I got the job!

Thank you so much to everybody who's been pulling for me and supporting me with good wishes and much twisting of digits.

More later. Right now I'm too delerious to type. :-)

Posted by: Jim at 10:01 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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Interview number 2 went smashingly well. It was three on one and very convivial. I may hear as early as today whether I get the job or not.

I'm terribly excited. This is a dream job and a fantastic opportunity.

Please pray, cross fingers, or bargain with the Devil (as appropriate).

Posted by: Jim at 10:37 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Just got the eagerly awaited call from my headhunter. I've got the second interview set up for first thing Friday morning.

I'm all a-twitter!

Posted by: Jim at 10:49 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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The interview went well. Very well. Really, really well.

Except for one little bit. Say there were 10 categories, I aced 9 of them. I mean totally aced and annihilated. That last one smacked me right in the gobber though.

They use a client/server application built on a .NET framework. I have exactly zero experience with this particular bit of computerdom so I've just acquired several .NET books and am getting a head start on my learning curve.

I also let the interviewer know what I'm doing and informed him that I'm similarly aggressive with other workspace challenges.

Did I do good? We'll find out some time next week.

UPDATE: Yeah, I did look like all of that and a bag of chips in my new suit. No pictures as I was in a bit of a rush this morning. If I get the job I promise photos of me wearing various parts of it at the celebration party.

Posted by: Jim at 11:37 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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It's getting ready to make me look good for my interview on Monday.

Wish me luck, y'all!

Posted by: Jim at 06:35 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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The picture is in the extended entry, to spare the innocence of Harvey my tender readers. more...

Posted by: Jim at 10:47 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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We had dinner at Trey's place last night. All of us. That is, Lovely Wife and I plus three (count them: 1 - 2 - 3) children ages five and under.

Trey has a very nice house. It's new. He is a very, very brave man.

Dinner was fantastic. Sangria and veggie dip started us out. Ever have sangria? I was a sangria virgin and I quite enjoyed it. Lemon juice, sugar and red wine (in the correct proportions) make a light and refreshing drink. This one might become part of our regular repertoire.

The meal was centered around chicken Creole and it was to die for. I had chicken Creole dreams last night. No joke. Damn, that was good. more...

Posted by: Jim at 06:54 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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The storm was pretty impressive and the aftermath was unexpected. In our neighborhood alone there are eight or so trees down. That's in a neighborhood of around 30 houses. On our side of the street there is a string of houses that lost trees in a domino effect, one tree falling and hitting another and then again and again.

Two houses to the right had their house hit by a tree, damaging the roof. Fortunately it was a branch hit and not a trunk hit so the damage isn't too severe and nobody got hurt.

Three houses down the other way they were saved from a direct hit by the slightest of margins. A very large oak fell into a pine and the pine held it. It's bent over at a fifteen degree angle holding the oak up. When it lets loose, both will be hitting their house. They are looking into options now.

We got through with no house damage. There are lots of branches down all over the lawn but all of our trees held up this time.

We did lose a freezer full of food though and that bites. We even went out and bought more coolers so we would be able to put all of our chilled goods on ice. Unfortunately it just took too long for Georgia Power to get us back online and it had all defrosted.

Being without power was frustrating but also enjoyable. Flashlights doubled as strobe lights for an impromptu kids' dance party, neighbors congregated and shared storm stories, there was far more consumption of alcohol than normal and we all figured out how to wipe our asses by candlelight.

Good times.

Posted by: Jim at 12:12 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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We got pounded pretty well by Ivan's bastard offspring. Trees are down all over the neighborhood. We lost some sizeable branches but all of ours stayed up. Yay!

We have no power until tomorrow at the earliest. UPS power is failing and I need to save some for Lovely Wife so I'm outtie. Talk to y'all tomorrow.

Posted by: Jim at 03:48 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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We started teaching Bear to read last Monday. Today he read the sentence above.

He should be blogging by next Wednesday.

Posted by: Jim at 10:05 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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She's wondering if she's sick enough. My Papa used to say "If you're sick enough to notice, you're sick enough to stay home". Or was it "If you're sick enough to notice, you're sick enough to drink a half gallon of my home-pressed vegetable juice cocktail".

