NicholasYax.com

I keep saying I am going to update my blog more, and I keep failing.  The problem is I keep having good news coming that I wait for to post, but it just gets more and more delayed and then never comes.  Well, it is February 28th, and I want to get a post out before the month ends, so when the good news does come it will just need to get its own post.

Regular visitors to my blog (are there regular visitors to my blog?  I don’t think there actually are, as you all just read this via the Facebook feed.  It is at nicholasyax.com, in case you didn’t know) may note that I no longer show posts on the front page.  I turned it into a static page with some links to my resume and such, in hopes of having a place to direct prospective employers to some of my school projects.  You can just click the “Blog” link up top though to see all 586 posts, and growing.

Since we are kind of on the topic of blog statistics, I am just 333 visitors from crossing 20,000 in the blog’s nearly 7 years.  I also just passed over the 170,000 word mark.  Not too shabby.  Of course, if I followed my original “every third day” schedule, I would be at nearly 850 posts come the blogversary in May, not the mere 590 − 600 I will likely reach.  Oh well, such is life.

So, important events from February…

Jenn and I got to spend Valentine’s Day together, and went to The Blue Cow for dinner.  I had lamb chops for the first time, and they were pretty good.  She bought me a backpack (a hiking backpack, which I hope to use this summer) and I got her a scrap-booking bag.

We went to the Grand Rapids Boat Show which was pretty fun.  I particularly enjoyed the old wooden boats over the new ones.  There was also a wake boarding demo put on by the folks building the new waterpark in Allendale.

Jenn’s parents came in this week, for the first time in almost a year.  We went to Schuberg’s, did a bit of shopping, they got a hotel, had breakfast the next morning, a bit more shopping, and they were on their way.

I have been doing some genealogy lately, and doing rather well.  I have followed three of my grandparent’s lines back to about 1700, but my Grandpa Don I can’t even get to his parents.  I will need to try and get whatever I can from my Mom and see if I can find any little hints.  I know others have tried before me and got pretty much the same, but there is more info going online all the time, and there must be something new out there we are missing.

And I think that covers it for February.  I am right around 500 words, so good enough for now, I say.  Will report back by March 31, or when I get good news, whichever comes first.

So, being the last day of January, I think its time for my first blog post of 2010.

My New Year’s was fun, celebrated at the gate with Jenn and her friend Amanda from work.  The gate was very unorganized though, and never turned a single TV to the ball drop.  We found out it was midnight from the DJ’s cellphone, which is rather sad.  Jenn forgot about “bar time” and tried to celebrate 15 minutes early.

The first several weeks of the year were uneventful.  Applied for jobs, got rejected for jobs, rinse, repeat.

Wednesday the 20th Jenn and I drove to Bay City, picked up my Dad, Brother, and Todd and went to NAIAS.  We stopped at White Castle in Flint on the way down as I have had a craving since our honeymoon and trip to New Baltimore.  From there we continued to Detroit, parked at the Greektown Casino parking garage, and took the People Mover to Cobo.  Auto show was decent, but smaller than past years I have gone.  You can tell the economy is making a dent on the level of prototypes and concept cars.  The Ford Fiesta and Focus were pretty cool, as were the diesel Audis and VW.  The VWs are largely unchanged from Jenn’s Jetta though, which was a little disappointing.  Pictures of NAIAS are already up on FaceBook if you want to have a look.  After the show, we drove up to Joe’s Crab Shack in Auburn Hills then headed back to Bay City for the night.  Thursday we met up with Jenn’s parents so Jenn could get the Rav4 from them and do all the transfer stuff.  I hung out at my Mom’s then Dad’s, then we followed each other home.  We stopped in Evart at Connor o’Malley’s as we keep hearing about them and were interested.  We were expecting a sit down authentic Irish restaurant, but got  bar with some irish named food, rather disappointing.

Heard back on the 25th from my interview with TransNav, which was a no.  They said they may be looking for another person in a while though, so will keep my info handy.

Friday Jenn and I went down to Kalamazoo.  We stopped in GR first to drop my MacBook off at the Apple Store to get the palmrest replaced (for the 3rd time) and shopped Macy’s and Barnes and Noble a bit.  Then off to K’zoo where we started with some Cici’s Pizza buffet.  They were disappointing at first, as they were slow and had few pizzas out.  More people came soon after us though, and they quickly filled up the buffet for a better selection.  Buffalo chicken pizza was horrible (very bad sauce) and no mac and cheese pizza ever made it out, but the BBQ pork was good as was the apple streusel pizza.

From there we headed to our hotel to check in and rest, then went for  a bit of shopping at the mall.  This Macy’s had some good deals, including $150 Columbia coats for $37.50.  Alas, I don’t need a winter coat and wasn’t thrilled with the styles remaining anyway.  We shopped a bit more, I got a hat from Eddie Bauer, and we then headed for the Fire Keeper’s Casino in Battle Creek.  I broke even, which is an accomplishment for a Friday evening, and we headed back for the hotel.  On the way, we stopped for dinner at Steak n’ Shake, which was excellent as always.

Saturday we went to the Air Zoo.  We went in, were offered a tour but declined, and walked around for about 10 min and realized we had seen everything.  We headed back to the front desk and got tickets for the 4D movie (which was meh), then went and found a tour guide.  He was quite informative, gave much for info on the use of the planes than the technical specs, and took us though all but one item in the building (skipping the helicopter for some reason).  The SR-71B is the most awesome thing I have ever seen.  Unfortunately, the keep the lights strangely low so the photos came out weird, but they should be uploaded to FB sometime today.  there was a second building, but we had been there about 2 hours and decided to save it for another trip.

