CSS guide boring

Yeah it's definitive, this book on my reading list, _Cascading Style Sheets, a Definitive Guide_ by Eric Meyers. .. I'm certainly learning a great deal about selectors, attributes, font faces and padding.. And yeah there are witty little bits, interesting text for the examples.. I'm not saying it's badly written, it's just that I'm not enjoying it. Maybe it's the inevitable result of the book's subject matter mixed with the promise of definitiveness, but, let's just say I'm looking forward to the end of it (sigh).

Webmaster wanna-be?

Answering general broadcasted plea from a PA-Godless leader, I'm working on the organization's web site. Lots of learning to do, lots of work, not much time for blogging.

To Mr Newdow and my atheist buddies:

Link posted on a nonbeliever's forum, to KAIT in Jonesboro, AR : Atheist to sue over 'In God We Trust' on money

My response.. so at last we come to this:

"..he'll ask a federal court to order removal of the national motto "In God We Trust" from U-S coins and currency."

What I'm thinking is, whether or not we like the "under God" or "In God We Trust" phrases, they're part of our history. They make us nonbelievers a little uncomfortable, but so what, it's nothing. Again Mr Newdow trying to use litigious means to forcibly take something away from American culture.

I'm beginning to have strong doubts about this strategy. It's very negative, it pisses people off; I don't think anything good is going to come of it. If the courts decide that the slogan must be removed from our currency, think of what it'll be like for us: We'll be absolutely hated.

If we're to be successful in the long term, somehow, we as a group need to be a positive force - we need to be some kind of asset to our communities; we need to contribute something, not take something away.

How much stress do you have..

..on a scale from 1 to 10? The health-risk assessor asked me that question as part of a very short interview, to be enrolled in the "get healthy" program. Basically for employees, it's a way to avoid additional health insurance fees. I haven't any way to measure my stress level, to put a number on it, but who isn't stressed? So I said 5.
Today (11/16) I worked with a Java developer a little, offering some advice and encouragement for using the Domino Java API. I hope he goes for it; maybe once these guys become more acquainted with Notes technology, they'll look at it with higher regard.

Good sea-faring fiction

Just now turned the last page in The Yellow Admiral, by Patrick O'Brian. Number 18 in the epic series, it is another prodigious satisfying read, where we follow the brave, cheerful, resourceful Captain "Lucky Jack" Aubrey and his ship's surgeon, physician, naturalist, spy, and particular friend Steven Maturin. Story-arch setting is early nineteenth century naval warfare between Britain and France, but in the case of this episode, once more a peace threatens to end our hero's career. Yeah war is horrible but if it's the only thing you know how to do, I suppose really you don't want it to end.

There Be Words!

Yesterday as he played on the stairs with Mommy and Grandma, Ian yelled "Dow! Dow!".. And a little later I heard him say "Ut!" once. I'm deeply afraid of him being on the stairs; I'm having nightmares about him falling - but the sound of him using words to get his way cheered me greatly. We had another happy moment later in the afternoon when we turned on the lamp next to his diaper-changing table and he looked at it, grinned and said "Light!" and then another this morning, when, as we were getting out of the car, he pointed at our neighbor's small poplar and declared "Tee!". Yipee!

Continuing with the get-a-job at home theme, yesterday I posted my resume to Dice and applied to Ajilon using not-very-good HTML, partly generated by openOffice, but then hand-fixed to get rid of the images --they're too awkward in that format-- and in order to apply to TEK Systems, also posted to thingamajob in a text format. Also generated a PDF version from openOffice. And I updated my "Edited for Content" with those, and a link to this blog, using a free ftp extension I found for Firefox, called FireFTP. Very cool tool.

And on to a completely different topic, here's a cozy nighttime scene.. Jaye's really into this knitting-and-spinning thing now --noble, practical crafts that come naturally to her intelligent hands-- She made a very nice hat for me!

Icky Surprise

Yesterday, after coming home from Subway we set Ian down for a few moments so we could unwrap our food and proceed with dinner. Of course he wasn't going to simply stay put- he went immediately to the next room to play with the cat. That other room was dark but visible, we could see him and Nik moving around vaguely.. We weren't too worried.

After a few minutes of this Ian came toddling back into the living room, right toward me with a rather determined scowl on his face, and as he came closer I could see he had a dark, unfamiliar form in his fist. Dark grey. Furry? Has a tail?!

Ian had a firm grip on a dead mouse! I grabbed the baby's wrist and shook his arm - I think he could see a sense of urgency in my face and body language - and he dropped it. I picked up Ian and rushed him to the bathroom, scrubbed his hands while Jaye took care of the carcass..

So Nik and Ian served as pest exterminators that day - cat the killer, toddler on disposal. I just hope the boy didn't do the usual thing he does with found objects: Chew.

Want a steady employee? Provide a steady job!

It turns out that the assignment at the global manufacturer would only be temporary - not as in probationary period, rather like they would want me to mentor their own present staff on how to do the work, then once they're trained, they'd want me to go away. There's no way I can go for that. (sigh)

Palm Ouickcheck spell test

Not working here.. hmm.. Not at all.. Okay that's better. Had to activate it in X-Master, which is some kind of VM. This is on a Visor Neo, Palm OS 3.5.2. The spellchecker does slow things down a bit, but for this context, short notes, it's okay. Better than the embarrassment of bad spelling. Re-sent my resume.. Ok now performance is beginning to lag..hmm..

Things starting to happen..

Friday afternoon I got a call from a staffer looking for someone to fill a Notes Developer position at a global manufacturing company; the location is commutable distance (40 minutes) from Clintonville. Thing is, I was hoping for something right in Columbus, maybe even biking distance from where we want to live, but I'm not sure that's realistic.. Like a co-worker Becky said to me today, I'm totally spoiled with this biking-to-work. Another minus is, the position is only a five-month contract; I need to know the probability of becoming a full-time employee. At any rate, one big plus is, the company in question has the kind of reputation that attracts people who are interested in quality. Not bad for a job search that only officially started Monday.

I just need to refine my resume a little; fill in some more details, and email the staffer tomorrow to tell her to go ahead an submit.. Don't know how close I am to an interview but, I'm getting my suits let out in case.

Speaking of big changes, Pria, the wife to my friend and co-worker Adi, is going back home to India (Sorry I don't remember the name of the city) with their three-month old son Bhuvan.. Adi will be separated from them for five months or so. This was planned since long before the child was born, but, that's got to be hard. Here they are at our house last night for a good-bye visit.

Baby Pic

My son, Ian Gregor Alkire, 16 months now, sipping ice water (I think). Photo taken sometime in September.

Twelve hour work day!

Now if I could only get paid for it. Created a class to manage certain readers fields.. Too bad we don't have up-to-date department groups listed in the directory. Way it is now, I have to update the field with boatloads of individual names. I'm sure the performance will suffer after the app is in use for some time, but I think I did the only feasible thing given current circumstances.

No calls, no emails from prospective employers today. C'mon folks! I'm very good you know - clean code, very careful, my applications have nice features.. and people like me.

It occurred to me that perhaps I shouldn't show my desired salary, so I took it out of my monster resume. I'll continue with the desire though.

One day, one bogus call

Finally my resume is ready, or at least complete enough to show where I've been and when. Not as impressive as it could be, maybe, but the question is, what should be included, and is everything perfectly accurate? How to describe a big four-month project in 20 words and be completely right about it? A project that happened three years ago? Can't be.. I tried my best though..
Last night I posted it to Monster.com, filled in all the fields including target location: Columbus OH. But then the only call I get is for a position in Knoxville TN. Maybe I need to work on getting my message across. Columbus please!