Scrappy Blog

Let’s see… I’m home from England but haven’t found the time to blog about it.  Wasn’t tons to blog about, really; I wandered around, seeing sights and mostly people-watching, 4 days in Cambridge and 2 days in London.  Highlights involved getting to see my old friend Lydia, who I haven’t seen in a decade, and another old friend Jason, along with his wonderful wife and daughter. 

On arrival home I spent last week starting to get out resumes and repairing tile and grout in my bathroom.  My in-laws arrived on Friday and stayed through today – it’s so nice to have the house to myself again, even though this visit was overall fairly pleasant. 

I’ve had a couple job interviews.  The one last Friday was dubious – nice guy, interesting-sounding work, but the job would involve a lot of travel and worse, the company appears to be financially very unstable.  Today’s was more encouraging – though again a possible fly in the ointment is that they seem to be looking for someone to fix a dysfunctional department as well as someone who can do the consulting work.  Sigh.  I asked to meet the person who is apparently responsible for making the department dysfunctional and we’ll see how that goes before making any judgments.

And when I got home today there was an email asking me to send a resume for one position, and a phone call from someone at another place – so other options may be forthcoming.

Rumor mill says I might be getting our new computer sometime next week.  That’d be cool.

It amazes me that I continue to try to “declutter” my house and I continue to find things that I just will never use and have no idea why I’ve been storing all these years.

Particularly sad is when I come across something that is useful to someone and instead I hoarded it until it’s probably no longer usable.

Today’s example is film.  I just came across a trove of 3 snapshot cameras – no idea if they actually work any more.  Also 4 of those instant disposable cameras, in various states of use from completely filled to unopened.  Also four rolls of fully or partially exposed film.  Also 11 rolls of unexposed film which is probably between 5 and 15 years old.

Is there any point in trying to use that old film, or is it likely to be useless at this point?  Likewise is there any point in trying to get the exposed film developed, if it also is probably 5-15 years old?  I’ve no idea what’s on it… apparently nothing too crucial or I would’ve made a point of exposing the film earlier, right?

Laughing at a story that managed to twist the definition of “humanitarian” into something parallel to “vegetarian”.

I’ve packed clothes, including socks, undies, and PJs
I’ve packed toiletries
I’ve packed a loaded ipod of entertainment including movies, games, and ebooks (K will also have his ipod and Kindle), a camera, a couple pencil/paper puzzle books, noise-cancelling headphones, rechargers and spare batteries.  Also my laptop, spare battery, and cord.
I have a small supply of ibuprofen, tylenol, and decongestant just in case.
I’ve printed my packet of info about things to do and see including maps, boarding passes.  My passport is laid out. 
I have chewing gum for the plane.
I have my super-stretchy soft slipper socks for the plane.

What am I forgetting?

So I have a profile on LinkedIn which was useful for my last jobhunt, so I’ve made sure to be keeping an eye on that site for the current hunt.

I’ve found the site is a cool way to find old friends that I had lost track of.  Sometimes I’ll find them because they’re linked to another friend; sometimes they’ll be suggested by the site because we share several second-degree connections or because we attended the same schools or worked at the same places.

But every now and then the site will suggest “you may know…” and I can’t figure out how on earth it knew that I would know this person.  Today’s examples include…

• My MOTHER-IN-LAW, who just started a profile and only has one connection.  We don’t share any alma maters, none of the rest of that side of the family is linked to me, and we don’t share the same last name.  We live in different cities…
• A professor from a class I took once – not in my normal subject field…
• An old friend who lives on a different continent, attended entirely different schools from me, works in a totally different field, and has only a few people on her contacts lists, none of whom are people I know.  My friendship with this person is because her husband once worked with my ex-husband, and because her little sister and I were on debate teams in the same state back in high school.  Not the sort of thing you’d expect LinkedIn to know!

I can’t think of any mechanism that would let LinkedIn see my personal address book or anything like this – but this ability to find people who are connected to me in ways that would be quite obscure from a data point of view is sort of freaking me out…

I ran across google base… http://base.google.com/ …  allows you to save stuff like recipes in the google database, searchable later – without putting those information bits on any sort of web page.  Their recipes function is pretty nicely put together – you can search based on ingredients and meal type and course and so on. 

