| One more down; seven to go |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|05:43 pm] |
Today I finished a draft of another training module. Things have been quiet at work, and so I have been able to spend some serious time on this.
There will be eighteen training modules and ten are online. After all these years. I feel like I have to sneak in time to work on them. And days like today, everything just falls into place. No course schedule updates. A very short course-inventory report. Very few calls. Boss distracted.
Heh. Slid another one in. |
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| Things That Shouldn't Be Dictionaries |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|11:47 pm] |
I'm reading about teaching. I read a blog entry where someone was complaining about how stupid it was that they were forced to teach math with group learning and no practice and the kids were all confused. So the writer, who was planning to teach for only three years (as part of the Americorp program, I think), just ignored that and did what would work, but the people who wanted to be career teachers were afraid to disobey like that, so they just struggled along.
So I looked up the math textbooks in use for my local school district and found them in the library and thumbed through one.
It didn't have that problem, but it did have the same problem as the sociology text my students had when I was student teaching. Sociology is one of the most fascinating fields ever, though we don't yet know much. But there was almost no hint of that in the text. It was just a pile of terms and their definitions. The whole time I was teaching I was able to stomach using the text only once. For all the other lessons, I went back to materials that had made me think the topic was interesting and figured out a way to modify those for high school use. I slept only four hours on weeknights.
But hey, math textbooks are better, right? At the very least, they have a lot of problems in them, and all you have to do is make sure they are all solvable and that the answers in the back are all correct (because all texts are full of typos, right?).
Well, can you believe you can design a math book to be nothing but a pile of terms and their definitions? I looked closely at a unit on angles. Do they talk about the fascinating problem of measuring an angle? (Finding some sort of length to measure just doesn't work. You can't just use two points like you're used to, but you can use three points, so long as those equate to the right parts of a circle. Who would ever guess that?) Do they talk about how all triangles, no matter how ordinary or how wacky, have angles whose measures add up to the same number? No, it's all about what are complimentary angles and supplementary angles (I had actually forgotten those terms) and right angles, acute angles, scalene triangles. Bleh. It was hard for me to even remember that there was anything interesting about angles after looking at that chapter.
No sleep would be had trying to teach from that book. |
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| New Austin Flood Plain Maps |
[Jun. 29th, 2008|02:44 pm] |
New maps of the floodplains in Austin have been drawn and go into effect for insurance purposes on September 26. If you have a mortgage on a property in a floodplain, your mortgage company may require you to purchase flood insurance.
If you weren't in a floodplain according to the old maps but you are according to the new maps, you can save piles of money by buying flood insurance now if you don't have it already. I've heard your rates will be grandfathered. The newsletter from the utilities company says "Property owners will receive a better rate on flood insurance, both this year and in future years, if they purchase insurance by August 11, 2008, forty-five days before the new maps become effective."
You can see the new maps, only first you have to acknowledge that these new maps are only working maps and don't actually mean anything. (Those two libraries listed that hold hard copies of the old flood maps? One of them is mine. Suspense builds.)
I tried the interactive map first. There is a blue area on the map and an aqua area on the map which I assume are flood plains of some variety, but I can't find a key. If so, the map is showing that my house is still not in the floodplain but that the apartment complex on the other side of my back fence is still in the floodplain.
So if that's true, I still get the good rates on flood insurance, but the drainage improvements in my area have not pulled the apartments out of the floodplain--the apartments which are almost completely paved over and which seem very leaky from my side of the fence! Perhaps apartment buildings are absorbent, at least when occupied.
Then I tried the other map. It is not as easy to find a specific place on that map, and once you do, the detail is not as nice.
My utilities newsletter says you can also contact your insurance agent to see if your property is affected. I think I might just do that. And for more information you can call the Watershed Protection and Development Review Department Floodplain Office at 974-2843.
Flood insurance is not included in your homeowners insurance. It is a separate add-on policy which I think is offered by the federal government but which you buy through your regular insurance agent.
I first learned about flood insurance when I lived in a suburb of Houston and some of the folks who lived near the creek ended up with six feet of standing water in their house. This is not ordinary tap water, either. It's storm water. So it could have anything in it. The more fearful things people talked about were sewage and snakes.
At that time, my mom found out that flood insurance was extremely cheap and so she started getting it. And so when I got my house, I also got flood insurance, although it wasn't as cheap as I expected. And then when I saw a flood map, I decided it was definitely worth it. (Note to self: check for geologically stupid building before buying property next time.)
