Work continues to consume much of my time, but I have managed to talk to two different people about a job as a pre-sales engineer. One at IAS and one at Netapp. I need to talk to more of the people doing the work and see if it's something I should pursue. A 'job with technology' doesn't make much sense to me, but apparently it's a real thing that makes money.

Why is this picture interesting? Well, it looks out one of the conference rooms on the executive wing. I was brought into a meeting about some secret stuff and it was held in the exec wing. The chick at the desk right as you come in checked to make sure I was invited to a meeting there then gave me directions and asked if I wanted and bottled water. Do people get parched on the long journey from the desk to the conference rooms? I did a little exploring on my way but couldn't see Tim Cook's office or any signs of anything abnormal. Just lots of open spaces with soft seating and lots of food in the kitchen. Couldn't find a bathroom before I got scared and made my way back to where I was supposed to be.

Last week at work was pretty bad, I ended up walking out on Wednesday due to some nonsense. The woman made me write it down and it turns out it's 17 pieces of nonsense, and that's just what I could come up with off the top of my head. I met John at Starbucks in the afternoon and asked him how he deals with our boss. He says he's learned to be a 'yes man' and just say yes to whatever, it's easier that way even if it's wrong. He also said that because dbag is busy shitting on me all the time that he's been in the clear since I joined. Great, I'm providing a dumping ground so John doesn't have to take it anymore.

With the bad week I've taken to actively looking for a new job now instead of just whining about it. I've got two lunches setup next week with people from my network of managers I know well and trust (network turns out to be 11 people total) and there are more on the way. Going to be a busy couple of weeks reconnecting with everyone, and that's a good thing to be busy with.

The antelope tag drawing happened in Wyoming last week, and I did not draw a tag. Damn! $300 down the drain for the draw chance. The guide said that it's not been a bad year for animals, it's just that it's a tough draw. At least I have the cow elk tag so the hunt is still on. I guess it's a win in that it's now only $2k for the guide and horses instead of $3k for the dual animal hunt. It's not like I won't have fun with just the elk or I'll somehow wish I had more meat out of the hunt. Time to get practicing with the rifle and with the horse.

This weekend the woman was at the nascar race at Sonoma and I went to two classes. A tactical shotgun class on Saturday and a dagger fighting seminar at the sword fighting school on Sunday. Lots of activity and not a single picture. I will say that I'm totally wiped out from two days of very physical activity. I went to bed at 9pm on Saturday, going to do the same tonight to I can get up Monday.

I forgot that this weekend was field day. I saw Kenny had a cabin rented but then there was a quasi-twitter sounding update that made me think he had problems with his water heater and didn't go. I'm sure he'll clarify in a future post.

In Austin and last night the crew and I went to dinner at Cheuys again, and then walked downtown to this place. I told David to find someplace quiet(er) and with "something to look at". It was better than most, and as an added bonus their cheap drink of the night was a Captain and Coke. They were watered down though, I had 3 and it cost the same as 1 and had about the same effect on me.

Friday morning I took the dead washer to the recycle place. I tried to take a few pictures but it's not really an adventure, just taking stuff to what amounts to a metal dump. I could have in theory weighed in, dumped the stuff, weighed out, stood in a 3rd line and collected a few bucks for the scrap value but I declined and just tossed it and went on my way.

Look, new tires!

That bar I talked Andrew into going and checking out for us had some problems it seems:

I can't remember my godaddy or no-ip passwords, the only way I can get in is because they're cashed in the browser on my win7 virtual system. Dog help me if I ever lost that VM... probably should reset them at some point.

In any case, domains and dynamic hosted DNS updated.

In the airport on my way home I ran out of tic tacs so I went to pick up some local mints (as they had no tic tacs I didn't exactly have a choice). 4 packs of mints were all they had and they were marked 9.90, turns out that was USD but whatever it was 4 boxes and I didn't have much of a choice (other than going without or waiting 30 minutes until I was on the plane where the 'amenities kit' in 1st class contains a box of mints but whatever). The pack contains 2 flavors, peppermint and what we're calling in the office "cat pee". The package says lemon, but they're not exactly that. what's even stranger is the image on the tourist packaging. What does a decapitated head in a pile of strange vegetables have to do with Israel??

Took Friday off to make up for Memorial day and spent most of the time running errands and putting the radio in the 4runner. I picked up two mounts from hammie hut and that was smart as I ended u using parts from both mounts to get it in there the way I wanted. I thought it would vibrate around too much on that long arm bolted the passenger seat but it doesn't, the 4runner is a little smoother than the Jeep.

I went by the Apple store in the mall to pick up an iPad I ordered for the woman for her mom (rather than having it shipped to the house and no one being here to pick it up and then having to drive to FedEx to pick it up. Having never been in an actual store I wandered around before asking someone where the counter is. Who knew there isn't a counter and they do everything from their little wireless devices? Fancy.

