Hehe

Last night talking to Casey, we were discussing Sigur Rós and he said that the concert inspired him to write more music. He said he has most of a couple songs done but needs a pianist. Hehe (THAT'S ME, GET IT?)

Economy stuff

I listen to MPR all the time, and recently it's been 95% talk about the economy. I don't understand any of it, but for some reason I still listen. I think I like to hear voices. Just now I was listening to it and they were talking about the economy, as usual. They were discussing how the Dow dropped an unusual amount today. A guy was on, I don't even know who it was. But the news person said "Did you know the Dow dropped x amount today?" And he said "Oh my god." and was silent for about 5 or 10 seconds. He hadn't known, and the dread in his voice made me scared about it for the first time. That was a weird moment. I just even had to google what I was writing about because I wasn't sure I worded it right. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that that was the point at which I personally became a little worried. Previously, even though I "listen to" and "watch" news about it a lot, I didn't understand anything about it, but I guess audible dread did it for me.

 

In other news, I think my sinuses have reshaped themselves. Is that possible?

Blog entry

Hi, I don't know what to write. I did want to discuss an "argument" I had with someone about long hair, but I'm too lazy now. I went to see Sigur Rós last night with Laura, Michael, and Danielle (whose birthday it was). Also there were Brian from my work and Casey from my life. It was great as expected and I put some pictures on facebook. That's all for now.

Writing

I don't know what to write, but felt an obligation to write something. Not much is going on here, I guess. Working a lot. It's been pretty busy there (like I mentioned last time). I hereby retroactively take back what I said about almost not minding the stuff I'm doing filling in for the guy who had the baby. I have returned to hating it.

On my new team, we were already low on people and then one person got appendicitis and is out for a week! I hope she is ok.

Also, this other woman has been needing help writing a script. I spent probably 4 hours on Monday and Tuesday helping with that. That was kind of fun though.

It's funny though. Now suddenly everyone needs me to work on their stuff all the time. I kinda wish this could have happened earlier, but better late than never. Nowadays I don't have to read avclub for 4 hours a day anymore!

Well, off to eat and work on a project. 

WTF

I just got a call from the other place I applied at at U of M. They left a message to call back and I'm assuming it's for an interview. I wonder why it is that I suddenly get all this occupational interest.

 

Anyway, the interview went ok, not great. It was the version I don't like, which is "let's ask all these technical questions" instead of a getting to know you type thing. There were 4 people surrounding me asking me what version of PHP I usually use. I felt so dumb half the time. For the PHP question, I had a number in my mind, but I didn't really know if it was right. My website has this hosting package in which everything is installed for me and I don't have to do the maintenance on it. I think most small non-company websites are like that. I doubt there are many independent websites that have a person who actually does the server maintenance. I'd only know the version if I specifically went and looked for some odd reason, which I haven't done recently. So anyway a lot of the server stuff I didn't know about and I felt stupid. I also am not a great articulator when speaking, so that was fun as well. I can't get over some of the questions. They were so, so specific. Now that I'm thinking about it it really didn't go wonderfully because they seem to be really interested in a person who doesn't exist. Oh well. In the future, I'll look ahead of time at the PHP version that is installed on my server. At least I could answer most of the questions. I gave good answers to the database questions and most of the coding questions. I gave great answers to the design questions. They asked me why CSS was better than plain HTML. I'm an expert on that! They also asked me about testing for different browsers and for accessibility.

 

Anyway...I am covering for this guy who had a baby on Monday. I have been really busy all week with it and actually, I hate to admit it but I am almost enjoying it. I normally hate this job and avoid it as much as possible, but because I am being forced to do it for 2 weeks I am learning a TON. And I think it'll help me down the line. I seriously can't believe the amount I'm learning. It's been a long time since I tried to do something new. It's really nice though (as long as people aren't yelling at me, which they do sometimes because it is taking me a while to figure out certain things and they expect it fixed immediately) and like I said, it will really help me in the future to be one of the few people that understands this crap.

 

I'm kind of excited about this weekend because I have a bunch of projects I thought of to work on. Everybody wish L&M luck on their trip!!! Bon voyage!

Jeremy Messersmith

I learned about Jeremy Messersmith about 2 days ago. I love him. He's local and he just had an album out today. I went to get it at Electric Fetus and he's going to be there next Tuesday. I might go. I think he's great and his whole album is about the twin cities and what it's like to live here. It makes me very happy.

Look at his website.

www.jeremymessersmith.com

Very cute. The album art is adorable as well.

As if anyone cares

The leak was the air conditioner unit that is in my wall. I guess a pan overflowed. They tore up a part of the carpet and put a fan there. Then when it is dry they will clean the carpet.