I just renewed my flood insurance today. For $296, I get $150,000 of coverage for the building (with a $500 deductible) and $60,000 of coverage for building contents (with another $500 deductible) for one year, so that's just under $27 per month. No damage to the land (trees, etc.) is covered. So that's an example of what flood insurance can cost someone outside the 100-year floodplain. |
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| Working with Paper and Finding Food |
[Jun. 28th, 2008|09:52 pm] |
Today I went to a party where I got to help put together a paper model of a tower. I learned that a cork-backed metal ruler is better than what I'm used to using as a straightedge to cut. You can see the line you're aiming for better than with a regular ruler, and the cork backing keeps the ruler from slipping.
The scissors I brought were generally not the cutting tool of choice since the pieces were so small and irregular. Most people were using a craft knife on a cutting mat, which I have seen before.
It really is amazing how good (and solid) things made of paper can be. It was thick paper printed to look like stone and brickwork with ivy, etc.
**
Before the party I learned that the Target near me now has added more cases of refrigerated and frozen foods. Organic milk, the main thing for which I make emergency grocery runs, is now available there. So are Morningstar Farms meat-flavored non-meats and hormone-free nitrite free lunch meat. So that's cool. |
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| Choosing Gas Stations |
[Jun. 27th, 2008|11:29 am] |
Not only did Exxon get out of paying for the damage that occurred in the Exxon-Valdez spill and not only have they put off paying their fine for almost ten years, but the Supreme Court just reduced that tiny inadequate fine by 80%. I am so angered by this that I decided want to do whatever it takes to make sure that company does not get any of my money.
I know that means don't buy gas at Exxon and don't buy gas at Mobile. It probably also means to avoid HEB and Walmart because I don't know who they buy their gas from.
But then I wondered whether any of the other gas companies are any better? Or are they all equally slimy but less spectacularly newsworthy? So I decided to do some research.
This turned out to be not so easy. But I did find the Sierra Club's Pick Your Poison: An Updated Environmentalist's Guide to Gasoline. According to them, they are all slimy. Getting gas is inherently a little slimy, and companies can't help being at least a little slimier than they have to be. They are just so huge, they are bound to include some slimy elements. So reducing gas consumption is, of course, the best strategy.
But gas companies are not all equally slimy. Based on what I learned there, I decided I should favor gas stations owned by Sunoco. I don't think there are any in my town. Sunoco stations are also called Utra and APlus, and I don't think we have any of those, either.
The Sierra Club likes BP also, but I think I like Shell second-best. Both are responsible for some nasty atrocities, and Shell's seem slimier (more on purpose). But then I like that Shell has significantly reduced its greenhouse gas emissions, is working on how to maintain biodiversity in oil and gas development, and has been developing alternative fuels since 2000.
But then the linked article, the earlier Pick Your Poison: An Environmentalist's Guide to Gasoline, has nice data on refining records. Shell's looks horrible. The best-looking ones to me are Sunoco and Chevron (which has since merged with Texaco, which looks not so great).
I think I have seen BP and Shell gas stations in my town. I'm not sure where a BP station is, but there is a Shell right near my house (although the local Texaco is much nicer).
Any thoughts on these issues? |
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| Thinking About Teaching |
[Jun. 24th, 2008|04:26 pm] |
One of my readers has inspired me to think about trying to get a teaching job again. One thing I never thought of that she pointed out is that I no longer look twelve. I would no longer be mistaken for a student at a junior high school the way I was when I was a Teacher's Aide after college.
It's good to remember why I decided not to go into teaching in the past, though:
* No one would hire me, maybe because they wanted all the social studies teachers to also be coaches.
* No one would hire me even after I got certified to teach math, maybe because I didn't look like a good disciplinarian.
* Substitute teaching sucked, because I was not a good disciplinarian. I quit after five days.
* I do not have the charisma I think a person needs to be able to handle a class of thirty people who don't want to be there.
* There sure is a lot of bureaucracy and lack of control over what you are allowed to do.
So, why might it be okay now anyway?
* Schools are more desperate. I'm pretty sure I could get hired to teach math.
* Being the real teacher rather than the substitute should make discipline a lot easier, right? Also, I've probably learned a few relevant social skills in the past couple of decades.
