Random Traffic Through Nick's Brain

We’re having our yard sale this Sunday, July 29th, from 10:00 to 15:00. Feel free to drop by and say hi if you’re in the neighbourhood.

Ran the Seacoast Seven in Gloucester on Saturday morning. 7M. Very hilly. Very scenic. Going in, my goal was 10-minute miles, 1:10 total. Once I realized how hilly the course was, I re-adjusted to 11-minute miles, 1:17 total. I made it just under that. Again, I was having problems finding my stride until, surprise, surprise, mile 5. I need to figure out how to get to the “mile 5″ state of mind quicker.

Unfortunately, Jaci twisted her ankle part way through and was unable to finish (or even walk by the end). Here’s a picture of her being carried to the car by a firefighter. In her words:

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style="margin: 0 0 2px 7px; display: inline; border: 2px solid black; float: right; width : 640px; height : 480px;"
alt="Photograph: Jaci being carried by a fireman, 2007-07-21, © Nick Varacalli."
title="Jaci being carried by a fireman, 2007-07-21, © Nick Varacalli."
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utterly. ridiculous.

If you know anyone who’d be a good junior or entry-level analyst, data-analyst, tech-writer, or document manager, who’s looking for a new job, please send them my way. I can scrounge up better descriptions if necessary, but the main thing is people who have brains enough to figure out what needs to be done / what is missing and do it.

I’ll split any bounty I get 50/50 with the person who sends me the candidate (other than the candidate themselves, they get the reward of a new job).

Someone: Cool, non-Alex-baby uses signs.

Nick: Yup. Alex does too.

Someone: No he doesn’t.

Nick: Uhm, yes he does. He signs “milk”, “drink”, “more”, “food”… oh, and “done”.

Someone: No he doesn’t.

Nick: …

Dear Someone,

Just because you haven’t observed something doesn’t mean that it hasn’t occurred. The world doesn’t revolve around you (or anyone for that matter). If by “No, he doesn’t.” you mean “I haven’t seen Alex do that.” please learn to express yourself better. If you’re actually insistent that Alex doesn’t actually sign, I don’t know what to say.

• My iPod Shuffle did not survive a trip through the washer / dryer in my pants pocket. I think I’m going to buy a 1st generation Shuffle this time.
• I want an iPhone so I can look stuff up on the company intranet during meetings.

• 1st day: 328 email (of which 180 were from automated systems), 4 Spam, 1 Junk. No, I don’t yet know the difference between Spam & Junk.
• Thanks for the hands Catherine.
• During onboarding the person responsible for benefits and a new recruit were discussing disability insurance. Apparently, losing 1 thumb pays well, and losing 2 thumbs pays even better. I don’t get it… two thumbs is only the space bar.
• My name still appears here and there in documentation.
• The Sarbanes-Oxley Act may be good from the point of view of investors. It is a pain in the ass for employees in a variety of minor, annoying, ways.
• I’m on the F.D. Optimization team. This may actually be the type of job I’ve been looking for for over a decade… the opportunity to look over things and optimize them.

Old pet peeve: 2-prong outlets.

New pet peeve: 3-prong plugs that are so big they hog both sockets of the outlet.

New pet peeve: Badly installed 3-prong outlets.

Can you tell we’ve moved apartments? If / when we ever buy a house, we don’t necessarily want new construction, but recent construction would be nice.

Just a quick heads-up. We’ll be throwing a housewarming / summer BBQ / birthday party on July 21st. If you read this and can figure out how to get to our place, you’re prolly invited.