I have a disturbing feeling it was that second one.

Posted by: Jim at 09:55 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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She speaks from the heart.

Posted by: Jim at 01:06 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Then you're probably either leading too much or you are jerking the trigger. Squeeze it slowly.

Yes, I do realize just how naughty "jerking the trigger" and "squeeze it slowly" sound. I'm like that.

Anyway, we went to the Yellow Daisy Festival at Stone Mountain yesterday. Biggest arts & crafts show in Georgia. 450+ vendors, yadda, yadda, yadda. Me and 5 cops may have been the only males there out of the 10,000 people in attendance. I swear it was worse than a Sarah McLachlan concert. I was on my best behavior but occasionally I would tremble and collapse into a fetal position, just to be on the safe side.

Good times. Good times.

Posted by: Jim at 10:30 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Nicky is very inexperienced and somewhat at a loss about how to go about things, especially without the generally required equipment. He ends up 'mounting' whatever end of Kota that he happens to be located nearest.

It gives new meaning to the term "Fucked in the head".

Posted by: Jim at 10:42 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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As you know, Kota (aka Scarface) is in her first heat. She's a bit 'off' in the head but seems to be handling things okay. Nicky on the other hand, is not. Nicky is nutless in a literal sense but he is still responding to the pheromones/hormones/whatever that Kota is putting out.

He keeps trying to hump her.

It's such a sad and pathetic scene. He has as much experience with female dogs in heat as Kota has being one. That is, none. He can't do anything productive since he has no balls. She's so much bigger than he is (labrador vs. terrier) that it's almost comical to watch. Perhaps the funniest thing is that Kota doesn't even pay attention to him. He'll try to grab on and go to town and she'll just lie there playing with a toy or whatever she was doing until she gets up and walks away leaving him with a sad and bewildered look on his face.

I was laughing (quietly, so as not to further humiliate the dog) at this yesterday when I had a disturbing thought. Nicky is incapable of doing what he wants to do. He is following deep rooted commands that are a part of his very being, he has no option not to keep trying to do what he can never do correctly. He is acting and reacting based solely on how he has been conditioned and bred to act and react. No matter how stupid he looks or how much people laugh at him or what an ass he makes of himself he will not stop until the conditions that are prompting him are removed.

Nicky is John Kerry, Kota is the USA and her heat is the election cycle. Is that spooky or what?

Posted by: Jim at 09:18 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Bear: Daddy, can I punch you?

Me: No. That should be "May I punch you".

Bear: Daddy, may I punch you?

Me: Sure, buddy.

I'm all about the grammar.

Posted by: Jim at 04:21 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 I'm glad you're teaching the boys the important things in life!

Posted by: Susie at September 07, 2004 07:53 PM (aGSjc)

2 ..and as an editor, I applaude your priorities Jim

Posted by: goldie at September 07, 2004 11:13 PM (QjWqo)

3 And they say kids aren't learning anything these days.

Posted by: Simon at September 08, 2004 04:05 AM (GWTmv)

4 Another argument in favor of home schooling, I'd say.

Posted by: RP at September 08, 2004 07:49 AM (LlPKh)

5 You sound like my dad. Although he was more into throwing us into the air.

Posted by: Chellee at September 12, 2004 12:54 AM (KCV5G)

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The Scene: A cook-out at the Peacock house (slow cooked beef ribs, chicken breasts and bun length hot dogs). Sounds of bad karaoke float over the hills from a neighbor's house.

Dopple-G: What is that noise? Is somebody else having a party?

Lovely Wife: It's some karaoke or wedding singer or something. He was doing Dido last night.

Jim: There's nothing quite so sad as an off-key tenor singing Dido.

Dopple-G: The problem with wedding singers is they all sing the exact same songs. They need to expand their repertoire, put in some songs that rock. You know what they really need? They need to sing some...

Trey and Jim: (Interjecting simultaneously) Metallica.

Dopple-G: ...Metallica.

The spooky part here is that to the best of my recollection Trey and I hadn't ever gotten* into a discussion about music in general or Metallica in particular. Are we just both warped in the same fashion or did we both just read Dopple-G that well?

