Rampant Silliness

It occurred to me that I should blog now, because I won't have time early in the week. I'll get the sad news out of the way first. One of my oak trees died this week. As you can see from the picture, it's quite large. Our neighbor/landscaper thinks that it was from all the dirt piled on the roots during construction. Plus, the weather has been extremely hot. This is the hottest July in over fifty years and we had several days over 100F this week.

Monday, I went to RTP for an interview with a recruiter for a particular job with a startup. That went well and the building was very nice. I've been amazed at some of the interesting architecture in the buildings that I've gone to recently.

I don't really remember Tuesday, but I know it involved lots of phone calls and e-mail. That might be the night that my dad and I went to Vinny's for dinner.

Wednesday, I went to a recruiter's office in North Raleigh for no job in particular. That was interesting and the building was even more impressive than the one I went to on Monday. This one had glass and marble, rather than just glass.

Thursday, I went to the career center. I originally went there solely to prepare for interviews with the instructor of the workshop I took in June, but then I found out that a bunch of the former IBMers were going to have lunch in the break room. How could I not participate? I grabbed a surprisingly good egg salad sandwich from the vending machine and joined them. I met some interesting new people nad participated in some interesting discussions about resumes, business cards, and just what categories of people got laid off.

Thursday was probably the night that I made faux jambalaya. In fact, since I left out the tomatoes, onions, peppers, hot sauce and added curry, it wasn't really like jambalaya at all. It was, however, good. I had two packages of pre-cooked Jimmy Dean sausage, which I cut up in little pieces. I sauteed a lot of minced garlic and then I added the sausage, shrimp, thyme, curry, parsley, chives and eight ounces of chicken broth. That was all served over basmati rice, with peas on the side. It turned out quite well but, in hindsight, it would have been better in a bowl than on a plate.

Friday night, my parents and I went to Nikos for dinner. They actually had fried oysters! I've been going there since 1992 and I have never seen oysters there. Apparently, they've been having them for lunch periodically. I almost always go there from dinner. Of course, my regular readers probably know that.

Saturday, I met GM and AE at SouthPoint and we saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Now, I've never seen the original version of the movie, but I did read the books forever and a half ago.
Johnny Depp seemed somewhat creepy to me in this movie, but I think this was primarily because they must have done something strange to his teeth. Parts of it are quite funny and clever and overall it's a very good story. It was well done.

Afterwards, we went to Rockfish. JH, back from Princeton, joined us with a friend of his. That made it an evening of rampant silliness. I had fried oysters, for the second night in a row. They were different, though. Really. Then, we headed over to Marble Slab Creamery and I had a cup of coconut with pineapple and shredded coconut. Finally, we wandered over to Barnes and Noble for a while.

This week I tried a diet avoiding all vegetables in the solanaceae or "nightshade" family. That includes tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and peppers. My mom read on Eschaton that a doctor told the writer of a comment that many people with symptoms of arthritis are actually allergic to those vegetables. Avoiding those foods has really worked for my mom. I, however, didn't really notice a difference after almost a week, so was I back to eating waffle fries with ketchup for dinner tonight. I'm sure I will try it again sometime, although it's very hard to avoid tomatoes.

Love Sponge

I forgot to mention that probably the highlight of yesterday's party, aside from seeing all my friends, was MC's dog, Anna. She is a beautiful Chow and Beagle mix, with a wonderful personality. She wasn't hyper at all and enjoyed petting like a love sponge. She was sized somewhere between a Chow and Beagle and her coat length was probalby somewhere in between as well, but she was Chow colored. She had droopy but shorter than Beagle length ears. I thought she was absolutely adorable.

Unstructured Diligence and Food

You would think that my not working would mean that I would be relaxing and saving money on gas. No, I'm afraid not. For one thing, looking for a job is full time, plus overtime. Secondly, I've been out to Durham or RTP every day since my last day at IBM.

Wednesday, I met CL, JL and SH for lunch at Rudino's. I, of course, had the Spinach Sophia grinder. That is the ultimate meal. It was fun to see them. I went to DBM afterwards to pick up more resume paper and meet with MB.

Thursday, I met JJ at the Baba Ghannouj Bistro for lunch. I hadn't realized until just now that it's a local chain. It's at Erwin Square, which is the same building as Parizade. I had a veggie platter and the food was excellent. It came with three falafels, baba ghannouj, hummus, "cucumber sauce", a huge portion of salad, and a big bowl of warm pita. I ordered tabouli for my salad.

I forgot to mention in my last post that when I went to JJ and JA's house that they had Locopops. Their neighbors recently opened a popsicle shop on Hillsborough Road, in Durham, next to Don Hill's Lock Shop. They have very unusual flavors, including avacado! I tried the Lavendar Cream and that was delicious. I really want to try Tamarind, Pineapple Mint, and Chocolate Orange. I'd like to try them all, but that's just a start. I need to go to the shop and take my cooler. Considering the hot weather we've been having, that would be the only way to get them home. From what I've heard, this is the hottest July on record since 1948.

