As takaza mentioned in his journal, he was in a car accident today. He’s fine except for a bit of a headache, but the Saturn is sitting in the towing lot – the front corner on the driver’s side is crunched in, the headlight’s shattered, and the frame in that corner may be bent. There’s no question that the other guy was at fault, and his insurance company is going to pay for the damages and the rental car. My only worry is that the repairs be expensive enough that they’ll want to total the car (the Blue Book value on the care is only $5,150). We’ll have to see what the appraiser has to say next week.

But you know what? In the end, the car isn’t what matters. The car is just stuff. What really matters is Dan is OK. I love him so much, and I would do anything and be anywhere for him. This just reminded me of how important he is in my life. I’m so very, very lucky.

Flash mobs are so last week. The newest, hippest thing going around these days: Flash Mops!

Did you ever notice that when things worth writing about in your LJ are happening, there’s no time to write about it in your LJ? That kind of describes the past few days for me.

Over the weekend, we were graced by the company of zenwolph, perro, pandaguy, brophey, and rasslor. We hit the high points from past parties – Carolina Brewing Company, the NC State Farmers Market, and a new addition – Silvia d’Italia Gelato Cafe. In between all that we had some good food, some nice relaxing downtime, and the funniest game of CatchPhrase I’ve ever been a part of. It was a lovely weekend, and I’m very glad everyone could make it. I’m looking ahead to October and the North Carolina State Fair – if we’re still around, that might be a good opportunity to get some folks together. We’ll keep folks up to date as plans evolve.

The bummer of the weekend was Brophey’s car problems. Everything was fine until Sunday, when the car just wouldn’t start. They stuck around Sunday night and had the car towed to the dealership. The dealership, unfortunately, took a while figuring out what was wrong, and when they finally did they had to go hunting for the part. This meant another night in Raleigh for Brophey and Rasslor. It sucked, but at least the company was good – dinners at Dakota Grill and Outback were enjoyed. They finally got the car fixed and the wolf and the bear got on the road around 2:30 PM Tuesday.

Tuesday night, Takaza and I mainly just sat and watched TiVo. Very nice, very relaxing.

Today, well it’s been a bit crazy. After a morning spent doing the usual job hunting, I got a call from a recruiter. Unfortunately, it was for a company that I interviewed with back in October of last year. Nuts. Then it was off to run some errands – a bit of shopping at Target and Kohl’s, and then grocery shopping. Oh yeah, and one more minor thing: I stopped by North Carolina State University to register for some classes.

Yes, I registered for three classes at NC State, part of the HACCP Coordinator training (FACCP = Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) – Intro to HACCP, Good Manufacturing Practices, and Sanitary Standard Operating Procedures. The nice thing is that they are Internet classes, designed so that I really never even have to go on campus if need be. If I get a job and have to move, it’s not a problem. With any luck, this might be a foot in the door into the pharmaceutical or food engineering fields. I’ll write more about this later – time to go to work on dinner!

This won’t mean much to anyone else, but here is the T-shirt that I propose to commemorate the weekend:
Clicky-clicky

1. How much time do you spend online each day?
Wow. It’s sad to say, but probably about six to eight hours.

2. What is your browser homepage set to?
Blank. I hate having to wait for something to load up every time I start the damn program.

3. Do you use any instant messaging programs? If so, which one(s)?
Trillian, baby! I use it for ICQ, AIM, and Yahoo.

4. Where was your first webpage located?
Wow, that’s a long time ago. That would be http://duncan.bevc.blacksburg.va.us (inactive) – it’s an address that might mean something to former Virginia Tech people – it was when I was going to Tech and got to use part of the Blacksburg Electronic Village, which put ethernet directly into my apartment. This was in 1994, I believe.

5. How long have you had your current website?
Although the format and content have changed over the years, I’ve had a website up continuously since ’94 – first at the above site then when I graduated in 1995 I moved them to their present location at http://www.technomancer.com/~duncan. I don’t know if it’s still the case, but for several years, my Coming Out and Being Visible page was at the top of the list of Yahoo! pages for “Coming Out” and generated a lot of traffic. Nowadays it seems that most of my traffic is generated by web searches for “Tom Brady.” Heh. Aren’t they in for a surprise?

Whee! It looks like we’re a go for September’s trip up to Chicago. We’ll be up for the Midwest Furfest board and staff meetings. takaza and I will be traveling separately since he only has a few days of vacation to work with and I, well, let’s just say I’ve got a lot of flexibility. Here’s the current plans:

Takaza flies up the night of Thursday, 9/4 and flies home the afternoon on Monday, 9/8. I will be driving up solo (yay) earlier and sticking around somewhat later. I was thinking about driving up on Monday, 9/1 until I realized that’s Labor Day and everyone will be on the road on their way home from whatever vacation they were taking. So I might be up Sunday the 31st instead, depending on how that works out for my gracious host. I’ll be heading home most likely on Tuesday the 9th, but if any MFF-related projects come up I can stick around longer. And who knows, I might even stop by and see some folks downstate on the drive home…

Gearing up for a fun weekend – got folks coming in tonight from all over. We don’t have a lot of plans (as usual) but it’ll be fun to just hang out. If nothing else, brophey is bringing his DDR pad so maybe I can practice a bit without feeling like a complete fool like I do in arcades. Hmm, maybe we’ll hit Carolina Brewing Company’s tour again – good beer! Meanwhile, I’ve got a lot of cleaning to do today, and some grocery shopping as well. Fun fun!