Saturday I loaded up the truck with crap to take to my parents and drove up. Got 20mpg on that first tank while running mostly empty, just the Jeep soft top frame and other assorted junk in the back. On the stretch from Stockton to their house and back which is primarily 55 MPH or less and flat for about 40 miles I got 25mpg. That's crazy, the Suzuki usually got 38 in that stretch, the bike gets 60. Driving slower does help, but I wouldn't want to do it all the time.

While I was away, the washing machine broke. I got back today and bailed out most the water and tried to figure out what was going on. The motor seemed to be OK, it would still move but it would not pump out the water at the end of the cycle. I took it apart and found that the pump runs off the main motor, there is a little clutch pack that engages that causes the pump to turn. Clever, until it isn't. I had been wanting to get a front loader for a while but couldn't come up with a good reason to, so this looked like an excuse to upgrade. We went to OSH and they've gotten out of the appliance business, then went to Lowes to look around and then went to Western Appliance were we've bought everything else (the washer that broke, the stove, the microwave, the dish washer, the fridge for the cabin, etc). We found the unit the woman wanted but they only had it in red, so they guy said he would make us a great deal if we took the red one. It turned out to be $250 cheaper than buying the white one at Lowes so we were all over that. We'll get $125 back in free government cash because it's "eco friendly level 3" or something. After having to bail out the old washer it's amazing how much water it uses per load (and how little the new one uses).

Having the 4runner meant I didn't have to wait for delivery so we just tossed it in the back and drove it home. The woman is enjoying the view. :) There is a recycle spot in San Jose that takes dead appliances so I'll have to hit that place with the old one. Not wanting to have to lift the old one in by myself I disassembled it completely, now it's just a pile of parts which is way easier to load.

While at my parents I picked up 2 cases of shotgun ammo (one each of slugs and 00 buck) and the Vancomp barrel which I'll swap onto the Mossberg I've already pimped out. The Vancomp is parkerized black so I may have to hit the mag tube of the existing shotgun with some BBQ black to make it match. :)

Also had that 2nd round interview on Friday. They want 4 people in one position and I can only do 3 of them, so it's likely they'll pass on me. That's OK, I'm feeling kinda lazy and not wanting to switch right now. Or maybe I'm just scared.

A little more of the odd food in Israel. The last day we got back to the hotel past 11pm and the restaurant was closed and the bar wasn't serving either for some reason. Delaney just went to sleep, but I was starving and walked down the street to a place I wanted to try when we first walked past it:

For some reason the dual-script on the signs makes me think of Alien Nation. Speaking of bad movies, one of the fine films I saw on the way home. Don't ask why but I've read the book so I figured I should see the movie. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be...

While away I was scouring craigslist and auto trader looking at 4runners and XTerras, ranging in price from $4k to $14k. Saturday the woman canceled her ride (she ended up riding today) and we spent all day looking at cars. I drove a '00 4runner first and really liked it, although with the automatic it was really, really slow. Then I finally got to drive that '03 Xterra and it was nice, but I liked the feel of the 4runner better. I was going to drive an '05 Xterra (the first year of the 2nd gen) but they couldn't find the keys to it and never called me back. I originally had ruled out 5-speeds in case the woman wanted to drive it but over at Sunnyvale Toyota they had an '99 which they had mistakenly said was an auto in the ad. I had 'average' miles on it for a 4runner of it's vintage (174k) and it's timing belt and major service was done at 135k. It was a 1 owner vehicle and almost all the services were done at the dealership according to the Carfax report. I decided to drive it just as a reference point and it turned out to be my favorite. The sticks in these things are awesome and it didn't seem as slow when you get to row the gears yourself. After a mere.... 6 hours we drove it home. I couldn't deal too much on it because honestly either this is something really wrong with it that I can't find or they screwed up but it was priced about $2k below Edmund's dealer retail. With nothing to back up my arguments about all I was able to do was score $200 off for a replacement battery as the current one was weak. It was even priced below the private party stuff I had been seeing. It was also cheaper than older/more beat up 4runners with more miles on the same lot.... Could it be that just no one wants 5-speeds? Shame, it really gives the truck some personality. With the money from the Jeep sale to dad and the 'profit' I made off reselling the Aerio, I got this 4runner and put $13k back into savings. I'm happy about that.

The parts for my shotgun rebuild came in while I was away so I took some time today to pimp out one of the Mossberg 500s for the upcoming shotgun class. This is original 12 gauge that I got in 1991? 1992? It's when Vareck and I each got a $99 shotgun at bi-mart. I've put the side carrier on there as well as the speed-feed stock as the instructor said these are his favorite ways to carry extra ammo on the weapon. I also put the 1-point sling adapter on there (you can see it just forward of the stock) and practiced using a 1-point sling a bit. It's not easy keeping the damn thing out of the way when you want to do other stuff. Plus, being short the gun bangs on stairs when you move up/down.

The rest of the day was wasted chasing down a battery for the 4runner, checking out the new barn again (now that they have the horses there), hitting BevMo for their 5-cent wine sale and generally lazing about wishing I didn't have to go back to work tomorrow.