Tuesday, November 24, 2009

More thoughts this week

So that interview back in October did not pan out, nor did the one that followed it. But then EMC called, and I will interview after the Thanksgiving holiday. Seems to be some kind of tools or performance analysis group, and some Java involved.

I am trying to do a better job of keeping in touch with a few recruiters in the hope they can get me an interview at places where I do not have my own personal contacts, since I have about tapped out said contacts now. I suppose I should alter a few words in my resume and re-post it, but the only result from that effort last time was a flurry of new emails from various door-to-door career change opportunities.

There really does seem to be some truth to the age discrimination rumblings. I am the oldest person from my former group, and I am one of only two or three (out of about 50) who have not yet found a new position (although a couple of folks took short contracting jobs). I have also been told that I made too much money - no one is likely to offer me a major salary cut because I am likely to seek a higher paying job.

Oh, my former company back-pedaled on the outsourcing and granted "immunity" to the 6 or 7 folks still on the payroll in the U. S. of A. Those folks were due to be phased out in October, but were then granted a 6 month stay of execution, which was followed a month later by a "permanent" status. My conclusion is that the overseas team is completely incompetent, and the customers screamed very loudly as the evidence of that incompetence reached their ears. You'd think after about 10 years of this out-sourcing pressure that such a large and seemingly technically competent organization would have figured out a smoother process for this stuff. Probably this mishap can be attributed to the VP who organized it.

And what the heck was my former employer thinking by buying a one-trick pony of a video camera company right before Apple started shipping iPods and iPhones with video cameras in them...and then they turn around and invest in another tired technology, video conferencing...I guess the money was burning a hole in someone's pocket and the tax advantages of a write-off outweighed the measly interest on the cash....I plan to unload my remaining shares as soon as feasible...


A colleague recently landed a new job right after finishing a Java certification, so now I am motivated to at least get the SCJP (Java programmer) rating. I downloaded the pre-test last week and slogged through the 120 questions. I did not score well enough to pass the real exam, but I was within spitting distance, so I am encouraged that I could perhaps get the SCJP book and study guide, and be ready to pass the exam within a week or two. The alternatives seem to be a multi-boat-buck web class or a full blown boot camp with hotel and meals in Dallas or Orlando (I missed the local class at the beginning of this month, sigh).

The pre-cert test was a depressing mish-mash of questions about how certain pieces of code might fail to compile. I understand that they are trying to teach me some subtle issues about the language, but there has to be a better way than asking me to think like a compiler. Why wouldn't I just look at the compiler errors and fix them? Do they really think that stuff that people type into an editor is supposed to compile and run with no errors?

The SCJD test apparently covers a whole bunch of Swing and other UI technologies, and the Sun web page says that the main part of that certification is to write a real JEE program, which is graded. There is also an exam, and an interview that attempts to determine if you really wrote the program that you submitted. This higher level certification is expected to take a couple of months to complete and another couple of months to be graded.

On to the domestic news:

The oak flooring is installed in the kitchen and it brightens up the kitchen a lot. This brought attention to the sorry state of the radiator, and also the shelving in the pantry. Said shelving turns out to be subflooring with a thin coat of urethane or some such, and badly stained and somewhat warped. Who knew. All shelving is since replaced with solid wood stained dark cherry. Wonder how long it will take the next owners of this house to notice the nice wood. Spousal energy was devoted to cleaning and painting the radiator a shining coat of white.

Here's a couple pictures:




We switched our internet and TV over to Verizon FIOS a couple of weeks ago. The TV really does look brighter but I am suspicious that the tech set the brightness to maximum on the TV when we weren't looking. Now we have about 100 channels, and basically still nothing we want to watch, except the coveted HGTV channel.

The Apple Mail program crashed repeatedly when I attempted to add the new Verizon email account manually. It did let me set it up "automatically" with several warnings that the password would have to be exchanged with the Verizon server in a non-secure manner. So if you all start getting spammed by a Verizon account, it is probably my fault.

We seem to have an infestation of moths in our area, what with the warm-ish weather the past couple of weeks. At least it was easy to get the leaves dealt with this year, since they stayed mostly dry and easy to vacuum up, unlike other years when an ice storm created blocks of leafy ice to pick up.

This may be the first November in many years that we skip the major snowstorm around the Thanksgiving holiday. Can't say we'll miss it.

Just finished reading the newest Terry Pratchett book "Unseen Academicals" in which he examines the nature of big time sports.

Hopefully the next update has some positive job news...

