Tag Archives: Geek

3 Out Of 50 Ain’t…All That Great, Actually.

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Over the last 2 months or so I’ve been scouring ads online and in papers for jobs. I’m looking for something entry-level IT so that I can gain real and valuable experience. Mostly this means Level 1 Service/Help Desk positions. 2 huge negatives against me are a lack of college education (I might explain that in a later post) and lack of US Citizenship.

This means I’ve been able to apply for about 50 jobs, from DC to Richmond to Blacksburg in Virginia. [It just got more complicated, I’ll explain that in a paragraph or two]. Of the 50 jobs I sent applications to I received exactly 3 responses. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was kinda hoping I’d have had a few more rejection notices rather than just being ignored.

The first application I got a response from was James Madison University. They’d advertised a User Support position, and I applied within 30 minutes of seeing the ad in the paper. A few days later I received an automated email saying the position had been filled.

The second application I got a response from was Highland Retreat, a Christian Camp about 15-20 minutes drive away in Bergton, VA. I just got a call from the director there, who reminded me how complicated my future employment status is just with a phone call to update me on how well things are going with that application.

The third application I got a response from was RackSpace, an IT company with several ventures including MailTrust (Mail services) and SliceHost (a VPS company). I applied for a Datacenter Operations Technician position which would involve building servers, installing OS’s and diagnosing hardware and OS faults on servers in the datacenter. I have a phone interview with them tomorrow at 4pm, and I’m kinda nervous.

My biggest worry right now is that I’ll jeoperdize one position and the other will fall through, primarily the camp one. The camp job is looking very certain, they’re waiting contact from the camps in NZ that I worked with so they have a NZ camp reference. The RackSpace job is a much better option in the long term though, but isn’t guaranteed. The fact that they had 5 positions listed on their careers site makes my chances of getting one of them that much bigger, but I don’t want to commit or decline Highland’s offer until RackSpace offers or rejects me, because $160/wk is better than nothing at all.

So that is my complication – I want both jobs for different reasons, but the one I want more may not want me, and is moving slower so I may have to turn RackSpace down prematurely. I REALLY hope I don’t have to, a rejection I can handle, I’d much prefer that to having to say “well, you took too long and I’ve decided to work in a camp over the summer…” It’d be one of the most illogical things I’ve said in a long time..

That’s my dillemma, suggestions from people who have been in a similar situation would be helpful!

#News

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A couple of weeks ago I started 3 new channels on 3 different IRC networks. They’re all effectively the same, and are run by 3 versions of the same bot split out into the 3 networks.

But this is all technical crap. Basically if you use ZoeLife4U, aBlazeNet or UnitedChristianChat (GodsIRC/Christian-IRC/AwesomeChristians/LoveOfTheology), you can join #News and watch the news feeds from CNN, Fox, CrossWalk and others fill the channel. You can feel free to discuss current events as they are happening.

Additionally, if you are interested in having a similar channel (news feeds can be adjusted as desired) on another network, let me know and I’ll see what we can arrange.

Websites

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So I have been given the task of giving purpose to a couple of domain names. The rules? They must be Christian-focussed in some way. This isn’t going to be a long post, in fact it is just very short and a couple of things I probably don’t want to hear argued for.

Can you think of a Christian-themed website that EITHER:

You would like to exist, that doesn’t already.

OR

You are aware exists, but could be done much better.

Let me give some examples of things I don’t think will fly:

– Christian Singles site (Tried it, it’s already a washed out market, didn’t work)

– Christian Videos site (Think GodTube, many others like it, already a washed out market)

– Christian Social Networking site (Could work, but I imagine there are others already. Will consider viable arguments on this one)

So hit me with ideas. There probably won’t be a prize, but there’ll be some form of credit given on the finished product when it’s done.

Community-Based ISP’s – Could This Catch On?

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I was stumbling around the internet the other day when I came across this article about Wilson, NC. It reports that the small city of Wilson was sick of the phone/tv/internet services being provided by the options they had, so they started their own. My question is, could this take off throughout the country? Comcast, Time Warner, all the other cable and DSL companies have been screwing the country over for a long time. Maybe if more community-based providers come up, it will force the big boys to lower their prices and improve their services. By the way, if anyone in Broadway/Timberville/Harrisonburg/Rockingham Co is interested in starting something like this I’d be keen to join in wherever possible. Whether it would be in a server/services administrative role or something helpdesk, I’m interested!

Here’s the link to the article:

http://consumerist.com/5224578/time-warner-cable-cannot-possibly-compete-with-the-small-city-of-wilson-nc

My Understanding of College Life

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I didn’t go to College. At the time I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so rather than rack up thousands in student loans I decided to find a job and figure out what to study. The advantage was I didn’t get myself into a lot of debt, the disadvantage is I kinda need a degree to get any kind of decent job having moved to the US.

Anyway, this isn’t so much about my experience in college (or lack thereof), but my understanding of what other people experienced. And it seems this cartoon sums it up nicely:

procrastination

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

My Brute

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I’ve been playing a game, as much as one can play a game that plays itself..