* Maybe you don't need big, fluffy clouds of charisma. There are many kinds of good teachers.
* It's not like my current job is free of bureaucracy and totally under my control.
Other scary things about teaching:
* Extremely long work hours. When I was student teaching, I slept only four hours a night on weeknights. And that was for only two courses! But math textbooks are much better than sociology textbooks, so I'm unlikely to have to create everything from scratch.
* All the bad things that go with fame. Suddenly there are all these people who recognize you, and there are more likely to be people who want to egg your house or break in to your computer or involve you in a school shooting.
* Can't use the restroom whenever you want. Also, you get lots of vacation/holiday time, but you have no say in what those days are. You can't really make up your work later, so it's harder to visit the doctor, etc.
The weird thing is that it's been fun imagining being a teacher over the last 24 hours.
I'm going to think about this option some more. |
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| A Year of Early Retirement |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|01:29 pm] |
Just when I start thinking, hey, I can deal with my job, something else happens. For example, last Monday I learned of a plan which, if it is enacted, would result in almost the entire remainder of my original job duties being transferred to someone else (who I would train). In other words, 95% of my job duties would be "other duties as assigned."
And just when I started thinking that maybe I could be okay with these other duties, even though I never would have asked for them, I learn that there is a plan to re-build the entire degree audit system "from the ground up" in the next three to five years as a web-based system. Right now it is a mainframe system with a web interface, meaning that you can do data entry very quickly, but then you can access the results from anywhere: the best of both worlds. Now they want to make data entry all about "please wait" and, if the pattern from the last two re-do projects holds, they're not going to try to use the process to improve the system in any way.
And today I found out that it's quite possible that the person who has decided this, and brought this up as a reason not to spend any time working on our current system, may not actually have any idea of just how huge that project would be.
I'm fantasizing about the idea of quitting even if I don't have a job lined up.
I just read that half the staff where I work are baby boomers. Since people think the baby boomer period now extends from 1945 all the way to 1964, that includes me. Which means by the time I can retire, there will probably be a huge shortage of labor, and they're going to be begging us to keep working. So the smart thing to do would be to retire now, and then get a job when I'm older and it's a worker's market. I can't quite imagine doing that.
But I've begun toying with the idea of taking a year of early retirement, sort of like my friend chikuru did.
If I wait to do this until January 15, 2008, and get another job with the same pension plan within 15 months, I wouldn't even lose any pension benefits except for having a good salary during the 08-09 and perhaps 09-10 fiscal year(s).
If there is more than one day between these jobs, they would cash out my vacation time, which would come to about two months pay.
And I could access $30,000 from my Roth IRA tax free and with no penalty (the rest of the money in there is from earnings and has strings attached).
There are only two little problems with this idea. The first problem is that I would need to get a job afterwards. I am not good at getting jobs; there is certainly no guarantee that I could find one in fifteen months. Plus, I don't want to job hunt the whole fifteen months; I want to be "retired" some of that time.
If I were in one of those success story articles, then the things I did during my retirement, like volunteer at a school and audit a class, would lead to contacts that would lead to my next job. I'm always reading about people who get laid off and it turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to them. Of course some other people get laid off and then can't find another job, start drinking, lose their house, get divorced, and die in the gutter. Of course those guys don't get interviewed for articles; they are too dead.
My other little problem is money. Supposedly I'm rather frugal, but when it comes down to it, I spend every last penny of my paycheck each month. Officially, I save a fair amount, but none of those savings are for an unemployment savings account. And am I suddenly going to stop wanting to have a car? To pay off my house? To eat daily? No.
My current passive monthly income consists of about $15 in interest and maybe $8 in dividends. That's not quite going to let me live in the manner to which I've become accustomed.
My friend did it, why can't I? Well, it might help if I paid my house off first, acquired a working spouse, and had contacts for jobs I might actually like. Of course by the time I can get all those things, I could retire for good. |
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| Pool Party and Shed |
[Jun. 22nd, 2008|09:19 am] |
Yesterday I went to a summer solstice pool party which ran concurrently at one point with a dramatic thunderstorm with very heavy rains. It hasn't rained more than a little sprinkle in weeks.
