A waste of bits and bandwidth

Well, the blogathon came to a rather abrupt halt. Of course this has nothing to do with Biff complaining that I don’t update enough. Now that he’s in con-college, I guess he doesn’t get access to the net as often as he had hoped.

Let me go back and see what I last wrote about… *browsing* Ah yes, driving a bus. Since then I’ve decided to re-book my trip, so I’ll be in the wind very soon. Ticket, passport, hotel, Won and Yen? Check x4. Currently I’m drowning in a sea of to-do lists which I’m sure makes Rachel very proud.

I was able to Skype with Biff briefly a few days ago. Apparently when Rachel twirls her finger in the air, she is indicating that it’s time to wrap things up.

The 2005 site is now built so that’s going to make my life easier when I get back. I’m taking my laptop as well so I can blog freely from the hotel. I still have a bunch of work to do on it to get it ready. Camera driver, firewall, crap like that. I wish it wasn’t so old but it’s sure handy to have and it’ll do the trick. I just pray the battery retains enough juice to get me through the security check. “No really, it works but I need to plug it in… Sure it does. Follow me sir”

I’m really excited to be going back again. Seoul is such an incredible city and I’m planning to see as much of it as I can while I’m there. I cut my time in Tokyo back a lot but at least I’ll get to look around a little.

I really wish I had a job waiting for me when I returned but once again, that is a big NOT. I’m thinking through some ideas though. Hopefully they turn out to be good ones this time.

RLD

I thought I’d post a list of some of my favorite Podcasts for you, my faithful reader. (Yes that was meant to be singular)

Podcasting (a stupid name because you don’t need an iPod to listen) is basically audio blogging; sort of like a Tivo for ‘radio’ if that makes it easier for you. It’s exploded since September and as you can imagine, there are a ton of idiots like me doing a Podcast when they really shouldn’t be. As with text blogs, you can find a podcast on any subject you can imagine.

However, there are a handful that I’ve come to really enjoy so I thought I’d share then with you here. Some of these are not safe for parental units so Mom? I expect you to skim this entry and go on with your life.

With that having been said, let’s begin. Very good…

The Daily Source Code: Adam Curry was one of the first to get into this area and he’s really good.

The Dawn and Drew Show: A young married couple, podcasting from Wisconsin. One of the most popular podcasts out there and for good reason.

Yeast Radio: Madge Weinstein’s daily podcast. ‘She’ is a guy from the Bronx, living life in Chicago as a Jewish lesbian and former drug addict. ’nuff said.

Inside Mac Radio and the MacCast are a couple of Mac related podcasts which are really entertaining and you don’t need to be a Mac user to enjoy them. Inside Mac Radio is a bunch of the old cNet Radio guys. Damn, those were the best times…

I have about 25 feeds in my iPodder list and that’s after I dropped a few that I wasn’t listening to very often. I haven’t listened to a song on my iPod for a month as there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Have a listen a couple of them; I bet you’ll be addicted too.

Sources:

Podcastalley Top 50
iPodderX
Podcast Bunker
iPodder

Hmmm… I sure blog a lot when I get laid off. Too bad I can’t get paid for doing this; I mean if everyone who read my blog paid me a dollar, I’d have like, uh, $4.

Met up with Calvin and Biff for lunch yesterday. I think the place was the Wild Ginger in Tinseltown. $7 buys you a really good meal. Really good; sort of a chinese/korean fusion or something. Good to see Cal again; sorta brought back memories of the good old days. Biff and I hit Starbucks for our last coffee for a while. I’m going to miss that too.

Anyway, I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to my future and things are getting clearer. I swing one way and then back the other but today I sat down with a legal pad and just started brainstorming. That turned out to be a good idea as I now have a plan. I doubt it’s the final draft but at least I seem to be making some progress.

I’m going to keep refining it but it seems to be the best overall compromise for what I want to achieve. Nothing for you now as I would want to talk to my family rather than have them read it here first.

Or maybe I’ll just drive a bus.

you know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your bad shoes? you look like a rube…

So I had my interview yesterday; the one my former employer recommended me for as a ‘great resource’ and I sucked. While it’s been over a year since I’ve had a formal interview, I think this one was the worst one I have done. Ever.

I was scheduled for 1:30 but the person I had been talking to gave me wrong directions. I get there, just in time but they have no open office for the meeting so I wait and wait and finally get in just before 2 PM.

It started off well enough; I was told about the operation and I asked some questions followed by the manager asking me some questions. He had a thick accent which didn’t help but it was as if my brain dumped in the elevator or something. “Computers? Do you mean the nekkid girl machines?” Nothing, nothing at all. My mind was as clear as a California sky. Basically, he had to wrestle the answers out of me and yet, he kept asking me questions.

And then the manager brought in his second in command to talk to me and she began to ask me questions. I was thinking to myself “What the hell is going on here? Why are they still talking to me? Please, just put me out of my misery and politely end this…” “When can you start? How much do you want?” “WTF? What is the matter with you people? Can’t you tell that I’m a ‘tard?”

By the time it mercifully ended it was amost 4:30. Dammit! I have class in an hour and I have to go home, change, grab my books and return to the same area. Oh yeah, I was planning on doing my assignment this afternoon but there was no time. School seems like a distant memory to me now. Oddly, it might just be the thing that gets me an offer.

I’m not sure what my chances are; 50/50 at best I think and that’s probably being generous. The second person told me that the salary is ok but the raises suck and so do the benefits.

I guess beggars can’t be too choosy…

RLD

Ok, I’ve been blogging away but not publishing anything, so you might want to return back to February 24th and fill yourself in. I guess I was thinking that I could find something quickly, which I think that I can but then am I not to publish anything until my first day? That didn’t seem practical.

Since I lost my job I haven’t said anything to my family for a couple of reasons: a) this is getting old and b) they tend to worry about it too much.

Of course now I’m feeling bad that I haven’t told them and I’m hoping that I can reach them before they read this. Hmmm… I have school tonight. So I guess I’ll have to wait before I publish the last few days of posts. Maybe I’ll bail out at the break.

The good news is that my interview is this afternoon. I’m a little worried that it’s been over a year since I’ve interviewed, so I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a ‘practise’ interview. I know it usually takes a couple of them before you are back into the swing of things again. I’ve been browsing the job boards, doing some ‘networking’ and things look ok so I’m feeling optimistic.

I’ve given some thought to my situation and my vision is clearing up. I’m going to try and find something tech related ASAP. If that doesn’t pan out (I’m thinking of a 3 – 4 week time frame) then I’ll grab anything, just to keep from spending too much of my severance. ‘Anything’ does not include a return to the shop BTW… I’m not even sure I’ll bother with EI this time; I haven’t applied yet, anyway.

I have so much to do… How is it that not having a job generates a huge to do list? I never had a list like this when I was working. Maybe I did and it just wasn’t apparent to me.

I had an interesting talk with the maintenance guy in our building yesterday. Al is the definition of a character and a really great guy. Everytime I talk to him it’s about 15 minutes, I get about 3 words into the conversation and it always ends with him saying “Well bud, I’d better get back at it…”

He did have some interesting things to say, as he usually does but today they had a greater meaning than normal.

Point taken.

RLD