09.01.06

Bagged One

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First of all, an update on last week’s interview: it went well, I think. I don’t know how many people they interviewed, or what kind of qualifications my competitors have, but I think I have a decent chance.

I hadn’t blogged about that until today because that very afternoon, not long after the interview was over, my internet connection died—right in the middle of filling out an application for yet another temp agency. I hooked up my cell phone via USB cable, finished the application, and called tech support. Apparently I was one of the first to report the outage, because the status on the tech’s screen changed during the call. She said it would most likely be fixed in a few hours, and that I should call back later that night if it wasn’t.

The next day, I went to the temp agency for an interview. That went well, and on the way home I got a call saying they’d found a short job for me—3-4 days, starting the next day—and that they’d email me the details. So I got home, checked my email … still no connection. I connected via cell again, got the job details, and called tech support. This was one of the most ridiculous tech support calls I’ve ever experienced—and I worked tech support. The woman I spoke to actually told me that it would be fixed “about an hour after they figure out what’s wrong.” I asked her to repeat that, and she did—I had not misunderstood. When I asked when they might figure out what was wrong, she had no estimate. “So,” I asked, “it will be fixed an hour after some unspecified time in the future?” The tech failed to see the humor in this. Long story short, my internet connection finally got fixed yesterday, after being out more than a week. I’m trying to get Comcast to prorate my bill—wish me luck.

I went to that temp assignment Friday—twiddly data entry work for an HR firm, where a bunch of records in a database are out of date (in this case because the state has changed the process for child support wage garnishments) and someone needs to go through and fix it by hand. Some records required research to verify case numbers and court orders. It’s mind numbing work, but it’s also the sort of thing that I’m really good at (I’ve been known to copy edit documents and format them in LaTeX for fun), so temp agencies tend to throw a lot of it at me. In fact, I’ve got another temp job starting next Tuesday. Data entry again, but this time it’s a 3-6 month assignment, and it pays almost as well as the school did.

So now I can breathe a little bit—money’s still tight at the moment, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I even sent in my registration forms to the University of London External Programme today.

Last weekend I went to a wedding in San Francisco and then stayed with my friends Ty and Autumn in Albany. Ty and I took BART to The City Sunday morning and rambled all over town, talking, just like we used to seven years ago when I lived in Marin. It felt good. And I just got back from the Sacramento Greek Food Festival, where I saw several of my former students dance and talked to them about their summers and their plans for the future. My grandparents were kind enough to take me (and buy my food), and I think they enjoyed hearing the kids call me “Mr. Dunham.” It took me a while to get used to that, too.

All in all, I’m starting to feel human again. Things are looking up.

06.15.06

Looking Again

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As a couple of my readers already know (but most don’t), my contract with the school ends at the end of the month, and the school has chosen not to renew it. It’s understandable; they’re going through the re-accreditation process in a couple years, and would like to have a credentialed teacher in my position if possible. Kind of messes with my plans a bit, but I’m not worried about finding something new—I have two good possibilities lined up already, and will probably take some temp work to fill in any gap between permanent positions. Still, if anyone out there knows of a good job opening up in the Sacramento area next month, feel free to let me know. I’ll post any further developments here as they occur.

08.31.05

Summer’s Growing Old

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Just one week until the beginning of the school year. It’s been a good, productive summer—I went to Charleston to learn how to teach Latin to children, learned more about the school’s recordkeeping sytem than I ever wanted to know, set up a new Gentoo box to use as the school’s web server, wrote an improved web design unit for the seventh and eighth graders, and bought a car.

Stephanie got a job teaching third grade—unfortunately, it’s in Antioch. But it’s a job doing what she wants to do, and after she builds up some experience she can move back to Sacramento if she wants to. Her school year starts the day before mine does. And no, she’s not commuting there and back every day—until she finds an apartment in that area, she’s staying with the principal of her school.

I started attending the Sacramento Boardgames, Cardgames, & Miniatures Meetup last June, and have been enjoying that immensely. The predominant style of games at these meetups is variously known as “German games,” “Eurogames,” “family strategy games,” and probably a few other terms I haven’t heard yet. They tend to be a lot more strategic than what Americans think of as boardgames (Monopoly, Sorry, Life, etc.) but lighter and more social than traditional strategy games like Chess and Go. My favorite so far has been Settlers of Catan—influenced not at all, I swear, by the fact that I won my first game of it. I also enjoyed Euphrat & Tigris despite coming in dead last and basically stinking up the board with my utter lack of strategic insight. Jim and I, among others, are working on a site to coordinate several Sacramento-based gaming groups with a central news and links page—I’ll link to that as soon as it’s done.

I also did some hiking up in the foothills. Nearly died. That’s a story for another time.

And that’s been my summer, pretty much. Now it’s over, and I feel like I accomplished a pathetically small fraction of what I’d intended to do. But it’s not such a bad list, looking over it now. Could be worse … right?

04.28.05

Nice Monster at Luna’s This Friday

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Sacramento music fans: my favorite local band, Nice Monster, will be playing at Luna’s Café, 1414 16th Street, tomorrow at 9PM. Also performing: Mark Herrod of POPGUN, Richard March, and Amee Chapman and the Big Finish. This will also be Josh Schramm’s last performance as bassist for Nice Monster. I will probably be there, unless I don’t get paid tomorrow. You should be there, too.