I applied for 2 or 3 jobs at U of M. I think maybe just 2. I heard back this week from them both and actually I have an interview on 9/11 at The Supercomputing Institute! We'll see. If they offer a job, I think I'll only take it if they offer me an insanely great salary. 6 figures at least! Kidding. The day a webmaster makes 6 figures is the day that they webmast amazon.com or something.

Floor!

They didn't call back so I just called. I guess they power washed the patio area because they are going to paint, so she said maybe that's what it was. So they are going to look. I really hope that's the case. Anyway I'm going to lunch now.

More on the door

I am so nervous that they're going to want to replace the carpet. I would probably cry. If that happened, I would almost consider moving to a new place because I'd have to pack everything anyway. And the place I live in is really expensive. I saw this morning that the water went into the wood on the door frame. Wonderful. It is making me really uneasy. Good thing I didn't sign a lease for next year yet. I'm also kind of uneasy that they didn't call me back yet. If it gets to noon and they haven't called, I'm calling again.

Leak

So there has been a weird moldy smell in my apartment for a couple of days. I thought it was the trash at first but then I took out the trash and the scent is still there. Just now I went over to my patio door to check something. There is a chair there so I don't normally stand there. Suddenly my socks were wet. Awesome...they just replaced the patio doors a few weeks ago and mine must have leaked during the rainstorms. I feel bad I didn't notice it before, but I never go over there. What a hassle. So I called the office and was like "Uh...what should I do?" I guess now I'll have to clear the area so they can come in and clean it or something. This is so annoying. All I can say is they better not come in tomorrow at 7 am or something.

Yeah!!!!!

I just found out I got a very good raise with my new job! I'm so excited!!! I did not expect that they would be able to do that, considering the budget crisis we are in. Hopefully I won't cause the downfall of the business. :D

Idiot

I just found out that one of my forms has been broken for I don't even know how long. On my website. I wrote a new form a long time ago and originally I thought I had a backup system for it, but I am not sure now (well obviously it's not there now, if it ever was). This is a bummer.. Also at one point my password mysteriously expired and made my site not work (I have to put the password in one of the scripts). I noticed not long after that, but I wonder if that's what the problem is here. Probably there is some other script I forgot to update. I try to keep that all in one so things like this don't happen, but there is one directory I had to password protect and I think that this email thing uses a file in there. It's really interesting how quickly I forget this stuff. I coded all of it but I have no recollection about how it works. Every time I have to update something it's like I'm relearning my screwed up and backward coding techniques.

Anyway, I was looking at it because a job I applied for asked for some web development examples. I was going to give the URL to my content management system and that's when I realized it doesn't work suddenly. Now I don't know whether I should a) give the URL and say it's kind of not working, b) Fake a record and just hope it kind of works and not say anything, c) not give the URL. I think I'll probably choose b. Especially if the problem really is just adding the password somewhere - in that case I can fix that quick. Crod! That wasn't it. WTF? I guess I'll look at it tomorrow. What a bummer.

Chrome

Have you guys tried out the Google Chrome browser? I'm using it right now. Love it. My favorite thing so far is that you can search from the address bar. And you can make it be something else than a google search. I wonder if it would wiki something. I know that on Firefox you can set up prefixes, like "wiki something" would search wikipedia for that. Can't wait to try it out. This browser seems fast too, and I like how the tabs are....but, I'm not a tab user because I like seeing the titles all in the task bar. I'm a super window user, for sure. At work sometimes I have 20 open. And I have to open them in a specific order, and, I hate when they collapse. Anyway, try this out or at least read about it - seems cool so far.

Cinematic experience

It's about 12:30 on Sunday night and here I am! I'm in Rochester in my dad's extremely hot house. I swear they keep it at 80 at night. Anyway I just watched this movie called Werckmeister Harmonies. I learned about it from AV Club. It was totally up my alley; in fact, I loved it so much I felt I had to write a blog entry about it. I feel like my life just changed somehow. It was almost past good. It's funny, too. I stopped a bunch of times during the movie and I was googling during it to make sure it was in Hungarian because the dubbing and subtitles were weird and wasn't even THAT invested in it. Still though I feel strangely moved by it. I don't really suggest it for anyone else because it's Hungarian and 2.5 hours long. It's remarkably like Tarkovsky, another director I like, of whom I know most people I know have voiced dislike. But following this, I am planning on watching another movie by this director (Bela Tarr) which is 8 hours long. I anticipate really enjoying it. Everything I've heard about this 8-hour movie (called Satantango) is really good, even regarding the length. I've heard it's kind of like the Rocky Horror of Hungary. They have days where they just go watch that movie. So I'm getting it next on Netflix and I'm pretty excited about it. Another note: the music was gorgeous. I think it was composed specifically for this movie, which isn't weird, but I am rarely struck by a movie's score quite so much. Hope everyone is having a good weekend. Later.