There’s something profound here about the nature of furry, the lure of anthropomorphism. This is from an interview with Disney animator Andreas Deja, from the Los Angeles Zoo View:

For the 1994 film The Lion King, Deja was assigned Scar, the villainous uncle to the adorable lion cub, Simba. “We start out drawing a lot of lions as we see them, and then add human elements to it. I had Jeremy Irons to work with, who did the voice of Scar. The dark eyes, dark rings on his eyes, the way his mouth is shaped, the nose, the thin upper lip–I was able to incorporate some of that into Scar.” He did it well enough that when he first showed Irons video of Scar, Deja says the actor touched his own mouth and said, “My God, he looks like me!”

Interview courtesy of Animated Movies

Spending the day doing a lot of puttering.
– Kicked off planning for the entertainment this weekend. Whee! We’re gonna have some fun.

– Did the usual morning browse of the job boards, applied to a couple of jobs, but not a lot out there at the moment. Heard back that a possibility that had popped up in State College, PA isn’t going to happen (and that’s just fine by me).

– Called about the food safety classes at NC State – it may still be possible for me to get in this semester, though it’ll be a good-sized whack to our finances. Still waiting to hear back from them. One nice thing – since it’s Internet-based, if we suddenly move I can still continue to take the classes. Also put in a call to a pharmaceuticals industry contact to see what credentials I need to break into food/pharmaceuticals.

– Baking a nice tomato tart for appetizers tonight. Puff pastry baked with Parmesan cheese, cooled, then mozzarella and Roma tomatoes are layered on top and the tomatoes are brushed with garlic oil. It smells just fabulous in the oven and I’m sure it’ll be tasty.

– Finally got the Midwest Furry Fandom Corporate web pages up (geeze, that took forever). There’s not a lot up there right now, but once we get the financial reports and the by-laws worked out it’ll be a good repository for them.

– Still need to do some minor fixes on the MFF website – add charity info, etc. I’ll do that once the tart is out of the oven.

– Making a tasty dinner of chicken and rice tonight. It’ll have to be fast because we’re gaming tonight over at Thomas and Sherry’s. Yay, umbral surfing!

I love all of our friends here in the Triangle (or “The Gang” as we and our mailing list refer to us), but we seem to have this problem: when we schedule a Game Night (i.e. board games, CatchPhrase, etc.) we never actually get around to playing the darn games. That’s OK, though, because the company and conversation is good. Last night, me_not_you, wildmouse, thebroomecloset, and Thomas and Sherry came over and we cooked up some burgers and had other yummy stuff. I tried making hamburger buns for the first time and I can safely say that while they were quite tasty they were not worth the 3+ hours it took to make them.

So, what else is going on? Not much. The job possibility I had Northlake, IL has gone down the drain (not a big surprise), and the one in Cleveland is fading as they seem to have settled on a candidate. So I keep looking through all the usual places. Of late it seems like there are even fewer jobs for me to apply to – lots of possibilities in pharmaceuticals, consumer products, and continuous film processes, though, none of which I qualify for. Gnar. I have a recruiter who’s trying to shop my resume to a company in Elgin, IL, which would be nice, but apparently they don’t have any openings, just “would be interested if the right resume crossed their desk”. You’ll excuse me if I file that one as a low probability too.

I found out yesterday that plans for the get-together in South Carolina on the weekend of the 16th aren’t going to work out, so we’re rethinking things. Maybe we’ll get some folks together here in Apex? It’s a bit more convenient for some (sorry Rasslor and Brophey). Not sure what we’ll do, maybe just hang out, eat some good food, and hit a couple of places in the Triangle. Low-key sort of stuff. We’ll be in touch with folks to make plans.

Finally, we’re slowly doing our part to become part of the digital age and as of today we have test messaging on our cell phones! Yay! You can use LiveJournal’s thingy (Friends only, sorry) or send a (short, less than 987 characters – signature counts!) e-mail to [my cell phone number]@messaging.sprintpcs.com. Oh, and if you see me online on AIM (duncanhusky), it’s probably from my cell phone. @whee!

So I fired up the TiVo this morning and noticed something bad – all of the suggestions we had on there were gone. This means that they got deleted to make space – I counted up what we had on there and sure enough, 31.5 hours of a possible 32 hours. What all is on there that’s taking up so much space? Well, let’s see…

What are the canines watching these days?

Well, that weekend went by fast.

Here’s the details

OK, rigelkitty has already posted a link to this, but it’s the funniest thing I’ve read in a while.
There is a small inbox here.

1. What time do you wake up on weekday mornings?
6:00 AM. Well, the radio turns on at 6 AM. We listen to the national headlines from our good buddy Carl Kassel, then when they start in on local headlines that’s the signal to drag our butts out of bed.

2. Do you sleep in on the weekends? How late?
I wish I could! I’m almost always awake before 8 AM.

3. Aside from waking up, what is the first thing you do in the morning?
Take a leak. Then I wander into the office and pick up my laptop 🙂

4. How long does it take to get ready for your day?
If I’m in a hurry? 30 minutes or less. On a typical day? Um, I might shower before noon 🙂

5. When possible, what is your favorite place to go for breakfast?
Dallas’ Chicken and Biscuits. Best damn chicken biscuits in the area – they fry up a chicken breast, pull the meat right off the bone and slap it on a nice, fluffy biscuit. Yum!