My Brute is a game where you choose an opponent and watch the fight. As you progress through levels you gain randomly assigned weapons or abilities which help you to beat your opponents.

You fight up to 3 fights per day, and gain 2 experience points for a win, and 1 experience points for a loss. If you fight someone in a lower level you may only gain 1 point for a win, I haven’t won against anyone of a higher level as yet (if it is possible).

So click the link, join my dojo and start fighting too!

Ouch.

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Yesterday was a long day.

It involved a 1.5 hour interview for a summer job and around 8 hours of birthday party, both back to back (seperated only by the half hour drive from the camp back to the house).

Kelly was particularly stressed as she’d expected at least a one hour gap between our return at around 4:30 and when people started arriving, and the first people arrived at about 4:35.

The fire was fueled further by the fact that among the first people were two rather unusual characters who didn’t fit in with our group very well but managed to set the tone and mood for most of the evening. Several people had their parts to play in them being allowed to ‘crash’ the party, me included, but I don’t think any one person can (or should) take the full responsibility for it.

Those two aside it was an awesome time with everyone together and hanging out. Crash and Bella had a great time playing, Crash ate a whole lot of hot dogs and demonstrated that he really can lay down on command … if you have food.

The mood of the party finally changed at around 9 when the weird people were taken home (at their request, I believe), and we were all able to relax again. Ethan helped me out getting the fire started, which was still going strong at midnight, and about 2am when I went to check on it before sleeping it was still rather emberous. I doused it with several large cups of water, and it looked like it was almost completely out, but when I took Crash out to pee this morning (wow, I didn’t remember that part..) there was a lot more ash than wood left and it had done what I wanted it to do – burnt itself out.

So now it is 12:00pm. I’m laying in bed with a massive headache, if it’s from lack of sleep catching up or too much sleep while trying to catch up, I don’t know. Crash has been amazing despite being in his crate since about 8 or 9 when I refilled both sides of his food bowl (it’s one of those double-bowled bowl things) with water. I really need to get up and let him out, we’ll probably play outside for a bit but that will last entirely based on how I feel. So far the prospects aren’t looking too good.

Quiet Day

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We’re kinda hanging in the family room, Crash, Kelly and I. We’re watching Family Feud on TV, the Porter family are playing the final game. Oop, they just lost, getting 159 points (needed 200 to get $20,000).

I’m also talking to a friend who has a DVD of photos of his son, from newborn through the first year that he is trying to recover. It isn’t going well.

Kelly just moved to the other chair beside Crash, and he started trying to chew the blanket she’s wearing to keep warm. She’s not doing too well, has a sore throat. She really enjoys the look on his face when she pats him on the nose with a rope toy and hums a tune. We’re working especially to train him out of mouthing/biting people, and we’ll also be working in the next few days training him to not jump up on people when he’s excited (or at all, really).

Just took him out to ‘potty’ and he peed, but hasn’t pooped for a while. Now he’s kinda ignoring lunch in favour of laying beside the chair and licking himself. So far he has acquired at least 6 names or variations on names, all of them in the first 3 days. Crash, Chase, Crush, Crash Taylor, Chuck, Trash.. as well as the obvious ones like Pup and Puppy.

I’ve given myself a coding project for the afternoon, after I retrieve the power pack for the macbook. It’ll be a whois and status facility for UCCN, which will begin our web-integration with IRC. The first will be a web form that queries whether a nickname is online, and if so returns normal public information about them (their hidden host name, public channels, etc). The second will be a status image that returns ‘online’ or ‘offline’ depending on whether the user is online or not (duh..). Both will be dependent on the SQL database from Denora, and will probably also utilize the SQL database from Anope for Nickserv aliases/groups. It will detect if someone is online but not using their primary nickname.

I also need to work on the web interface for Supportive, and will be developing an improved version of the java.php @ www.unitedchristianchat.net/java/java.php, both in look and in function.

So, I shall stop blogging nothingness and go get my power pack!

I Can Has Puppy?

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I guess as selfish beings, whenever we see something we like we in turn want one of our own.

Meet Bella. Bella is a 4 month old purebred beagle, which my sister-in-law and her husband rescued from a trip to the pound on Saturday.

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She’s pretty awesome, and is learning basic commands like ‘sit’, ‘come’, ‘lay down’, etc. We had her running around in the big yard yesterday on a 30 foot lead (and I took her on a run around the house with her leash). Fun to chase (and be chased by), as well as wrestling with her weird purple Giraffe/Lion soft toy thing.

All in all, Bella is pretty awesome. What I really want, though, is a Yellow Lab.

puppies-page

I don’t know this puppies name, I found the picture on a breeders site, but that is what I want ;-).

In other news, I feel a can of fly spray would be an excellent investment. There are 3 or 4 that won’t leave us alone (despite not working hard and regular showers :-P).

I also lost almost all my hair yesterday, in celebration of a year in the US (it wasn’t supposed to be for a couple of weeks, but for some reason we did it early…).

Photos, before:

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And after:

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