Either way I think we've successfully addressed two things here. First, we're obviously a natural team so the Flying Pig party isn't going to be subject to the divisive inter-party sniping that plagues the big parties. Second, Bread Fan will make an excellent replacement for Hail to the Chief.

* I really hate "gotten". Yes I know it's a real word and yes it is used correctly here but I really, really don't like that word. I use it now in self flaggelation just in case I've got some karmic debt that I don't know about.

Posted by: Jim at 11:27 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Besides getting the heave-ho from work there was a bit of other drama here yesterday. Nicki got out wandering (he's our older dog). Kota was out too (9-month old lab, in case you don't remember). Kota is always out when the kids are out because she sticks by them and protects them from evil neighbors, ice cream men and other suburban menaces. Nicki isn't supposed to be out because he is a dumbass and because Kota will follow him around.

Nicki ran across the street in front of a pick-up truck. Kota was following him. Nicki may or may not have been hit - no injuries in any case. Kota was lucky that the driver stopped the truck so fast but she still got tagged. She's got a 2 inch patch of fur and skin scraped off of her face on the orbit of her left eye and the same on her chin. I treated the wounds and Lovely Wife put a bandage on the big wound.

She's okay and none of the injuries are health threatening. She sure is timid now though - I hope she gets her spunky nature back soon. Also, she looks like a complete dumbass and that can't be good for her self esteem:

(Click for biggie size)

That's Don Juan de Burger relaxing on top of her. Notice the underwear too? That's one of Bacon's night time pants. She started her first heat just now too.

Lovely Wife went out and got her some very sexy dog lingerie to hold her maxies so she's not in pull-ups any more. No pictures of that due to threats from PETA.

Posted by: Jim at 11:14 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Dopple-G made it. Barely. His group was cut 70%.

Turns out they aren't going without QA on my product, they're going without QA on his. The new QA person for my product is somebody from his group who will be retrained for my group. Actually she worked on mine years ago before there was another product so it is literal retraining for her. She has many years more seniority than I do so I can't really fault the decision.

Many many thanks to everybody who has chimed in with support. I owe a couple of you responses on things I couldn't answer off the top of my head and today quickly got too crazy to look for the correct info.

I am very gratefully consuming the beers that were sent to me via PayPal. Muchos gracias to Susie and Harvey. By the way Harvey - Susie one upped you. She bought me two beers. ;-)

To the several who have expressed regret at not being able to help financially - please do not worry about that. Between our finances and the severance pittance from the Collective we are okay for now. I very much appreciate the sentiment though.

Posted by: Jim at 07:14 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Got some very big news just a short while ago. The Borg corporate realignment plan has been completed. Apparently assimilation isn't inevitable after all.

I've lost my job, y'all. Effective about two hours ago.

Posted by: Jim at 09:22 AM | Comments (30) | Add Comment
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1 Man, that just sucks! I really feel for you and I hope your job search is short.

Posted by: candy at August 31, 2004 09:55 AM (2HdCA)

2 I'm so sorry sweetie. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

Posted by: Tiffani at August 31, 2004 10:29 AM (xpNFK)

3 Very not cool. Perhaps those leads from a couple of weeks ago still have hope... Wishing you the Best!

Posted by: Clancy at August 31, 2004 10:37 AM (EGVPL)

4 Jim, move your paypal link up 'above the fold' on your index page. It's perfectly ok in a case like this.

Posted by: spacemonkey at August 31, 2004 10:49 AM (DN55C)

5 Oh, f**k. Still got that head hunter's number, right? I have no contacts in the Atlanta area I can think of off the top of my head, but you can bet I'll go away and think about it. *Keeping my fingers crossed real tight*

Posted by: RP at August 31, 2004 11:10 AM (LlPKh)

6 ouch. Well you did say you got a call from some head hunters not too long ago.. But if you want another head hunter - look up Teksystems.

Posted by: pylorns at August 31, 2004 12:03 PM (FTYER)

7 Oh Holy freaking bag of dog crap. Are you serious? What - I mean - WHAT THE HELL?? I got vodka. I got Hershey's kisses. Need vodka? Or Hershey's Kisses? Damn.

