Category Archives: Personal Life

Liveblogging WordCamp Portland

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8:33am: We’re all set up in the main conference room at CubeSpace, bagels and coffee in hand… slide on the project points out that if you want to search on twitter or flickr or anywhere, the hashtag to look for is #wordcampdx.

8:38am: Giveaways of random things, like a free copy of Blogging Tips

8:40am: “Compost Compost Compost!” (Eva explaining CubeSpace)

8:42am: Automatic sent us a bunch of buttons and stickers and tattoos (temporary tattoos). Tattoo contest for creative use (PG-13 please!) over the day.

8:43am: Random silly little WordPress video done to “When You Wish Upon a Star” — cheesy but cute. It’s sort of a list of bloggers and developers and such who’ve managed to be successful using wordpress.

8:48am: Random interviews with various WordPress users.

8:53am: Lorelle just came in dressed as a Fairy Blogmother. “Has no one’s lives have been changed by WordPress here? What the hell am I doing here?”
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Breaking Radio Silence

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Apologies for the lack of posts lately — no real excuses for the radio silence, but there it is: a hair under 3 weeks since my last entry. Here’s a quick sum up of the past few weeks:

  • Bernie put out a call for citizen co-signers for a petition against the current Wall Street bailout. Signed that, and encourage EVERYONE to contact their Senators and Congressmen ASAP, as this is something on the floor NOW.
  • Been introducing Jessica to Dr. Who, in all its glory. Currently in season 2 of the new series, and discussing with several friends picking up the old series and doing a Who night going through the whole damn thing.
  • Picked up a 1TB hard drive (LaCie Quadra) and an eSATA card for my laptop, which is making me happy — I was effectively out of room on both my laptop (120gb) and my extra drive (250gb), and this way I’m nicely backed up once more and have a bit more space.
  • Purchased a new domain: wanderlu.st. As the name might suggest, it’s going to be a travel related blog, with essays and writing and photography about various trips and locations (and even some local stuff from various places I’ve lived that I think are neat). It’s not really live yet, as I’m waiting until after WordCamp to properly set up the site. Looking forward to it, though!
  • WordCamp is this weekend, looking forward to it. Sounds like we’re going to get to preview WordPress 2.7, and the event has been filled to capacity (around 150 people). Woo!
  • Have the wanderlust, BAD. The air is finally starting to cool and turn autumnal, and as usual, it is sparking both the creative impulse and the desire to go explore.
  • Planning to head up to Seattle on October 3rd to attend Neil Gaiman’s reading from his new book (The Graveyard Book). Should be a fun trip!
  • Yes, I’m still looking for work. Had a phone interview with Apple last week regarding a Mac Genius position, which (while effectively a retail position) would provide full benefits and decent pay and help lock me down to an actual living situation again (how novel!). Despite having passed the phone interview, I’m not holding my breath, and continue to look and apply elsewhere, like Omni’s listing for a Software Test Pilot, which is WAY too up my alley to not try for (and for a company I like, to boot!).

So, err, yeah, I think that about catches ya’ll up. I’m still debating whether or not to split personal and professional blogs again for Critical Games (still have the nadreck subdomain after all, so why not use it?). As is suggested by me going out and getting a new domain and hosting service for wanderlu.st, I’m more and more leaning to making the materials more granular, instead of converged. (“All things have their place.”)

Testing Flock

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Trying out a new web browser that is purported to be highly Web 2.0 centric… so, built in blog editor, built in Flickr support, gmail support, deicious, etc etc etc… all built on top of the Firefox engine.  Kinda neat. Flock.

Frustrations

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So, I’ve been applying for jobs all over the place, and this includes having a long-running search agent on Microsoft’s staffing site. When jobs I’m qualified for come up, I’m notified, I log in, decide whether it’s something I should apply for, apply, log out. Easy.

Except they’ve been doing a lot of work on the Passport network of late, migrating things for Windows Live support and who knows what else, which is causing problems. Like, now I can’t fully sign out, but when I try to sign back in, it claims I’m not using a current enough browser, and should upgrade to IE6 (not even possible if I wanted to — I’m on a Mac). I swap out my reported user agent for IE7, and the sign in process now works. I can forgive the sign-in funkiness, since I AM using a brand new, beta release of Safari 4.

However, signing out still doesn’t work, and I STILL can’t reach my job agent. That, my friends, is lame.

Many Glad Tidings!

