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.