Posted by: Elizabeth at August 31, 2004 12:24 PM (YCUSR)

8 that sucks. sorry to hear that Jim, ill say a prayer that you find a better job. i know you will, so hang in there.

Posted by: annika at August 31, 2004 12:48 PM (zAOEU)

9 NOOOOOOOOO! Oh god, baby, I am so damn sorry I could stab people with pens. I am so sorry. Can I do anything? SKittles? Care packages? Anything?

Posted by: Helen at August 31, 2004 01:12 PM (up+eF)

10 Man, that sucks. Sucks. The. Big. Hind. Tit. I'm sorry about that.

Posted by: Chance McChance at August 31, 2004 01:25 PM (F2N1M)

11 Sorry to hear about this. I hope you find something new soon and it proves to be better. Good luck!

Posted by: Mick at August 31, 2004 01:29 PM (VhRca)

12 I'm sending a virtual beer via PayPal

Posted by: Harvey at August 31, 2004 02:13 PM (tJfh1)

13 What a nightmare! My condolences. Great good luck to you, Jim.

Posted by: Amber at August 31, 2004 02:47 PM (zQE5D)

14 :-( Sorry to hear it, Jim.

Posted by: Jennifer at August 31, 2004 02:55 PM (suGOt)

15 shoot. I am so sorry. I know the feeling. Praying that something better and with better pay comes along and quickly.

Posted by: Rachel Ann at August 31, 2004 03:03 PM (uvNCe)

16 Sorry to hear about this, Jim. What is your profession?

Posted by: Linda at August 31, 2004 05:58 PM (9Pzdi)

17 Ah crap.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 31, 2004 06:36 PM (+S1Ft)

18 Rat bastards. I think I may know a few recruiters in your industry. I'll whore your resume around if ya want.

Posted by: Tiffan6 at August 31, 2004 08:07 PM (5Tm0V)

19 sorry that really rots. wish i could help - but wrong state... good luck...sending good thoughts - (thru RP)

Posted by: kbear at August 31, 2004 08:43 PM (IAJcf)

20 Stupid evil corporate machine. Hang in there. Hope this is a minor bump along the road to lots of happiness and success.

Posted by: Spirit Fingers at August 31, 2004 08:56 PM (vj/ef)

21 Well that pretty much sucks rocks. Here's wishing you & your family the strength to get through it all. Take really good care of each other, and get yourself a fantastic new gig. Paul

Posted by: Light & Dark at August 31, 2004 09:30 PM (eT6wp)

22 I'm always the last to know everything, but then that's my own damn fault. Jim, I'm real real sorry, particularly as they had seemed to hold out hope of keeping you there for a bit. I swear to God corporations are the biggest damn teases out there. Happy for Garret. Sad for you. Will see about buying you beer in the hopes that more free time = more drunken movie reviews for all your fans.

Posted by: ilyka at August 31, 2004 09:38 PM (9tAVD)

23 ::: eating M&Ms like a madwoman ::: DAMNIT! If there's anything I can do. . .

Posted by: Emma at August 31, 2004 09:48 PM (MAdsZ)

24 That completely sucks. Let us know if we can do anything at all.

Posted by: Simon at August 31, 2004 10:37 PM (GWTmv)

25 Remind me again -- what is your field? After all, Houston is a booming area, and I suspect I may know a few people.

Posted by: ThePrecinctChair at September 01, 2004 12:15 AM (42ccT)

26 well, that just sucks now doesn't it. Good luck hon. I'm sending some of my karma points your way!

Posted by: goldie at September 01, 2004 06:06 AM (/ciHr)

27 That is just a bummer. My husband was downsized about a year and a half ago. He spent the first year of it back in school - now he's looking. Hope your job search goes well.

Posted by: Teresa at September 01, 2004 03:03 PM (nAfYo)

28 Prayers going your way Jim.

Posted by: Nick Queen at September 01, 2004 04:01 PM (MO4LU)

29 don't get sad, just vote!

Posted by: piggy at September 01, 2004 04:08 PM (vJk6k)

30 Shit. I'm late on this one, J-Snooze. I'm so sorry to hear about this bad news. Hopefully, this will open the door to many wonderful opportunities!

Posted by: DeAnna at September 01, 2004 06:13 PM (IdVP4)

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