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I can’t believe I just put a flash player on my blog, but whatever, just watch the damn trailer.

As many of you know, I have been working free-lance since I left GuardianEdge as I take my time trying to find that perfect (or as close to perfect) new job opportunity. This has obviously meant that I have spent considerably more time at home without the regular daily schedules that come from being employed at a 9-5 job. Especially over the last few weeks I have started to notice that my sense of time and the passage of time has become, shall we say, less than good. It is as if time has become drawn out and events that feel like they took place several months ago in fact only took place weeks ago. I find myself having to pull up my calendar to recalibrate my sense of when events actually took place.

This is a very odd experience to undergo. On the bright side, subjectively I am not getting old as fast as I was before.

This morning in looking over the various blogs I read, I came across this challenge. Take

• The first entry on Wikipedia’s random page.
• The end of the last entry on this random quote page.
• And, the fourth image from Flickr’s Creative Commons Attribution License random image page.

Now use those three items as a band name, album title, and cover image for a CD cover.

I got quite lucky; I came away with my band as Daredevil, a quote from Robert Heinlein: “A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.” and this image.

I was amused. Now it is your turn!

I suspect this link will excite some of my readers more than others. You know who you are.

Who Needs Friends…when you have pens.

Ruins of the old Williamsburg Hospital

Just a quick hello between Christmas and New Years. I hope everyone had a great Christmas, I know I did. While my family history has often been rocky, it is amazing and humbling the kindness I have been shown by so many families throughout my life. This year was no exception.

A few photos were taken. They can be found through the picture linked above.

Black and white photography is something new to me. Those with more official training in photography usually start shooting only black and white and I think that I see why. It is the same as working with a prime lens in that it removes a variable from the equation of taking a good shot. Rather than having a multitude of variables, I am forced down to just focus, aperture and exposure. That leaves more of the brain able to concentrate on framing the shot.

I don’t think I will start shooting exclusively black and white to practice, but as we exit fall and enter winter, there are not very many colors to speak of and I think it will allow me to explore other aspects of my picture taking.

A few more pictures from the same set are on my flickr page. I didn’t make a set, so it is probably easiest to click on the one above and just go backwards and forwards.

Well, as you may have noticed (unless you are using an RSS reader), I have changed the look of my blog. I wanted something cleaner. Some things are still a work in progress, but it is getting there. Hope you like it. If it looks broken to you, shoot me an email. Thanks.

Updated: If it looks like crap in IE, I’m sorry. IE is a stinky browser, please use Firefox or Safari.

Before I headed out of town last week, I looked at the three bananas I had sitting on the counter and wondered what to do with them. I realized they were already past their prime and would be goners by the time I got back. Then I had a thought; BREAD!; BANANA BREAD! So I tossed them in the refrigerator so they would not be fuzzy when I got back.

You know I hold Alton Brown in very high regard, so I pulled out his second tome, I’m Just Here for More Food. Pages 98-99, Banana Bread. Muffin Method, here I come.

I got back in town last night and swung by the grocery store to complete the ingredient list. One special note, backing soda with an expiration date 9 years in the past won’t cut it. Yes, I tested it. Get some new.

Beyond the obvious stress and uncertainty of the search for a job is a very interesting process. Each institution does it a little differently and those differences can offer a window into the innards of the company. Some go for the marathon interview session while some do a simple chat, others do one that involves broad challenges that the candidate must solve and some concentrate on a very specific technical topic. A job hunter can learn as much or possibly more about a company from the interview than the interviewer learns about the interviewee. I don’t think there is one method that is superior to any other in an absolute sense. Each method is tailored to the organization it serves. I find this aspect of the process very interesting and have had to restrain the urge to ask an interviewer how well their system works for them on a few occasions and on a few others control the urge to criticize their methodology.

Having gone through any number of phone calls and a few interesting offers I ended up turning down, I am learning that the challenging aspects of this search are different than I expected. It is critical to me that I find an opportunity that is of a very high quality both for my own career and for the organization I end up with. There is a strong urge to accept the first thing that comes along and just run with it even if it may not be the right opportunity. In a perfect world, one would receive all the job offers you will get and then be able to compare and contrast them to pick the perfect opportunity. Unfortunately, in reality, you get one offer at a time that must be judged on the merits of itself compared against the hope of getting a better match later. A harrowing decision to make as I am not a gambling man.

I think the later one is in one’s career, the more care and consideration that must be taken at this point. Now is the time to find an opportunity that will allow me to grow to the next level of my career. But finding this opportunity is turning into more of a challenge than I had expected. Finding that small company that has a wonderful technology, smart people, and is on the cusp of needing the skills to grow to the next level is not an easy task. But I am hopeful; patience is just required.

The hunt goes on.