Things started on an off note this morning when Takaza wasn’t feeling well. Instead of going to work he headed back to bed for a few hours to see if he would feel better with a bit more sleep. This indeed helped, and by 10:30 or so he was feeling good enough to consider heading in to work. I got a phone call from wildmouse asking if I wanted to join her, me_not_you, vileone, thebroomecloset, ovrclockd, and some other folks from Cisco for lunch at Allen & Sons, reputedly the best barbeque joint in the area. Takaza was sweet enough to hang around to wait for the A/C guy to show up while I showered and dashed out the door to pick up Janelle. On the 40-minute drive to the restaurant, I was treated to dazzling descriptions of how good their hush puppies are, how the banana pudding is to die for, how the ‘cue is wonderfully smoky and great even without any sauce. We pull into the parking lot to find…it’s empty. Turns out, they’re closed between 7/20 and 8/4 for vacation. Well, phooey.

We stuck around for about 20 minutes waiting for everyone else to show up and make plans, then Janelle, Donald, Rob, and me headed over to The Streets at Southpoint and got lunch at California Pizza Kitchen (OK food, though the shrimp spring rolls were less a delicate collection of flavors and more like a train wreck of cilantro and sweet sesame-ginger sauce). After lunch we stopped at Rocky Mountain Spotted Chocolate Factory to get some goodies to take to Dan: a chocolate cheesecake apple (apple dipped in white chocolate, graham crackers, and drizzled with milk chocolate) and a couple of chocolate-dipped pretzels.

We dropped the goodies off at Dan’s work (and met some of his co-workers, nice folks), then made one more stop before going home: The Flour Shop, a nice little bakery. Janelle picked up a hazelnut torte for tonight, as well as two small tortes: peanut butter-chocolate, and a combination white chocolate/milk chocolate mousse. Nummy!

So, plans for the weekend: Not a lot, yay! We’re going to stay away from stores as much as possible because this is the annual Sales Tax Holiday Weekend, though we had kicked around the possibility of going to a computer show to price out cheap laptops for MFF registration (no, we’re not budgeted for any, I’m just curious what we might be looking at).

You know, I wish we had the money right now because I think I found just the thing for Linnaeus‘ birthday present!

Who to choose, though? Todd Bridges? Fred “Rerun” Berry? Lou Ferrigno? The possibilities are endless! Well, not endless, but certainly a wide variety of possibilities…

Happy birthday

It has been suggested by a friend that I post a pointer to a useful utility: HideJournal is a free, Java-based utility that allows you to convert every public entry in your journal to Friends Only with one command. This is useful if you suddenly realize you’ve said a lot more in your journal than you’d meant to, you don’t want your family to discover your secret fetish for quivering monkeypants, or whatever. You can find more info in this discussion, and I can post more user-friendly instructions (courtesy of a certain wolph) if needed.

Well, after many hours of installing, reinstalling, and re-reinstalling Windows XP, I’ve gotten my laptop back into some semblance of normal. Just a few more programs to install from CD (GPS software, MusicMatch) ad I’ll be fully up to speed. Fortunately, I didn’t lose any important data – I was able to install a bootable version of Windows to my D: drive and get networking running well enough to dump all the important stuff off to another machine. Naturally, the “System Restore” disks that came with my Vaio didn’t work; after running through installing all three of them, the system wouldn’t boot at all. So I got another XP install disk and built the whole thing up from scratch, drivers, applications, and all. The only thing that isn’t quite right is that there’s some unidentified USB doohickey in there somewhere that it can’t find the driver for, but that hasn’t caused any problems in day-to-day operation so I’m quite happy to ignore it.

So, what’s been going on in the meantime? Well, not a heck of a lot. We went to Thomas and Sherry’s for our Mage/Werewolf game on Monday, which was quite entertaining and resulted in us getting left somewhere in the upper troposphere (fortunately it was in the Umbra, so we should be OK). They’re hosting an evening of board gaming tonight; I’m planning on attending, though takaza may pass depending on how tired he’s feeling when he gets home tonight.

On the job front: not a lot going on. I need to do my periodic shotgun-blasting of resumes to various likely job positions this afternoon. The fruit of last week’s volley was a possibility just south of Cleveland, OH – the recruiter shopped my resume by them and told me today he’s still waiting to hear back. He’s confident I should be able to get at least a phone interview out of it. I also have a possibility, although somewhat remote, at a position in Northlake, IL. This would be really ironic, as it’s with the sister company of my employer when I working in Morris, IL. They’re completely independent, so that wouldn’t figure much in of the hiring process, though. There, too, they have my resume and we’re waiting to hear back. Finally, it looks like the job possibility I had in Lafayette, IN is completely dead, or at least will be through the end of the year. I really hope I’m not still available when they open up that position again!

Well, back to the job boards…

Typing this from my old laptop tonight via web interface. My bright’n’shiny Vaio laptop crapped out this morning and it’s only gotten worse. First Windows Explorer would crash/reopen/crash/reopen/etc., then it just wouldn’t boot at all. I tried a couple fixes and at least moved my data files to the D: drive where they’ll be relatively safe. Tried reinstalling from the recovery CD’s and…no dice. Still won’t boot. I’m going to do a temporary install to D: enough to get networking up so I can move my data files off of it then wipe the who damn drive clean. I have a faint inkling the drive could be dying, but we’ll see what happens after the reformat.

In any case, if I owe you email, be assured I’m working on it and will have it to you in the next few days.

First off, I want to say that the Adams Mark Hotel staff was fabulous! Every single one of them was professional and courteous. Our housekeeper even recognized Takaza from last year! We were sure to leave her a $20 tip – four people in one room for three days can get a bit messy.