It was a huge party where I really knew only about half the people (even though I have met most of them before at previous parties). In the middle when it was at its hugest, I wasn't feeling that my social skills were quite up to it. But I did get to talk to a lot of old friends and I did find several new people I quite enjoyed talking to. Some of whom I still remember now! There was the gal who also plays on LiveJournal and will probably be looking for me. (Hi!) There's the guy who plays ultimate frisbee who moved here three years ago. And there's another gal who's a regular and who looked familiar who I probably will actually remember this time.
I don't think I've enjoyed talking to as many new people in one day as much in a long time.
I also enjoyed watching the cat slink under the chaise lounge at the start of the big storm. And the delicious cheeseburger fresh off the grill, the famous rum cake, the famous artichoke dip, and the exotic hibiscus sorbet. Actually, I wasn't wild about the sorbet (I'm not a big fan of sorbet), but it was fun to taste it, and I actually liked it better than the tangerine sorbet, which tasted much stronger.
There were many good quotes, some of which I (sort of) remember.
"Be careful with that cheese. It's very strong."
"Oh, that's Robin. He'll be fine with it."
"No, you don't want any of this cake. It tastes like styrofoam."
"But you've had four pieces."
"I'm sacrificing myself for you all."
"I guess one way to make it rain is to throw a pool party."
"That sounds more fun than washing your car."
"Indians got upset when they learned that certain fast-food fries weren't vegetarian; they were sprinkling beef flavor on them. Cows are sacred."
"A little sprinkle of God in every bite."
I also learned a bit more about Wiifit (although not how to spell it). And lolcats and people who can always find an excuse to access the internet on their cell phone.
Thanks, chikuru and raaga123! Another lovely party!
**
Before the party, I helped build a temporary storage shed in my backyard with Robin and another friend. Robin already had the floor completed, which involved piecing together a "floor kit" (a metal framework), leveling it, and then cutting plywood into sizes and shapes that could be attached to the framework, painting it to keep it waterproof and easy to clean, and then attaching it.
So yesterday we added the walls and the roof beams and the triangular end pieces that hold the roof up. This is from a kit for a metal storage shed, which sounds all very solid and sturdy. But it's clear that engineers have calculated the maximum flimsiness each piece can have still work together as a structure. The pieces are so thin that you can cut your hands on the edges if you're not careful. So we generally had two glove-wearing people to handle the metal pieces and one non-glove-wearing person to handle the screws, nuts, and bolts.
I was surprised that after about only an hour I got tired in this odd way. I was breathing slightly harder than normal, and I was feeling a little light-headed. This was barely exercise at all--just moving very lightweight pieces around and reading instructions. I did squat many, many times getting screws from the container on the floor and handing them up to people--so that counts as real exercise. Still, am I that sadly out of shape?
Robin said no, it's heat stroke. I know it wasn't heat stroke because I was still sweating. But maybe it was that less serious one: heat exhaustion. I did feel kind of exhausted. We drank lots of cold liquids and I never felt that bad again (and it was a very mild tiredness to begin with) throughout the rest of the project. Although I did want to take a small rest during the part of the party where it was at it's hugest.
Although our shed is not yet watertight, because it has no roof at all and no doors, and although the instructions specifically say not to stop the project between the time when you start putting up the walls and the time when you add the roof, and even though I've heard of these sheds being blown over a fence during a windstorm before being properly attached to the ground, and even though there was a violent thunderstorm, it seems to be doing just fine. So that's good.
The point of the temporary shed is to have a place to put things to get them out of the way so we can see what we've got and figure out what to keep and what to get rid of and then organize everything so we can find it all again. It could also come in handy for interior painting. Just move all the furniture and stuff from the room you are painting into the shed, then paint the room at your leisure while all your other rooms are still usable instead of full of the stuff from the room you're painting.
The original plan was to rent a storage unit, but a big one runs $200 per month--it wouldn't take many months to cost more than a shed, which is a lot more convenient and which ideally we can sell when we finish.
Of course I have to keep reminding Robin that the shed is temporary. His supposed friend told me not to worry. If it ends up not being temporary, I could just make him sleep in it.
However, I might end up having trouble with it being temporary, too. I've already come up with the idea of using it while painting rooms. Also while re-doing the floors. And maybe if we have it, we won't feel the need to tear down our other tiny shed and build a big garage/work shed instead. Yes, the danger escalates.
**
In computer news, my back up worked great except for the part where all my documents from A to T are not there. Some of my favorite documents start with U and W, but a lot of them don't. We're going to get someone to see if they can find a better back-up, but meanwhile, this stinks. I just love, love, love computers, except when I hate them.
I can't really hate this new one, though. The clicking is so quiet. It's so pretty. I still have to get used to the touch pad. There's some thing where if you leave your finger in one place to long it does weird things like jump elsewhere in your document or going back to a different web page. So there's still a little learning curve going on. |
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| Default Activity |
[Jun. 18th, 2008|08:38 pm] |
I am typing this from my sleek new black MacBook. Its satin finish makes me want to just sit here rubbing it, the way you rub a smooth rock or nicely polished wood.
**
Lately I've been thinking about default activities. By this I mean the things you do when you have nothing particular in mind to do and/or when you also have nothing urgent to do.
My first default activities (the ones with a component of urgency to them) are dishes and laundry. The dishes seem urgent because my kitchen is small, and the laundry seems urgent because it takes all day for laundry to dry and we do accumulate almost a load each day. When I had a blog buddy to whom I had promised a journal entry a day, writing an entry also fell into this category. If I gardened more, that might be in this category because it's so much easier before it gets dark out.
Once those are out of the way, I am free to choose something else, the real subject of this post. The stereotypical default activity is watching TV. And if you ever quit watching TV, then you will have a huge amount of time to do other things! Unless you pick some other unproductive default activity. Another stereotypical default activity is standing in front of the open fridge, looking longingly into it. (To save energy and be easier on the environment, you could instead stare longingly into the pantry.)
Relatively unproductive default activities I have chosen in the recent past include:
* web surfing
* web sudoku
* solitaire
* reading fiction
This weekend, I decided to try sometimes substituting an activity that would result in my life being improved afterwards rather than just during it: filing. I started with a rather large stack of things to be filed--so large that the laws of physics that cause avalanches required it to be stored in three piles--and now I am down to the sort of large stack which can be stored in two piles.
I love having a four-drawer filing cabinet (plus another file drawer at my desk). So many loose papers can be stored in a way that's easy to find. Recipes I want to try, of course. Information on maintaining a house. Maps. Menus. Job applications. Articles on matters of health, safety, hobbies, and work things. Important documents on housing, health, car repairs, etc.
And I'm using the trick I just learned where you put a piece of transparent tape over a file tab before writing on it so that it will be easier to erase and re-use later. And I may try the trick of attaching binder clips to the file rails just behind the files in drawers that aren't full in order to keep the files tight enough not to sag but loose enough for easy access.
Unfortunately, I have the kind of filing cabinet where the drawers don't quite open all the way, so you can't really fill them. I have a fantasy about one day finding a bargain-priced beautiful wooden four-drawer filing cabinet with drawers that open all the way. And when I'm really in fantasy mode, the cabinet lets you have more than one drawer open at once, although I think I've been trained to not even realize I want to do that anymore.
Once everything is filed, I really should spend some time getting rid of all those things I have filed that seemed like a good idea at the time but which I now strongly suspect I will never use.
Another good default activity would be calisthenics, especially in winter when you're not letting yourself keep the house very warm. And another would be mending. You could just have a pile of mending and a sewing kit sitting right out being accessible until the pile disappeared.
Do you have default activities?
**
My old MacBook developed a sticky trackpad button. This new one is just lovely to use. And now I can even scroll down a page using just the trackpad with the new two-finger technology. Very nice. |
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| New Computer, Not Much Progress, and Reviews |
[Jun. 13th, 2008|08:38 pm] |
I have now ordered a new Mac notebook. It will be black--that's cool. It will be faster and more spacious inside than my last computer--also cool. It will have Intel inside. Not thrilled about that. And it costs about the same as the last one I got. I think I may have to designate a separate fund for saving for computers, which is my way of admitting that I'm going to be wanting computers indefinitely. I've used funds from my long-term fun fund, which normally goes toward vacations but also has gotten me furniture and other electronics.
**
I was about to say I have been making very little progress on my goals and that I spend all my time away from work recovering from work and rejoicing that I am not at work instead of actually doing stuff.
However, my last check cleared on my old checking account and I have closed the account, thus completing my goal of getting rid of the account that had my social security number for an account number. Not only that, I was able to memorize my new account number right away, and although I've forgotten it several times since, I think I now have it memorized for good. I really like having my account number memorized which is why I went so long using my old account.
Also, although I have not made any progress on losing body fat or building muscle or aerobic capacity lately, I have kept off all the weight I lost when I had the flu, so I think it might really be gone for good, and that's a nice victory.
**
I recently saw a movie I quite enjoyed: "The Girl in the Cafe." What kind of movie is it?
It opens with an older gentleman reading and taking notes at the breakfast table and basically all throughout his morning routine. He continues reading as he walks down the hall and heads outside. He continues this at his office and before a work meeting. Why is he working so hard? Apparently he has no life. Why doesn't he have a life? What is he working on? So although nothing is really happening on screen, plenty of things are happening in your head.
It's just full of a deadpan British humor that I loved. Normally I'm not a fan of movies showing people trying to get to know each other or explain themselves with all these embarrassing scenes like teenagers are always having to live through. But I just liked the characters so much that rooting for them seemed to make it okay.
Warning: there's a hit-you-over-the-head message like in the movie "Blood Diamond." And I'm not particularly wild about this message because I don't actually think we do know how to reduce poverty in the countries that have abusive governments, so the message is too simplistic for my tastes.
But I have a new favorite actor: Bill Nighy (not to be confused with the science guy, Bill Nye). It turns out he's in lots of movies I've seen, and I've never really noticed him before. For example, he played the Met Chief Inspector in "Hot Fuzz." He seems to mostly play minor roles, but not in "The Girl in the Cafe" (although he is not "The Girl"). He can make the most amazing faces, by which I mean he comes up with expressions I would never have been able to think of and which are very interesting.
Next time you're in the mood for a slow-moving character-driven movie, as opposed to, say, a thriller or special effects movie, Deb-Bob says check it out.
**
I also bought the latest Douglas Adams book, The Salmon of Doubt, published posthumously based on things people scraped out of his hard drive. As usual, he's not the greatest with plot or character, but he sure can turn a phrase or, as he puts it, arrange "words in a cunning order."
Over the border lies Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in the world....
What's all this, I expect you're thinking, about "the tallest mountain in the world"? Everest, surely, deserves at least an honourable mention in this category? Well, it all depends on your point of view. Certainly, Everest stands a sturdy 29,028 feet above sea level, which is, in its way, impressive. But if you were going to climb Everest, you would probably start, if you were using a reliable guide, somewhere in the Himalayas. Anywhere in the Himalayas is pretty damn high to start with, and so, to hear some people tell it, it's just a smartish jog to do the last little bit to the actual top of Everest....
Love that understatement. And "if you were using a reliable guide," which makes me imagine various ways guides could be unreliable.
Plus he has interesting ideas.
Some of the most revolutionary new ideas come from spotting something old to leave out rather than thinking of something new to put in. The Sony Walkman, for instance, added nothing significantly new to the cassette player, it just left out the amplifier and speakers, thus creating a whole new way of listening to music and a whole new industry.
In this book you also get the kinds of very interesting and complimentary stories about the author that you get at good funerals. It's a fun read, and I may just keep the book with all my favorite passages bookmarked. |
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| Post Conference Update |
[Jun. 8th, 2008|03:45 pm] |
My trip to San Antonio went well. The conference was much less boring than I feared. Plus I don't have to memorize a lot of the really crazy stuff I heard, like when coaches are allowed to start using text messaging to communicate with prospects.
I got to wander around downtown San Antonio a bit, which I enjoyed except for the heat. A few places I want to take Robin to include:
* the Riverwalk
* Tower of the Americas
* the IMAX theatre in the RiverCenter mall
* the Spanish Governor's Palace
* Schilo's German deli
* the weekday lunch buffet at the Grand Hyatt
All of these are walking distance from each other.
I wrote some journal entries on paper from which I will spare you as they are filled with boring notes and long explanations about how I really want a better job. Basically, I'm getting the fabulous opportunity of learning to be a better bureaucrat and have the kind of job that I recall one career interest test choosing as the one most suited to my interests (inspector/auditor - basically, checking that other people are doing what they're supposed to). But that interest test must be wrong, because this can't be as good as it gets. Of all the things I could become an expert in, bureaucrat isn't even on my list.