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Just wanted to wish my friends Dan and Moonrise happy tidings on this, their wedding day! (It was a fantastic wedding, good times had by all.)

Also wanted to wish Jessica a happy happy birthday in about 3 minutes. Happy birthday, sweetie!

Too Much Clutter

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It may be a fruitless endeavor, but I’m trying to think about how to better organize my life. I have a lot of (often) disparate interests — keeping track of them has proven to be cumbersome and problematic, not withstanding my current living situation itself being chaotic.

I’d like to make a concerted effort to improve my organization and workflow, so that I might actually post, and more importantly, create. And do so in the places appropriate to the subject — this single-site consolidation I’ve done may have been a mistake. Well, just as a heads up, I may be incommunicado for a little bit longer, while I figure out what the hell I’m doing.

Where is Nabil?

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Way out in the water, see me swimming.

We’ve been experiencing some radio silence here, and I think it’s time to do something about that. The past month has been a busy one, starting off the month with a camping trip in the Hoh Rainforest out on the Olympic Peninsula with my girlfriend, followed very shortly afterward by a 12 day stint back east in Vermont and New Hampshire for a family reunion and annual trustee meeting, all of which went quite well and was a great time had by all.

I’ve been continuing to do the job hunting thing, with the occasional lucky break that has yet to pan out. Case in point: while I was back east, I got an email from Microsoft about an SDET position that I’d applied for a few months back, wanting a phone interview. I arranged for that (standing out in Meredith, in the rain, as there is zero cell coverage at Squam, so this was basically my only option), and it went reasonably well. Lucky break! But, it has yet to pan out — I was told that HR would be in contact with me within a few days, two weeks ago. I’m not sweating it, though. They’ll either call or they won’t.

On the same day I got the email from Microsoft, I had a chat with my cousin and her boyfriend, who run Mac Ranch out in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I’m not sure how many realize it, but I do/did have my Apple support certifications, and it just so happens one of their techs is leaving sometime soon… so now I’m in the process of re-certifying and upgrading my Apple certs, with the awareness that I might be moving to Colorado if I don’t end up moving back to Seattle. I figure that regardless of whether the Mac Ranch or Microsoft gigs pan out, it’s 1) a good sign that I’m getting the occasional interview now; and 2) re-certifying is a worthwhile endeavor that could even potentially help me get a job here in Portland assuming I don’t take/get the two already mentioned.

We’ll see if it holds true, but in theory, I should know what I’m doing next by the end of the month. That will be a welcome change.

Amen, Sister

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These last three years were God’s great kick in the teeth to me, and it hasn’t been easy. But things like these make me want to take back the ball and throw it really hard at the back of somebody’s head, like, I told you, motherfucker. If that makes sense, great. If not, I can’t explain it. (“Oh FUCK” by The Reverse Cowgirl)

Great blog, great writer, great quote.

Beautiful in PDX

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It’s a beautiful day here in Portland — not too hot, not too humid, sunny but still with clouds in the sky (I have always been fan of a sky with texture), and a moderate breeze blowing through. This is pretty damn close to perfect in my view. Just got back from having lunch with my brother, with much coffee fueled discussion on a number of subjects that I won’t bother enumerating here. Suffice it to say, it was a good way to spend a few hours, and leaves me wanting to write a bit.

There are some things I simply don’t talk about on the blog, for a variety of reasons — you won’t see me discussing sex much, though I’ll freely admit I read several people who do. I try to keep the emotional baggage off the site as well (though they do happen from time to time). This is mostly because I fully realize that I’m a complete sap. I’m a hopeless romantic with an overdeveloped connection to the unrequited, and an underdeveloped sense of romantic objectivity. I’ve always been the moon-eyed lovelorn kid. I somehow doubt that’s going to change any time soon — I mean hell, I’m still beating myself up over a relationship that ended nearly two years ago, and still stuck on a girl I’ve not spoken to in a year and a half. (Working on moving on. Have a girlfriend again, and trying to let go of some of that baggage. Harder than it sounds.)

I COULD regale you with stories of emotionally charged dreams and idle thoughts and everything else, but frankly it just comes off as whiny, since it fails to affect any meaningful change in how I feel or my behavior — if it was remotely epiphanous and life-changing, perhaps I’d be less reluctant to share it. Sometimes some things strike a chord, though, and are worth sharing regardless. Case in point:

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief…and unspeakable love. (John Irving, by way of Melissa Gira, by way of Clayton Cubitt)