BigCat’s Blog of DOOM

Current Mood:  discontent

So, due to our unexpected inabililty to buy the condo we wanted we are faced with a dillema. We have to notify the apartment company if we are leaving by the 31st, and when we are leaving, or resigning or whatever.

We would rather not stay where we are, but we could live with it. The only other condo that we liked was further away from school than we are now for Lauren, and most of the appartments close to school are campus (i.e. craphole) apartments.

So, we are frantically re-checking the apartments we started to look at, and also seeing if the other condo is worth while. I suspose we should have the neighborhood stastics of how much property increased in value over the last few years.

The upside is if we do buy this place that is futher away, it is cheaper per square foot, it is still a few blocks from the bus lines, and it is bigger, so we could have more people over at one time.

Well…we’ll figure it out I suspose.

Current Mood:  cheerful

We saw a few condos at Riverview Tower and it looked pretty nice. We are going to run some of the financials and see if we can come up with any good numbers.

The only thing I’m really worried about is that the condo on the 18th floor had higher dues than the condo on the 4th floor. Our realtor is going to find out what the deal is with that, and see if they are set in stone.

On a different note, I was going to get the Nokia 6682 (ignore the $600 price tag….I’ll never pay that, and it will cheaper when it comes out for Cingular) which was susposedly being released on Cingular sometime around the beginning of the month, then the 15th, then the 22, and now it looks like the 28th, or late August / early September.

Why the HELL can’t the US get any of the good phones. The European version of this phone has been out for months. It is so stupid that the US has to use two different, non-interoperable, cell phone systems, and the one that is inter-operable w/ the European networks doesn’t run on the same frequencies. WHY THE HELL DON’T PEOPLE REALIZE STANDARDS ARE GOOD FOR EVERYONE!

Well, when this phone comes out, I’m buying it. No more futzing around and waiting for the next best thing. This is my new phone, and Lauren is going to get the 6230, or the current equivalent available when I buy my phone. I’m figuring with a contract, I should be able to get the 6230 for free, and the 6682 for cheap. So, now I play the waiting game….I bet the new version of the RAZR will be out before this phone….I hate waiting, I am not a patient person.

Current Mood:  accomplished

I now own BenCatlin.com, and have moved most of my blogging stuff over to it.

Next is getting the church project I’m working on transferred, and some mp3’s uploaded for testing purposes. I think this host I’m with (Dreamhost) has support built in for streaming media, so I may brush up on that.

I really like having paid space now. I have multiple databases, which I can play with, and perhaps set up some forums for old 5 northers / phi beta nu members, and possiblely for church stuff. Also, I have more control over a lot of things, and I can create users, and email addresses, like bigcat AT bencatlin DOT com, the new support address for my blog, and do lots of fun stuff.

There is even shell access, so I can SSH in, and mess with stuff…which is a big plus, cuz that is how my nerd side likes it.

Well, other than that, I got an interesting question on my interview. It was “Tell me about a time where you did something that highlights your trustworthiness?”

I would love to see what other people think is a good answer for that. I didn’t come up with anything spectacular, so I’m not expecting much, but I would like to hear some thoughts on that question.

Current Mood:  nervous

I’m a little worried about my job right now. I wanted to keep it until I quit, but today something interesting happened.

A guy walked in, shook my bosses hand and disappeared into the conference room. I got a bad feeling that it wasn’t a meeting with a customer or vendor, so I did a quick check on the paper online.

And, what do I find…oh that is right, my company is hiring a new sales engineer.

I wouldn’t be worried, but they didn’t say they were hiring a new guy. No one told me. I’m a little worried now that I will get fired before I have a chance to quit. Kinda funny, but at the same time, income is good to have whlie looking for a new job.

I do suck pretty bad at my job, even when I’m working hard at it. And it is hard for me to be motivated since I don’t like my job duties, I don’t think the product I’m susposed to sell is anything amazing, and I hate the defensive tactics my boss employs to keep our competition at bay. (Like telling our customers we are the manufacturers of our stuff when really most of it comes from three or four larger Taiwanese companies, so our customers can’t price-shop us.)

Well, they could be hring a new guy, but having not heard anything about I’m guessing someone is getting the axe…and I’m the suckiest at my job, and the newest.

Awe, screw it.

Here’s to hoping I’m being paranoid, and we are just getting a new guy.

Current Mood:  blank

So it hasn’t rained here in a while. I’m not sure how long, but it has been crazy hot (or more to the point muggy) and the grass is starting to turn yellow around my building. In general, some rain would be nice.

Thursday Lauren and I are going to look at places. Should be exciting. She filled out some forms, and I finished up a few more, and soon they should tell me what the gross value of my being is, in US dollars of course. That part freaks me out a little.

I got a call from a lady at Target’s Distribution center. For those of you who aren’t in the know, Target and Best Buy have their headquarters in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The job description looks pretty sweet. You can look at that here.

I like that they have a section called “What’s cool about this job”, and another called “The Big Picture.”

I wonder why they want you to be “open to relocation.” I’m a fan of the idea of ownership. I.E. when you are involved in something, you start to feel like you are responsible for making it not suck. Church should be somewhat like that for most people, or at least that is what my Mom thinks whenever we discuss how I think no-one but the pastor matters too much in decision making. But, without some of that things usually degrade to apathy, and then get stupid. Ownership in a job, in a job at a certain place seems good to me. Corporate identities being applied to peoples lives seem to over the top. To much of America seems to have bought into the “What can I do to improve XXX’s stock price today” idea, and I don’t know if that is a positive thing. I’m more of the idea “How can I improve my little corner of XXX so I can feel good about my job, and good about my place in the company.”

Maybe that is just me.

I’m feeling a little drained lately. I think I need to be more regimented about praying and reading the Bible. Ever since I’ve started plowing through the old testament Bible reading has been a chore. It has been hard for me to read much of anything (not on a computer screen) since I got married. My wife manages to chew through a novel or two each week. Oh, the irony.

Also, prayer has been more and more frustrating lately. I would really like to hear more from God. It is disappointing to feel like I’m in an incrediblely one-sided relationship, and that seems to be a mental hurdle for prayer lately.

Well, enough rambling for now.

Current Mood:  blah

I’ve fired off like 3 or 4 resumes so far during lunch here, and I’ll probably try to send a few more later this week.

I’ve hit a point at work where I’m back to creating things to keep me busy. Which means cold-calling.

Again, I’m reminded of how I hate this process, and how much I would rather be engineering someone, and be the guy getting cold-calls.

My only problem with getting a job soon, is that Aarons wedding is the in the middle of August, and I have to take a few days off for it. Also, I have to be out of my apartment by September 1st (or there-abouts), so that is a lot of transition all at once…and I’m already one tired puppy.

Also, at the end of the month, there is a new upgrade to some software we use here, and it is going to be a pretty major deal for a while, to get it upgraded, and patched, and all set up w/ the new stuff on peoples computers. So I will probably be the one to do that, and I like that, and I’m the best candidate to do it here…so I would like to do that before I leave if I get offered a job.

Well, pray that God shows me what he wants here. Maybe he wants me here to get better at doing things I don’t like, but I really really don’t like this now. And, if he wants me somewhere else, pray that it becomes apparent, and that I put the right info in my resume and cover letter.