Wanderings

Anything you dream is fiction,
and anything you accomplish is science,
the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.
- Ray Bradbury
December 19th, 2008

Lots of Winter Pictures

I am cleaning out the various cameras here. I put some of them on a Picasa album here:

Some interesting pictures —

When Larry and I went to see Cadillac Records, we got there a little early. Larry spent the time annoying some nice girls trying to sell bath salts and other smelly things. They worked hard flirting with Larry and trying to sell him something. Of course, he didn’t spend any money and when we went by later one of them gave him the finger.

There is a mouse at work that leaves me little presents every night.

Furry in the snow showers that we had around Thanksgiving.

The usual suspects at work. This is our Christmas lunch. Programming attracts a variety of cultures.

There are a bunch of arty pictures of the backyard in the collection.

Here is a Battenfeld tree farm picture.






October 9th, 2008

Dimming the Lights in Westchester

westlights When I was the manager of Integrated Systems at Lockheed I would go into my office, pull the blinds down, turn off the lights and work on my computer in the dim room. It was cozy and comfortable. I never like the harsh florescent lights of the typical office. When I went to work for IBM they crowded Jingdong and myself in a little closet, and when one by one the florescent tubes went out we never told anyone. It was nice to work on our computers in the dim light.

The maintenance crew just went around taking two out of the three lights out of every light fixture on the floor. I like it and I much prefer it to the perpetual glare. I figure that in the whole building they are removing about 2,000 40 watt light bulbs and saving as much as 500,000 kwh of power per year. This will save about $100,000 a year. It doesn’t seem like much, but it is something.






October 8th, 2008

Demolition Derby

Here’s something for your backyard. Rye Playland, one of the oldest amusement parts in the United States, is selling off one of their rides. I work for Westchester County so I watch these auctions. I have to program some of the systems at Rye Playland, so it is interesting to see this.

You can buy the whole Demolition Derby ride for your kids (or yourself) for a mere $10,000.

The only catch is that you have to go to Rye with a very big truck, disassemble it, and carry it away.

AMUSEMENT PARK RIDE – DEMOLITION DERBY – eBay (item 230297016968 end time Oct-10-08 09:00:34 PDT)






September 21st, 2008

Programmer Fan Mail

I don’t make it easy to contact me. My email is often hidden, missing or obfuscated. I still get about 300 spam messages a day in my gmail spam folder, which I have to check just in case.

I just checked my spam and found a message from someone who likes my Craigslist telecommute job search at my site Gthread.com.

Marianne wrote:

I love you Keith P Graham! Ok not literally, but this search form rules!!! If I get the job I want from this experience I’ll name something of importance (to me) after you. :-) You get good karma points.

http://www.gthread.com/craigslist_search/

Programmers don’t get that much respect. Mostly because there is always something wrong with out code. It is nice to hear something nice for a change.






February 22nd, 2007

I need a Vacation

I occasionally dip my left big toe in the job pool to test the water. I have resumes at Monster and a few other job sites. I make a separate email address for each one so I can track where my job offers come from. In the last few months, I have been receiving spam and Nigerian scams at the Careerbuilder.com email. They have sold (or someone has sold) my personal data and I am receiving these bogus work-at-home offers where I am asked to give up my checking account number. They know my name and address.

I also get calls at my home number from very aggressive recruiters, who want me to relocate or work for peanuts. These come from CareerBuilder, as well.

I killed my CareerBuilder account, but the damage is done. Careerbuilder seems to be casual about who gets my information.

If you want to find a job, use InDeed.com. This is an aggregater, that goes out to several job sites and scrapes off the data. I specify jobs within 20 miles of my home and I get dozens of good job listings when I check it. The other places to check are Craigslist.org and http://www.usajobs.opm.gov (this is where I apply for NASA jobs – not even a nibble so far).

By the way, yesterday I got a nibble on my left big toe. I dreamt all night about a job where I could actually take a paid vacation again. It’s a long shot, though. I am not a good match and the tech interview was about .NET, which is not my area of expertise. I tried to convey that I am a decent programmer, no matter what the language, but I am not sure that I came across as competent for the job. Still, I wasn’t entirely bummed by the interview and I have some slim hope. Perhaps in a year, I can take a week or two off with pay – what a concept. I haven’t had a vacation (other than down time between gigs) since 1999.