Suites are niiiiice. We’re definitely getting one again next year, and four people in the suite is just the right size. It’s not too cramped, you still have room to move around, and there’s room to push stuff out of the way when you want to have people in to socialize.

Anthrocon is freakin’ huge! At just a few dozen shy of 2,000 attendees, they are the largest furry convention, period. And you know what? They’re welcome to it! Midwest Furfest topped out at 685 last year, and it is bound to continue to grow at some rate. To those who say we need to grow and grow fast, I give you a hearty “Fuck you!” With more attendees comes more problems, and I saw stuff at Anthrocon that we have yet to deal with: scary stuff, security issues, stuff that requires the police – not through any fault of AC’s, mind you, just that it’s the problems that come with more people. We’ve dodged those bullets so far, but we need to be ready for them should they come up.

The Dorsai Irregulars are an amazing group of people. Every one of them I spoke with was polite and professional, and they are damn good at what they do.

Working Anthrocon is a lot of fun. I need to work more – if I’m not working, I’m bored! (hint, hint, Giza 😉

A lot of people have commented on how awful Anthrocon was in terms of creepy fanboys and weirdos and people severely lacking in social skills. Y’know, you’re going to get that in whatever fandom you deal with – furry isn’t unique in any way, I assure you! I could let it get me down and wonder why I bother to work to help such a group, but then I remember that there are quality people out there – folks I enjoy spending time with, folks who are 100% With Clue. And the trick is, you find them and you spend time with them. And you remind yourself that these are the people you’re in furry fandom for.

We still need to find a way to streamline Artist Alley checkout. I think a sorting bin with each artist’s name on a separate slot would be useful since the sorting of the receipts at the end of the day was one of the most time-consuming (and frantic) parts of the job. If we could have that done and ready to go, life would be much simpler. We’ll investigate that and present some solutions when we have them. Also, we have some ideas about how to better track the receipt books, which will make life easier if the artist doesn’t put their name on their receipt, or if it’s illegible.

I’m ordering dinner in next year. By far it’s the best way to go, and Pete’s Pizza is mighty tasty. Cheaper than going out, too!

No, not like that, silly! A couple people have said that con reports are long and boring and nobody reads them. Well, the biggest reason I do a con report is so that I can look back at a later date and see what I did when. That’s a good enough reason for me!

And thus we have the dreaded con report for Anthrocon 2003.

Went to Columbus, interviewed, looked like a good job, nice town, blah blah blah…

Didn’t get the job. They said I had “too much R&D experience.” Well, hell – they knew that from my resume when I went in there, now didn’t they?

Well, at least they didn’t make me wait days or weeks for a decision. I’ve got an outside shot at a position in Northlake, IL, but I don’t consider that a good probability right now. Heck, maybe they’ll prove me wrong. In the meantime, I’m putting the job search on the back burner for the next few days and concentrate on Anthrocon.

Lots of stuff going on today – preparations, packing, shopping to be done, scones to be baked. We drive out of here between 6 and 7 AM tomorrow and we want to get as much into the car as possible tonight (the cooler will have to wait for the morning, though). I reckon we’ll pull into the Adams Mark around 4 PM or so. See y’all there!

We got back from Holden Beach last night at around 8 PM. The watchword for the weekend was “rain” – dodging it and driving in it. When we arrived on Saturday at around 4 PM it was in the midst of a nasty thunderstorm. We waited a few hours and at about 7 PM it miraculously cleared up and we were able to head to the beach (which was right across the street). The combination of high tide and strong surf caused by the storms made for killer waves for boogie boarding. We had a great time and I got the crap beat out of my by the waves. We had a nice dinner in with several bottles of wine, sandwiches, and tasty chocolate cake.

On Sunday morning, we lazed about a good bit (and I read a few hundred pages of Harry Potter). We finally motivated for some swimming, but it was a bit of a disappointment. It was right at low tide, and the waves weren’t quite up to snuff (plus you had to walk a good fifty yards out from the beach to get to them because it was so shallow). I packed it in early, and Takaza and Sherry and I went to a local water slide and they had a good time while I relaxed in the shade. Taki’s not a big fan of ocean swimming, so I was glad he got some good water time in over the weekend.

We headed out not long after that, stopping in the tiny town of Wallace, NC on the way back for dinner. Taki took over driving from there and unfortunately got the treat of driving up I-40 in some awful torrential thunderstorms. I’ve never seen storms so bad around here where the interstate floods! We went through two areas where the drainage ditch on the right side of the road had flooded and the right lane of the interstate had a couple of inches of water covering it. We were able to get by but it was a bit unnerving. We made it home OK, though, and crashed pretty early.

Many, many thanks to me_not_you and wildmouse for having us down for the weekend! We had a fabulous time and I hope they have an equally good time with their family this coming week.

And now, I need to shift gears and get my act together today. After doing a bit of laundry, I need to pack again and head to the airport around 3 PM to fly to Columbus, OH for a job interview. I’ll be back tomorrow at 8:30 PM and then I need to think about Anthrocon, but first things first…

Leaving in a few minutes for a nice stay overnight in a lovely place in Holden Beach, NC. Fun will be had by all, I hope. Hey, I might even get a few more pages of Harry Potter read…

This weekend, This American Life meets Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind!

From the This American Life website:
30 Acts in 60 Minutes. Instead of the regular “each week we choose a theme, and bring you three or four stories on that theme” business, this week we throw all that away and bring you thirty stories, yes thirty, in sixty minutes. Or, anyway, that’s our goal. We guarantee at least twenty. David Rakoff, Scott Carrier, The Greatest Dog Name in the World, and more more more. Broadcast the weekend of July 11-13 in most places, or available here next week via RealAudio.

