A Guy, Two Girls and a Pup

It’s been a little disconcerting the last few days putting Meredith down for the night. She’s actually allowed herself to be put into her crib, awake, and has fallen asleep by herself. Tonight there was a little crying when I left her — she wanted me to stand by her crib for a bit until she calmed down a little more. She’s still not sleeping all the way through the night at all — last night we were up for a combined 2 hours with her, but the fact that she’s getting to sleep by her self more and more easily is really encouraging.

Tonight I got home from work at 8:30pm — our team was working on a website feature that really needed to be done tonight. We got the job done, even though it took awhile. Even though I wouldn’t want to do it more than once every, oh, 3 years or so :>, I learned a lot and got to know my teammates a little better. So it was time well spent.

The downside is that I didn’t get to see Meredith at all this evening — I missed dinner and her bath and putting her to bed. I didn’t get any hugs or kisses from little Goober. Not a good evening in that respect.

It occurred to me that, while I started writing my own blog intermittently several weeks ago, I haven’t actually told anyone…
The Electronic Eclectic is a randomly published set of random topics from my jumbled brain. I’m linking you to the About page, to reiterate the warning: some topics or views may be uncomfortable for some readers. Despite that, comments and conversations from any and all are welcome, and encouraged… just come with an open mind.

-K

I am now, verbally, the newest employee of Cray Inc.

It was a difficult decision, which they did not make any easier by refusing to negotiate on anything from their initial offer. But, I picked the job that I found myself daydreaming about potential issues and solution sets for, despite the inferior compensation package… I think that will be the right choice, as it’s still certainly enough for us to be solvent and prospering on — just not on par with the other offer. I should be starting next week sometime - date not yet determined.

OK, I’m going to go have a minor stress relief breakdown now.

-K

… but I don’t know where.

I have had a crazy week of smashingly good interviews, with four different companies. One I’ve only done the second interview with, so I cannot count them in… and I’m not sure I would want the job there, anyway. But I smoked their rapid-fire, unexpected, technical interview out of the water… one of the questions was, much to my amusement, the same as one I used at K-C to trip up people trying to pass themselves off of experts, but only knew the book work. Also? When asked “Name two security things you would Never do in an Exchange environment,” the proper response to a Director-type interviewer is “Nothing; every environment is different and while some activities are inappropriate for most companies, everything has a place Somewhere. But here’s one from my last company…” Heh. Technical interviewers do not appreciate that answer quite so much.

So. I have an offer from Company A, for a contract to Microsoft, which I totally did not expect. I turned down the initial verbal offer, as we didn’t think we could manage me working second shift indefinitely. So apparently the MS team I interviewed with liked me well enough that they went and CREATED a daytime position to match, just for me, which is extremely rare. The weird part is, I totally did not get that from the interview - they play poker quite well.

Company B has been my front runner for a long time now; a very interesting position that would let me develop both my technical and soft skills, on an international basis. I advised them of the other offer and found that they are waiting on the CEO to make the approval to extend an offer to me. Hopefully, I should that offer by the end of tomorrow.

Company C was a grueling technical interview today: five Engineering and Operations staff on one side of the table, me on the other. I think I did well, but got conflicting impressions from the review board members. I contacted the recruiter this afternoon to advise her of the time lines, as well. They have one more candidate to interview tomorrow, but she’ll touch base with me afterwards, to let me know what they are thinking.

Now, I pushed off the idea of the MS contact with Company A for a long time; second shift really lost points with me. But now it is a day shift, and the work sounds interesting and the opportunity is rare… but so is Company B… and C, for that matter.

Difficult decisions to be made this weekend… but it’s a damn nice problem to have.

-K

So yesterday was the day of The Big Race, the 5k I’ve been working up to for the last 4 months or so. The day started out bad and got worse — it snowed. AND rained. Apparently the first time it had snowed for the race in its entire 25 years. Lucky me. My clothes were SOAKED. My hands were so cold I ran with my sleeves pulled over them the whole time.

The route was super-tough: it was all uphill for the first half, back downhill for the 2nd. I walked up once I got to the hills — couldn’t manage running on the hill. But I ran the entire downhill and crossed the finish line running, woo! Here’s the final results:

overall place: 7119 out of 7233
division place: 724 out of 736
gender place: 3731 out of 3813
time: 1:11:34
pace: 19:05

There were 15,000 runners all together. I’m not going to be winning any gold medals, but at least I wasn’t last. Maybe there will be a next time…

So… Interview #3 for Cray is lined up for next Tuesday. Interview with a Hiring Manager for a second-shift contract job with Microsoft is pending. Interview with an international legal firm downtown is pending, likely Friday. Waiting, always waiting…

Christi is due in for the weekend on Friday; we’re excited. Offered to take the neighbors to the airport at the same time, since they’re heading out for the weekend, but they haven’t gotten back to me yet. Not sure what all the weekend will entail, or exactly how Friday night dinner will be handled. Waiting, always waiting…

Got a few emails out to friends to see how things are doing with them. Nothing currently in my court that I’m aware of. Thinking about working with my sister to manage the twenty-year class reunion in a few years. Waiting, always waiting…

Need to make some Jello, because we haven’t had any in a long time and M would probably have fun with it. And so I can wait for that, too.

What are you waiting on?

-K

…of Meredith waking up at the crack of 3am, for some reason. I think it’s the tooth that’s bothering her, as she’s been kind of clawing at her mouth and biting the comforter and everything. Still, her sense of timing is uncanny. And annoying. I’ve been taking her into the guest room, where she calms down after about AN HOUR. Usually long enough to get in a good hour or so before I have to get up. By that time, of course, she’s sleeping like the dead — which is good, because I can put her in the crib with little fuss. But then I hate to wake her up to go to Aurora’s house…

Offhand updates… M knows the word “apple”, then though she was using it to refer to both apple and cheese yesterday. She sometimes knows how to blow snot out her nose on purpose. I found out in the last few days that she is a Mayflower descendant - John Howland is her 10th Great Grandfather. She knows how to roll and excise ball around the house - something she didn’t learn from anyone. She can say “cookie”, but we have no idea what she thinks it means. When Esme asks her if she wants to eat breakfast, she is more than happy to reach for her, instead of me… finally.

So what’s happening in your universe?

-K

Christi says I’m not blogging enough — fair enough, but it’s kind of hard to grab free time when you’re going to bed ever night at 8pm like I’ve been doing for the past week or so. Meredith has infected the entire house with the plague, so we’ve all been slowly recovering in our own time, and I seem to be bringing up the rear. It’s pretty nasty — lots of coughing and congestion and clogged sinuses. Meredith seems to be just about over it, except for a runny nose. Kevin is in the middle somewhere, and I’m still getting clogged sinuses, but I haven’t been hacking QUITE so often…hopefully a couple more days and I’ll be good to go!

Work is still going well! I took a sick day on Monday (see above :P) so the last couple of days have been a little bit of catchup. We’re doing a release tomorrow of some sort — not sure what it encompasses yet — something to do with adding more Schools to the website (like Engineering, I think? You can tell they don’t tell me anything. :>) The stuff I’m working on isn’t part of that, but I’m sure I’ll be in the thick of the next release.

Kevin had very good feedback from his interview, and he is feeling cautiously (VERY CAUTIOUSLY) optimistic. He had some really kind words from the IT manager he interviewed with (praising his diligent preparation for the interview!) and really prompt replies to questions/followup, which he’s taking as a really good sign. So cross your fingers…not sure when we’ll hear back next, but hopefully soon!

Meredith, like I said, is getting through the ickies of her cold. Tonight we helped her put two and two together and start learning how to blow on command so that we don’t have to use the nose sucker anymore! Is it too much to hope that tomorrow she’ll be able to work her own Kleenex and everything?