Sunday, October 25, 2009

This week's thoughts

The job search drags on. Some recruiters suddenly showed a bit of interest last week. Also got through a screening interview last week and got invited back for a second round, thanks to a former colleague putting in my resume. They gave me a packet of technical questions, three or four mildly interesting SQL problems and a couple of Java programming questions.

Signed up on the Genotrope website last week at the recommendation of another colleague, a lot of startup jobs are posted there. I need to keep pinging the recruiters and target a smaller set of companies, I think.

Just finished coding up a little java application to build a fairly complex relational database and run some interesting queries. Still need to read up on nested (sub) queries and play a little more. Hopefully this will help with the upcoming second round interview. Beyond that, I plan to enhance my Advisor application to do more modern Hibernate annotations and add more user interface elements, as well as Groovy extension points. Got to keep the coding skills honed.

Coded up a little Java solution to another job application, to print out all relationships between two people in a database (the db was to be simulated in a memory array). At least they acknowledged my submission, but no word on an interview. Some of these companies are keeping the job req open for months at a time.

Speaking of which, I just found out that a local startup is still seeking resumes for a position that was posted at least 8 weeks ago. My resume went in through a recruiter, I never heard of the company but the technology (warehouse automation) sounded interesting. The recruiter that submitted me sounded pretty peeved that things were not moving along.

Oh - all this coding is happening on a new 17" MacBookPro. I put Parallels on there and run MySql and JBoss on a Fedora 10 partition. It is really cool to just suspend the partition and resume it when you want to muck with the database or whatever.

Moving along to other pursuits:

The sailboat got moved to the dock for the winter on Tuesday, and hauled out on Wednesday. This is the first year that I plan to do most of the maintenance, and I started right off by winterizing the water systems, painfully. I have the ripped skin to prove it and about five trips to the hardware store for miscellaneous plumbing bits and pieces. There must be a better way to do this - I'm thinking a T-joint with a threaded plug to open up and bypass the system at key points so I don't have to yank the hoses off those barbed connectors and risk my knuckles every time.
Planning to put the cover on it next weekend and perhaps get the batteries off it. Those suckers weigh at least 70 lbs each and will be a bear to get down from the deck to the ground now that the boat is up on stands (the deck is about 12 feet up in the air now).

The kitchen counters got replaced two weeks ago, and we are extremely pleased with the Cambria quartz surface material and the new wood paneling on the strange half-wall behind the sink. The red oak flooring is stacked in the dining room acclimating to the house, and I am targeting starting on that job on Wednesday, after that second round job interview. Yes, I am planning to install the flooring myself, although I have persuaded a former work colleague to supervise my efforts and speed up the job.

I signed up for FaceBook finally, and located several family members and college buddies immediately. The wife is still not convinced that she needs to do this to keep in touch with the younger members of her family.

I ran the leaf mulcher machine for the first time this fall. There weren't a lot of leaves down, but enough to make it worthwhile and alleviate the effort when the next windy day comes along and really dumps those peeping leafs on the grass. Oh, and there was a dead squirrel lurking in the drift of leaves at the back of the yard. Perhaps the animal that has been taking big dumps in the backyard grass got to it. I probably need to run the gas out of the mower tomorrow, I think we are done mowing the lawn for 2009.

Yikes the Angels are falling apart in the bottom of the eighth.

The newish DVD player died last weekend. Ran out to BestBuy and picked up a Samsung Blu-Ray player. Cripes our 27" TV looked tiny when we got home. The store must be filled with 50" flat screen models. The occasion for getting the new player was that we rented Office Space and Take The Money And Run from the local Blockbuster. I liked Outsourced better than Office Space.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Time to replace that broken window

Another slow day on the job search front. Nice lunch at NYAJ's with colleagues. Possibly we will soon all be contractors working for foreign employers? No cat pix today, both of them are snoozing the day away. Good time to try to replace that second floor window, I guess.
Yard waste went to the pit this morning, cross that off the honey-dew list. Should I go sailing on Thursday? Friday? Are we supposed to eat dinner with SeaQuester tomorrow? So many things going on...

Why did this guy tweet me last month? This sounds like a variation on the "driveway sealcoat scam". I can just hear this - "we were in your neighborhood, and we just painted your neighbor's lawn, and while we are on your street we can give you a big discount, today only. All we have is this lovely turquoise color left over, but it will be 1/2 off the price, today only."


Monday, June 8, 2009

Monday honey-dew list

No pix for today, cats are sleeping upstairs for a change. Grady adopted the laundry basket as a bed now. Not much on job search front, have to step up the activity level a notch and do more research. I should be holding "open house" martini lunches and taking CTO's out to dinner at McCormick and Schmidt or similar.