I have a new self-imposed deadline for finding a new job: the registration period for next year's training conference. But deadlines and negatives do not help me get a job. And the futility of it all that I feel while I'm at work is a detriment. Of course I have to take positive actions, and I haven't taken any since I got back from Florida except to apply for that one job (from which I have heard nothing, as usual). I need to build a portfolio of educational materials.
I just picked up a book on how to build web sites, with information ranging from how to choose a provider and choose a name to html and css to advertising your site, so I've been reading that to give me more information on starting that educational web site I thought up on the way back from Florida. (On which I can publish things for my portfolio.) This doesn't sound like the best idea (I should be actually making stuff), but it's helping me get relevant ideas, so that's good. |
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| Old Computer Broke for Good |
[Jun. 8th, 2008|03:32 pm] |
Yep, my computer is totaled. I should look up when I bought it. Robin thinks four years ago. I think a computer should last indefinitely except for the part where suddenly you want to do things that require more stuff, like new (bigger) software. Or like when I started wanting to see pictures on the web. But the only new thing I've wanted to do was watch YouTube, and I could do that just fine on my computer until it broke.
I once thought I wouldn't need my own computer at home until I quit working at a job with computer access. But now I do a lot more personal stuff with computers, so I really shouldn't be spending that much time at work. Since I got my own computer, I have definitely started using it quite a lot. So, I will be replacing it.
And I love having a notebook instead of a desktop. So I'll spend the extra bucks for that. And I love having an operating system that just works, so I'll spend the extra bucks for that.
Apple is making some kind of big announcements tomorrow, so I'll decide then what to do. Buy the black Macbook at a suddenly reduced price? Buy the suddenly available exciting new thing at a similar price to the current thing? Buy Robin's friend's "old" computer when he replaces it with one of the suddenly available new things? |
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| Can't ... Reach ... Buttons |
[Jun. 2nd, 2008|04:39 pm] |
My computer is broken and I'll be out of town all week, in one of them fancy-schmancy hotels that charges extra for internet access anyway, so there will be no updates for probably at least a week.
I didn't get a new job in time to escape this training conference, but maybe I'll get to sightsee a bit in San Antonio. |
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| Real Life Math Puzzle: Membership Length |
[May. 29th, 2008|10:07 pm] |
I almost never find opportunities to use serious math to help me solve problems in my real life. But today I joined a professional organization and that provided me with such an opportunity. Let's see if y'all get the same answer I do. Here's the situation:
If you join for one year, you pay full price. If you join for two years, you get ten percent off both years. If you join for three years, you get fifteen percent off all three years. Which deal is the best deal?
And let's throw in some simplifying assumptions. First, assume that you want to be in the organization indefinitely. Then assume that you have enough money right now to choose any of these offers, and that any extra money you don't spend now you will invest for later. Assume also that the current full price and options will never change. And add in any other obvious assumptions I'm forgetting about that will make the answer easier to calculate.
(My answer is in the comments.) |
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| Poopie Wipes |
[May. 28th, 2008|08:35 pm] |
How can you tell the difference between the kind of moist towelettes you buy to wipe your hands, say, after filling your gas tank, and the kind you use in the bathroom? The former is called "moist hand and face wipes" and the latter is called "flushable moist wipes." Just so you know. |
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| New Games, New Movies, and New Recipe Modification |
[May. 26th, 2008|08:38 pm] |
This weekend I got to farm, build cities, run my own monastery, and rob highways while playing "Carcassonne." My farms were wonderfully large, but my cities were--shall we say--misshapen.
Then I got to make people in my own family miserable and then kill them off while playing "Gloom." Well, except for two of them who just wouldn't die.
And all while feeding on deviled eggs, stuffed mushrooms, brownies, and salsa (all home-made).
I also saw the new Indiana Jones movie. It's about what you'd expect.
And then we saw "Speed Racer." I used to like that cartoon when I was a kid, but I liked a lot of cartoons. It's embarrassing that I used to like "Scooby Doo" which I got to see again a couple of years ago and discovered is just really, really awful.
They showed one of the old "Speed Racer" episodes before the movie at Alamo Drafthouse, and I got to see that it's not embarrassing at all that I liked that as a child. It's goofy, it's very goody-two-shoes, and the characters squeal and use funny-sounding interjections. Some of the car lingo was even realistic, according to Robin. Basically, it's good clean fun kiddy-fare. Unlike so many other cartoons I see nowadays that sound the same when you hear them from the next room, but but that are not preferable to dental work, especially if your dental workers have interesting monologues for you.