Inspiration for this week’s show came from the Neo-Futurists, whose long-running Chicago show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind promises 30 Plays in 60 Minutes every single weekend.

Woohoo! Takaza is going to record this one to tape off the air tonight. For those of you wanting to listen to this in the Chicago area, WBEZ broadcasts This American Life Fridays 8-9 PM and Saturdays 2-3 PM. You can also check when it’s on across the world at PublicRadioFan.com and listen in via netcast (PublicRadioFan is da bomb!)

It would appear that some timer on our roommate/landlord’s house went “DING!” because things have been going to hell lately.
House meltdown details

Greetings once again from Anderson, South Carolina! I’m visiting my parents as well as my sister and nephews here. It’s been a good visit, pretty low stress, and the change of scenery is welcome. Right now my dad and I are negotiating about whether or not they need a new computer (their PIII – 650 MHz is showing its five years, and Windows 98 is growing increasingly less stable by the day). We’ll see if he decides to make the trek to Beast Buy today or not.

Last night was a lot of fun – my sister found out that the local Animal Shelter has a program where, every Tuesday, volunteers come and walk some of the dogs there at a local park. It was heartbreaking trying to decide which dog to walk – they all looked like they wanted to go for a nice run. There were a couple of very friendly huskies, but in the end I chose a 1-year old border collie mix who, after observing her enthusiasm and lack of coordination, I immediately nicknamed “Spaz”. Ruth (my sister) chose a 6-7 year old chocolate lab mix named “Miss Mocha,” who was a much better choice with her 6 and 8 year old sons. The group of us took the dogs over to the park and wolked around the lake, and generally made sure they had some good socialization time. My mom and I took a bunch of pictures and I’ve posted them in our gallery. I’ll see about adding some captions when I get a chance, but for now I’m getting pulled away to deal with the new computer stuff. Laters!

Well, that was pretty much the lowest-key Fourth of July I’ve had in years. We didn’t go to any fireworks displays (didn’t want to fight the crowds, the bugs, and the unremitting heat). We went to one party, though we didn’t really stay very long (I wasn’t feeling too sociable). Otherwise, we pretty much lazed around most of the weekend. Last night we had friends over for dinner and Sherry made some delicious enchiladas. I made a variation on a caramel apple pie using puff pastry instead of a pie crust. It was delicious, though there are a few more changes I’d like to make (I think a red wine caramel sauce is gilding the lily – a plain caramel sauce is quite sufficient). We wrapped up moderately early but still didn’t get to bed until late. due to noodling on the computer and such.

Tomorrow will find me on my way down to visit my parents. My sister and nephews (boys, age 6 & 8) are visiting as well, so it should be a fun visit. I’ll be there Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be lounging around on the beach, lodging kindly provided by me_not_you and wildmouse – I’m really looking forward to the trip. Should be a nice, mellow weekend, though I hope we have better luck finding restaurants than our previous beach forays.

Following that, I’ll be flying out to Columbus, Ohio, probably on Monday for an interview on Tuesday, then back to RDU on Tuesday night. Then it’s driving off to Philadelphia on Thursday. Whee!

Hmm, things are getting uncomfortably warm upstairs – the thermostat is set at 76 and the temperature is 82. I’m going to run the fan for a bit to see if the coils have frozen up again (it’s happened before), otherwise it’s time to call in the professionals (or rather, have our roommate/landlord call in the professionals…)

Blame zenwolph for this one. His post reminded me of what was going on five years ago. I checked my archives and found this rather amusing post to alt.lifestyle.furry. It’s nice to see that all of the friends mentioned are still folks I’m reasonably close to, plus a brief mention of a certain wolf who would later become a wonderful part of my life.

Duncan discovers the joy of conventions

I just got a call from the recruiter – the company I interviewed with yesterday and they want me to fly up to Columbus for an interview on Tuesday, July 15. I’m guessing that means I’ll be flying out that Monday, interviewing Tuesday, flying back Tuesday night, packing Wednesday, and we drive to Anthrocon on Thursday. Woo!

Well, it’s not Chicago, but it’s closer than NC (and it’s definitely not Kansas City!). I had a phone interview with a company in Columbus, OH this morning – things seem pretty good, at least I think I’m through into the next stage of interviewing. Still have a call in to the recruiter for the Lafayette job to see what the heck they’re up to, but she’s out all week and I probably won’t hear back until Monday.

And so we slide into the holiday weekend with nothing much to show, but at least I’ll have my wuff with me. I’m really looking forward to Anthrocon – it will be a welcome change of pace. We won’t have much money to spend, but half the fun is finding creative ways to keep costs down. OK, we’ll splurge on the two cases of Starbucks Doubleshots, though…

Oh, and as Takaza mentioned, we’re looking for crash space just for the night somewhere between Richmond and DC the Wednesday before Anthrocon so we don’t have to get up waaaay too early Thursday and drive it in a straight shot. Also, if anyone’s interested in doing dinner on Thursday night at con, let us know!

The Carol Stream job didn’t come through. The search continues…

Check out the new and nifty Midwest Furfest website. Rustitobuck done good!

I ache.

