Random of the Day

Image from the Internet and all rights to their owners.

Why Nerds are Unpopular.
Very eye-opening. So nerds, by lack of caring, cause their own unpopularity? Fascinating....

In schools, blogs are the new bulletin boards
There's more trouble to this issue than stated in this article. But that's for another day....

as i walked out one evening
Personal viewpoint on blogs. Highly recommended.

Last Day

Image found on the Internet and all rights belong to their owners.

Today's my last day of my current assignment.

As usually, I have mixed feelings. I enjoyed this job: the location, the hours, the work,
and most of the people. On the other side, I can't wait to set my own hours again, take a
large whack at the household chores (yes, I'm a 'domestic diva' type of guy), and write
hours on my works-in-progress (WIPs).

Temping is a large part of my work history. I started sometime in 1996, two years after R.
and I moved in. The first job was a three-day data entry position that literally made me go
blind with those old-fashioned green on black monitors. Ugh.

The first major position was working for a credit verification company. It was from that
experienced I learned about technical writing and specialized temp agencies. For the next
couple of years I worked in the IT departments of some pretty well-known companies as Hughes and The Getty Museum. The latter was an amazing place to work: all those multi-million dollar paintings casually hanging in various departments. And the view...!

Temping landed me my first perm job. I had just been let go from an aerospace firm. R. and I
had just had a party a few weeks before and one of our guest had discovered we had termites.

We called in Orkin who had to fumigate. We stayed at my sister's place while she visited her
(then) boy-friend up north. I was driving back to her apartment when I received
a call from an agency I had joined a couple of weeks before.

If you're not familar with temp agency, there is a category called "permanent placement." These are positions where the agency screens potential candidates for permanent positions in their client's companies. The agency who called me had such a position for (at the time) a major wireless telecommunication company. When the rep told me its name, I immediately said yes to a potential interview.

I started work a couple of months later, my first permanent job.

Alas, the position didn't last. Economic changes and company politics ("let's transfer an entire department to our state and combine them with technology they have no training in to save cost") forced me to leave. By then, though, I had already developed the mindset of "permanent temp": that all working folks are temps regardless if they're getting benies from their jobs or not. With this case, I got unemployment and other goodies (which I had been paying for, anyway) and got some substantial work done on my novels.

I did secure a perm job last year without an agency, the first since my college days. For a variety of reasons that didn't last and I went back to temping. The experience had changed me, though. One of the advantages of temping is the ability to "try" different jobs. I used this trait to go in a brand-new career direction: working in the public sector. I secured my current position in a local city hall* a couple of weeks after leaving the perm job.

Now it's ending and I'm in a tangled bundle of emotions. That's okay: it's only "temp"orary anyway ;-)


*I'll be back for another temp assignment at the same location but a different department. Yay!

Weekend Words

Image was found on the Internet and all rights belong to their owners.

Boy! Did I fall behind. Here's what happened last weekend:


Saturday

• Work's been very rough lately for R. Thus, for the past few weekends we've spent the lion's share of the afternoon and evening in front of our computers. While some folks may find such activity (or lack of) disturbing, we consider it our "quiet and together" time. We surf the Internet for different things: R. currently looks for anime cells while I surf for interesting blogs. Occasionally we'll stir and call the other one over to look at something (see below) or react (usually by laughing) to some discovery. Then the other will call out (not shout since our offices are across the hall) to find out what's happening. And we do this repeatedly throughout the afternoon and evening. We do have dinner together and watch anime as well.

A member over at one of the Tribe.net groups lambasted me for all the posts I placed on the public forum. Was asked if I had a need for some sort of "ego gratification" in seeing my name all over the forum.

What? Utterly bizarre. R. counseled me not to reply but ignore the flame which I did.

Some people apparently don't like folks who just enjoy posting questions....

• We processed several book orders for our business. Yay! Now if we could process a hundred times more, I could finally sing, "we're in the money...!"

Spent some part of the afternoon shopping for cabinetry to match our upcoming new floor. Ack! I feel so...domestic.

• Oh my. I was reading the comments over at one of my friend's blogs and I felt...jealous. I couldn't believe it. I laughed myself silly.

Sunday

• Went techie and added Blogrolling to Words, Weights, Whatever. Will see how it runs before adding it to Way.

