Blackmoor Vituperative

I have a lead on a 2-year contract gig at $__ dollars per hour (a bit more than I typically get). Yes, it’s another contract gig, which I desperately want to get away from, but it’s slated to run for at least two years, so that’s not too shabby.

I can feel a mountain rain
That’ll wash away
And shine again
Empty my pockets
That were weighing me down
Sift through my soul
To see what’s lost and found
Gonna walk away from trouble
With my head held high
Then look closely you’ll see
Luck in my eyes

I can hear a howling wind
That sweeps away
The pain that’s been
Take all my sorrow
And i’ll cast away
The worries tomorrow
That i had today
Gonna walk away from trouble
With my head held high
Then look closely you’ll see
Luck in my eyes

K.D. Lang is awesome.

I am wrapping up my current web project, Perfect Pets. It’s not the most complex or difficult project I have ever worked on, but I think it may be the prettiest. I like this kind of project: Perfect Pets is a small, family owned store, and in my own modest way, I am helping them stay relevant in an era of heartless corporate monoliths and brutal international competition. I wish I could work on projects like this one more often.

Apparently I was not clear in my previous blog post, so I am explaining it. It’s a pretty funny story. Or perhaps an educational one. Yes: a cautionary tale! Do not let this happen to you! 🙂

The background package to which I referred was supposed to be given to Henrico County for the Animal Protection job. The programming job offer was from a different company, to do web development. That job offer was rescinded because I told them I had a very small chance at the Animal Protection job. However, at the time I told them that, I had already been excluded from the Animal Protection job, because I had turned in the background paperwork late (although I did not know it yet).

They (the company that had offered and then rescinded the programming job) countered with a “temp” job offer, which I took as an insult (to put it mildly). I asked for my typical rate for that kind of work, knowing that they would not be willing to pay it. So they declined that, as well, as I knew they would.

The long story short is that I was offered a great job at a great company, and because of at least three stupid mistakes I made, I lost out on that.

I have since tried to contact them, to see if the situation can be salvaged. They haven’t responded, and I do not expect them to. They are probably sorry they ever heard of me, and I do not blame them.

But life goes on. The horizon is broad, the future beckons, and all things are possible!

A few moments ago, I learned that I made a mistake when writing down the deadline to submit my personal background packet to Henrico County. The deadline was April 24. I had already been disqualified when I was offered that great programing job on April 26.

The gods laugh at me, and I can’t help but laugh with them. Life goes on: other great opportunities will present themselves. I hope I am wise enough to recognize them when they do.

“The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them, and then make our plans with confidence.” — Henry Ford

Speaking of laughing, check this out. We watched Planet Of The Apes and Saturday Night Fever at the Goochland Drive In on Saturday. It was great. I never realized that I had never seen the first thirty minutes of Planet Of The Apes. It is a pretty dark movie.

It’s 21:00. My cat is asleep on the couch, and my sweetheart is asleep in the bedroom. I would be in there, but I am working on a web project for a pet store. Still, there are much worse ways to spend a Sunday evening.

We saw the movie Kick-Ass today. It was not a perfect movie, but I enjoyed it. I prefer to think it takes place in a universe much closer to the one where Peter Parker lives than the one where I live. It would be a little too sad to think it takes place in my world. I mean, either Hit Girl is a sociopath or she’s been so mentally traumatized by her father that she may as well be. Think Dexter, but a whole lot more enthusiastically blood-thirsty (and acrobatic).

Kick-Ass reminded me of another semi-realistic superhero movie we saw recently. We didn’t see this one at a movie theatre: I bought it for two dollars at the thrift store. I’d never heard of it, and it piqued my interest. The movie is called Special. Check it out. Put it in your Netflix queue. It’s a low budget indie movie, but it’s worth watching. Be warned: the DVD cover slobber makes it sound like a comedy. The phrase “laugh out loud funny” is used prominently. This is not a comedy. There are no jokes. I would go so far as to say that not a single “laugh out loud funny” thing happens in the entire movie. It is not a comedy, and in my opinion, it was not intended to be.

Taking inventory of my situation, here. Three times so far this year, I have been offered (or nearly offered) a full time job that I thought that I would enjoy and do well. In each case, I did or said something that resulted in the offer being rescinded.

1. I refused to submit to a humiliating medical test.
2. I questioned the current development process (or lack thereof).
3. I mentioned that I have a very, very small chance of getting a job with Henrico County in August.

This most recent instance was really discouraging. I had high hopes for that position. Having it yanked away at the last minute really put a dent in my normally sunny disposition. However, a few deep breaths and a couple of miles on the treadmill, and I am feeling a bit better. If someone hires me, or doesn’t, I am still who I am. I am a human being with the value and dignity that entails. I am not my job.