Filed down the remaining sharp corners on lexan instrument cover for the boat. Removed the protective paper, I consider it "ready to use" now. I think I finally got the front storm door to latch properly. Well, compared to how you had to slam it three or four times before I started messing with it. Front doorbell button replaced, feels like a good day so far. Oops, shop vac the basement still. Is that aerobic?

Must read up on smaller companies around Massachusetts and try to make more LinkedIn contacts. I'm going to have to violate a rule and take my laptop with me on vacation on the boat this time. I suppose I can check online radar scans if the weather gets iffy.

The supposed education discount for new computers did not materialize, so stop thinking about a new iMac and see if I can justify a new MacBookPro at some point.

Apparently there may be a couple of SmartGrid positions to be had, at work. This week is the deadline for a decision, so I suppose that is something to look forward to as far as "good news once removed".

Sunday Sailing was pleasant but breeze was all over the place, zero knots, twenty knots, westerly, southerly, northerly. Gave up at 2:30 and took rookie sailor into Marblehead Harbor for a quick tour. New Dax winch handles seem to be keepers, kind of like switching from a standard transmission car to an automatic. My thumb keeps searching for the locking lever, which isn't there anymore.


Friday, June 5, 2009

Wrapping up job search activities for today, have to mow the lawn before the rain. The cats finally settled down at the usual morning hour, but Grady took longer than usual to burn off his morning calories. He eats anything on the floor. He tore his latest paper shopping bag to shreds. He tried to eat the blue milk cap ring that his sister likes to play with. He gnawed the ballpoint pen that was mysteriously on the kitchen floor this morning. The lamp in the family room was lying on its side when I got up this morning.
Looking forward to Sunday Sailing, I have a few crew guys showing up. We are only a couple of weeks away from a boating vacation now too. I hope the house survives in our absence, the furballs seem determined to chew, claw, sniff or eat every single knick knack or in fact any object they can see, in the house. But they do like to be held and scratched, once in a while.
Here is the Gracie pic from yesterday, while I was conducting job search activities.


That piece of paper in my pocket is the receipt from the dentist for fixing a filling that came loose Monday, they got me into the office the next day after I called them.

Added iptvtwit to my following list this morning, just in case it matters.

A couple of colleagues have landed safely at companies doing stuff that seems important, like data center management and SmartGrid.

Thinking of getting a couple of new computers soon, I may be free lance programming, and our desktop is ancient, with full disk drives.


Friday, May 29, 2009

Chicken sausage




Yup, that's what's for dinner.

Quiet and boring day. Will pick up replacement window sash and new screens tonight. Probably a whole-day project to replace sash with broken double pane.

Cats are still in afternoon snooze mode. Grady is currently dozing on / near the laptop, here are today's cat pictures. Gracie is in the La-z-boy chair, but spent her share
of lap time earlier today.


Planning to do some sailing on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday may be solo. I need to finish mounting the new remote microphone cable on the stern pulpit. Drilled the holes and mounted the through-hull cable seal on Wednesday.

Wow, I just ran across critical information that everyone should really be aware of, with regards to chemtrails. Everyone should be aware of this site, and be wearing their tin foil hat 24 hours a day, too:

http://www.orgonite.info/

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Spring update


Lots of yard work. No rain. Forecast was wrong.

Boat cover comes off tomorrow. Planning a trip to Nantucket instead of doing Marion-Bermuda.

Cats are surprisingly quiet tonight. Windows were open all day, maybe that has something to do with it. Grady the gray cat got real friendly, pic posted here. For some reason he likes to massage my face, maybe he is trying to get me out of the chair and entertaining him.

Gracie the black cat is sound asleep in large La-Z-Boy chair - she owns it now.

Lawn is de-thatched, many plants and trees were uprooted and moved to new locations. I am hopeful that the paper-bark maple tree survives in its new spot. Blueberry bush now resides near the bulkhead, should take up less room than the large clump of non-native grass that was there.

Why is "The Holiday" on TBS tonight? It's a Christmas movie.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

more of cats



Here are a couple of pix from this weekend. We moved the climbing post next to the door and they camped out by the door all day. It was 60 degrees !


Sunday, March 1, 2009

New cats

We added two cats to the household a couple of weeks ago.

Some pix are here:


Holiday letter is copied, and posted online here:

Sunday, February 1, 2009

More january snow

Bird feeder and a little bit of garden foliage.

January snow



The path to the compost bin.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

North Quincy women vs Brockton, Jan 19 2009

North Quincy vs Brockton

We attended the North Quincy vs Brockton women's basketball game on Jan 19, 2009, to watch Julie and Kathleen Lynch play for NQ.

NQ lost a close game. I've posted the "best" pix here: