Category: odds and ends

This is amazing…

My friend Jason is the one asking the questions. The “Hans?” bit is brilliant…

Christmas was great! I saw a bunch of people I don’t usually get to see, ate really well, and generally had a great time. As usual, people were way too good to me. Not that I’m complaining about gifts, but wow! Luckily, everyone seemed to like the gifts I got them… My gift giving was a wee bit sparse this year, I really hate not having a job!

I have spent the last couple of days geeking out with my computer. I got the latest version of the operating system for Mac. Yes, I know the new one is going to be released in the not too distant future, but I really wanted to take advantage of the automatic back-up feature. I also got a hard drive with one terabyte of storage! It’s amazing, I was able to consolidate all of my drives onto one. Believe me, that makes a huge difference. Last night, I went out and bought another terabyte drive so that I could back all of that stuff up.

I also went through the various gift cards I got. There were some books, Amy Winehouse songs (shut up, I like her!), the last Wilco album, and underwear. Funnily enough, I actually asked for underwear but didn’t get any for Christmas! LOL… I’ll be getting my Bastiat collection (yes, I’m an econ geek) thanks to a gift card…

Anyway, a great Christmas, it’s good to be back!:-)

And by that I mean Merry Christmas to my Christian friends, Happy Chanukah to my Jewish friends, and a belated Eid Mubarak for my Muslim friends. If you don’t fall into any of those categories, then enjoy the time off!:-) My facebook friend list has gotten too big to be useful for these sorts of things, so this is as good as I can get for a mass email… LOL. Enjoy!

Isaac

Sorry, a lot of you won’t get this at all… Is John Pertwee the best Doctor? I can take or leave the first two, and Baker is certainly a classic, but I am really warming up to the third one. He’s the only one that didn’t mind doing a little hand to hand combat. Plus, he wore a cape, how great is that? I’ve only encountered one truly dreadful episode from him so far (Ambassadors of Death) and he has always entertained me…

I know, in the end I can’t really say I have a single favorite. There’s going to be a group… The third, fourth, and tenth are probably the best ones but I haven’t seen a lot of the others (other than the first). I guess all I can do is keep watching so I can find out.

This is the first time I have ever been out of a job when I wanted one. Not only that, this is the first time I have ever had to go on a job search. I have always figured out which job I wanted, then I went and got it. I have never applied for more than one job at a time before. So I’m in new territory for me.

Yeah, I could have gone back to Penn, but I’m trying to make a clean break. And I really believe that I would have gotten the job at Apple (and I still may) but for that hiring freeze of theirs. I’m seriously thinking about going back to school, perhaps getting my masters in econ. I’m still technically in the program at GMU (I think), and that with my experience in Yemen could lead to some rewarding jobs, rewarding in all ways….

Anyway, I’m looking at options. The beginning of the year is when I get serious about job searching. Honestly, I’ve been too out of it physically to really feel comfortable doing a job. I think that’s mostly behind me now, so after the first of the year, I’ll hit the ground running Insha’alla…

It isn’t every night you have a dream about jumping into a black hole, meet a preadolescent gate keeper named Michael living in a studio apartment, jump into an icy blue sea, and end up getting reduced to component particles (possibly smaller than quarks). Woosh! It was the most vivid, intense dream I have had in recent memory, possibly ever. It was def. a sci-fi masterpiece with amazing effects, told in the 2nd(!) person, and with enough weirdness to inspire days worth of symbol grasping… Can’t say it was enjoyable, I awoke with a start after I had been dematerialized. On the other hand, I was never afraid, just had a ton of adrenaline coursing through me… Here’s to a good night’s sleep tonight…

The title pretty much says it all. If things go well, I’l have two this year! That will partially make up for me missing the last two over in Yemen… I hope I’ll be able to button up my pants by the end of the weekend!

One of the motivators of me going to Yemen was the prospect of getting out of the job I had. I was an assistant manager in a photo equipment store. Not to toot my own horn too much, but I was one of their better employees. I felt like I was stuck, the best I could hope for was to manage a store. It would be an OK living, but I don’t think I could ever be happy doing that.

The trouble with the job is that I always knew I could go back. I didn’t burn any bridges… On the one hand, it’s nice to have a safety net, but on the other I have to be careful not to do the easy thing and regress back to something I don’t want to do.

Sure enough, since the job market is a bit soft (ahem) right now, I inquired at my old job. I was hoping to create a position that would be a little more rewarding. Sure enough, they offered me a job. Not only that, they offered me a promotion. I haven’t been there in two years and they offered me a store of my own… It was flattering, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. I said no.

That hurt a bit, it always hurts to turn down money, but I’m trying to think long term. I think it’s working out for me even now. No, I don’t have a job, but by eliminating that, I’ve become much more open to other possibilities. I figure that’s half the battle if you want to change careers.

I have an application in with Apple. I have every belief that I will be hired once they lift their hiring freeze. I have the experience and skills they’re looking for. Plus, I have a solid recommendation on the inside… As it turns out, if I did take my old job, I wouldn’t be able to work for Apple. My old employer is an authorized Apple dealer (they sell iPods) and Apple won’t poach employees from authorized dealers.

While I’ve been waiting for that, I’ve been scanning some negatives for a woman my dad knows. That in itself isn’t a big deal, but it may turn into something else. She has recommended me to help the museum she (and my father) are very active in. They want to do a history project for the museum. I may end up getting back into film making with this. Nothing has been settled yet, but if this comes to anything, I’ll be shooting video, recording the audio, possibly lighting, and the editor of the project. We’ll see what happens…

And the oddest possibility is a job in Yemen. Yes, I found a job opening back in Yemen. It’s with a UN affiliated group that does work with children. I still think that the political situation in Yemen is a bit unstable, but I think I’d go back if I think I could actually help in some form. This group has very focused goals and I think they are a good example of what an aid organization is capable of doing. It’s not the kind of thing that you’ll get rich doing, but it pays well for a job in Yemen. More importantly, it would be incredible experience in a totally different career field. Honestly, getting this job is a bit of a long shot, but I’m going to apply and see what happens.

So even though I don’t have a job right now, and even though Christmas is coming (sorry guys, the gifts from me are going to be pretty lame), I’m optimistic about my job prospects. Don’t worry, I’ll let everyone know how all this turns out…

I’ve been looking around and trying to figure out what I want to do. I had mentioned before that I’d like to go to Turkey in the spring. I’ll do that too, unless of course I can find a job that I like before then… Starting a regular life has some appeal, but it has to pay decently and it has to be something I enjoy. I have some applications out, we’ll see what happens…

A student of mine in Yemen was telling me how much she wanted to go to the US. “Is there any place in particular that you’d like to go? I asked her. “Oh yes,” she nodded her head enthusiastically, “I really want to go to Minnesota…”

Really. That caught me off guard. I was expecting NYC, California, maybe even Florida, but Minnesota? It turns out that she has a cousin living in Minnesota and is constantly regaled with stories about how beautiful the state is. The pictures really made her want to come even more.

Huh. I never really considered Minnesota an ugly place, but I always imagined it to be rather nondescript. That puzzled me for a while and I eventually forgot about it. Yesterday, as I was driving back to Gloucester from DC I remembered her. I was looking at some rather nondescript farmland a little after sunset. The leaves have just started to turn and a full moon was big and just over the tree line.

When I first got back, I was overwhelmed by all the green. All the different shades, all over the place, it was just too much. It took a week for that to wear off. I’ve missed two falls, and I’ve missed them. The view of that farm, the smell, and the light were beautiful. Coming from Yemen, I get it now. We live in a beautiful place…