Eighty Years (or so) To The Big Zero

Saturday a friend came over for a couple hours and helped me make a huge dent in the third bedroom. Which if you remember the sunroom was three times as bad. Mostly because of all the little stuff everywhere. Well we got a good part of it done. I wish I had a camera but the school camera is no longer available since I’m leaving. :wink:  

Sunday another friend came over and helped me wash the outside of the house. I’ve done the washing before myself but it was much faster with two people working on it. And besides I realized for the last five years I’ve been washing the siding I haven’t been using enough bleach. The mold/algae comes off much quicker when you put on a full bottle in the sprayer rather than diluting it according to the directions. Seriously. It comes off really easy after spraying on.

And for the first time since I’ve been out here I saw a snake. Not just any snake but a moccassin. It was about two feet long and when I struck it with the shovel (it was working its way to the only hole in my skirting and would have dissappeared under the house after that so I struck quick) it reared up and bit the shovel. But it was pinned and I was able to cut the head off with a machette. That snake was pissed. But I don’t play around with snakes, especially poisonous ones.

Hopefully that will be the only snake I see around the house. I need to mow.

Today I do a mock interview for the job with the city. I have a good friend who does hiring and manager type stuff and I’m calling him to bone up on my interview skills. Don’t want to go in and kiss the boss square on the lips. As impressions go that would be a bad first one. (Soloman Brothers was on last night. Saw that scene and realized it was a little too over the top for my humor. So watched some Monster Quest instead. Does that show EVER find anything?!)

Time to get some packing done. Do a little each day and things should fall into place. We’ll see how it goes starting Tuesday.

Thinking out loud

I got a call back from that city job I really want. - Good news. Don’t have the job yet but at least I’m in the door.

Am registered for college to get my BS in Information Technology. It’s a 120 credit degree. I was able to transfer over 64 credits from my AA and will be applying my decade of work experience and hopefully knocking off another 30 credits (max they’ll let ya clep out) so when it’s all said and done I’ll have around 30-40 credits left to take. Most of the courses are online. Plus there is grant money to the tune of 1400 dollars per semester, which basically covers one entire class. - Good news.

I’ve spoken to three realtors in the last week. They’ve all given me a decent figure for my land/home sale, but that’s not enough. I’m paying to have an appraisal (full) done on Tuesday and that will give me (and the realtor and buy) a very good idea of the market value and if my figures should go up or down on the asking price. - Decent news. Good news is when I get a check.

Monday is the last day at my job. I got a lot done before I left and feel much better about leaving. The new guy has come in and we’ve been going over the network and I’ve been showing him around the systems and school. He’ll do fine.

I’m feeling the reality of leaving the job now. I’m not anxious or scared just oddly detached about it all. I definitely feel a sense of euphoria about opportunities I haven’t found yet. Perhaps when that fades and September rolls around and I’m still jobless I’ll start to get nervous.

Two Months to Zero starts Tuesday.

Thinking out loud

So I decided not to do the Phoenix degree program. It would have been $515 per credit hour. That’s $1545 per class. At 60 credits needed that’s over $30,000. All of which would need to be student loans through Stanford. I’ll apply for grants but the bulk of the cost will be out of pocket unless I get a job that pays tuition re-embursements.

But I’m not giving up on getting that higher degree. I spoke to a contact in the Computer Science program at FSU to do the fast-track-dual BS+MS program online. Which means when complete I’ll have a MS instead of a BS.  At $109 dollars per credit hour it’s much cheaper and I can still do 90 percent of my course load online.

Although just to get into the program I’ll need to take some rather advanced math classes (trig, calc) and a science course (physics, bio). Plus 3 semesters of a foreign language.

So I’m checking into the local community college to get started and applying for the Computer Science program for the Summer of 09. That should give me some time to work it all out.

Slow and steady I should be done in twenty years and then I can go to Korea and teach english.

In the meantime I need music. I’m in a musical rut. Every year I usually polled my students and asked for their top three bands/albums on the final exam. Just to get a flavor for what’s out there in new music. This year I didn’t. So if you have any good albums (not just singles) I’d be interested in hearing about them.

I just ripped all my .wav files to .mp3 files and have 40 gigs of mp3 music. That’s a lot of music but after ten years of listening to mostly the same artists they get kinda stale. Don’t get me wrong I still throw in the classics now and again but a lot of my favorite artists have stopped making music also and there are no more albums by them.

So who you listening too these days?

Thinking out loud

(updated 21Jun08) 

So I had the phone interview with the recuriter for Teaching English in Korea.

First word from them was “I don’t see your degree on your resume.” I told him I had an Associates in Computer Graphics.

“Unfortunately for the visas from the countries they want people with four year degrees.”

“Does it matter what degree you have?” I asked.

“No it doesn’t.”

“Ok. So you’re saying that a person with a four year degree in PE, right out of college, would be chosen over a person with an AA and six years in the classroom as a teacher?”

“Yes. It doesn’t make sense to me either but that’s how it works. I’m sorry.”

“So am I. I think they are missing a lot of great people because of this policy. Thank you for calling me though. Have a good day.”

And there it is. I will never be able to teach overseas unless I go back to school and get two more years of college in “something”, and the real agenda - go further in debt to Sallie Mae.

On to the next position.

My hardcore (Oo there’s an idea)  job searching will be in July. Right now I’m just getting my feet back in the pond and splashing around. (Although there is one job with the city that if I don’t at least get an interview after the favors and contacts associated with the job will cause me some serious concern about this economy and my chances to find employment. I mean really - I know two people who work for the orgranization - not the same department but associated who have forward their recommendation for me, I had a recommendation forwarded to the Mayor of the City and a good friend of mine is drinking buddies with the Boss who will eventually be making the decision for who gets hired. I don’t think any of those connections will automatically get me the position ( It’s up to me to land the job.) but an interview as a favor to them, heck yeah! at the least.)

