Long time, No post

Well, true to the aperiodic nature of this blog, it's been a while since I've put up a new post here and figured it was high time to fix that.

The summer has come and gone and during that time my job search has continued with a few more tasty nibbles but no real bites just yet. It's also brought a couple of visits from my parents and seen the rise of my new interest in cheese making. But the crowning event of the summer had to be the first day of school for my eldest child.

I plan to write more on all of these topics and others in the near future and here is why: November is only 6 weeks away and while to most Americans that means turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie for me it has come to mean NaNoWriMo. Thats' right it's nearly time for National Novel Writing Month.

When I made that discovery this morning while looking at the calendar I was forced to admit that I have not been very good about keeping up on my daily word count goal while writing. To help fix that and begin my training for the 50,000 word marathon I'm going to make a more concerted effort to update this and my other blog (www.speaklikeageek.com) on a more regular basis.

Right now I am only putting in about 500 to 800 words a day and I need to ramp up to the 1800 to 2000 words per day level if I have any hope of hitting the NaNoWriMo goal again this year. More on that effort and my second NaNoWriMo experience over the coming days and weeks.

Until then, thanks for checking back and keep watch the web!

A Mid Life Crisis turns Eco Friendly

If there comes a day (in my increasingly less distant future) that I decide to buy a sports car as a way to salve a mid-life crisis this car just might fill the bill

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Can You Be More Specific?

I've been doing some research on how to make cheese. I saw an episode of Good Eats on the topic and think I'd like to try my hand at it.

Like any other new skill I turned to my local library's catalog to see what books and videos I could find on the topic. I guess I needed to be more specific when doing my search.

The top two hits for DVDs on the topic of cheese making returned a link to a Wallace and Gromit movie (not hard to understand given their proper British love of cheese) and concert film of Britney Spears live from Las Vegas. While not what I was looking for I find it hard to fault this being classified under making cheese.

I guess that's just the whey it goes.

(sorry for the bad cheese pun. I'm sure there will be more of the to come.)

Three New Inventions

From the "Why didn't I think of that?" category:

Geek Wallets

Clear Canoe

Self Timing Eggs

Boomers Making Death Cool Again

A new social networking site a la My Space and Friendster has cropped up on the webscape. It's targeted towards the west of 50 crowd and touts such features like sending you an email when one of your online friends dies and helping with pre-planned funeral arrangements.

More info can be found here. And here is a direct link to Eons.com.

The Politically Incorrect Alphabet

My news reader caught this.

It's a series of A-B-C flash cards that depict topics that are mostly politically incorrect topics. There is a list in the text section of the site of what each card represents but I think part of the fun is trying to figure each one out.

That being done I have to say that I must not run with a PC enough crowd. I only found about a third of them to represent topics I would consider off the table when having polite dinner conversation.

Take a look and let me know what you think.

Update: Job Hunt

For those following along with my efforts to make a career move I have an update.

The company I've been talking with for the last seven weeks and who has interviewed me multiple times sent me an email today. It seems that the woman who wanted to hire me as soon as the contract was signed with an unnamed (for SEC reasons) US client is no longer in charge of the department. In her email to me today she said that there had been a major shakeup and that someone else was now heading up the Managed Services team. She went on to tell me that she had passed along my CV (did I mention she is in Europe?) and recommendations to her replacement and that he would be in touch at some point.

So now I'm in a state of limbo. I have no idea what the new guy is like, what he thinks about adding someone in to the position that I'm being considered for or what sort of timetable he might be working on. I don't even have the guy's name yet. What I do have going for me as several good interviews with other people in the company and my own set of references and letters of recommendation.

I hope to get a better lay of the land when I get a chance to talk with him but once again the ball is all in their court.

It Ain't Easy Being A Dad

Today I'm finding that it ain't easy being a dad. I'm on nearly the last leg of my trip home after being away for several days to attend the memorial service of my grandfather and while I sit in the train station waiting for the 507 to roll in my son is in the hospital back home. And it's killing me.

The procedure he is having done is a simple one that lasts less than 15 minutes under anesthesia. It's the sort of thing doctors have been doing for more years than I've been alive and we have no reason to be concerned. But it's still killing me to not be there.

The wife of our pastor has taken our girls to the zoo today and allowed Taleena to concentrate fully on Harris and his needs. It's great that she's done that and I know that Taleena is grateful too. She can spend all her energy on the boy. And yet it's still killing me to not be there.

I'm about to take a new job that will allow me to provide for my family better than I ever have before. It will give the the the opportunity to work from home even more than I do now. And it's an exciting career move to boot. But it comes with some travel. Not the amount that would brand me with the title of Road Warrior but enough to probably ensure that I'll miss the occasional T-Ball game, ballet recitals or scout meetings. So I guess I'll have to get used to it and that's killing me.

Update: When I got home that night, all was well. The procedure had gone off with out hardly a hitch and everyone was home safe and sound.

World's Smallest Political Quiz

A conversation at dinner tonight brought up a fresh interest in this link:

The World's Smallest Political Quiz

Take a few moments to follow the link. You might be surprised be the results.

Almost Lost in Translation

I've had occasion twice in the last week to be on the phone with people from the UK and today I was struck for the first time in a while about the differences between the English and American languages. Let me explain.

The first of the two calls was with a man whom I'll call Clive. He is the head of the group that does the actual coding and creation of the software package that this company sells. I've watched enough BBC to know that his accent was decidedly southern England and he spoke in a very measured and methodical manner. As such he was easy to understand and we had a pleasant discussion about the job I've been trying to get.

By contrast my call this morning with a woman named Electra for the purpose of this story. Electra also had a very southern England (almost Welsh) accent but she spoke at about 90 kilometers per hour. [It's the UK so I figured I should measure this in metric.] She's an account manager for about half a dozen customers and is busy, busy, busy hence the frenetic pace of her speech. Between her accent and the speed I lost about 15% of what she said but that was not the most interesting thing about the conversation.

During the conversation I had opportunity to ask her about how deep in to their products code she got. Specifically I asked the question "How often and how deep do you really get under the hood and mess the with the Java?" The moment the words left my mouth I started to wonder if I should have used the phrase bonnet (or boot, I never remember the right one to use) rather than hood. From that point on I was very aware of the differences between English and our American variant.

But the story does not end there. Just a few moments later the tables were turned. Electra was talking about the couple of US customers that she is currently responsible for that would probably end up on my plate should I land the job I was interviewing for.

"In addition to [a major cable network] we also have a print publisher based in New York. They put out a bunch of girlie magazines..."

Fortunately I had a good knowledge of the company at this point and had reviewed their website so I understood that the girlie magazines she was talking about were of the Cosmo variety and not the Busty Babes on Parade type. Besides I don't think that having a client like that would have sat too well with my wife.

It just goes to show that just because we were both speaking English doesn't mean that we were speaking the same language.

Epilogue: For more discussion on languages check out this post over at Island Passage. It's written by a fellow who spends his day swimming in the stuff.