Although I think the idea is kind of cool, I probably won’t use it.  I read something recently that observed that technology shoppers fall into two categories.  The first category includes people who are seeking a technology that will aid them with something they’re already doing.  The second category adopt a technology so that they can start doing something new.  The former group are far more likely to be actually use the new tool over the longterm.

The observation rings true.  How many people buy home treadmills only to discover that they still have no interest in exercise?  How many fancy new cameras fall into disuse after a couple months, because people just don’t have the interest in recording their life in pictures after all? 

By this metric, I probably won’t use google base much.  I have never tended to bother much with storing and retrieving recipes. I am the sort of cook who doesn’t follow a recipe; I just think “OK, I want something that will taste like …” and then throw together the ingredients that seem like they’ll achieve the effect I want. 

So… I think the technology (being able to store and retrieve bits of information off the google database without having them on a webpage somewhere) is cool, but suspect I’m not the target user.  Are you?

Haven’t got it yet but have been entertaining myself by browsing apps and reading up.

Looks like I will want to download one or more of the iPhone reader apps and download some books to read.  I wish there were some converters out there to let me go back and forth between eReader and Kindle format.

K figured out how to convert a DVD movie to iTunes today, and downloaded some stuff onto his iPod that we could watch on the plane.

Yeah, so we’re likely to make this trip trucking along an iPhone (maybe if I get it on time), one or more iPods, a Kindle, and two laptops.  And a camera.  What geeks we are… I’d skip the laptop except for that thing where I’m looking for a job and want to remain accessible.

I like the app that lets you pinpoint your location, and then email it to someone.  Good for hooking up on the fly with friends particularly in another city.

And haven’t quite figured out the data roaming deal.  Is wi-fi connection counted as part of the data plan?  As in, if I turn off the G3/phone/data roaming, can I still hook up to a wi-fi in a coffeeshop without paying megabucks per minute of contact?  The AT&T site is a bit vague about this.

On other fronts…. unproductive day in which I mostly took care of little administrivia.  Looks like I am invited to give a talk to the 2009 American Veterinary Informatics Association… I don’t entirely understand why yet but the simple explanation seems to be that humans are animals too, so I can be accepted as sort of a limited stupid vet even though I can’t treat all those other species.  It’s so true that vets are orders of magnitude smarter than MDs.

And I finally got thank-you notes written to our hosts for the 4th July family reunion.  Not quite a month later.  I’m a bit ashamed but I did have a few things happen in the meantime 😦

And my Dad’s book got accepted by a publisher, yay! 

Well, not quite yet but I ordered one and it should be arriving Real Soon Now. 

Which leads to a question:  What exactly comes with the phone?  As in, what sort of charger? Do the fancy earbuds come with it? 

I figure I will want to be able to charge the phone off a wall outlet or from my car, I will also want some sort of case to keep it from smashing into a million pieces first time I drop it… What else will I want, accessory-wise?

And any must-have downloads from the app store?

All things to ponder while waiting for my cheddar-apple-bacon quiche to finish baking 🙂

General message to no one in particular:

First observation.  If you drive like a self-centered a**hole, I’m going to assume you’re an a**hole in more ways than just your driving. 

Second observation.  If you plaster stuff on your car proclaiming your religious beliefs, then you drive like a self-centered a**hole…. not only will I think you’re an a**hole, but I’ll consider the possibility that everyone who practices your religion is as unpleasant as you are.

Do you really want to be giving your religion such bad advertising?

You know my job that I’ve mentioned I really like?

Company had some serious investment money fall through and is now screaming its way toward bankruptcy as far as I can tell.  They’re scything through corporate cutting anyone they can and though I haven’t got a pink slip in hand, I have been given the word that my time there is very short – probably less than two weeks.

So I’m brushing up my resume and putting out the call for contacts.  If you know of anyone looking for people with dual clinical and IT expertise, please point them my way… or me their way!

On the bright side, K was headed to Cambridge England for a conference and I wasn’t going to get to go because I really didn’t have enough accumulated vacation time.  But now that I’ll be unemployed, that is no longer a barrier.  Booked tix yesterday.  So… suggestions about things to do and enjoy in the Cambridge area?