Zero to Tuesday in 4 Days

Last weekend I attended the Surrey Writers' Conference. It was awesome, but non-stop. My friend from Calgary also attended. He arrived Thursday and stayed at my place. We basically spent every waking moment from Friday to Sunday afternoon at the Conference. Writing can be quite a solitary thing so it's mild boggling to find yourself in a room with 500 people who not only do it but encourage others to do it, too. Some of them even make a living at it.

Monday was the interview. The first half went really well. After going overtime I was asked if I had a few more minutes to speak with the CIO. Not sure how I did with him. Spent yesterday in a state of Woody Allen neuroticism second guessing my answers. Not pretty. Be glad you're not the one I called with the greeting, "I'm so depressed, cheer me up."

Back to the interview 2 weeks ago. It can be a small town and I found out via the grape vine the position I interviewed had been filled. The guy I interviewed with finally called to let me know officially. I didn't let on I already knew. I'm still up for a second position there, but it's a different manager. I won't have the same "in" with him as I did with this guy.

Now I'm just grumpy. The final project for my Tech Writing class is due this coming Monday. This class has the dumbest assignments I've seen since Tech School. The final project is documenting how to fold an origami crane. This project needs pictures, there's no way around it. According to what we've learned in the class if this were a real world thing we'd get in someone who specialized in this. Instead, I get to waste hours fritzing around with a camera to try to come up with something. Sorry, I have a life. In fact, it's calling me now!

Later.

Message in a Bottle

When I was a kid I always thought it would be cool to put a message in a bottle. The thought that someone might find it and reply made my imagination go wild.

I'm beginning to think the adult version of this is job hunting! Ok, it's not as free form but it has all the suspense. In my case, I stuff my cover letter and resume into an email or envelope and cast it into the corporate HR river. Will my message in a bottle navigate the treacherous HR rapids? If it does, will person hiring toss it or call me?

What got me on to this? I just got an interview out of an application I submitted a month ago. Poor guy, he got 300 resumes. This brings my application to interview ratio up to 21%. That's going to drop real quick, though. I have 4 more bottles about ready to cast upon the waters.

Security Deposit

Well, it's done. I'm registered for the CISSP security certification exam and they have my money. One does not enter into this kind of thing lightly. Among other things it costs $450 US (~$720 CDN). It's a 6 hour, 250 question exam. It gets scheduled in different cities based on god knows what criteria. Fortunately a local one is scheduled for November. Yeah, no travel is involved. I get to toss and turn in my own bed the night before. (I don't sleep before exams.)

At least I won't be going it alone, other members of my study group are enrolling. I'm sure much beer will be consumed afterwards.

The job interview went well. The fellow interviewing me knew me already. He worked for a company that maintained the computer equipment at a previous job. Sure saved a lot of time in the interview! Things are looking pretty positive, though it's not in the bag by any sense of the imagination.

Wish the assignment from my techincal writing class was going as well. This thing really sucks. The problem is I know too much about the topic (computers). If someone suggested the particular procedure I'm supposed to write up in my shop I'd kick their dumb ass out the door. Then there's the usually ambiguity that shows up in an assignment that doesn't show up in a real work place. Any way, this thing is taking way longer to write than it should, and my time budget is blown out the window. So much for getting more job applications done today. At least I got my walk in before the rain started so the day isn't a total loss.

Surrey Writer's Conference next week and my friend from Calgary is coming to attend. Next weekend is going to be really busy but it's going to be a blast!

It's still hard to believe how quickly time flies. October. Where the hell did September go?

I've now been an unemployed bum for about 3 1/2 months. That's the official number. I took the first 2 months off, more or less. First real job application went in the 3rd week of August so I feel like I've been a bum for a month and half. Started out of the gate pretty strong. 2 interviews for 8 applications. Sadly I haven't maintained that rate. When I looked over my notes I discovered I hadn't really applied for as many jobs as I'd thought, either. Oh, I knew how many jobs I'd applied for, but somehow it didn't seem like so much time had gone by so it's the jobs/week ratio that's a little low. Memory is a funny thing, sometimes. Then there was the whole terrorist thing that caused a bit of a slow down.

Really kicked ass with the applications last week. It paid off and I have an interview on Thursday. It's even with an interesting company. Yeah.

My security study group is now half way through the material. 5 weeks down, 5 to go. It sounds so weird saying "my" study group. I did organize it, but thought of it as more of a co-op. Most of the members refer to it as "Dale's group" or the "group Dale leads", so I'm just going with the flow. Anyway, some of the stuff is beginning to stick. I can spout even more bullshit words than I could before! Don't get me wrong, the material is interesting. It's just a little removed from the trenches. It's all well and good to know that Unix or Windows NT systems can meet the requirements for a C2 rating under the DOD Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria or that Kerberos is based on symetric encryption but it still doesn't mean you know how to make a system secure. Still, if I pass the exam I'll have initials that only 5000 or so other people in North America can stick behind their name.

Books (Started):
Belgarath the Sorcerer - David & Leigh Eddings

Last week, including the weekend, was just kind of lost. The working part was cool, but that was all that happened. My sleeping patterns were completely fluxored so I was walking tired most of the week and mostly vegged in front of the TV. It carried over into the weekend. It's so wacked, I'm channel surfing watching nothing in particular knowing I should be doing something but naa.

Starting to get back on track today. Maybe it's because it's Monday and the start of a new weekly cycle, or maybe because I'm rested up. I don't know. Nice to be back what ever the reason.

Books (Finished)
The Black King (Book Two of Black Thrown) - Kristine Kathryn Rusch