Weekly update...

Okay, so another week has gone by. I got my hopes up when I found not one but two new job listings to apply for and a phone call from a head hunter with an interesting sounding job and since then.......nothing. No feedback. Just silence. I tried to call the headhunter back and first she was at lunch and then when I tried the second time she had 'left for the day'. So the receptionist put me through to her voice mail. Hopefully, she will call back tomorrow. I also called the guy that "interviewed" me at the Raytheon Job Fair a couple of weeks ago. Of course, it really shouldn't have been his job to get back to me (he is the manager that I would have been working for) but he gave me the 'uhhhh, we've already made all of the offers that we are going to make at this time....if you haven't heard from us......' You could tell he was REALLY uncomfortable but I would have been too in his place. Just another reason to be disgusted with HR people the world around. There were probably 150-200 people that showed up at that job fair and each of us had to fill out a "questionnaire" to get in the door. Why didn't some HR flunky take that stack of papers and cross check it against the list of people that had been made offers and send out "ding" letters? Because HR people just can't be bothered with doing their jobs I guess. End of today's rant.

Like some other people I try not to discuss politics but just can't stand to let the opportunity by to say, like the old saying, be careful what you ask for. I heard the word "change" bandied about a lot over the past few months. That is a lot different than "improve". I guess it just depends on your point of view. I hope that the changes lead to improvements for all of us but I fear that somebody is going to end up footing the bill for all of those changes and for them the change might simply be that they get to pay higher taxes. It is just not clear to me who that somebody is but I have a sneaking suspicion that I know who....end of that rant, too. :-)

An experiment.....

Okay, I decided to allow myself to post when I was logged into my gmail account, not just when I was logged into blogger using my old aol account. Isn't this exciting :-) NOT

Of course, even more exciting is that I just figured out that at least the first two Purdue basketball games are going to be on the BigTenNetwork. The first game is this Saturday at 9pm EST. Sports bars near you should have the game on!

Just for those of you who don't follow them, the Purdue men's basketball team was voted by the media (one guy from the newspaper in each city where there is a Big Ten team - and maybe one guy from the closest TV station) that they are favored to win the BigTen this year. I am READY for basketball to start since football has been so terrible.

A new post....

Well, Alice told me that I needed to make a post on my blog and since I ALWAYS do what Alice tells me to.....here is a new post.

Maybe the reason that I hadn't posted is because I have nothing to say?

At the end of last week I completely tore apart my resume and completely changed the format. I have sent it out to a couple of places so far. We will see if it gets any different results. The final nail in the coffin that killed the old one was that a recruiter called and told me, literally, that it was terrible. He didn't really have a job that I was interested in but we must have talked for half an hour with him giving me pointers. At the end of the conversation he also gave me the e-mail address of a person who he probably shouldn't have. But, at this point, I will take help where I can find it. We will see if I can have any luck with the new resume when I send it to this lady.

As most of you know I am a BIG Purdue football and basketball fan. I even went to BW3 yesterday to watch the football team because good old Brighthouse took ESPN Classic off our cable. Let's just say that I am sure looking forward to basketball season.

Still sitting...

At least I am not painting.......at least not at the moment. I think that we have finished painting for a while. Now it is just getting rooms finished. For instance, we could scrub on the tiles in the master bath all day and not be done. And we could pack up the quilt machine (after we find the quilt machine again). And we could start packing the books in the study. We haven't even started the study. Ugh. And I have to put the basement ceiling back together (now that I have run the new water line for the ice maker - even though we aren't hooking it up to the fridge because the ice maker in our current fridge is broken but we could hook it up if we wanted to). And, of course, sometime in the next day or two I need to mow the grass again. Beats raking leaves I suppose.

And I have gotten a little bit of response in the job looking area. No interviews let alone no job offers but at least I am starting to get a little response in the way of e-mails from real humans instead of just the computer generated ones. Who knows....something IS going to come along......someday.

Here we sit....

Well, yesterday I finally got the quarter round down around the floor in the kitchen and the molding around the tops of the cabinet (where they meet the ceiling). We keep trying to forget the one inch strip above the back splash below the new range hood that is one inch shorter than the old one. We gotta do something about that one of these days. Alice is talking about the curtains for in there (I am pretty sure she got the material today). Then we will be DONE with the kitchen. Much more work, and much more time than I ever would have guessed.

This afternoon we started packing books in our bedroom. I hope we can finish that tomorrow. Then we will have to rearrange the furniture. We presently have too many dressers but the new night stands should provide some "stash" space since they each have a drawer and a shelf with doors. And what won't fit gets packed. Simple really. NOT!!

The job hunt continues. Got an early tinkle of a lead today. More like a rumor really. I have applied to several companies and for a couple of the jobs I sound like a perfect fit (at least to me) and the companies haven't even acknowledged that I exist. I am now working harder on the few contacts that I have in companies there. We will see....

Meanwhile in better news. I have lost a few pounds. Stress is not exactly the recommended weight loss program but I am also trying to watch the portion sizes (yes, daughters I can hear you).

Busy, busy....

An emergency appendectomy is not what I was expecting last Wednesday. No, not for me but for Alice. Surprise! Luckily she listened to her body and we got to the hospital and she got it taken care of BEFORE it burst. Burst appendix is a MUCH bigger deal. Of course, nonburst appendix is still a deal. She is feeling better (I can tell just by looking) but she is still moving pretty slow. It will be another week or so before she is really back at it.

Well, my new resume is ready and I have started "officially" applying for new jobs. Seven applications since last Thursday. And those are just for the ones that have real job openings listed and there are probably another two or three that I will apply for in the next day or two. Then there are another 15 places or so where I will submit my resume even though they don't have an appropriate job listed but I know that they do the kind of work that I am looking for. Who knows maybe it will hit somebody's desk and I will get lucky. That is through the front door. Next I have to start working the connections. Contacting people that I have worked with over the years to see if I can get an intro to folks that are in the right place to hire me even if they don't have an opening. Maybe I my resume will spur them to open something up?? Who knows. And meanwhile I am starting to hear from headhunters. Maybe they will have something.

And, meanwhile, work continues on the house. The kitchen is coming together. Counter tops are done, floor is scheduled and cabinet doors and drawers have been primed (at least their fronts). Door painting will continue tomorrow. Hopefully, by the end of the week everything will be done in there and we can move everything out of the family room back into the kitchen where it belongs. Except there are going to be some leftovers. After we get done painting (doors and drawers) there will be more room in the garage. And the excess furniture and more boxes will probably go there for now. We really need to make a decision on the storage options. I will think about that tomorrow.

Another year has come and gone

Well, it is official. Another year. The Indiana State Fair Giant Balloon Race is behind us once again. And I tied for fifth!! Of course, it was a 24 way tie for fifth. Only four guys managed to get their baggies in the same field with the hare and none of them were actually close enough to score with a 200 foot tape measure. We are talking several hundred feet. But I had a good flight ably assisted by great crew and somebody else paid for the propane. And I actually managed to stumble across a really nice landing area where one of the other pilots let me use his tarp to keep the envelope dry.

Now it is back to painting. Blehhh!