Friday, I had a phone interview, which I felt went really well. I should hear something next week. I'm very excited about that particular job, so I hope I get it. That night I made an interesting concoction for my parents. I made sauteed onions, orange juice, honey, pine nuts, rasisins and cinnamon with barely warmed smoked salmon pieces over rice. It was good, but I think it would have been somewhat better with chicken or shrimp. I also think it would be good with toasted coconut and pineapple chunks added to it.

Today I went to MC's party, in Creedmoor. It was great to see everyone from work that I hadn't seen in a week and a half. The food was great, too, particularly KC's potato salad. They have a pool and it looked as if the kids and a couple of the adults were having a great refreshing time. They have improved I-85 considerably, so it wasn't a bad trip at all.

Tonight, my parents and I went to Nantucket Cafe & Grill and I tried their chicken teriyaki kabobs, which I hadn't noticed on the menu before. They were good and had huge chunks of grilled breast meat. Normally I prefer fried dark meat, so it's saying a lot that I liked it. The meat was very tender and flavorful.

I've also spent lots of time sending e-mail to various people I met at the job fair and interviewers. I've been looking at job sites and applying to places. It's very time consuming, but it's kind of fun.

Job Search Underway

I finally feel as if I have time to take a deep breath, but just one. I've been extremely busy since last week, when my job search truly began.

I spent the early part of last week packing up the oodles of things I'd collected in the four years that I lived in my office. Lived isn't too much of an exagerration, even though I never even napped there.

Wednesday was my last day at IBM. We went out to Taverna Nikos for lunch and I got the impression that most people enjoyed it. There were approximately twenty people there and everyone signed a card. It was funny how many people referred to my gathering up people to head to the cafeteria every day. I wouldn't surprised if they've quit eating since I've been gone.
GA gave me a bag of going-way gifts, including a beautiful book with photographs of flowers.
She also gave me a box of adorable mini-cheesecakes that people could have when they stopped by to say goodbye. They were really quite delicious.

Thursday I started my preparations by going to the DBM career center to work on my resume, a cover letter and order some business cards. I also attended a workshop on How to Work a Job Fair.

Friday, my mom and I met GA at Champa, for lunch. That was a lot of fun and I, of course, had Pad Thai with shrimp.

Saturday, I went over to JJ and JA's and saw their beautiful new garage and shop. They are very good at design. After cooking an excellent meal, including grilled duck, they gave me a mock interview, which was very helpful.

Sunday, I continued to prepare and we went to Oishii for dinner. This time I tried the Teppanyaki shrimp. Like everything else I've tried, it was delicious.

Monday I had an interview with a local startup. It looks like a great company, particularly because they seem so optimistic about the future. I enjoyed being interviewed, but that's not unusual in the least.

Today I went to a career fair for former IBMers. Like most of these things, I find going to a career fair to be a blast. I didn't pick up too many toys this time, so it must be the opportunity to accost strangers.

The Secret's in the Sauce

I have now switched to Blogger comments. The good thing about that is that now I will actually get notified when there are new comments so I can respond to questions within the same decade. The bad thing is that now all the previous comments are gone. In the long run, I think it will be worth it.

During my job search, I decided to look up one of the startup companies that I interviewed with over five years ago, when I was looking for my first job out of college. I interviewed with Metagenix, which was based in Durham. It turns out that after selling their first product for 4.5 million and the second product didn't go so well, the owners started selling barbecue sauce instead. That's just not what I would have expected when I interviewed, but it definitely looks like a good and saucy site.

Last night, GM and AE came over. I made shrimp and bacon pasta and we had Pepperidge Farm apple turnovers for dessert. I love those things. Yesterday afternoon, I made AE a pair of sterling silver and malachite earrings for her birthday, so I got to give those to her. We also watched another episode of Hitchiker's Guide to Galaxy and watched a movie, The Russians are Coming. It was entertaining and funny.

The Long Weekend

On Friday, my parents and I went to Oishii, in Chapel Hill. Just as we arrived, the fire alarm went off at the dry cleaner's a couple of doors down. The sprinkler system had turned on at there was water pouring out onto the sidewalk. There's nothing like a little excitement before a meal. After dinner, we looked and everything looked fine inside. Dinner was excellent. I had an order of shrimp shumai dumplings and a dragon roll.

Saturday, I mostly cleaned the house.

