The Mandelbear's Musings

A notable bit of self-talk from last Monday, in the parking lot after buying kibble and litter at the Country Store: "Hey! I'm actually feeling okay this morning! What's wrong?" As could easily be predicted, the feeling didn't last, although my mood does seem to be averaging a little better. Maybe? It's hard for me to tell.

With Colleen still getting IV antibiotics -- her last dose was Friday -- it's been a busy week, with almost nothing in the way of job search. So that sucks. (In fairness I did get another phone interview scheduled. I also got a rejection from SUSE.)

The phone interview was scheduled after an email exchange with a recruiter at Google. The email I received was:

Subject: System.out.println("You+Google, a poem"); We're going to keep this short and sweet You're definitely someone we'd like to meet We love your Java and your C++ We want your perspective, come build with us!

So of course I replied in kind:

Return {``` My cell number is 408 896-6133 Any time 'twixt 8 and half-past-10 is good for calling me. You've clearly read my profile, which is more than many do. I'm sure I'll have a very good time talking to you. ```}

He wrote back to say that I'd made his day. And scheduled a call...

I spent most of the last three days writing a web app as a way of learning Javascript and React. Both of which are quirky and confusing for anyone used to other programming languages and toolkits. But, after working on it pretty continuously since Thursday, it's at least tolerably functional. (Before Thursday all I had was the raw data and rather a lot of reading.) It comes to about 350 lines of code (including blank lines and comments, which one could argue is cheating), which I guess isn't too bad for three and a half days' work. No tests yet except the one that came for free from create-react-app, which just checks to see whether it can render without crashing.

What it does is display and score the PHQ-9 and GAD-11 questionaires, which measure depression and anxiety respectively. I wonder why I picked those...

My left thumb is still hurting -- the problem appears to be trigger finger (for sufficiently thumb-like values of "finger"; it's also called "trigger thumb" but that just sounds wrong). A week of coddling it (including three days with my nephew j up here as an assistant, for which many thanks) has helped some. It's a little hard to tell, but I haven't been taking pain pills recently and it's not bad. I like having a little pain as a warning when I'm starting to do something stupid with it. At least my right wrist seems to have healed completely.

I have notified the Worldcon committee that I won't be coming. It hurts -- Colleen and I really wanted to see our old friends from the San Jose area -- but it just wasn't going to work. Not just the money, though that was part of it, but the fact that even with her caregiver coming along Colleen isn't up to travel by air, nor to spending all of several days sitting on her scooter and elsewhere with no way to put her feet up. It sucks.

I also blew off a local party last night -- I hadn't checked to see whether the house was accessible, but had a pretty good idea that it probably wasn't. And even if it was, I didn't want to have to wrangle Colleen's scooter with my bad hand. So that sucks too.

A lot of suckage this week. Not unusual these days.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Yesterday I had a dentist appointment at 11am, to get my teeth deep-cleaned. As I was pulling in to the parking lot I got a phone call from $K (the contract agency) saying I'd gotten the contract at $D.

In spite of the fact that I think I'd probably prefer a full-time job at $T, which is a smaller company with a really cool product that I actually want to use, the timing for that just isn't likely to work out -- I haven't even had a phone interview yet (I expect one this afternoon, but still...) So my mood has been distinctly mixed -- it was something like depression last night. (I'll get to that later.)

The teeth-cleaning went very well -- the hygienist was surprised that I was able to handle it with just a topical anesthetic. Yeah, there were a couple of twinges, but I often get worse from my arthritis just getting out of bed in the morning, and much worse after sitting with my legs crossed for half an hour.

Which brings us to the evening, when I was feeling depressed, and made a joke about something I thought was unrelated that N. misinterpreted as sounding suicidal. And then couldn't get back in touch with me.

Apparently several of my followup IM messages simply got dropped on the floor between here and there. And she couldn't raise me by phone or text, apparently because I was reading a book in the Kindle app! The text, in fact, finally arrived a minute or so after I exited the app. WTF?????!!! Anyone ever encounter that one?

OK, getting back to the down mood. I don't know how much of that is due to uncertainty over $D vs. $T, how much is due to simple relief, and how much is due to the fact that I've gotten used to being "retired". Have I mentioned alexithymia lately? It means that, very often, I don't know what I'm feeling. It's a problem.

A few links in the notes, though nothing exceedingly noteworthy.

I finally made the call to my benefits people that I should have made two months ago, to find out what the options and prices were going to be to keep my medical and dental COBRA coverage going. I was not expecting the total to be more than the mortgage on the old house! $2100. I am *so* *screwed*

And I actually have a gap in coverage, between the end of this month (when Ricoh stops paying for it) and the time I pay my first bill. At which point they cover me retroactively. I went ahead and got my crown started before I knew the details, but that'll be ok.

I still have a month, I *think*, to sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan. Anyone have recommendations re: GroupHealth vs. Blue Cross/Blue Shield? If I can get into that now, I can drop my COBRA coverage and just go with Colleen and the YD.

On the job front, $A3 looked at my resume and said "other candidates are more qualified". So much for that. $A also rejected me -- that was actually a relief. On the other hand, my interview at $D was the easiest so far -- I think I have a good chance at that.

