Done this week/month (20120901 Sa - 0907 Fr)

On the job search, the week was pretty much a waiting game. $COMPANY hasn't contacted me yet, probably because the HR person was out of town last week, and the hiring manager was on vacation this week. I did meet with the headhunter on Thursday, and had a good conversation. So that's pretty good. I had phone screens Thursday (with Amazon) and Friday (with WhitePages).

The one on Friday was interesting -- the person I was originally scheduled to talk to was unavailable, so the call was from the CTO. Which was great, because we were actually able to talk about why I didn't seem to be a good fit. This probably applies to many of my other recent rejections: PopCap, Zillow, Google, and Facebook. And my apparent success with $COMPANY.

There are two factors: seen from their side, I simply don't have any experience with huge web "properties" or the technologies they use. I'm not familiar with Ruby on Rails (which WhitePages is using), have comparatively little PHP, no database experience to speak of... I'm a fast learner, but that's not the same.

... and on my side, I'm just not all that interested in that kind of work. I like building websites -- small ones. I like building infrastructure that developers can use to build the big ones. I like having my software out in the wild where I can point to it, but apparently that really means I want to work on stuff that developers can use. I want to get into working inside open-source software, not just on top of it. Or on part of some proprietary software product like a game, or the stuff Intuitive or Tableau is doing.

I want to work on cool stuff that's appreciated by my peers, not invisible behind the scenes at a website, no matter how popular and cool that website may be. And, perhaps most importantly, I want to work on stuff that I believe is making the world a better place.

... change of subject ---

Yesterday I drove down to Longview (the closest Kaiser facility) with Colleen -- two and a half hours each way -- to see if we could get our prescriptions renewed and Colleen could get her disability forms filled out for DMV and ORCA. Partial success. Colleen only got 6 months of disability, and one month of her prescriptions. Mine haven't been transfered at all, so I'll have to go down again in a week or so.

It would never have occurred to me that Kaiser wouldn't have a nationwide, unified computer system for medical records and prescriptions. But they don't. GAAAK! If I'd known how much of a nightmare health care was going to be, I might not have moved. I call it "the health don't care system" for a reason. And I have yet to get two consecutive identical answers about what I can do next.

Anyone have suggestions for Seattle-area HMOs? I know GroupHealth works with Kaiser, which might be a plus, but don't know whether they have good in-network specialists for Colleen's Crohn's disease and other problems.

We stopped in Olympia for dinner at the Oyster House. I think the last time we were there was 20-odd years ago on the way to or from a Westercon. It's gotten better.

Last Monday -- Labor Day -- we drove out to Leavenworth. Lovely drive.

I read the Hugo-winning novella The Man Who Bridged the Mist -- marvelous! And re-read "The Dead Lady of Clown Town".

... And I had a couple of bouts of depression. Not really surprising considering the health care and job situations.

Links and details below in the notes.

( raw notes )