Until then …

(update: I’m looking into those online degree programs. As Marcus Cole said to Susan Ivanova -
Marcus: I’ll teach you to speak Minbari.
Ivanova: I can’t learn Minbari. It’d take a year.
Marcus: Ok. So where would you be in a year if you didn’t even try?

We’ll see how it goes.)

(Update II (21Jun08): It’ll cost about 12,000 per year to get a BA in Information Technology through Phoenix Online. It’ll take about 3 years to get a MA in Information Technology/Security. So that’s 36,000 dollars, approximately, to get a higher paying job that pays maybe 50-80k per year. That’s if the degree helps any with getting the job. It at least makes sure they don’t toss it out because that magic number “4″ isn’t on my degree. It’s only student loan debt right? Can student loan debt be transferred over to your children? Can they take your home/land/assets to pay off the student loan when you die before disbursing the rest of your will to your family? Did congress pass that law yet? Maybe I shouldn’t give them any ideas? :-?)

Thinking out loud

Wednesday I killed my cat - Kerrigan.

I’ve been looking at jobs and one of the big issues is that I have four cats to take care of and I said to myself several times last week and this, that if I didn’t have cats I could go anywhere in the world to look for work. If only I wasn’t tied down with these cats.

Wednesday two pitbulls were running loose in the neighborhood and ended up taking up residence in my backyard. I shot at them with my slingshot but they were moving too fast. All the other cats raced into the house but one. I looked for him and called his name and finally I saw him tearing across the backyard toward the old church. Right on his tail were the two dogs. He made it under the church and those dogs circled around for a long time. I shot at them and made noise but they kept coming back.

Eventually the other cats went outside but five minutes later tore back into the house through the cat window. I went outside and on my back step was one of the pit bulls. I swung at it with my AmpGuard Sword (a long foam sword with a bamboo core - they hurt when you get hit) but only managed to make noise. They took off.

I haven’t seen Kerrigan since Wednesday night. I went out with a flash light and looked under that church. He wasn’t there. Those dogs are gone also.

One less cat to worry about. I feel sick.

I wish I could just shot them with a bb gun but I’m not that … I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right or proper. Am I being soft? What if I did shot them and they died on my property? Then I’d have to bury them or try to find their owners. Now if I had kids in the backyard and dogs were chasing them I’d get my 30/30 without hesitating. But for this.. what can I do? What I really wish is that I made enough money to fence in my property and not have to worry about stray dogs tearing through the yard. If I was able to fence it in this wouldn’t be an issue and my cats would be safe. It’d also help deter the teen thieves who keep stealing my gasoline/diesel cans after burns in the yard.

The job hunting is going all right. Haven’t had any call backs but have only applied to five jobs so far:

Newspaper (I know some people who worked for the paper and they say it is a terrible place to work. Terrible.)
City (really want this job. My former boss is going to put in a good word with the Mayor who will hopefully put in a good word with the department this position is for. We’ll see.)
Iraq (Inventory manager)
Korea (Teaching English)
Department of Health (local - possibly not a ‘real’ job. Could’ve just been a posting to satisfy legal requirements to advertise the position while they already have an in-house person ready to take it.)

I had a thought that if I could sell my property/house I might be able to make enough to pay my mortgage, debt and perhaps even student loans and then start over with another place in the area or elsewhere in the country, with only a 30 year and utilities to be concerned with. That would be interesting if it was possible. Although with the housing market the way it is I’m not so sure. Of course I do have 3 acres so…. Maybe I could get a realitor to check it out.

How many ideas and half plans can you juggle? I’m working on eight right about now.

Thinking out loud, This Land

So I quit my job at the school on Monday 2Jun2008.

It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be - just wrapped a note around a brick and threw it through the office window, then sped off really fast.

But since my last day will be the 30th of June perhaps I should have choosen a better method?

Seriously though it was good. No hard feelings on either side and to be honest, it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. I’m not numb or anything, I’m actually kinda relieved. As with many things I’ve experienced in life, many times the anticipation of the event is often worse than the event itself. Except for first time sex with someone. That is always a disaster. I don’t personally know if it gets better though, hence the first time disaster part but people tell me it does.

Well that aside, now I’m actively looking for other jobs with a clear conscience and I don’t have to check that “NO” box on applications that ask if they can contact my previous employer.

We’ll see how it goes.

Thinking out loud

So I just purchased unlimited phone calls to any landline or cell phone in the United States for $5.90 for 3 months. No not $5.90 per month. $5.90 total for 3 months.

What! You exclaim with disbelief. The phones companies say long distance calls cost lots of money to make, and I know it’s true because I can see it on my bill each month. How is this done? You must be using a different infrastructure to make these calls. No way the existing wiring could handle such a load as cheap long distance.

Well actually it’s using much of the same infrastructure. It’s called the Internet and specifically it’s called Skype. So far the quality of the calls is better than the quality that I had on my cell phone with the one bar I got out here in the sticks. :-p

Looks like there’s some lying going on in the telecommunications world and the People are being taken for a ride.

Now I can call my family and friends long distance up to 10,000 minutes per month. Pretty much unlimited I would say. And since when I usually talk to them I’m at home there is no change in habit for me.

Oh, I can also install Skype on any computer and sign in and as long as there is high speed connection (becoming much more common and always available at work) I can make my calls from that computer. So it’s just not long distance it’s also local. Any number, cell or landline anywhere in the US and Canada (just in case I need a quick exit).

The Credit Trap, Thinking out loud