jumpy jumpy vitamins

Lots going on. Sorry.

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Start classes tomorrow evening at a notable local Jesuit university; seems I never finished me bachelor’s, which is negatively affecting my job search (justly or otherwise). This term I’m taking 2 classes — a rhetoric class and an informatics class, the latter of which is required for my degree in, er, informatics — but since the terms are only 9 weeks long, things are a leetle compressed.

Turns out I went to high school with one of the admissions counselors, too. That was a little odd; I walked in for new student orientation and she called me “Jimmy”. I haven’t gone by “Jimmy” since, oh, FIFTH GRADE.

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I was served with a summons a couple weeks ago for non-payment of personal property taxes. Sadly, I had paid them a whole friggin’ WEEK before the summons was issued… which shows how efficient the collector of revenue’s office is. According to Jackie (who is both my sister-in-law and my attorney), the office generated a list on July 1 of outstanding property tax bills, but there was some sort of delay between list generation and summons issuance and the list was never updated in the meantime. The summons is being dismissed, but apparently they have several hundred summonses to dismiss. Maybe it’s just me, but that last fact alone should be indicative of some larger issue.

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Nigel has a few new parts… I left work about a week and a half ago after a long day, opened the door, turned the key, and got a persistent clicking noise from a relay in the engine compartment fusebox. Niiiiice. It was just a dead battery and a couple of blown fuses, but we couldn’t jump it or give it a rolling start down the parking garage ramp, so I had to get it towed.

(The tow operator was like the South Side version of Mark Hamill. Creeeeepy. I half-expected him to use the Force, or a robotic hand even, to lift the car onto the bed of the tow truck.)

Happily, though, the garage was able to get Nige right in, and they had the part for the broken hinge as well (and that work was all covered by MINI, w00t), so things are running pretty nicely with the ol’ boy. And, if nothing else, I now know what the rest of the tools in the emergency kit under the boot are for. (with the exception of the Allen wrench. i have yet to find a use for that unless there’s some obscure IKEA tie-in I was unaware of. is there a FLÜG aero kit or something?)

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Fred is lerving his Mac. Absosnakesonaplanelutely lerving it. I’m seriously considering a MacBook m’self, once the student loans come in. (I asked for a bit more than I actually need; serves me right for getting the loan paperwork in concurrently with my FAFSA.) Of course, my MacBook will be tricked out with software and all, because though I enjoy this ThinkPad and the Linux running it, it is not one of the models with the HDAPS which I can exploit for impact-based passphrases (passknocks?).

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I posted a while back about “big news maybe on Tuesday”. Well, it was a job interview. A rockin’ job interview. For a spiffy new job, with travel and awesome benefits and intrigue and everything (well, maybe not intrigue). I showed up in the screaming 100-degree-plus heat (btw, Arizona people: try it with humidity, k?) in a nice dark suit and smooth-talked the fuck out of ‘em. And I got called back in the next week for an unofficial second round (the official excuse was that the divison VP likes to meet all candidates but wasn’t around when I was there the first time). And I got a call the next day saying “sorry, we’re going with somebody else”. DAMMIT. Allegedly, they narrowed their field down to two, and I was the close second… but they have my resume on file and predict future openings soon, and encouraged me to apply again if the timing was right.

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Current job? Well. Lots going on there. I’ll be working with at least two new officers soon, and there are a few days where it’s tempting to ditch IT for the assistant to the CEO position (sysadminday being one of those days — most we got was a basket of cookies from people who should have spent their money on clue instead). Things are about to get interesting, though; it’s budget season soon.

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Project Runway? I am saddened that Allison is gone, but there are impending bitchfests and breakdowns and flameouts yet to come. It’s riveting, kids.

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Hang on, cake is done. (As a matter of fact, I did know you were coming; that’s why I baked a cake.) Mmmm, Meyer lemon cake. Too bad the cherries I had planned to add went bad.

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Wikipedia e-mail attracts some fah-reaks. My fave so far is the guy who challenged us to prove that badgers are visible to the non-colorblind WITHOUT resorting to photography (because cameras can be equipped with colorblind filters). I’m not as able to keep up with it as I was before, but it isn’t that bad at the moment; we’ve outsourced much of it to schoolkids in eastern Europe.

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Chorus starts up again soon; I’m enjoying my Mondays and Wednesdays while I still have the chance. TiVo’ll catch Project Runway for me, though.

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OK – that’s all for now. Have to make sure a cat gets a milk ring out from under the rug.

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