Saturn Problems

For a couple of weeks now, Sarah’s “Check Engine” light has been on.  The last time it happened, it went off after about a week, so I had been waiting to see what happened with it.  But since it hasn’t gone off, I decided to run over to Auto Zone and have them hook it up so I can see what’s wrong.  The printout said something about an oxygen sensor being bad, and something about an issue with the thermostat.  I had known there was a potential issue with the thermostat for a while.  When we got her car and were having the problems with the oil leak, the mechanic had said that the housing was cracked and that it would drip coolant, not a lot, just a few drops.  As long as we kept monitoring the level we would be OK.  So now I wonder if that is the case, or if it is something else.  So I guess that now it is time to take it back to the car guy and have him check it out in more detail and tell me what might be wrong now.

Honors Breakfast 2016

Today was the final North Middle School Honors Breakfast.  For the last six years we have been going to NMS at the end of February to celebrate the girls accomplishments on the honor roll.  We had three years with Sarah, and then when she left, Alison made the honor roll every year.  

This year's breakfast was good, though I have to say that the speaker was not the best this year.  I don't know if it was because she was rushed or if it was due to the fact that she was nervous, but she repeated herself over and over.  And her voice was very shrill.  It was hard to listen to her.  I am not sure how she could ever be a motivational speaker.  

So now Ali just has to finish out the year and then it is on to high school.  Hopefully she can maintain her performance thru high school.  We are very proud of her for her hard work.

 

Promising Leads

I don't like posting EVERYTHING that is going on, especially since getting laid off, but I have a few things in the works, a few promising leads.  I had a couple of interviews that got call backs for second interviews, and I think that a couple are very promising.  One place I have interviewed was the company that I worked for while I was going to school.  My original plan when I was in school was to just stay there when I graduated and just move into the engineering department.  Unfortunately, things didn't work out that way, but now I am very hopeful that they might finally offer me something.  I had a couple of interviews, but things are moving slow.  I hate working to other people's timetables.  Hopefully they'll get back to me soon.  Or maybe even one of the other places I have gotten callbacks from.  A short time off is nice, but I can't even enjoy it!  I am ready to get back to work.

Finally Finishing DC Project

One "good" thing out of the whole unemployment thing is that I finally have a little bit of time to get Alison's Washington DC Trip DVD completed.  I thought it would be a piece of cake to just put a bunch of photos into a folder, and import them into a program, add some background music, and walla!  Well it didn't work that way.

First, the program I was going to use wouldn't work just right.  I had a bunch of short video clips that people took with their cell phones that I wanted to drop into the project and then just remove the audio track.  Unfortunately, the program I wanted to use would not allow me to do that.  That lead me to have to go and find a different program to use. 

I actually had program that came with my video camera that is about 8 years old (it's hard to believe my video camera is 8 years old, that's just about obsolete in the electronics world).  But that program allows me to combine photos and videos in one project in addition to including my own background music and remove any other audio.  But first I had to update it to the current version, or at least a version that was a little more user friendly.  Then it took a week or two of playing around with it in order to get the hang of using it.  

So I have now begun to load everything and get it organized.  Hopefully I will have it done in about a week.  I currently have about 12 minutes of what I have planned to be a 45-50 minute video.  The hardest thing (I think) will be putting in the music after all the pictures have been organized.  With any luck that will go smoothly.  Maybe I can post some of it when it is done.

Timetables

I have determined that the worst part about the whole "unemployment" process is having to work to someone else's timetables.  I hate it.  After the first week and a half to two weeks, I have had about 5 or 6 interviews.  The way things go is first you get an initial phone screening/interview, and then the HR & hiring manager people get together and determine who will make the cut.  Then they call in that group for in-person interviews.  Sometimes if you are lucky you get an offer after that in-person interview, but more often than not, that just pares it down for a second round of in-person interviews (and that sometimes might lead to a third interview).  So the whole process is at least 3-4 weeks long, if you're lucky.  

So with all the interviews I have had so far, I got the "we are in the initial stages" comments and that if I make the cut, they'll be calling me back in a week and a half to two weeks.  I am ready to go now!  So it's like, hurry up and wait.  I hate sitting around waiting, and in the mean time I review more job postings and job descriptions and send out more resumes on the off chance that they may get around to me in a week or so, and then the whole process starts again.  ARGH!

Done With Thunderbird

I am finally finished with using Mozilla Thunderbird as my email program.  I have been using it in some form or another for I would guess about the last 15 years, probably longer if you include the time I was using it as the Netscape internet suite.  But over the weekend, I had updated it since I was on version 36 and the current version is 38.5.something or other.  