And on the gripping hand, the CTO at $T wants to talk to me on Wednesday. Looking at the company and what they do, I *really* *really* want it. And I think I'm a good fit. And it's a cool product -- I signed up for a month's free trial, and at $40/year may very well keep it. Unlimited file sharing from your own computers, with nothing stored in the cloud.

Only problem is the overlap with $D, which I expect to hear about next week. They'll probably want me to start on the 15th. Tight.

I went to my interviews by bus again. I *love* being this close to the bus line and downtown.

Links in the notes, as usual.

Oh, good grief! An entire week... maybe I should just give up and post weekly. It's been a long month since last Saturday.

The big news was the bad news from Google: they don't want me. All my "cautious optimism" collapsed in a heap Thursday evening, leaving me to wonder how in hell I'm going to pay for the move, the house improvements, and Colleen's ferociously expensive meds. Two months of overlap between work and severance pay would have covered it.

I'm probably screwed. I have one set of interviews scheduled for Friday, but I've been letting the move (and the web :P) take most of my attention. I decided Thursday night that the move had better take all of it for now -- the movers come Wednesday.

*sigh*

I am getting the packing done, at least. A little belatedly; and I'm probably going to panic tomorrow night. The office still has seven boxes and a handful of flats to sort through, and the tools in the garage and bedroom need to be boxed. Gleep! We'll manage, though, because we have to.

"You do what you have to" is familiar, at least -- it was my mantra all through the year Dad was dying and I was flying back and forth to Florida to see him as often as I could. And again, the six months Colleen was in and out of hospitals and nursing homes and I burned through my sick time, most of my vacation time, and about 150% of my cope visiting and taking care of her.

I had help then, and I do now. Liz, Og, and Devon are awesome! And Colleen keeps assuring me "we'll make it." I hope so.

Lots of links. Many of them, unfortunately, are also bad news. Can't be helped.

The house looks very strange: all full of boxes, and big gaps on the shelves. The garage attic has space in it! Colleen and her minions have made huge progress, and I've started triaging the books in the office as well. Half-Price Books in Fremont loves us.

It feels strange, too. Definitely a roller-coaster ride. I was shocked to realize how many lives we're affecting with this; how much we'll be missed; how much a part of the community (for certain values of "the") we and our house have become. It's time, but Oh! it's difficult.

I have not been walking much. Not nearly enough. Nor have I been doing enough music. Though I've at least started there, doing a little work under the Albums directory. This is in part because I really want to get restarted on my second album, and in part because chaoswolf has asked for a recording of The Queen of Night so she can learn it.

I also went to my first (of two) coaching session at LHH, plus another on-site course. That was on Wednesday; I've spent much of the time since then working on my resume and LinkedIn profile. One of the cool things my coach showed me was wordle.net, which makes word-clouds. Very cool, and a great tool for seeing what words are most (over)used in one's profile or resume.

Here's one for Quiet Victories. I'm strongly considering doing this for all my songs.

I received the invitation to my brother's wedding: it's a little over a week before Westercon, in Logan, Utah. So we decided to make it a family road trip. It'll be somewhat crazy, but probably cheaper than flying even when you factor in the hotel rooms and gas. And an Adventure!

Oh. Wait. Adventure?

Lots of links, many of them rather disturbing. But... a sub-$500 3D printer would be way cool. So would a Pebble E-Paper watch.

Feels like it's been a long week. Um... ok, it's been a long, tiring week. Not enough self-care -- I need to walk more, and practice. Like most things that I know I'll enjoy and I know will be good for me, I don't do enough of them.

Spent quite a lot of time expanding my connections on LinkedIn and Facebook. I can see how that kind of thing can easily become an addiction. Neither, unfortunately, will import connections from LJ; I find myself duplicating a lot of effort. On the other hand, I'm finding people from my past. Can't complain, except about the number of hours in a day. At least this isn't Jupiter.

Also in the job search direction, took a lot of online courses on the LHH web, and one onsite.

Friday and Saturday we talked with people at our bank about our rollover IRAs. We can certainly get better yield on one of them; they're looking into the other. The side conversation proved that it's not just me -- salaries in general have not kept up with inflation since around 1970, and of course taxes have gone up at least twice as fast as inflation. So my buying power is probably only 75-80% of what it was when I entered the job market. :P

See all the pretty links.

A very busy three days. Sunday I finished up the taxes, and e-filed. Should probably have filed the state taxes on paper; the e-filing cost extra. Monday I started with Lee Hecht Harrison, the "career transition" firm that Ricoh is paying for. The initial session on Monday was very useful, since it included a "resume and linkedin jumpstart" segment. The experience section of my resume will need to be completely redone, of course.

I almost all of yesterday online, mostly on LHH and linkedin. Yesterday I took an LHH "webinar" -- in spite of the setup website telling me my browser was fully functional, the actual applet or whatever it was needed to be set up with a JVM and libraries, and couldn't find them on my Debian system. I switched to the Mac, but lost the visuals for about the first 15 minutes. Probably lost more to divided attention. Still useful.

A nice st/roll on Sunday, and a walk yesterday. A little walking Monday, but just a couple of blocks. Still, walkies good.

Some links down in the notes.