Done yesterday (20120317 Sa)

[mdlbear]

A pretty good day. I even took a walk, albeit a short one because the weather looked dicey. I felt a few stray drops, but stayed dry. (In fact, it did rain, hard, in the evening, and I got wet taking the garbage out.) I walked over to Savers in search of dress pants, and found a pair of dark gray ones that will work nicely with the darker of the silk jackets and the gray-and-black striped shirt that I'm wearing now.

Hey, I'm a fan. Dressing up for an interview is cosplay. Easy.

I made a yummy pot roast for dinner, using most of a bottle of cheap red wine and two bottles of non-alcoholic beer (left over from the last party, because nobody would actually drink the stuff). I had some of the broth in a mug -- it made lovely soup. And a cole slaw, with half a head of cabbage and a Granny Smith apple.

I got the Mac Mini, Whitewood, installed on the desktop to the right of the main monitor, and got x2vnc installed and working. That'll be my machine for doing taxes.

And I got through about 2/3 of the pile of papers to the left of the desk, turning up my (expired) passport, two uncashed checks, a renewal notice from AARP, some still-valid Office Max discount cards, ..., and some sore muscles in my left side from reaching back to throw stuff in the recycle bin.

In a separate search, I found a photostat of my birth certificate and the stub from my social security card. So that's good.

In other news, the move to Seattle is looking more and more feasible. Colleen spent several hours thinking about what books she wanted to keep, and searching for restaurants and museums. Naomi and I talked about housing options. Moving is going to be somewhat hellish, but we'll manage somehow.

I am encouraged by the fact that an albatross, metaphorically a dead weight hung around one's neck as a penance, is a beautiful and far-traveling seabird when it's alive.

And finally, Colleen made it through the entire day without using her scooter -- I think that's the first time in months.

0317 Sa
  * up 7:30; W=193.8; drugs, nose, teeth, dishes
  * fired up whitewood.  vnc not connecting.  Growf.  Needs static IP?
  * static IP for whitewood - yup.
  * whitewood:  configure printers, change password (usual home)
  * 1ish: pot roast started.
  * walk:  1.2mi (Savers at Bascom & W. San Carlos
  * 15min:  maybe halfway through the left-hand pile
    ... or maybe not.  But found the passport.
  * found BC and SS card, in safe; the BC is an ancient photostat, so might
    not be usable now.  Certified copy probably in vault.
  . start cleaning office (needed for taxes)
  * The pot roast came out yummy; I had a cup of the broth as soup.  We also
    had cole slaw and toast with butter and jam.
  * s4s - Neptune video by Sooj
  * ripping the CDs purchased at Consonance
  : first day in quite a while that Colleen didn't use her scooter in the
    house.  Yay!
  & took muscle relaxant.  Back hurts.  Up the left side, which is unusual.
    Probably from the motion involved in tossing stuff from the left side of
    the monitor into the recycle bin.

Comments

[technoshaman]

A photocopied BC is useless these days; I found this out the hard way back in December. Fortunately, if passport is expired not too long, you don't need your BC to renew it. Suggest you do so soonest; you never know when you might need it. Further deponent sayeth not.

[mdlbear]

Yeah; should have renewed the passport 2 years ago :(

What I'm hoping is that what I have is enough to get me a new social security card without having to wait for the passport renewal to go through.

[technoshaman]

Yaknow what? Looking at what they want... if you go down there, show'em your face, show'em the passport you have and your DL, I'd give it a 50/50 chance they'd process you. If not, you may have to send off to Sacramento (or wherever) for one with a pretty embossing on it... that'll be faster than waiting for the passport to come back, for sure...

[mdlbear]

Yeah; looking at the instructions for the form, it seems I only need one document proving my identity, so the DL would probably do it.

[chaoswolf]

I'm looking forward to Starport moving up here; I miss our pizza parties...and would seriously hope you can make it up here so there may be more. Worst case scenarios, I may throw one of my own; despite my small 680² feet of space during school; which is kinda what I'd be doing over at your place anyway.

[egoldberg.livejournal.com]

I am deliberately refraining from offering any advice, but I just wanted to point out:

* the tech job market here is heavily MS-centric, and Amazon is a sweatshop that often burns people out after 2-3 years. I would strongly encourage you not to move unless you already have a job that does not require making compromises of principle that you may be unwilling to make. Although my work is more specialized than yours, I am pretty much locked into working at MS for life if I want to stay in Seattle - something that would have been unthinkable in Silicon Valley with its robust and diverse job market. Even outside of MS, people are more skewed towards MS technologies and ways of thinking that you may very reasonably not be happy with, because they often come from an MS employment background.

* I'm guessing you're being half-faceteous in the choice of your tags, and not creating imaginary barriers that turn real in practice. e.g. I know the unemployment rate is 8.3%, but Silicon Valley is absolutely screaming with tech job opportunities. I literally do not know of any long-term unemployed tech people in the entire valley with remotely up-to-date skills.

* If you're not already using indeed.com, it is a killer job search engine. Also highly recommend glassdoor.com.

[mdlbear]

Thanks for the advice (which that is, no matter what you call it -- it's perfectly welcome).

Amazon is pretty much out of the question; I already knew about the sweatshop aspect of it. Microsoft is iffy; I'm used to working for a company with ethics that pretty much match my own, and I haven't developed for a Microsoft OS for over a decade.

The thing that could make Seattle possible is retirement, combined with odd bits of contracting, telecommuting, or some low-stress part-time job that I'm seriously overqualified for. Housing is cheaper up there, especially if we can share the cost with another family.

And *many* thanks for the pointers to {indeed,glassdoor}.com.

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

If you do move to Seattle, a local novelist and bass player (and harmony singer) is a dear friend of mine going back 35 years, Kara Dalkey. I wonder if you two would enjoy getting together just to jam? (And you have other musician friends in the area, as I know.) She does really well backing up acoustic guitar players, even without rehearsal as her ear is excellent.

Nate

[mdlbear]

Thanks!