Commuting to an interview

Had a very good job interview today. I don't want to jinx it, I won't say much about it. I did however ride the commuter rail for the first time to get there though. It was uncrowded, as I was going the reverse direction of most commuter train riders as I started in the city and rode out to the burbs. The cars have very cushy padded seats and are comfortably warm, especially having to wait outside for 20 minutes to catch the train in the first place.

Train is really a great way to travel. It's possibly my favorite, as you can get somewhere and be productive reading a book or writing a letter all the while. Planes are too crowded. Cars make us all screaming maniacs. ("Watch where you're going, blue Camry! Get off the damn phone and drive!") And when was the last time you used a boat to get anywhere on a regular basis?

I'm very happy to live without having to drive to an office. Hopefully, I can find a job that lets me continue in that vein.

I know that we'll have to buy a car for the Chickpea's sake. You can't even take a baby home unless you have a car seat. The hell if I'm gonna buy a car seat and have no car! At first, we were thinking about buying a reliable used car, like an old Saab, Subaru or Honda, but then we found the Scion. You can get a new car for just a skotch more than a used one. And damn, if it isn't cool looking.

Of course, any car purchase will have to come after the acquistion of a new job, which brings right back around to the front of this post again. I'm not talking about it for jinx related purposes, remember?

Snow day

Snow day, originally uploaded by nervda.

We finally got home from Houston and found a TON of snow waiting for us.

Spacesuit

Spacesuit, originally uploaded by nervda.

Thanks to the blizzard back in Boston, we're stranded here in Houston. There are much worse places to be stuck. So we're hanging out again with Will, and eating more Mexican food. I think we've had Mexican every single meal. Breakfast tacos are a brilliant thing. I had no idea!

We went to the Johnson Space Center yesterday. We took the big tour and everything. I'm still saddened by how our space program is stagnating. I could go on and on that Shuttle program is 70's technology at absurd prices. The new slogan at the center is "Failure is not an option." It seems like a pretty arrogant thing to say. It's not an option like something on menu, but it's something that's always a possibility. You can't pretend that is won't happen. Accepting the risk is part of the deal.

Today, I imagine that we will be accepting the risk of more Mexican food. I'm hoping to bring back some tamales.

Foggy Houston

Foggy Houston, originally uploaded by nervda.

We're safe and sound in Houston TX today. We're staying right downtown with Will. He's got a great loft apartment. This picture is from Will's deck very early in the morning.

The airport is a long way from town. We drove through what seemed like a thousand miles of interstate, strip malls and car dealers to get downtown. It feels like a lot of different towns I've been before.

But when we parked the car, we were at a good Mexican restaurant that had fish tacos with fresh mahi. I doubt you can get that in Anyopolis USA.

Will's working a half day today, so Jen and I are going to explore downtown for ourselves.

My trip to the E.R.

Hi, my name is William. I managed to stab myself in the shin with a kung fu sword today. I spent 5 hours waiting for the doctor to come in and fix it up. Jen got so tired that she climbed up in the E.R. bed with me for a nap. The doctor came in as we were dozing. "Sorry. Pregnant lady!"

Dr. James Smith (How is that not an alias? I wonder if he's in the witness relocation program or something) took care of me. I've got a wound about an inch long. He gave me three choices: stitches, super glue or staples. Stitches have a low chance of scarring, but the highest probability of infection. Super glue has no chance of scarring, little chance of infection, but a high probability of popping back open. The staples have a low probability of infection, the best stability but the highest probability of scarring. Chicks dig scars. At least I hope that Jen does. So I got three staples in my leg without an anesthetic. Getting the shots probably would have hurt more than the staples. Click, click, click.

I've got to leave the dressing on the wound for the next day or so, but I'll post pictures of the surreal sight of staples in my leg. I wonder if it was invented by a war surgeon that had to operate on someone in an office building.

The E.R. is full of weird stories. The lady across from me had fallen and thought she broke her hip. Her husband is at home, dying from lung cancer. Her daughter spent nearly an hour trying to locate a priest to administer last rites, cracking child molester jokes all the while. When she had to leave her mother, she wept openly.

The man next to me had some sort of kidney stone problem that he couldn't describe, because he didn't speak English. His daughter translated for him and they spent 15 minutes trying to figure out what medicines he took on a regular basis.

