"Obey the Fist!"

Been a while since last I made a post here. Not much reason, just didn't feel like it. On an unrelated topic I no longer work for Apple. In fact I haven't worked for Apple since...well since around the last time I made a post for this page. June 1st or so.

Ya, I've been unemployed for about 3 weeks already. Three weeks, in which I did very little, including seeking some other form of employment. After 10 months of no vacation this was nice. I was starting to get a bit bored though.

As timing would have it June 1st was the long-scheduled day my family had set to go up to a cabin we own the National Forest. Doesn't matter which one, it's a National Forest. Seems my great-great-something-or-other had some land before there were national forests. Land that was taken away then sold back to them at 30 cents an acre or so (I don't know the details). So we have a cabin and several acres in a national forest even now. Anyway despite the loss of my job I went up to the cabin.

Took around 4 hours to get up there all-told. Just my Dad, one Grand parent and some cousins. It's been years since I've been either camping or to this cabin in particular. Sure was different than my accustomed call center and city life that I've been in for so long. It's deep enough in the forest there's like nature and it's everywhere. The environmentalists, at least is seems to me, have implied such places don't exist, at least not in a heavily populated state like California. Obviously, they haven't been any where near where our cabin is. Too busy ranting and raving at their local Star Bucks perhaps?

Anyway there's a relatively new man-made fishing pond up there now filled with some fish that are much better for catch-and-release then for eating. So my cousins and I did some fishing in that pond. It was slow in the morning but once a shadow covered up the whole pond the fish went into hyper-hunger-mode and took any piece of bait that came into the water, immediately. At one point no sooner than a line hit the water there was a fish on it. I mean sure to some this would be an ideal fishing scenario but after the first 20 or so it becomes about as sporting as catching no fish.

The third day up there several of us went down to a special creek we've been fishing in for years. It was only about 20 miles away but on the logging roads it took about an hour to get there. You remember that nature I mentioned? I could hardly believe it. To further the tone set by the immediate fish-on-line in the pond as soon as both my cousin and I cast in to the creek we had a fish on. Actually it took about three casts. Still much faster then expected from the creek. First my cousin caught one and got it reeled on to the bank. From my experience at the pond and the stupid fish repeatedly swallowing the hook I had become quite practiced in removing a hook from a fish's mouth. I had already cast so I handed my pole to my cousin while I worked on removing the hook. My cousin started to reel my line in a little to check where it was and re-cast when she noticed my line also had a fish on it. Finally I got her fish off the hook and then got to my line. My fish was a little smaller but a fish no less. Both were trout to boot.

From there I tried to figure out a better vantage point to fish from. One thing I learned if there's light on the water any where near I am the fish seem to be able to sense my precence but any kind of shadow and they're apparently oblivious. So I went up-stream a little ways from my cousin and continued to fish while seeking a new location. A little patience and I caught another one. This one was much smaller and like all the rest swallowed my damn hook. By the time I got the hook out it wasn't doing a lot of moving (trout aren't as tough as the fish in the pond) so I decided to keep it.

When we got back to the cabin I learned we were under orders to keep any and all fish caught irregardless of size. I wasn't aware of this but I was glad I kept it. My Dad also caught a fish but it was closer to "bait" really. Looked like a sardine or something, such a small minnow. Used to be I wouldn't catch any thing and he'd catch all the fish. Maybe I was just lucky this trip, I don't know.

Now that I've bored you with my camping trip I'll get on to what I've done since then.

Nothing.

Well, that was much shorter.

Ok I've done a little. I started working again on a story I had started nearly two years ago. A story I had planned to make into a Neverwinter Nights module. I had made it some-what far before but once I got back from camping I just working on it every day. Five days in a row more specifically. That also has since started to slow down.

Haven't played a lot of video games though. Much to the chagrin of my long-time videogame-playing friends I've only met via Internet chat programs.

I've also been reading a really good book. A series of books actually: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: The Un-Believer. Don't be surprised if you've never heard of it, for some reason few have. I really like the writing style of the author, the carefully planned story arc that takes place over three novels and the way in which the author gradually fills in the blanks of the other novels for people who aren't reading one book after the other like I am. And the stories really do blend from one into the next fluidly.