Yesterday we had a blast. We left at around 8 AM with wildmouse, me_not_you, Thomas and Sherry for a van trip to the beach! We drove the 2.5 hours down to Fort Fisher State Recreation Area where we spent about four hours frolicking in the surf. Unfortunately, we were there right around low tide and at best it was only three-foot seas, but there was enough waves to make things fun. Donald, Janelle, Sherry and I did some fun surfing (I’m getting better at mastering the boogie board!) even though for the most part the water was only about 2-3 feet deep at that part of the beach. Thanks to Bullfrog I didn’t get too toasted, though of all places I missed getting sunscreen on the backs of my upper arms, so those are a little sore this morning. Also, as ever when you play in the surf, I got pretty beat up by the water – my neck and back are pretty sore, but it was worth it! Because of his ingrown toenail problem, takaza wasn’t able to join us in the surf, but he had a good time relaxing in the shade, chatting with Thomas, and listening to more of Harry Potter on his MP3 player. Afterwards, we had a quick tour of the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher (the jellyfish were attacking Janelle!), then dinner at The Oceanic in Wrightsville Beach. We’ve been invited to join Donald and Janelle down at Holden Beach in a few weeks and I’m really looking forward to the trip!

As for today, I’m still waiting to hear back from the company in Carol Stream. I have no certain date when I’m supposed to hear from them, but I was hoping it would be as early as last Friday or today. Given that it’s a short week, I’m really hoping all the decision-makers haven’t cleared out for the week! Other than that, I’ll be doing laundry and reading more of Harry Potter and the Funny Feeling You Get When You Lean Your Chair Back And Almost Fall, But Don’t.

Edit – 9:18 AM – Donald has posted pictures from the trip! I’ve sprinkled a few links in the above text to their pics as well.

Today’s Friday Five:
1. How are you planning to spend the summer?
Getting a damn job! But in the meantime, attending Anthrocon, going to the beach with friends, and generally trying to hang out and have a social life on the cheap.

2. What was your first summer job?
Hmm…I think it was making minimum wage bagging groceries at Kroger in Anderson, SC. It was a big deal when Kroger came to Anderson and it was supposed to be a super-spiffy store. Funny – Kroger left, it became a Bi-Lo, and now I think it closed.

3. If you could go anywhere this summer, where would you go?
I like the idea of a week or two auto tour of British Columbia. Though a few weeks driving around Europe would be fun, too.

4. What was your worst vacation ever?
That’s tough. I spent a summer in Palm Springs – I loved the company (my aunt and uncle and cousins) but Palm Springs is in the desert, you see. In the summer. We actually fried an egg on the sidewalk, just to prove we could. I tried riding a bike down to the bookstore, six blocks away. I discovered that the dry heat of the desert sneaks up on you – after a two blocks, I was damn near ready to die. I’ve tried to stay away from deserts since.

5. What was your best vacation ever?
My parents lived in France for a few years (in Annemasse, just across the border from Geneva, Switzerland), and I was able to spend the summer with them for a couple years running. The summers in France were fabulous – great food, beautiful scenery, and learning about European culture. I was able to travel around and see some of the most beautiful places in Europe – Amsterdam, Val d’Aosta, Lausanne, Chamonix, Lyon, and of course many days spent just wandering around Geneva.

Well, I’ve got kind of mixed feelings right now.

First off, the bad: Got a call this morning from the recruiter that has the Lafayette, IN job. While her client liked me and still wants to interview me, they have just installed a temporary hiring freeze. She doesn’t anticipate that it will last more than a month or so, but in the meantime any interviews with them go straight to the back burner. Crap. I’d hoped to have a good fallback position in case the Carol Stream job falls through, but I guess you work with what you’ve got.

On the brighter side, we have some good news: Supreme Court strikes down sodomy laws! This is good news on a number of fronts, and not even the most obvious ones (though it’s kind of nice not to have to be an unconvicted felon in the state of North Carolina anymore). Bowers vs. Hardwick (and its stepchild here in NC, the Crimes Against Nature Law) has been used as justification for everything from banning gays from the military to preventing even the mention of homosexuality in school curricula (except, of course, to mention that sodomy is against the law in the state of North Carolina) to barring adoption by same-sex couples. There’s going to be a lot of repercussions from this ruling and I think a lot of good is going to be done. For an excellent analysis of the Lawrence decision, check out this commentary by Yale Law School professor Jack Balkin.

Well, let’s see…the forecast for today – highs in the 90’s, sunny skies, humid, Code Red Ozone Alert, and the UV Index is at 10+ out of 10. Seems like a good day to stay inside.

Not a lot going on this week – just nervously waiting to hear back from various employers/recruiters. Had lunch over at wildmouse and me_not_you‘s house yesterday where we planned munchies for the weekend. On Sunday, a bunch of us are piling into a van way too early and driving down to Fort Fisher State Recreation Area just south of Wilmington for a day of fun on the beach, swimming in the ocean, and maybe visiting the aquarium. We’ll have a nice picnic lunch sometime in the afternoon, then later a tasty dinner at The Oceanic. Then it’s back into the van to be home before it gets too awfully late. Unfortunately, takaza won’t be able to join us swimming, since he had an ingrown toenail cut out yesterday. It didn’t look too bad when I helped him dress it this morning, but it’s still not something I’d want to go dipping into salt water (owowowowow!). It’s cool though – he can hang out with Thomas, who is of the non-swimming persuasion, and listen to more of the Harry Potter and the Order of Fries (or whatever) audiobook (it’s amazing how fast one can rip 23 CD’s!).

In the meantime I’ve got a good bit of cooking to do. Today I’m making a yummy Bolognese sauce (pasta sauce with tomatoes and meat) – if the recipe turns out well, I’ll post it. Then sometime before Sunday I need to make two loaves of bread (for the deli sandwiches), a batch or two of cinnamon scones, and a batch of chocolate chip/peanut butter chip cookies. That’s cool – I enjoy this kind of stuff. Oh, and somewhere in all of that I need to start in on reading Harry Potter and the Order of Hash Browns, Scattered, Smothered, and Covered that I acquired yesterday.

Incidentally, I’ve been listening to MusiKitty Radio for the past couple of mornings – a nice way to start the day. Interesting song in my current music, too – I never knew Bill Paxton was in a band, let alone working with folks from The B-52’s. Great track, rigelkitty!

Yesterday was fantastic, exactly what I was looking forward to. I woke up around 8 AM (wow, sleeping late for me!) and bummed around on the net until datahawk woke up around 9. Rustitobuck stumbled in not long after and we had an enjoyable, if completely unmotivated, morning of chatting and geeking on laptops. linnaeus showed up around noon and we went out for a late breakfast at Sammo’s, a nice little restaurant a block away from Rusty’s place.

After some regrouping, it was off for some geocaching with a nice tour of the area (3 finds, one miss since the clue required net access to solve – grrrr…). Afterwards, sylverfox joined us for a tasty dinner of grilled meats – brats, shrimp, chicken, and hamburgers. Throw in some baked potatoes on the side and it was delicious – Rusty is a grilling fiend with his George Foreman Grill! Innerwolf joined us as we were wrapping up, and we had a lot of fun sitting, chatting, and engaging in the requisite bit of SMOFfing. We got to bed around 12:30 AM, though with the after-lights-out chatting, we probably didn’t get to sleep until 1.

This morning I woke to dim light coming in around the window shades. I fumbled with my watch a bit, pressing a few wrong buttons until I found the one that turned on the backlight – 6:15 AM. Well, I wanted to leave at around 7:30, and since I was awake anyway, I went ahead and showered and finished packing up my stuff, then said my goodbyes to a very sleepy DataHawk. I stopped by the !Hen to get a Sunday Trib just as they were dropping them off – I thought it was oddly late for them to be bringing in the paper, but who knows? So I got my paper and guzzled my second DoubleShot, then got in the car.

When I started it, the clock in the car came on – 6:00 AM. Shit. When I was fumbling with my watch, I accidentally switched it back from Central Time to Eastern Time – I had actually gotten up at 5:15. Ugh. That means I got all of about 4 hours of sleep, which means come this afternoon I’m going to be dragging something fierce. Heck, I feel pretty sleepy now as I sit at the gate in O’Hare Airport writing this. Anyway, my flight starts boarding in about a half-hour and I’ll probably doze a bit on the plane. Only five hours until I see my wuff!

By the way, one neat thing from Friday night. Tincrash passed along three fabulous pictures he drew for Midwest Furfest – you can see one of them now on the Midwest Furfest home page. Really great stuff, fabulous detail, and a great use of the Roaring 20’s theme. Duncan-Bob sez check it out!

So yesterday was action-packed and fun, yay!

The interview seemed to go pretty well. I don’t think I said anything incredibly stupid and I seemed to establish a good rapport with my prospective supervisor, so that’s good. They have someone else coming in next Thursday to interview, then they’ll choose between us. Whichever gets chosen, goes on to Round Two: a full day’s interviewing at the company’s Connecticut headquarters. Once they pass that, (and word has it that if you make it that far you’re golden) there’s Round Three: a half-day interview with the company psychologist. This sounds pretty bizarre, but once it was explained to me I warmed to the idea: the interview focuses on behaviors and how you approach your work. The psychologist then reports back to your supervisor with what type of personality you are and what the best way to deal with you is. This also establishes a baseline, and after three months the psychologist meets with you and your supervisor and you discuss what’s gone right, what’s gone wrong, what needs improvement, and what your goals will be for the next year. Looking back at past jobs, I can say that if I’d had this kind of third-party intervention things would have been much, much better!

Still haven’t heard from the Lafayette job, by the way. They want me up to interview, but they haven’t given me a date. Gee, maybe they’ll only have one round of interviews – how refreshingly novel 🙂

Last night there was another Western Suburbs Dinner at an Irish restaurant in Schaumburg, not far from the MFF hotel. We had a tremendous turnout (deep breath):
datahawk, posicat, Fuzzbear, Tony, Max, tincrash, steviemaxwell, Tybis, Axle, Fox, butterscotchvix, hazardous_roo, linnaeus, rusitobuck, Colin, duncandahusky, hartree, crim_ferret, wyldekyttin, Firewing, damnbear, lthrbear, aureth, jenwolf, neowolf2, Innerwolf, ashmcairo, sylverfox, daveqat, Synicism, moryssa

Whew. Sorry if I missed anyone, but I think that’s everybody. The place was a bit louder and a bit smokier than I would have liked, but the food was tasty (and the cider on tap was divine!). I got to play “social butterfly” a bit and that was fun. Got to meet some folks I hadn’t seen before (howdy lthrbear!) and hang out with friends I hadn’t seen in too damn long. It was just another reminder of how we need to haul our butts back up to Chicago. We even talked a little MFF business, which was nice to get out of the way. My throat was a mess when we got home from the shouting over the noise and the smoke, but it was a great time.

Then there’s today – not much going on, and I like it that way. Hmm – past 11 AM and we have yet to get breakfast. Linnaeus had to go in to work this morning, but at this rate I’m thinking he may well be able to join us for some food once we get motivated. We’re planning on doing a bit of geocaching, and probably cooking up some dinner around here. A low-stress kinda day, and I like it that way!

Tomorrow, I fly out at 10 AM. Back to the arms of the wolf I love – I’m looking forward to that!