Wheee! Fun fun fun. Do not try this at home.

Texas on my mind

It's ungodly cold here. I think the warmest it's been in the past three days is 11 degrees. It's not any fun, and the heat's out in our building today. I'll be very excited to be going to Houston for the weekend. The forecast says it'll be in the 70's. I can't wait for that. I might just lose my mind when I step out of the airport into that kind of warmth.

I had a quickie job interview yesterday at a job open house for a financial company here in town. They made all of us fill out forms by hand and list the addresses for the last 5 jobs we've had. Who remembers that kind of stuff? Also our salaries from those jobs. (I made $24,000 in 1995. Cheap bastards.) I wanted to just say to them, "Hey, all the relevant stuff is on the resume."

Anyhow, I spoke with a couple of people who's openings I was overqualified for, or wildly unqualified for. After poking around the room a bit, I finally found a decent match. The job is to bring their outsourced intranet sites back in house. I haven't heard of a situation like that one in a long time. So that's the job I'm hoping for.

I've got a phone interview for another tech support job any minute now. I don't know that I want to do support again. It's hard and it's thankless. We'll have to see.

Poetry 365: Forty-Three

Building a battleship out of beach sand,
we are slowly sinking into the salty seas
of American arrogance: an attitude
the power is for the President, not the people.

Roger, Houston

Through the wonder of Priceline.com, the Mrs. and I are headed to Houston TX on Thursday to spend the weekend with my friend Will. We've known each other since we were 8 years old. I have no idea what we're going to do down there, but it's going to be 70 degrees and there will be good Mexican food in the vicinity, so there's not a lot more you can ask for, really.

So what are my preconcieved notions of Houston? Warm. Sprawling. Rich white folk in cowboy hats. And one really tall Chinese guy: Yao Ming. We'll see how reality maps up with the Houston in my mind.

Don't call it a comeback

I've been here for years.

The job hunt is proceeding along. I've got three recruiters trying to set me up with the same job. Unless there happen to be three separate pharmacutical companies in Cambridge looking for 3 month contracts with ColdFusion programmers. I think I'll just go with the guy who actually picks up the phone and calls me.

I've got another two interviews set up, so we'll see how this all plays out.

It's alright, mama.

Today is Elvis Presley's birthday. Don't feel bad if you didn't send me a card. My path to Elvis is a weird one. I suggest that you celebrate the day by listening to your favorite Elvis song: mine would be "Suspicious Minds", or by doing something Elvis would do, like eating a huge bacon cheeseburger or renting out an amusement park for the night. Enjoy yourself, E would have. [Please don't shoot your tv if Robert Goulet comes on singing "If Ever I Would Leave You". Elvis did that, but I can't suggest that you do that for legal reasons.]

Goodbye, Large Unnamed Software Company.

Today is my last day here at work. The gang took me to lunch. It's sort of weird. I've been at this job longer than any other job I've ever had. I've been here longer than I was in college. I won't miss the work all that much. I'll miss the money. And the people. So to all of you who made my time better by being funny, friendly and helpful, a sincere thank you. I will miss you.

Gametime

We're back from the game. The Patriots beat the 49ers 21-7. It was a fun time at the game. Our seats were in the 17th row at the end zone. This is the closest I've been to the field in a long time. It was a well played game and the Patriots kept their starters in for 3 quarters of the game.

Jen gives the thumbs up to the food at the stadium. The kielbasa was nearly perfect. I'll agree with that too. But the onions on the Italian sausage were a little funky to me.

Going to a game is an expensive proposition. I can see going to a game once or twice a year, but I don't think I care enough about football to get season tickets. I'd rather save the money and get a big tv at home.

Lame Duck Game

My buddy JC is a genius with Ticketmaster. He's always got 4 computers going to try to get tickets when the big events roll up. When tickets went on sale for this year's games we were able to get tickets to a couple of games. I guess we didn't realize how terrible the 49ers were going to be this year.

JC is coming down with a horrible cold, so he and his wife have back out of going to the game with Jen and I. Two of my cousins are coming with us in his place. We'll take the train down from the city and have some fun.

So what if the Niners are the worst team in the league? So what if the Patriots have nothing to play for, since they already earned their playoff spot and seeding? It's still the NFL, right?