Now these aren't out-right rip-offs of the Lord of the Rings books but there are one or two passing similarities. Lets face it, the Lord of the Rings books are like the Latin of fantasy novels; e.g. subsequent original works have almost all had some derivation to some degree or another. Still, the story revolving largely around a ring? One special wielder of the power of the ring? A disembodied evil the good of the Land must defend against and defeat against all odds? A trek to a mountain to face the disembodied evil's primary minion wielding a powerful staff?

It is original though. The main character starts in the "real world" and is a leper. The first couple chapters of the first book is an extremely well written introduction to this as well as some background to explain what it is to be a leper what it's like to deal with having leprosy. And when the main character is sucked into the alternative universe (or whatever) he's more-or-less like a Hans Solo type character stuck in a Lord of the Rings like world. On top of which he's been taught as a leper no have no hope and do nothing that could jeopardize his health and above all else leave no room for hope as the feeling in the extremities of his body will never, ever return.

Personally I enjoyed the second book more than the first. The main character does whine a lot about being a leper, being weak and not being where he wants to be. The second book was split into 3 parts like the second Lord of the Rings book. So the second third doesn't even have the main character. I'm not sure if that's despite or because the main character wasn't in that third. In any event I highly recommend the series. The author as since produced a second trilogy of novels and a seventh, I assume, finale to the whole premise/universe.

That brings us up to this week. On Monday I filled out and emailed a resume, questionnaire and application to a company. This company I actually already inverviewed with about 2 1/2 years ago and I almost landed; or so I thought. Since I'm that much more experienced I thought at the very least I could get another interview for another chance. And, not surprisingly, someone from that company did call me on Tuesday and set a time for an interview for today at 10am. Then the same woman called back Tuesday night an cancelled. Seems I didn't do well enough on some test they gave me 2 1/2 years ago. Would have been nice to re-test but whatever.

So then yesterday some staffing service/head hunter/whatever calls me up and offers me this other position for a company on a contract basis. So I tell him I'm interested and that I'd prefer today/friday for the interview. As I always did when looking for a job a year ago I drove out to the location yesterday to make sure I could find it. Well I couldn't find it because I got the wrong address or wrote it done incorrectly. So I called them back and got the right address. See? That's why I find these places ahead of time. But I digress.

The interview was set for today, Friday, at 10am: ironically the same time as the other place had decided on then cancelled entirely.

Takes, on a good day and around 9am, about a half hour to get to the office. I go and talk to two guys for around an hour. I feel like I really did more listening to them then I did talking about myself. I did listen carefully to what I would be doing and the expectations I had and did my best to seem like I was capable. The second guy gave me a few different technical support scenarios that wiggled through. The first was a startup issue with a Windows computer. I asked a few questions and eventually got him into safe mode. Then asked him more about recent changes. Eventually it came down to a automatically running windows update for an imaginary video driver that was causing the issue. So we used add/remove programs to take the driver out. Of course this was completely imaginary as the second guy was both the computer and end user and just kind of gave me the results as he went through.

The second scenario was about networking and a single PC that wasn't getting on the Internet. Came down to a configuration with MAC addresses on the NAT/router that I wasn't really familiar with but I more or less demonstrated my technical knowledge. The last scenario was I guess a problem this second had run into a week ago with a modem a remote user was trying to get to receive calls so the computer could be remotely administered. This one I went step-by-step through until I got to one of the major steps this interviewer may have overlooked: connecting a phone to the same wall jack the computer was connected to. After that it was a whole analog versus digital phone line and even using a fax machine to make sure it was all working. That whole PAIR process I remember from Apple is already working for me. As it turns out the computer in question had two modems: an internal and USB. I guess the phone line was going to the wrong one.

As I said the two interviewers did a lot more of the talking than I did. Perhaps this also a bi-product of working in a call center: good listening skills. In case I just received a call back from recruiter's place and this company has actually hired me. One interview and I'm hired. That's fannnntasic. So I now get to like get up early every morning and for on stuff during the day and complain about traffic and shit when I get home. Looking forward to it! I feel like I should do something wild and/or crazy in the mean time as a last vestige of vacation before it's all over. I'll finish the book! Man, I need to find something more exciting than that. Two books? Networking books? Meh.  ¶ 3:24 PM