I wish that I could say that I have learned something, but in each case, I believe that I did the right thing. I do think that I should be a little more reticent. Telling the truth when asked is not the same thing as volunteering information that people do not want to hear. I should just plain listen more, and talk less. That’s a shortcoming of mine that I have been working on for a very long time.

P.S. I did make a mistake in the third, most recent time. When the job offer was rescinded, they offered to bring me on as a contractor. I should have just declined that, rather than haggling over price and resenting that they backed out of the job offer. Or, hell, just accepted the rate they offered and been grateful for the work. What am I, stupid? It was work! And who knows, it might have led to a full time position down the road. Ah, well. Live and learn.

Karen Stone had packed up and gone home for the day when she got a call last week from the Plainfield, Conn., police department. Something about three fox heads sticking up outside of the storm grate….

I successfully completed the physical agility test. Yay! I was winded afterward, but not debilitated.

Waiting for the test was the hardest part. I felt like Will Smith in the beginning of Men In Black — surrounded by young, physically fit men and women, most of whom obviously had military experience. Except I am a doughy, forty-something computer geek instead of Will Smith.

After the physical agility test, I was interviewed briefly by Lt. Sears, the Animal Protection Supervisor. I liked him: he was professional, but friendly. Naturally, I blathered on more than I probably should have. I said two things in particular that I almost regret.

First, when were talking about why I would want to change careers from IT to Animal Protection (which is a genuine branch of law enforcement in Henrico County), I could not help but talk about the personal satisfaction I have felt when working on projects that I felt made the world a better place (the Partnership For Peace, supporting the US Coast Guard, creating web sites for the Mariners’ Museum, and so on). That sounds incredibly corny to me, and I am the one saying it. I am sure it sounds at least that corny to other people, and maybe even like I am blowing smoke. I wasn’t, but if I heard anyone else say what I said, I would assume they were just making it up to sound earnest and “socially aware”, or some such nonsense.

Second, when he mentioned that some people apply for both Animal Protection and the Police Department, I said that I did not apply to be a police officer because I did not feel it suited my temperament. What I meant was that I would not want to interact with criminals (or “suspects”) every day as my primary profession. Despite my veneer of cynicism, I basically think that people are good, and I would like to keep thinking that. I am not sure how well I would cope with seeing people at their worst, day after day. That’s what I meant. What I am afraid of is that it may have sounded like I was dismissing what Animal Protection does as not being “real” law enforcement. That’s not what I meant at all, but my experience is that people sometimes take offense when I do not mean to cause any. He also might have concluded that I am too averse to confrontation to be trusted with what is in fact a law enforcement position. There is some truth to that, I suppose — I do not want to seek out confrontation if it isn’t necessary. But I do not think that this is the same thing as being cowardly, which is what I am afraid he may have concluded from my comments.

Ah, well. It is what it is. I may not have phrased things as diplomatically as I would have liked, but I was honest, and if that excludes me from further consideration, then it does. There is only one open position, so my chances are pretty slim, anyway.

In the meantime, I have a packet of background forms to fill out that is nearly as thick as the stuff I had to submit to get a Secret clearance at Joint Forces Command. Now, what was my address in Fullerton, CA in 1986…?

TechRepublic has a question-and-answer thing they do. One of this week’s questions is from a young person in high school in New York, asking if going into software development would be a good idea.

I was getting ready to write a response explaining why I would not recommend any young person go into IT, particularly software development. I was going to talk about how things were back in the mid-1990s, when I started, and how they have changed.

And here is Jake Leone, who has written it for me.

Well, done, Jake. Well done.

So I was reading today that the Obamas pay $1.8 million in federal taxes. And I got to thinking, “Wow. They pay more than 45 times in taxes what an average American earns in a year.”

I know that a lot of people felt (and probably still feel) that Barack Obama, due to the ethnicity of his ancestors, was more in touch with them than the previous umpteen generations of rich old men who had been elected President of the United States. I questioned that perception at the time, and I still do. I just don’t think that someone whose taxes are 45 times what I earned last year has much in common with me, regardless of where his — or my — ancestors were born.

He did not grow up in downtown Newport News and get bussed a half-hour to a high school in what was then the nice part of town. He didn’t eat government cheese and get vaccine shots at the free clinic. He did not get a job at the shipyard straight out of high school.

I am not complaining. My life has been good, and I have few complaints. I’d rather be me than him, any day.

Nor am I criticizing the Obamas for being wealthy. I am sure they’ve worked their asses off to get where they are. Kudos to them. But I am not under the delusion that this President has anything more in common with me than any other ridiculously rich politician elected to high office.