Category: Uncategorized

I’m at my mom’s house again, in preparation for AX. I brought my PC this time, so I won’t be without FFXI.

At one point on the drive down, there was a PT Cruiser behind me, a PT Cruiser in front of me, and a PT Cruiser in front of that PT Cruiser.

Okay, I got distracted by my mom’s dogs, they’re constantly nipping at each other. They were also very excited to see me, even the one who’d never met me.

Oh, and I got a job. It’s back at Yahoo! and it’s contract-to-hire, but it’s in a completely different department (even a different location, less chance of running into people I worked with before) and it’s an engineering position, which hopefully will mean I’ll be learning useful more up-to-date things surrounded by people who I can actually ask questions about technical stuff, instead of programming in a vacuum like I was for the last 8 years. I start on July 10th, which is right after I get back from L.A. That’ll be interesting.

This is my obligatory “oh, wow has it been almost two weeks since I posted” post. (I have a FFXI post to make, but there’s a screenshot I need to take first.)

The job search continues. I got my second real rejection letter, and I actually got as far as discussing pay rate with one company, but I have a feeling that when I said “open to negotiation” the rate I started with still scared them off, or something. This is the company where they contacted me on a Monday, I interviewed on Tuesday, came back again on Thursday, fast fast fast, then two weeks later this phone call came. So it could be another two weeks, who knows.

…

I really don’t have much else to say. I’m going down to L.A. for Anime Expo again, and I’m going to spend a little time before and a little time afterwards at my mom’s house. I get to see the new puppy! And also my mom and brother, I guess.

So, in the last few months I’ve continued to get phone calls from various charities asking for money. I’ve learned that the excuse “I don’t have a job right now, so I’m not in a position to donate” tends to get people off my back fairly easily. But then, last week a lady from the Red Cross called…

I don’t think being jobless makes for a good excuse not to donate blood, so I ended up signing up to donate, and today was the day. I’d donated at work before, but I’d never been in to the actual facility. The procedure was much the same, and I got the bonus of having my blood pressure taken (122/71), but once I got into the actual chair I noticed something: I was about 20 years younger than everyone else donating blood at the moment. I’m hoping it was because it was 2:00 on a work day and not that my generation is a generation of selfish slackers.

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful (aside from a random voice mail from which I haven’t been able to answer yet because I didn’t get it until she was likely asleep) until I randomly ran into at Safeway. What was even odder about that is that I was with and and we were in the middle of a discussion about Fanime.

Oh, and for those of you who care, the karaoke server is back online, with 90 more gigs of free space, courtesy of it being transferred to ‘s donated hard drive. Same bat-url, same bat-somethingelse.

In a weird urge, I just rewatched all of Cowboy Bebop again. Well, I actually started a few days ago, but I just finished #26 now.

Today’s post is brought to you by the <lj user=username> tag.

Edit: Oh, and making this post triggered a hatting, but the other person didn’t reply.

Another benchmark in the job search, I finally got a recruiter trying to recruit me for a job I’d already applied to.

Also, at an ex-coworker’s suggestion (who has since switched jobs since I left Yahoo! to become a Talent Acquisitioner), I submitted my resume to dice.com as well, and I think that helped. For tech people, at least:

dice.com > hotjobs.com >> monster.com

At least that was what I noticed.

Also, I’ve been turning off my ringer on the phone for the last few days, it would have saved me being woken up on Monday, except that my good friend the guy with the extremely loud ladder who likes banging it against the building right outside my window was back.

3:30 a.m.: Finally fall asleep

8:05 a.m.: “Hello, I’m from a recruiting agency you’ve already dealt with two other people from and I’ve read your resume and I’ve got a position for you. It’s in San Francisco and it’s a Java Developer position.” “I don’t know Java.” “Oh? You mean Java and JavaScript aren’t the same thing?” “No, they’re very different.” “Oh, sorry well.. blah blah blah” (already falling back asleep)

9:20 a.m.: “Hello, is Leon Lin there?” “Wha?” “Is Leon there?” “… uh… he’s asleep?” “Should I call back later?” “… …. I guess?”

10:30 a.m.: Phone rings, I let the machine get it, who knows…

11:20 a.m.: “Hello, is Leon Lin there?” “No.”

And couldn’t fall back asleep after that.

Off I go to Fanime! (Well, after I pack.)

And the current song is a coincidence, I swear.

So, for the first time in this job search, a company actually had the decency to contact me back and tell me I wasn’t right for the position, unlike every other company, which has just stopped answering emails and never gets back to me. Although the pace has slowed from that initial barrage when I first posted on hotjobs, I’m still getting inquiries, some of which sound genuinely interesting.

So, the happy thing about FFXI that I was going to post before but didn’t because of the car thing:

Happy FFXI images within

Pep boys just called. When the guy changed my oil last time at the smog check place, he put the wrong oil filter on.

This is the second time this exact same thing has happened! It must have something to do with my car… like there’s a manual out there of Make/Model -> Oil filter type that has an error or a typo or something.

10 head -> desk
20 goto 10

Let’s just do this one in chronological order, shall we?

I woke up earlier than I planned and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I killed some time before I had to head up to San Francisco for a job interview. Yes, this would a job in the city, yes it would be an hour train ride each way, yes that’s still a major consideration in the job, but we’ll see what happens anyway. The parking lot at the Sunnyvale station was full, so I ended up parking in three hour parking for six hours, and hopefully I don’t get mailed a ticket or something.

The day continues.