So after applying the updated, none of my skins would work.  When I went to change them, it locked everything up and erased any graphic interfaces.  So I thought, no problem I'll just reinstall my add-ons and skins.  That was a mistake.  Every time I tried to go in and load a new add-on, or a new personna skin, it caused the program to "close".  And I use close in quotations because the process was still running in the task manager list, but I was unable to open it.  So I had to close it using the task manager and then reopen it.

Basically applying the update to 38.5 messed everything up, and I couldn't revert back to my previous version.  So sadly, and with a heavy heart, I say sayonara to Thunderbird.  I did my best to not have to use Outlook other than at work, but I suppose all good things must come to an end.  Now I'll be spending the next day or two converting my email over to Outlook, so please bear with me.  And that is the other thing that sucks about Outlook, I cannot simply import my mail and settings from Thunderbird.  I have to save all my messages that I want saved/archived as eml files and then cut and paste into Outlook, so I lose all traceability with dates which means I can't sort them.  Thanks Bill Gates, you and your software blow.

Finally Giving In

For the past couple of years, Kris has tried to save a couple of her favorite plants (which are hibiscuses... I hope I spelled that right) over the winter.  Not having a greenhouse, and after an attempt at a grow light in the basement, we settled on keeping them in the bedroom in front of the vent to keep them warm, and to allow them to get some light (unfortunately, I don't think the basement was warm enough).  And for the past couple of years Kris actually did a good job and managed to save them for the next year.  This year was a little different though.

Every year when we would bring them in, I would switch out the dirt cleaning the roots and replanting them in some fresh soil.Also, in addition I would spray them with some insecticide to make sure we didn't bring in any unwanted pests.  Well this year, we had a little problem.  This year, we had a problem with what I thought were aphids toward the end of the summer.  I tried to get rid of them by spraying them with soapy water, but apparently I didn't do a good enough job.  Except they weren't aphids.  After a little research, Kris figured out they were white flies.  and they were all over the plants in the flower beds on the side of the house as well as many of her potted plants, including the hibiscuses.  I thought I got them all when I replanted them to bring them on for the winter, but apparently not.

At first it wasn't too bad, but as the winter wore on, the flies got worse. I tried a couple of times during the winter to kill them, but I just couldn't seem to get them all.  If you bumped them, a white cloud would be generated (OK that is an exaggeration) but they were all over the windows, and window sills.  After spraying some pesticides, on the them, I thought I had them all, but about a week later they were back.  After some discussion, Kris finally gave in and gave me the go ahead to finally toss them out.  With any luck we will be able to find the same colors for this coming summer.

Changing Up My Widgets

As I finally started trying to keep caught up with the Hahnted House, I thought to myself I really am tired of the look.  And in addition, I noticed my real time visitor tracking and visitor map were not showing up.  So I am thinking that I need to get around to updating my widgets in the side column.  I still like the Moon Phase Calculator and the Current Weather widget.  After all, who doesn't want to know what the weather is like outside my door when they visit my blog?  But I think the visitor counter could definitely use an upgrade, and maybe I'll look for a few new little things to put in the right column too.  So check back and let me know if what I pick is good or not.

Getting Ready for High School

Last night was the information night for incoming freshmen at MFHS. Unfortunately, Kris was sick so I had to go alone with Alison and take notes.  I don't know really how much I needed to go since we have been thru it before with Sarah.  The main thing that I wanted to find out about was how Ali would go about applying for the "Healthcare Academy" if she wanted to.  Since they start pushing the kids into their career paths beginning their Freshman year, I wanted to make sure Alison would be able to apply for it since she is talking about wanting to be a doctor.  Sarah wasn't sure that she wanted to get into the healthcare field until after taking biology her sophomore year, and by then she wasn't able to get into that series, or group, of classes.  After sitting thru the presentation by the administrators we went into the cafeteria where a bunch of the groups and clubs were set up to "recruit" freshmen for next year.  They actually had a few good clubs, and there were also a bunch of the lesser known/popular sports teams, like girls golf, and the swim team.  So after walking around and checking all that out, Alison wanted to take a tour of the school, even though we already know our way around.  Now she just has to pass her classes and get out of the 8th grade (which shouldn't be a problem since she has all A's so far).

Some Good Leads

It has been two days and so far I have a few good leads on a new job.  I think I have sent out about 50 resumes so far, and I have had three or four phone interviews and one "site" interview.  I know it is early, but I am hopeful.  In fact, the place I went for the actual site interview I really liked.  It was only about 5 miles from home, was a large machining company with a very large, diverse product base.  And one of the big things was they just spun off a specialty company that they are working on growing, so there is lots to do and lots of upside.  Plus, it is a company that has been in the Falls for 60+ years.  Of course that will most likely mean that they don't call me back.  But like I said, I am trying to stay hopeful.