Then I thought about the other long-form story I'm responsible for posting: Optinomicon. Currently I'm just posting chapters I've already written (and read for podcast), but before too much longer I'll have to write a new chapter for that every two weeks as well.

By that time, we will have probably plumbed the depths of the Alternia Comics LiveJournal pages, the current story archive, so in addition to two long-form works, I'll be writing between two and five short works every two weeks.

This is suddenly seeming like a large workload, especially if I'm going to be running a book store at the same time. And especially since Alternia Comics isn't an income source currently. Fortunately, it's also not a drain (except on time) since it's being hosted for free with GeekGene.

Any writers out there want to write for AlterniaComics.com?

It seems like a good time to say something

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:14:23 GMT

I haven't been very vocal online for a while. This entry may get sort of long and rambly; I'm not quite awake at the moment.

I've been tweeting more since I culled my Following list on Twitter, but mostly I've been busy.

I actually had some work to do for GeekGene. Updates to Drupal, the software that runs the websites GeekGene hosts. Not exciting for fulfilling work, but it's work. A few hours of pay.

I've been writing more, getting fresh content up at AlterniaComics.com. I had a lot of fun writing the character back story for Amanda Winnen, a character I made for a game that hasn't been played.

There have been random chores around the house; washing dishes is surprisingly time consuming when considering the aggregate time spent on it each week. I helped Mike flush the old brake fluid from his car; he's confident it will be running again soon.

I've been putting the finishing touches on a business plan to take to a bank to apply for a loan to start my own book store specializing in role-playing game books and accessories. Mike is/will be a partner in the business, though he is quick to point out that it's my dream, my vision, and he doesn't want to stomp all over it; he just wants to help. I haven't corrected him when he says it's my dream, because I'm not certain it's not. It's something I've wanted to do for years, and it sounds fun, but it's not calling to me; it's not something I'm waking up excited about. Sadly, nothing is calling to me anymore. Writing calls in the moment, but it's rare to wake up excited to write. It's more likely I'll fall asleep excited to write the next day, then the next day comes and I'm reluctant to get out of bed.

I finished the book I was reading (Gust Front by John Ringo) and found several fortunes tucked in the back cover, notably "Rest is a good thing, but boredom is its brother."

I am excited to get the store going, but I've been feeling tired lately, run down. Maybe bogged down is a better descriptor. I want to go do X, but either I shouldn't because it's not forwarding any project that will get me money, or I can't because I have to do Y first. A specific example would be that I want to get started on the physical aspects of the store: setting up shelves, ordering and/or stocking inventory, etc. But I can't because I have to finish the business proposal and talk to a bank to secure the loan to lease the space to have a place to put the inventory.

This goes back, at least partially, to doing the dishes. Often I'll go upstairs to get breakfast and I'll be distracted by the cookware and dishes in and around the sink, so I'll get them cleared away. Then I look up and half an hour has gone by and I'm not hungry, so I'll wander off to do something else.

I get more housework done when I'm avoiding more important tasks.

I should probably just go to sleep now, get up early-ish and get things done tomorrow.

A couple of things I have learned recently.

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:27:53 GMT

For a long while, I was going to bed around 11 or midnight and waking at 8:30, for not reason other than that's when the alarm went off. This week my schedule slipped. For one reason or another I was up until after 1AM Tuesday morning. The alarm went off and I made myself a cup of coffee. Then I was up until after 2AM Wednesday morning. The alarm went off and I made a pot of coffee without thinking too much. Same story on Thursday.

I learned that if I make a pot of coffee, I will drink it. 8 cups, 10 cups, 6 cups, how ever much is made is how much I will drink. This generally leads to somewhat jittery afternoons.

I wrote 2,430 words yesterday, starting and finishing a short story. Really it's an expansion of a short, ~15 sentence character backstory I wrote last year for one of six pre-made characters in a space-themed role playing game I never ran. I like how it turned out, and it will be posted to Alternia Comics on Wednesday, August 5th, in the Ex Machina section.

I had a lot of fun and the words came easy, demonstrating again that one of my strengths is expanding on something I've previously written. I'm not sure I can make an outline of future or current in-progress works and write from that, but perhaps I can write a quick sketch of some of the stories in my head and expand them from there.

This is hardly a new lesson, but I learned it's easier to write when I know where the story's going and a couple of major plot points.

Week of Solitude

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:55:42 GMT

I had a week of solitude here at Ocassia, while Mike and Amy were on vacation in Las Vegas. Now they're home again, but at least the cat won't wake me up every morning and I can sleep in again.

Last night was a Steampunk Soiree in Denver, not far from where David and Lauren live, actually. Most of the party-goers were people I met during the Steampunk Day at the Colorado Renaissance Festival last month, and it was fun to see them again, along with a handful of new faces. I was over an hour late to the party, but as it was scheduled for 7PM to Midnight an hour didn't really matter much.

I fell in to a groove of posting things daily to Alternia Comics and ended up posting more than was planned. Now I'll cut back and stick to the schedule.

I found a module for Drupal that allows posts to be scheduled to be published in the future, so now we can set up the week's updates all at once.

I discovered last night that Monday's update, the next chapter of my story Colony Beta, is only about half as long as I'd like it to be, so I have until Monday to add to it. Naturally, I'm procrastinating on it and doing everything but writing, including blogging here and writing up my notes from the party last night (in character, I'm the stenographer of the airship crew, so I brought my notebook along and wrote down amusing quotes and the minutes of the meeting at the end of the night).

Hail Storm

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:26:55 GMT

Ah, summer in Colorado.

Shortly after dark last night, I opened the windows and turned on a box fan to get a cool breeze through the house to cool it off overnight.

Not long after, it started raining. Then it started raining HARD. I ran upstairs and saw hail, saw leaves plastered to the window, and heard the hail hitting other windows in the house. I ran around closing every window I'd just opened and hid in the basement with the cat.

The power flickered a few times, but didn't seem to go off for long.

As quickly as it began, the storm was over. I grabbed a flash light and walked the house, checking the windows for breaks. Thankfully, no broken glass, and I didn't feel any damp spots on the carpet other than where windows had been open before I closed them.

In the morning I went outside to check the garage windows and my car, and to check the garden. Windows were fine. I was glad I mowed earlier in the day, given all the sticks and leaves now littering the lawn and plastered to the walk.

I got some pictures of the garden. The pumpkin has seen better days.

Other than the garden, everything around here seems to have weathered the storm well.

Exercise Log #15

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:13:52 GMT

It's been a while since I've posted one of these. I haven't been entirely slacking. I helped a couple of friends move out of their apartment and in to their house before the 4th of July. Much heavy lifting.

I used a 10lb sledge hammer to remove a tree stump from the front yard. More details in this previous entry: Progress on Projects. It was not the ideal tool for the job, but it worked surprisingly well, likely because the stump had spent the better part of 8 months under a pile of leaves, decaying, and was riddled with tunnels from some sort of burrowing insect.

I mowed the lawn a couple of times using an old-style, non-motorized reel mower. I like that it's much quieter, and still heavy enough that it takes a non-trivial effort to push it back and forth across the lawn. The major downsides I've noticed are an inability to cut grass that is too tall or bends instead of being cut by the blades. And it gets caught on sticks easily. With less force behind the blades than an electric or gas rotary mower, twigs can easy cause the blade to stop dead.

Regular exercising will resume soon.