Sunday, GM, AE and FT came over. We ordered pizza, watched an episode of the Young Ones, and several Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy BBC Miniseries episodes. The pizza was great, because AE and I got one with anchovies and onions. I've been slowly discovering that I like anchovies. When I was about five or six years old, I had an anchovy pizza when we were in Indiana for my uncle's wedding. They also have anchovies on the Village Salad at Taverna Nikos. For years I didn't eat them at all, but I've been eating more and more of them each time and gotten to like them. So, this was the first time I've had them on pizza in 24 years and I rather liked them. The Young Ones is very strange.

I didn't really do much on the 4th, but my parents and I went to Nantucket for dinner. GM is letting me borrow the 5th season of Babylon 5, which I missed when it moved to cable. We watched the first episode.

Tuesday night, I went out to dinner with JJ and JA to El Corral, in Durham. I had grilled shrimp in fried flour tortillas covered with melted white cheese and guacamole sauce. It was quite good.


Wednesday, there was a frog crawling around on my windows in the great room. That's pretty high up. Since my camera died, I had to use my Treo 650. It's pretty dark, but hopefully you can make it out. Speaking of my phone, I downloaded some cool software from mytreo.net for it. I got VolumeCare so I can actually hear using the earpiece, rather than always relying on the speakerphone. I also got Volkeys which allow one to scroll with the volume buttons on the side. Like most Treo software packages, they are shareware, so I'll have to decide if they are really worth it. I'm guessing that VolumeCare definitely will be.

Today I went back to work, checked on the status of things and packed up a few other things. I went to out to lunch to Rudino's with BO. A few other friends of mine had planned to go there today, but that was cancelled. I still wanted a Spinach Sophia grinder, so I thought that would be a good place.

Belated Mention of Rained Out Concert

I forgot to mention that a couple of weeks ago, I went to SouthPoint with my mom to hear GM play in the Durham Community Concert Band, but it got rained out. AE would have normally enjoyed performing in the precipitation, but she was out of town. I got a good picture with my phone, just before it started pouring. We also managed to get back to my van before the real gulley washer began.

Field Day, Failure and Food

I have been extremely busy in the last few weeks, looking for a job, both within IBM and outside the company. I have certainly been focusing more on looking inside IBM while I'm still there, though.

This past weekend I also participated in the annual ham radio Field Day event with the Orange County Radio Amateurs. Saturday night, I operated for several hours on 20 meter phone. You can see the tent I was in, at the far left of the picture on the right. I had hoped that I could put a link to last year's post describing Field Day. It looks as if I didn't put much effort into describing it at all, in part because I didn't really participate much last year. Basically, it's a contest in which clubs and individuals attempt to contact as many other stations as possible during a 24 hour period. During each contact the parties exchange their call signs, locations and the classifications for the contest. For example, our club callsign is W4Ez, our location is North Carolina and we operated as 7A. This means that we operated seven stations simultaneously (unless too many people were sleeping). OCRA also operates every year using QRP, which means that we are trying to simulate emergency conditions and only use 5 watts of power from batteries. We can charge the batteries with generators, but we cannot operate using generators. It's a lot of fun, but it can be frustrating, because it means that a lot of people can't hear us, at least during this part of the sun spot cycle. Another cool thing about Field Day is that everyone, even non-hams, are allowed to operate on all the bands.


The other main component of Field Day, as far as I and many other people are concerned, is food. My dad is actually in charge of food for OCRA, which is amusing to me since it's the only time of the year that he ever cooks. He does a good job, with my mom's help. He makes hot dogs and hamburgers (salmon, Boca, turkey and beef) on Saturday night and pancakes and sausage (with real maple syrup) on Sunday morning.

My Canon S300 camera started dying after the picture on the left was taken. I'm not sure what's wrong with it, but the display shuts off and it refuses to move the lens. It's very frustrating, because I don't really want to spend a lot of money right now and I had thought this was a very nice camera. It's never been dropped. The sunset actually got a lot more spectacular after this, but it already looked great in this picture.

I have now revised my resume 2o9,937 times.


I've been to ACME a couple of times lately. We went there for brunch to celebrate Father's Day, accompanied by JJ and JA. Dads eat for free on Father's Day, so we couldn't miss that. We also celebrated my parents' 39th wedding anniversary Sunday night. JJ and JA gave a me a "General" hat, because the Saturday after I got back from the coast, I passed the General exam, to upgrade my ham radio license. I neglected to mention this in my last post. Now I can legally operate on HF bands anytime, rather than just on Field Day.

Today, a bunch of us went to China Express for lunch, to take out LD, whose last day at the company was today. I believe it's owned by the brother of the owner of Eastern Lights (formerly the Mandarin House). It's very good. I had chicken and plum sauce, which is no longer on the Eastern Lights menu, so I hadn't eaten it in many years.

Switching Gears

Despite my natural sorrow that my vacation was ending, I cheerfully returned to work on Monday morning. I had been at my desk just a few minutes when my manager called me to her office. I was laid off.

I have 30 days from last Monday to find something else within IBM. I've been going through all the hoops necessary to apply for jobs within the company. I foolishly hadn't updated my resume in 5 years, so I had to do that as quickly as possible.

The worst thing is that my mail server has been down and I haven't been getting my work e-mail. Lovely.

At any rate, I've been doing fine. If any you, dear readers, know of any jobs within the Triangle Area, please let me know. Take a look at my resume, give me feedback and pass it on to your friends and enemies.

This one was nice, too. 

Out of all the sunrise pictures my dad took the last morning we were there, it was difficult to decide which one was my favorite. 

One more picutre from Nags Head Pier. Yes, I really did like it there. 

View at the end of Nags Head Pier. 

The angle was accidental, because I was sticking the camera through the railings, but I've played with the angle in Picasa and I like the original best. View from Nags Head Pier. 

Return Trip and Fun at Southpoint

My goodness, it feels as if it's been months since my last post, but it really hasn't. It hasn't even been a week.

Last Thursday afternoon, after we left Kitty Hawk Kites, we went to Nags Head Pier and looked around. I thought it was tremendously pleasant out there, because there was a strong damp wind blowing off the ocean and the pier goes way out into the sea. Fishermen casting in close proximity makes me a tad nervous, though.

Thursday night, we went to Owen's Restaurant one more time. I had Lobster Newburg, which was lobster in a cream sauce with large triangles of puffed pastry. My dad ordered a seafood pasta dish, but they accidently gave him chicken pasta. It was delicious, so he didn't mind and they brought him another entire entree to take home. We also took home a bowl of the lobster bisque for my mom to try.

The next morning, it was time to leave. We parked across from Jockey's Ridge to watch the kites for almost an hour. Several people had them out and some of them were very cool. In particular, there was a spinning star box kite that was just awesome.

On the way home, we took 98 home instead of trying to go through Raleigh at rush hour. It was interesting seeing what Bunn was like. All in all, I think it was a nicer drive anyway.

Saturday, GM and I went to Southpoint for dinner and to watch a movie. We ate at Firebirds Rocky Mountain Grill. While waiting for a table, we saw a guy performing near one of the fountains. He seems to be known as JuggleBoy and he was rather good. He could easily juggle six balls. Since JH can only do four, I know that it must have taken a lot of practice. He also juggled flaming torches and that resulted in the most tips. From the website, it look as if there a strong religious connection there.

Firebirds was excellent. They had wonderful bread and I had sesame encrusted teriyaki salmon. It was very tender and served with fried spinach and parmesan mashed potatoes. The spinach was not battered, but bright green and crunchy.

Afterwards, we saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith. It, like many things I've seen lately, was very entertaining. It was also funny, too. It had almost War of the Roses feel to it near the end, with a little more elegance.

Sunday, I spend the entire day blogging.

Dunes and Kites

I had thought that Thursday would be the start of the annual Rogallo Kite Festival, so we headed to Jockey's Ridge State Park. I didn't see too many kites there, but the park was quite cool. They have a long wooden path to an overlook of the dunes. It was extremely bright and hot out there, so we thought that we would burn to a crisp if we stayed out there too long. They also have a little museum exhibit explaining some of the geologic features of dunes and the history of the park.

I asked one of the people working at the gift shop/kiosk where to get lunch and he recommended a sushi place down the road, Taiko Japanese Restaurant. I just had eel and salmon nigiri, but it was pretty good.

Afterwards, we went across the street from Jockey's Ridge to the complex that includes Kitty Hawk Kites, which is a huge building with lots of ramps. First we went to the Wooden Feather,which had a wide array of wildlife crafts and other interesting odds and ends. I ended up getting two pairs of earrings made out of anodized aluminum (or something similar).

Next, we went to Kitty Hawk Kites, which is huge in itself. We went into several stores that are actually connected to Kitty Hawk Kites, looking for the actual kite store. The other shops sell sporting goods, clothing and other knick knacks. The kite store, in addition to kites, also has tons of toys, t-shirts and jewelry. I had to get two pairs of earrings, one abalone and one sterling silver. I didn't buy any kites, but I'm considering putting up one in my room somewhere.

It turns out that the kite festival wouldn't start until Friday, even though I'd seen things written up that said Thurday.

Here's another view of the ceiling at Kitty Hawk Kites. 

It looked quite stormy looking toward the south from the same spot. 

View from outlook at Jockey's Ridge State Park. We could just see hanggliders taking off from the highest point of the dune. They offer gliding lessons at the park. 

Thursday morning I set my alarm on my phone so my dad could get up and take pictures of the sunrise over the ocean. I'd put my phone on vibrate so it didn't work, but fortunately he woke up in time anyway.