Well, that’s it! I’m all packed and ready to head out the door. Looks like I’ve got 29 confirmed names for dinner on Friday, with three maybes (hey, fuzzytoes – since you’re stranded in Battle Ground, you want to come up and join us?). I’ll probably reserve for 35 or so, just in case. I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but I’m so overprepared at this point it just shouldn’t matter. See many of y’all tomorrow night!

Oh, by the way – I grabbed some prepaid Internet access (heck, it’ll be useful at AC too), so I will have e-mail access tonight contrary to what I wrote earlier.

Been a while since I’ve done one of these…

A – Act your age? When appropriate, I suppose
B – Born on what day of the week? Sunday
C – Chore you hate? Landscaping. I love the result, I despise the effort.
D – Dad’s name? Charles Antony (though my name is Thomas Antoni – a mix-up in the birth certificate, I seem to recall)
E – Essential makeup item? Well, I don’t wear make-up, but for heaven’s sake deodorant is a sine qua non!
F – Favorite director? Hmm, that’s a toughie. A tossup between Sam Raimi and Kenneth Branagh
G – Gold or silver? Yes, please 🙂
H – Hometown? Hard to say – I’m lived all over, but right now I count Chicago as my hometown
I – Instruments you play? Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, I took piano and clarinet lessons. Unfortunately, I just didn’t have the knack…
J – Job title? Chemical engineer (process engineer or process development engineer, to be more specific)
K – Kids? Not now, not ever. Period.
L – Living arrangements? Living with my husband, Takaza – we’re currently renting from a friend, but plan to buy a house wherever my job takes us
M – Mom’s name? Catherine Susan (though everyone calls her Sue)
N – Number of people you’ve slept with? Six. I can honestly say I have no regrets.
O – Overnight hospital stays? The only one I recall is when I had reconstructive surgery on my ankle
P – Phobia? Arachnophobia (mild), ophidiophobia (not so mild)
Q – Quote you like? “Groovy.”
R – Religious affiliation? None. I was raised Roman Catholic, but I got better.
S – Siblings? One sister, lives with her family in St. Charles, MO
T – Time you wake up? 6 AM, usually whether I want to or not
U – Unique habit? I am a creature of habit, I need my routines every morning: e-mail, coffee, and newspaper, in that order
V – Vegetable you refuse to eat? Beets. Though Belgian endive is a close second. Everything else is great!
W- Worst habit? Worrying
X – X-rays you’ve had? Good grief, where haven’t I had an X-ray? Broke each arm twice, numerous ankle X-rays, abdominal X-rays…
Y – Yummy food you make? Heh. I make quite a few, but I really like my cinnamon rolls (hmm, I need to post the recipe for those…)
Z – Zodiac Sign? Aquarius, though I give that no credence whatsoever

I’m spending the week in anticipation of Thursday and Friday. The trip is going to be a good one, I’m sure, if only because I’ll be able to spend time with friends (though I know if I weren’t traveling this weekend, I’d be offering to go to Charlotte to help perro out!)

The biggest pain for me today is the fact that when I went to get replacement lenses for my glasses yesterday (the old ones were scratched), something wasn’t quite right. I attributed it to just getting used to the prescription, but it didn’t get any better – my right lens is fine, but everything is rather blurry in my left lens. This results in my depth perception being shot and I tend to get a headache after a while. I went back this morning and the doctor checked everything and came out rather red-faced. Apparently he had written 1.67 where he meant to write 0.67 on my prescription. Ack! They’re having some new lenses rush-delivered and they’ll be in by noon tomorrow, but in the meantime I can only work at the computer or watch TV for about an hour at a time, then I need to take a break. At least the problem will be fixed before I fly out, though!

So, to do before flying out: I’m reviewing a huge list of interview questions, just so I don’t get blindsided with anything. I also need to download some reading material on the company I’m interviewing with, as well as some background on the technology. Also need to print out some good info I found at SeatGuru.com on the best (or at least the not-worst) seats for some of the flights I’ll be on. Oh yeah, and pack, and try on my suit before packing it as well.

Gahh. Time to rest my eyes a bit…

The biggest problem with a sudden spate of great news (like I had earlier this week) is that there’s quite a letdown afterwards when you realize that’s all you get. It’s that feeling kids get after they’ve unwrapped the last Christmas present and realize there’s no more…

Anyway, Brophey and Rasslor are coming up tonight to possibly do a bit of furniture shopping in High Point. One thing’s for sure: when they get here, there will be a gelato run! We’ll also be conducting a bit of con-related business when we accompany them shopping tomorrow – hopefully that will garner more good stuff for MFF.

Theoretically, I’m supposed to be cleaning up the place today, but I just can’t seem to get motivated. At least the laundry and making the beds is out of the way. Well, there’s always LiveJournal for procrastination. I should go down and start dusting and cleaning the counters, then it’s on to sweeping and vacuuming, what fun! Domesticity isn’t pretty, but I’d rather live in a clean(er) house! And with that, it’s off to clean, yay.

Thursday, June 19, 2003
Depart RDU @ 12:20 PM (one stop at CLT)
Arrive ORD @ 3:13 PM

Friday
Interview begins at 9 AM
Western Suburbs Dinner at 8 PM at The Curragh, Schaumburg, IL

Saturday
No plans yet. This is sure to change 🙂

Sunday
Depart ORD @ 10:00 AM (one stop at DCA)
Arrive RDU @ 3:20 PM

I need to get the other company on the phone and see about making plans for them to fly me up as well.