We are tentatively on to round two with the Cray interviews. Kevin is still networking his tail off, but arrangements for the next set of interviews (technical interview, IT Director) are in-progress, planning for next week!
In other news, the whole house has little M’s cold right now. The nights are long (short?) and the days are hard.
Also, it snowed today.
-K
I forgot to note that yesterday was Meredith’s 18 MONTH CHECKUP! She did really well, it sounds like — Daddy took her in. She had a shot, and apparently cried REALLY HARD, but was soon waving and saying bye-bye to everyone in the office. (Good riddance, I’m sure!) The doctor is pleased with her development — words, coordination, concepts, etc. Growthwise, she’s still at 5% weight (20lb, 3oz) and 50-75% height/head size (31 inches(?) and I don’t remember the other.) So skinny but healthy. 
Another day, another long night thanks to Miss M. I think Kevin and I were awake more than asleep, up and down with her. At 5am, I finally took her to the guest room so that we both could get a little bit of sleep. Poor girl has the stuffed nose phase of her cold, so she is snorty and miserable.
Today was a good day at work — I was complimented on my Javascript and I got to do some good work and pick up the slack where my manager hadn’t had time to do the work. So I looked majorly indispensable. We had a BBQ cookoff, too — lots of meat to be had! I brought bread. (Hey, I wasn’t going to try to get meat for 30 to work on the bus!!)
Kevin is still waiting to hear from Cray, but networking his tail off in the meantime. Keep those fingers crossed, please!
We found out today that Christi is going to come see us in March! Of course I had to open my big mouth and suggest she come the weekend of my run (March 15.) What was I thinking?! Of course, it will be nice to have her here for that…and Meredith will love to get to spend time with Aunt Christi!
So… job stuff. April is still gainfully employed and starting to get her groove on. Me? Not so much.
The “excellent interview” from a couple weeks ago apparently wasn’t. The followup technical interview I was supposed to have was canceled. Further inquiry showed that they thought I wa a “great candidate”, but that my recent experience didn’t allow me to achieve the breadth of skills they need at this time. Another interview panned out similarly, with great feelings and then stating I was a great candidate and my “skills and qualifications reflect what [we are] looking for”, but they decided to look for someone with experience in consulting, instead.
I’m awesome, but no one wants me. I need experience consulting to become a consultant.
So, yesterday, I had a first interview with Cray. I’m really excited about the position and it’s a bit different from most of what I’ve applied for so far. If you happen to know someone who works there (major campuses in Austin TX, Mendota Heights MN, Chippewa Falls WI, and Seattle WA) please please please let me know… we’ll know next steps (or not) next week.
-K
Gosh it’s been a long time since I posted, hasn’t it? Not a lot is going on, but a lot of little things, I guess, mostly dealing with the Divine Miss M.
Firstly, Esmerelda is working out really well! We like her a lot and she seems to adore Meredith and Aurora. I was especially impressed when she showed up Tuesday with a guitar! Fun!
Meredith seems to be cooling it on popping out the teeth — I think she is working on only one right now. (Thank goodness!) In the meantime, she is putting the new ones to good use, chewing all sorts of things, including her first big girl sandwich!
She is also learning and mimicking new words quickly — astoundingly so. Kevin was amazed the other night when she was attempting to shove him out of the way in order to go (fall) down the stairs. He said, “Say ‘move, please’”. And she immediately said “Moo plee”. THE CUTENESS IS PARALYZING. We’ve also been reading her flip book a lot that teaches about parts of the body: her newest one is ‘elbow’. She now knows ear, eye, tongue, hands, elbow, BELLYBUTTON (favorite), leg and foot. AND, amazingly, she is able to not only point it out on herself, but tonight she was pointing out MY foot and eye. Wow! It’s like she’s a person!
And then she goes and does something like pooping in the tub on Monday, the first time she’s EVER done that. Guess she just had to do it once.
Daddy bought her three pairs of shoes today at the consignment store, since her current ones are getting a little short for her. Here’s the current pair. I’m not exactly keen on the pattern, but they’re like new and they fit: what more can you ask?
Kevin has a phone interview coming up with Cray, which makes enormous super-computers like HAL from 2001. Kevin’s job would be, of course, to keep them from going insane and killing people. He couldn’t keep back a grin when telling me about the interview: let’s just say that the nerd-factor of interviewing there is extremely high.
My job is going really well — I’m doing cool work that is challenging to me, which is GREAT. Better than twiddling my thumbs! I’m working on a component that will allow people to login to the University of Phoenix site in order to leave comments on posted articles (kind of like you can do on our blog here.) But there are nifty form switching things and I’m working closely with another guy that’s writing the back-end stuff. It’s all very cool.
I’m also still keeping up with my running program. I’m up to 30 minutes at a time (this is week 8 of 9) and hating every minute of it. No, not really — just the last 29 minutes. I can honestly say, though, that, so far, I haven’t once slacked off and walked when I should be running. I may run so slow I might as well be going backwards, but it’s running, not walking. Go me! I’m trying to incorporate a few hills here and there, because the 5k I’m doing on March [mumble mumble] (15, I think?) has some long, LONG hills. Ack. I think I’ll be walking.
Devi is hanging in there — she comes running with me, although for her it’s a fast trot and she probably wishes I would either go faster or walk so she can sniff all the interesting things going by…
If you’re wondering what we did for Valentine’s Day, the answer is NOTHING. Well, not technically: Kevin made a yummy dinner and CHEESECAKE for dessert. That’s a perfectly fine V-Day for me!
We are going to dinner at our neighbors’ (Raja and Lipika) house on Saturday night! Apparently, Lipika has also been laid off from her job, so we’ll have lots to talk about… 
Then Sunday are the Oscars, of course: I’ll be watching, even though I haven’t seen any of the movies. Kevin will be otherwise occupied playing D&D into the wee hours of the night. (Maybe.)
There, how’s that for an update?
Time flies when you’re doing stuff! So, let’s see… tomorrow will be the end of my first full week at my new job. I love it! Well, other than the extreme frustration of getting the enormous University of Phoenix project up and running on my machine. Today it finally happened — I can actually do some work now! Sigh. Otherwise, I really like it so far — the people are outstanding and have been extremely welcoming. I can cock my head to the side about 4 inches and look straight at the Space Needle. And I have a bus pass again! Yay for subsidized transportation.
This is also the end of the first full week with Meredith’s new nanny, Esmerelda. We really like her so far — she’s taken the girls (Meredith and her new 9-month-old pal Aurora!) to the park or out for a walk every day so far. And, best of all, Meredith hasn’t been bursting into tears when I leave her at Aurora’s house like she did at Michelle’s. I don’t know if she just has more fun there or if she’s moving past the separation anxiety thing…either way, I’ll take it! No broken heart first thing in the morning is a good thing. :>
What else…Kevin had lunch with an old friend from his hometown who is living out here right now. AND had an excellent interview that might lead to good things in the near-future, so cross your fingers on that. (I’ll let him elaborate on that if he wants.)
Devi is still Devi: adjusting slowly to the fact that there are new people showing up at the house every day…
Cute Meredith thing of the day: she’s learning how to blow. Earlier at dinner, I was blowing on her grilled cheese sandwich to cool it down for her. After dinner, when Devi was eating, she was standing there blowing as though Devi’s dinner needed cooling…