2 Bit Hacker

So, life seems to be going pretty well at the moment. I’m being transitioned to a different position at work, which will give me a wider variety of things to work on. Looking forward to it, though I’ll not be in the full swing of it till the end of the project we’re currently working on, which is still 2-3 weeks off. I’m still enjoying the work, the whole development cycle is so much cleaner than it was at SimPro or Net-Temps. It’s just a great place to work.

I’m also getting my finances in order finally. I was hoping to be caught up this month, but it looks like I’ll be all up to date by the end of April instead. I’m pretty much down to just getting caught up on rent and a couple of utilities. Amanda’s finally been able to start paying her share of the rent again, now that things have be sorted out with her new job and she’s started getting paychecks. I plan on opening a secured credit card with Bank of America soon, which should help my credit get back on track. I’d like to be able to get into a new car by the end of the year, and perhaps get into a condo in a year or two.

Speaking of vehicles, I’m open to suggestions on what to get. I’ve been happy with the Focus ZX3, though I think if I were to go for a Focus again it would be the ZX5. Also considering the Toyota Matrix or the 5-door Mazda 3. Ideally I’d like something with all wheel drive for the winters here.

Ah well, I thought I had more to write, but it’s just not coming to me at the moment.

I’ve been meaning to write an update for a while, I was originally intending to write it as a New Year’s thing, but I’m a slacker, so yeah…

Anyway, for those of you who don’t know, I am once again employed doing what I’m actually good at. I’m working as an Application Developer for Dynamic Network Services, Inc., right here in sunny Manchester. It’s mostly perl programming, working on their website and some of the support systems. I’ve been there about a month now, and it’s been great.

I’m still working at PepBoys on Saturdays, though I’m not sure how long I’ll keep doing that. Mostly it’s just because I know they’re low on people and can use the help, and the little extra money helps out.

Other than that, I haven’t really been up to much. I go to a couple D&D games each week, other than that it’s just work and sleep. Delia’s still playing WoW a lot, but I’ve lost most of my interest in it except to kill time from time to time.

That’s about all I can think of at the moment. I could have sworn I had more to write about, but I can’t think of any of it at the moment.

Made it through the first day at PepBoys, though I didn’t do much other than sit in front of a computer doing all their online training junk. I think I did 3 weeks of training in one shift.

Apparently tomorrow I’ll actually be driving, which should be more interesting.

Well, it’s not much, but at least it’s a job. As of tomorrow I’ll be working as a delivery driver for Pep Boys. It’s a regular 8-5 Tuesday-Saturday job, and though the pay isn’t great and it’s not really in my chosen profession, it’s better than sitting around playing WoW all day.

Of course, I’ll still be looking for a job in a more sysadmin type of role, so if anyone sees anything, feel free to let me know.

I’m also considering going back to school. I think I’m still considered a student of the University of New Hampshire in Manchester, so I shouldn’t need to reapply there, just need to go and sign up for classes. They now offer a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Systems, something that wasn’t available last time I was taking classes there.

Oh, and I’m thinking of having a get-together next Friday or Saturday to celebrate my employedness, and because I haven’t been very social the past few months. I figure card/board/video games at the apartment would be fun. Anyone interested?

Well, I haven’t really been up to much in my month of unemployment. The job hunt hasn’t been going too well, I’ve sent out a bunch of resumes and applications, but haven’t heard much back. I know a bunch of you have asked for a copy of my resume at one point or another, so I figure I’ll just post it here. I have it available in PDF, HTML, and plain text, so choose whatever flavor suits you.

Comments are welcome, so if anyone out there is bored and wants to proofread, please proof away.

I’ve managed to create the resume in one of the geekiest ways I came across (short of writing it in LaTeX), the XML Resume Library. It’s a set of tools and XSL for transforming an XML resume into the various forms above. It’s got some neat features for being able to generate multiple targeted resumes from a single XML, using named targets. It’s pretty slick, though it hasn’t been updated for a while, which is kindof disheartening.

Well, today marks my last day as a full time employee of SimPro. Mark and I met yesterday, and he explained that some things we were counting on didn’t happen, and as such, the company no longer has the funds to keep going. I’ll be called in to do contract work when it’s needed for keeping existing installations up and running, but that’s about it.

Not really sure what’s going to happen from here. Ideally I’d like to find a system administration position in downtown Manchester, as that would be minimal travel from home (walking distance would rock) but not sure how likely that is. Jason and I have been talking about the possibility of me working as his assistant out in Indiana. It would be a big move, not something I’m really sure I want to do at this point in time, but it’s definitely a possibility.

In the mean time, I guess I’ll get my resume out there and see what’s available. I’m not too worried about it yet. The rent for July is paid, and I’ve got enough to cover bills, but rent for August might be a problem.

Just think of all the free time I’ll have to play WoW though…

Right, it’s been a while, here’s a rundown of how things in life are going.

Delia and I are doing pretty well. Her massage business is going fairly well, though she’s still working one day a week at Staples. Her concert last weekend (on her birthday) went well. I’ve got some pictures from it on my camera, just need to upload them sometime. I’m still playing way too much WoW, but I’m trying to cut back now that my main character is up to level 60. I should probably just hop on for raids with my guild and a bit on weekends.

We’ve been in the new apartment for nearly two months now, we still have some stuff that needs to be unpacked and put away, but for the most part we’re pretty well settled in. I’d like to rig up something a bit better for our garage door opener at some point, since we don’t have the transmitter for the opener. Right now it’s just a key-switch to open/close it from the outside, but the barrel of the lock likes to come out. I found a few remote control relay boards that might do the trick, but it’s not really a high priority. I’d also like to pick up a box of cat5 cable and a crimping tool of my own to make the ethernet run from the cable modem (in the living room) to the computers (two rooms away) a bit neater.

My car is finally paid off (yay!) so of course it now needs to go in for repairs. It’s been leaking coolant for a bit now, just haven’t had the money to go get it fixed, but I finally do, so it should be going in tonight. Near as I can tell it’s not the radiator or the pump, so I’m hoping it’s just a loose or broken hose someplace. Other than that, it’s been running well. Nearly up to 110k miles.

Work is going along, I’ve been getting quite a bit done in the past couple of weeks, finally getting our notification system mostly finished off. Right now I’m working on speeding up our image capture stuff to something more useful than 1fps. It’s proving to be a bit more work than I expected, since my program wasn’t really designed for it, but I think it’ll work out. I still need to write up a resume and start poking around for a new job. My plan to work full time somewhere else and just do SimPro stuff on a contract basis, which I think will work out better for everybody.

I’ve also been tossing around the idea of a new computer. Mine is still running fine, but it’s starting to fall behind the curve with newer games. I’m thinking a nice Athlon64 on an nForce4 board with a GeForce 6600 should do nicely. I’ve also got an eye on one of the newer 19-inch LCD panels with an 8ms response time. They’ve been getting good reviews, and a lot of places are saying they’re finally ready for gaming. Hopefully I’ll be able to put some money aside and get all that stuff before the next LAN party.