Nesting continues in our household. We checked out more floor samples at a local floor place.

Grrr. I have to admit I was snappy at R. over this issue. I've made my opinions known since we discussed the first batch of samples and I'm ready to move on and schedule the construction to begin. But R. insisted in continue to look. I snapped; fortunately, by cellphone. By the time we joined up I had calmed down and recognized being patient is important when the house is concerned (especially for the amount of remodeling that has to be done.)

But I'll need to continue to zen. I can see this "nesting" stuff is not going to be pleasant...

• R. had to drive up to work to continue the paperwork. I stayed home and worked on the foodshopping, bills, and housework. Ugh. At least the weather's beautiful. We later met for dinner that evening.

Flooble it

What do you think of this generated post?

____________________________________________________________________

Today my sister and I were thinking about homosexuality in the Dark Ages. We were very disturbed by the subject, so we tells my friend The Boz about it, and he interrupted:

"No kidding?!.. No kidding?! I love the Dark Ages so much!"

But then when my sister and I got to the part about the homosexuality, The Boz quieted down and began picking his nose. But then later, The Boz's brother told me that the reason The Boz was so freaked out was because he had to study homosexuality in class. There are days when The Boz can be really stupid like that, but he wants what is best for me...

Link of the day: Joke Ratings | Randomly generated by Flooble Instant Blog Post Generator

And the runner-ups (and winner) are:


Last week a couple of friends of mine and I decided form an informal "book club". We agreed each would submit four books to the other two via e-mail by today and we'd decide which one to read and discuss at a later date.

Well, here were my four:

Misadventures in the (213) by Dennis Hensley

Geography Club by Brent Hartinger

The Summer They Came by William Storandt

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon


After sending e-mail messages to and fro, we narrowed down to East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Our discussion date will be the 31st of this month.

Note that all images were found on the Internet and rights belong to their owners.

NOTE: As long-time visitors of my blog may note, I've made a...slight...change to my blog's appearance.

What to post....

(Image was found on the Internet and all rights belong to their owners.)

For some time now I've been debating the direction of my posts on my blog. One question I had for quite a while was how many posts per day and I've decided to only post once. Reason? People tend to only read the most recent post on a blog. Even I'm guilty of that sometimes. (I normally scroll down a blog until I noticed an entry I don't remember reading.)

But what will be The Post that day? Here are some of my ideas:

• Daily summary - I discuss what happened that particular day (e.g., today we....)

• Event - I discussed a specific event of that day (e.g., My friend G. has this problem which is....)

• Random of the Day - I make a one-line comment about an...interesting...blog found on blog.com (e.g., Proverb of the Day.)

• Link of the Day - Like Random of the Day, but a comment on an...interesting...link found on the World Wide Web (e.g., Extramarital Affairs - Married but Looking.)

• Why is it here - A relatively new idea. I chose one or more of the links on my blog and discuss why I picked it (e.g., About 51313 Harbor Street. This is actually the second time I placed this blog among my daily reads. The first time....)

• Fact about me - Another new idea. I reveal an unknown facet about, well, me (e.g., I've stalked people.)

• My opinion - A rambling, essay-esque to and fro discussion about a subject I feel strongly about at that time (e.g., They're gorgeous. So why can't they find The One? or Single Folks: the New Pariah?)

• Pic of the Day - From pics found on the Internet with my commentary:

Example:

(Image was found on the Internet and all rights belong to their owners.)

You know you blog too much when....

...you see a cute guy/grrrl and wish you had you digital camera/cell phone with cam so you can take a pic and post it on your blog with all the...appropriate...commentary on packaging, wrapping, etc.

...you realize the procedure you've been writing at work will make a great post.

...you can discuss the Comment systems by Haloscan and blogger.

...while driving, you're thinking of all the ways to write a post to maximize comments from your readers (i.e., add pics, using bold, italics, etc.)

...you check your blog 2-3 times an hour to see if anyone's left a comment on your latest post.

...instead of calling your friends/psychologist/spiritual guide or going on chat, you post your latest prob in anticipation of the latest "free" advice from your readers.

...you're bored so you post how much you're bored and get into discussions about how bored you are with those who comment about your post about being bored.