The movie was as fun and mysterious and scary and exciting as the cartoon, but with all the annoying bits removed. They had lots of fun with the laws of physics. And you get to see auto gymnastic racing and demolition derby racing. (How much weight can you add in car-destroying accoutrements without slowing you down so much that you never get to use them? Now I want robot demolition derby racing. All the fun without any of the death! Only I don't know how to build robots.)
I also made another batch of pumpkin butter, this time using half the spices of my original recipe and substituting water for the apple juice (since the ingredients lists of the pumpkin butters I've bought include water but not apple juice). This tastes better than last time, when it was too strong, and is still very, very spicy and plenty sweet. I think I'm going to try to cut the sugar by 25% next time and see what happens. |
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| I Want You |
[May. 22nd, 2008|06:26 pm] |
I've been humming these lyrics to an old song all week:
I want you.
I want you so bad.
I want you.
I want you so bad, it's driving me mad.
It's driving me mad. I don't even know what this is about. I assume the "you" is some person of the exciting sex. But this week for me, the "you" is a job opening.
I finished applying for the job opening I mentioned earlier. I walked my application over, which took 30 minutes, each way. The building is located on the other side of the freeway from the rest of campus in this building:
I like to drop off applications in person. Then I'll know for sure how to get to the place if I have an interview. Then I can also get an idea for what the work environment is like.
In this case, I also got to see what's inside that faded orange tubular part of the building.
Stairs. I might have guessed that. But the staircase is big. There's room for the stairs to spiral around something. I wouldn't have guessed there was also a Foucault pendulum in there.
It's hard to photograph. That's a dark view from the top.
Here's a view closer to the bottom.
It's such a relief to have that job application off my shoulders. I was definitely worrying too much about those writing samples. They're really just for them to be sure my writing wouldn't be a complete embarrassment. Yes, ideally, they make them think, "Oh my! We must have this writer!" Maybe next time. |
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| Rubbery Arms Are Good |
[May. 21st, 2008|09:37 pm] |
I've been telling myself I need to do more (some) strength training. Today I finally did a little.
Walking home from Target with a bag of Epsom salt and cough syrup I worked several arm muscles:
* biceps - by holding my elbow at my side and lifting the bag up to my shoulder (biceps curls)
* upper back(?) - by lifting the bag up to my shoulder while letting my elbows rise to shoulder height (upright rows?)
* deltoids(?) - by lifting the bag from my shoulder to as high as I could reach (overhead raises?)
* triceps - by lifting the bag behind me with my elbow up in the air (triceps extension)
I sometimes do biceps curls when I'm walking; the others are much less subtle. I don't think I've done the last two while walking before. I'm sure I looked like a complete goofball, but my arms were all nice and rubbery by the time I got home. |
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| Record Heat |
[May. 20th, 2008|08:54 pm] |
I just missed the bus home this afternoon and had to wait twenty minutes for the next one. I have this bizarre tendency to take it personally when the next bus insists on making me wait until sweat is actually dripping down my skin before showing up. I wasn't even pacing this time, just sitting.
Part of the problem today was that it broke 100 degrees (38C). I was surprised to hear that this is a record for May 20 here. Surely we have the occasional 100-degree day in May. June is already summer.
On the way home from dance class, which ends at 8:30 pm, it was still 91 degrees (33C). |
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| Impossible Line Drawings |
[May. 19th, 2008|10:05 pm] |
What was the magical tool that let me make line drawings before? Line drawings where circles could touch edges or corners of other shapes instead of being adjustable only in gigantic steps? Drawings that could be saved as gifs?
I don't think I have any of these on my Mac at home or my PC at work. Which is making this job application a lot more difficult. What kind of writing sample am I going to submit? Some all-prose thing, I guess.
And I can't let another deadline go by. I really need to get out of this job. I suspect it's going nightmarish on me. There's evidence today that the people who have taken over a certain duty, and who have been in a big fight about who would allow the most exceptions (no, you! no, you will!) is making exceptions left and right after all. And I really don't want to be caught in the crossfire, let alone caught figuring out how to code for all this nonsense.
Plus, I might really like this job (writing and editing for an educational consultant). And their expectations are low enough (two years of writing/editing experience, but only hoping for a clue about html and a clue about math and science content) that they might actually hire me. |
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