"There is the theory of The Moebius. A twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop."
"When we reach that point, whatever happens will happen again."
A cool Orbital song which samples ST:TNG, a sample which characterises a summer of job hunting. And now the name of this weblog.
NTL bill finally came and they've given a nice refund rather than screwing us for the whole 12 month contract. Which was nice.
I'm off to Weybridge again this afternoon for the weekend, have a good one yourselves!
It's been a pretty quiet week on the job front, very few new jobs being advertised in the sort of role I'm searching for. My interview on the dog'n'bone with MyEmployer yesterday went okay I think, I knew the answers to most of the technical questions on C++! I should find out tomorrow whether I'll get the opportunity to wow them in person.
Once again the UniS Careers Bulletin drew a blank yesterday for the umpteenth week running. Most of the 'graduate careers' sites in the UK seem to be dormant of late, probably reflecting the state of the economy more so than the number of this years graduates who actually have a job.
Then out of the blue this afternoon I got a phone call from an agency regarding a job in Richmond, which sounded like a good company and a varied role (job description hasn't been confirmed yet though). By the sounds of it the company are quick to process applications, which is fine by me. Ideally I want to be starting after I get back from holiday (Sept 16th->25th in Marbella with Georgie and her mum Meg - can't wait!). Hopefully I'll get the job specification in my inbox either tomorrow or Monday.
I've just found a new site I haven't come across before www.student-interactive.com so I'll be scanning this one this evening, and will add it to my links and bookmarks if it turns out to be useful!
Meanwhile NTL (being the purveyors of fine customer care that they are) have still not posted me the final bill for our telephone and broadband at GPA184, which got disconnected on the 8th Aug. Muppets.
As promised, I've got the Cup Final victory of USFC back up online on my Gallery. I had to reduce the size of them down to something more reasonable (800x600). However, if you really really want the raw 1600x1200 originals, they are also being hosted for a few days only on my old uni webspace until my account gets deleted in the next few days/weeks.
We've been struggling recently to get a couple of aged SCSI zip drives to connect to Dad's G4 Mac (with SCSI card). So we had a poke around ebay this evening to find a USB Zip drive and came up trumps. I won with a bid of £27.25+postage, so hopefully early next week we'll be able to get at the data on the disks and sort out his website!
Time for a chilled beeeeer!
I until recently, I had a bunch of photies up from the USFC's 1st XI victory in the Surrey Premier Cup, but had to take them down temporarily because I was using up most of the space on my account. Now that I've sorted the problem, I'll be putting the photies up again later this week!
So there you go toby & PGS, you'll have 'em back soon!
It's been a long week on the job-hunt front, but now the weather has picked up and its bank-holiday weekend! woot! Hopefully will be meeting up with Simon tonight for a beer or three, unless he's busy with his girlie. {Edit} We ended up having more than 3! And a kebab on the way home. Any tips on getting rid of the aftertaste?! Urgh {/Edit}
Tomorrow morning I'm off to stay with Georgie in Weybridge and weather permitting we'll be going on a Balloon ride over Surrey on Sunday evening. Then its Buffy's 21st on Tuesday so a few drinkies will be consumed this weekend me thinks!
Ta ta til Wednesday.
After the disappointment of yesterday, some positive progress today! Got an email back from MyEmployer in Winchester to arrange a telephone interview for next week. Result!
Have also been having a thorough look at gis-a-job and have found a few jobs worth a closer look, and have applied for one for the time being.
Meanwhile I've heard back from Customer Systems who are still processing my application. They want me to send some supporting documents in MS Word format, even though I submitted them in PDF form two weeks ago! Obviously PDF doesn't stand for Portable Document Format! Whatever's easiest for them... its in the ethermail.
"Linkage please" beckoned Special. I've obliged with a few of my buddies websites, plus some of the main sites I'm checking on a daily basis for new jobs, where I found one job worth applying for today. Unfortunately it's another agency advertised position, but hopefully I'll get a wake up call tomorrow from them.
Some of you would have heard about my mate Steve from Bournemouth who's working in New York for Quietman next to Times Square.
Here's his tale of last week's blackout. Might get some of his pics up here too if I pull my finger out!
Hey everybody,
I thought I would write to tell you a bit about the blackout!
It happened at 4.11pm EST and I was at work as usual. All of the lights went
off and the alarms sounded. At first everyone (including me) thought it was
a terrorist attack, people were very afraid. Then we had to evacuate our
building... We are on the top floor (21st) and it took 10 minutes to get
down as I was following this really old woman! When we got outside on the
street we assumed that it was only our block that was out of power but then
my friend Scott (who had left early) phoned me to say that all of Manhattan
was out of power and that I shoudl get out of there as quickly as possible
because there are 8 million people who will be trying to get around at the
same time! I told my friends I was leaving (which I actually regret because
they stayed in the bar downstairs and had a street party!) because I would
be able to get the ferry home to Hoboken.
So I walked through Times Square to get to the west side and could not
believe the pandemonium, cars were blocked and people were everywhere! I got
to the ferry port and was unable to make any phonecalls because all of the
cell towers were out of action by this point. The ferry queue was 4hours
long, people were passing out because of the heat. I realised how trapped we
are on this 'island' as we simply had no way to quickly get out or even
communicate with anyone, we still assumed it could be some terrorist
attack.. What I did like was the community spirit, everyone was very
friendly and talkative.
I finally got on the ferry and was very relieved as it was taking me
directly to Hoboken. I got home at 9.43pm and I was very dehydrated and
tired. Fortunately I had a couple of hours of power in my laptop so I
watched a DVD and went to bed. I didn't sleep well because I couldn't use
the A/C and I woke at 8.00am (Friday) to see the power back on! Even though
the power was back at work our boss told us that we were shut for the day.
So I did the only decent thing and bought a cooler and a 12 pack and was in
the park drinking and sunbathing by 11.30am!
All in all it was a tiring but fun experience, I'm just glad I wasn't in the
subway or halfway up the Empire State Building when it happened. One funny
thing, the mayor of New York was telling us to conserve energy yet those
screens in Times Square came back on pretty quickly!
Hope everyone is well
regards,
Steve P "I survived the Blackout of 2003" (yes they are selling T-Shirts
saying that)
Just heard back from DC: I didn't get selected for the interview stage :(
They said they get 150 applicants per place so the odds were stacked against me I suppose. Oh well, at least they were prompt in processing my application.
Ho Hum.
Just in case I haven't seen you recently, here's the latest on the job hunt!
Had my first interview in three years at NEC Technologies, Reading on Friday last week for a Graduate Software Engineer role. Didn't get a very good impression of the company and over the weekend decided to withdraw my application. Found out earlier this week that the company apparently thought I was the strongest candidate of the five they interviewed last week. Which was nice, but alas my decision was final. Jimbo is still waiting to hear from them after his interview weeks ago - laziness and a lack of manners is a running theme with personnel departments these days.
Direct applications with Customer Systems and Data Connection are in progress at the moment, the former I need to chase up because it's been a couple of weeks. DC should be letting me know about interview this week though. Fingers crossed.
This is my first venture into moveable type, stylesheets et al. But this is helping :D
Why am I doing this? Well, my applications to several companies are taking an age, and there aren't many new jobs being posted on the various job directories. I need to do something positive to keep me occupied and I've been meaning to set something like this up for ages. Badgering from Special & Jimus also had a part to play, and got my mind ticking on the journey down from Guildford to Bournemouth yesterday.
I have a few ideas which hopefully will come to fruition soon. Bear with me, this might just look good soon(ish).