February 2002 Archives

Just have to give a shout out to Scott. After languishing for weeks below the 100 mark, he's finally posted his 100th review on ADDmovies.com. Congratulations, little trooper!

Posted on February 2, 2002 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wow. Apparently the Patriots won the Super Bowl. I didn't watch a bit of the game at all, but I'm shocked. It's nice to know they won one. I remember back in 1986 when they were in the Super Bowl against the Bears. There was so much hype for it back then. They even had that silly "New England, the Patriots, and We" song... and a video to go with it, if I remember correctly. Even I watched the game then. Or at least half of the game. After the first half, I think we all gave up on the Pats.

But anyhow... this is redemption somehow, I'm sure.

Posted on February 4, 2002 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm not dead yet!

Just nothing really going on to talk about. One happy thing. Just by filling out a survey, I won a free software title. Yippee! Unfortunately, the only good ones on the list were ones I already had. So I just picked one I thought I could sell for decent money and settled for that.

Oh. And I also did my taxes. Though I owe the state $43, I'm getting over $1800 back from the feds, so I'll last a bit longer with this unemployment thang, at least. This is a good thing.

Posted on February 9, 2002 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A few days ago, Sarah and I took our first trip to the new Trader Joe's in Reston. It was actually rather cool. We picked up some crumpets, which I'd never had before. Among some other things we got, I also picked up a couple boil-in-a-bag Indian foods. Some lentil dish and a potato dish. The lentils were surprisingly yummy and cooked up in 3 minutes. Great for a nice, quick meal, over some basmati rice.

I went back recently to try to grab some shelled, roasted, salted pistachios for Sarah, but they were all out. They only had the unsalted kind. Fortunately, the trip wasn't wasted, since they had some challah there that looked very tasty.

Kinda nice to have an occasional alternative to the Giants and Safeways of the northern Virginia area.

Posted on February 11, 2002 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Paul's recent post hit fairly close to home for me. For quite some time now, I've struggled to figure out what to do with my life. It can be difficult to get what you want when you don't know what it is. There tend to be fairly standard paths towards achieving most career goals, but when you don't know what you're shooting for in the end, it's difficult. Computer science was something I was fairly good at and comfortable with and it promised a fairly well-paying job when I got out of college. I don't know if it's the job I had or the career path in general, but it's certainly not what I'd call fulfilling. I've pondered various things I have any interest in whatsoever and I've usually completely failed to find any way of making a living doing any of it. Not exactly what I'd call encouraging. Ah well... I'm sure it'll come to me eventually. At the moment, I'd just like a job that lets me continue living here, thank you.

Posted on February 11, 2002 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, I'm still here. Just been quiet and busy lately. I've been back at Sarah's school doing some work for them, so I've gotten a bit of extra money. We also went to Ohio for the long weekend, so I wasn't around to post then, either. The rest of the time... well... you probably don't wanna know what I was doing anyhow.

I had a job interview today, though. A small company out in McLean. They do linguistic software. Sounded like a neat place. There will be a second, technical interview for me if they liked me enough. Hopefully they did. I don't interview well and I tend to suddenly forget what it was I did in my prior job and such. But... we'll see.

Give me job. Give me job now. Give me?

Posted on February 20, 2002 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Well... I got called back for a second interview with that place I interviewed at last week. It's today at 1:30 and hopefully it'll go well. This one's a more technical interview. As I tend to freeze up in interviews and practically forget my own name, I hope it'll still go well. This may not be my dream job or anything, but at the moment, I'm not feeling too picky. Maybe after this, I'll go see a career counsellor or something. I have too many minor and, often, fleeting interests to try to figure out what else I might like to do with my life.

Posted on February 26, 2002 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, my day didn't go so wonderfully today. I got up in plenty of time for my interview, which was good. But then it all went downhill from there.

First off, I left at a decent time for my interview. Then as I was passing the mailbox, I thought I'd check the mail, so I reached for my keys. Which weren't there. I'd actually managed to lock myself out of my apartment, something I've never ever done. So I ran over to the apartment office and the door was locked. Luckily, I saw one of the managers coming up the sidewalk, so I got her to give me the keys to my apartment. I managed to make it to the interview with just 10 minutes to spare.

But I don't think the interview went too well. I guess my knowledge has been sort of dulled by a reliance on tools. I usually look stuff up that I need to know. And there are other things I just take for granted, so I've forgotten. They were simple questions that I didn't answer correctly. And I also was so nervous that my little sample bit of programming that he had me do was screwed up. But... I don't know... maybe they'll take my nervousness into account. Supposedly I'll be told on Monday whether I got the job or not.

The one bit of good news is that I got a call from AOL. Unfortunately, I missed the phone call and when I called back 5 minutes later, the guy was gone. So I'll try tomorrow. I know AOL isn't a great service, but... it's close by, it's a big company so I'll hopefully get decent money and benefits, and I'm sure they're more stable now that they've merged with Time Warner and all that. But who knows? Hopefully I'll get an interview with them. Since I'm still so unsure about what I want to do for the rest of my life, it might be nice to take something that pays well and all. So... we'll see.

Could've been a better day, though, that's for sure.

Posted on February 26, 2002 9:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)