Next up, we went to Bell’s Brewery downtown for lunch.  We were expecting standard sit down, but from what we could gather you were expected to order and pick up your own food cafeteria style.  There were no open tables and no signs anybody was nearing leaving, so we passed and drove around, finding Olde Peninsula Brewery.  Turned out pretty good, though Jenn learned she doesn’t like red beers.  From there, we drove up to GR to pick up my MacBook, fully repaired, then on to home.

We were going to go to Sno*Drift this weekend, but due to memories of last year kind of sucking, we backed out.  Sounds like Jon and Greg had fun though.  Maybe we will go next year when I have a job and money.

I think that was it for January.

As far as job prospects, I have plenty of applications I haven’t heard back from, but no interviews scheduled or that I haven’t heard from.  I guess I am just waiting right now, and applying to more as I find them.  Ferris’s job fair is coming up in late March, though I would like to at least get an interview in before then.

Apple released the iPad last week, and I’m not sure what to think.  On the one hand, thinking about what I do on my computer, it would probably cover 80% or so of my needs.  On the other hand, if it had MacOS rather than iPodOS, it would cover about 99% of my needs.  Will need to wait for it to come out so I can play with one at an Apple Store.

I ordered a couple books from Amazon using my Harrispoll points.  Scats and Tracks of the Great Lakes and Edible Wild Plants of Eastern and Central North America.  Both look good so far.

Alright, thats all for now, and will update if anything fun happens.

So, I called Bettis today and still no word.  She said the managers haven’t made a decision yet so there is at least still a chance.  I am starting to feel like if something good was going to come, it would have by now.  All I can do is wait and see.

I went to Ferris Monday to see Joe Wist.  He had a few job leads for me, so I put in about 10 applications.  Will see if they lead to anything.

This Saturday will be my bachelor party.  Hopefully I see a good turnout.  Would be nice to meet up with everyone.

Speaking of Bay City, Jenn and I were up there on Sept 5.  Jenn spent the day with her parents and I visited with my Mom and Dad.  Had fun, but just spent the day.

Following that was my Birthday.  Nothing special.  I did get Snow Leopard as a gift though, which was really cool.

I called Bettis on the 9th and they said “very soon”.  As I said above, I called again today as I still haven’t heard anything.  Would be nice to know by the wedding.

I made some hard cider, which came out fairly well.  It has a bit of a funny aftertaste though.  Hopefully the next batch comes out better.

And I guess that is it.  Will post about the party next week, along with any update I get about the job.

nick

I kind of put this off till the end of the week, hoping I might hear something, but no.  Yesterday was 3 weeks, of the “2-4″ that they claimed.  I kind of figured 2-4 weeks would mean 27 days, but hoped it would be earlier.  If I don’t hear by Thursday, unfortunately the weekend is Labor Day, so Friday and Monday are out, and Tuesday is my birthday so I am afraid to call and get bad news, so I am giving them until Wednesday the 9th.

On another topic, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was released today.  It’s only $29, but I don’t have it because a) I don’t have the money, b) All my back-ups are packed away anyway and c) From what I have read online, there are several apps that are not working right yet.  Truth though, is that it is all A, while B and C are just rationalizations.

Theory goes that I will be in Bay City possibly the weekend of the 12th.  My only question is that I would be coming again 2 weeks later for River of Time.  We will see as it approaches.

The cider is going well.  Has slowed down dramatically, which scares me a bit, but I think it’s fine.

That’s all for now.  Sorry, I have a boring life.

nick

So, I went to the interview in Pittsburgh.  Had a lot of flight issues and ended up spending about 6 hours at Detroit Metro.  I finally made it to Pittsburgh at about 11:30 and to the hotel at 12:30.  There was a message waiting for me that somebody would be there to pick me up at 6:55.  So, after about 4.5 hours of sleep I got up and dressed and went with the Bettis rep to Bob Evans for breakfast, then on to the lab.

At the security gate was a nice security officer with the Department of Energy holding an M16 (yes, really).  We then went on to the security office to check me in and have my bag searched, then to HR.  They got all my application info then I was office to another security office to be finger printed.

With all the security stuff done, they explained what they could of the position.  A big part of the position is classified, and requires Top Secret security clearance.  It will take 2-4 weeks to make a decision, then 2-6 months to get clearance (“We are they government, we go kind of slow”).  I was also told that they don’t actually do manufacturing on site, it’s contracted out, and the job would be largely engineering support to the contractor.

Through the day, I interviewed with 3 or 4 people, the final two taking me to lunch.  Hearing about all the advanced stuff they do and who they have (2000 engineers, several hundred Ph.D.s), I feel a little under-qualified, but know I could do it.  It sounds really exciting, and am crossing my fingers.  Should know in a couple weeks.

So, after all that, I got home about 9:30 Thursday night.  Friday afternoon, it was back on the road up to Alpena for Jenn’s shower.  We stopped in Atlanta to see the florist and go over a few things, then went out to eat with Jenn’s parents.  Saturday morning Jenn had a dress fitting and we went to the farmer’s market.  The shower was a couple hours later.  My Dad and Grandma made it up, so I went and drove around town with my Dad while the ladies did their thing. After a bit of driving, we went to Jenn’s parent’s house and my Dad met her Dad, then Jenn called and told us to come to the hall and eat the leftovers, so we all headed there.  After about another hour, they headed home and we packed up all the gifts.  We hung out at Jenn’s parents for a few hours, then went looking for a hotel near Lewiston.  Unfortunately, there was a wedding and a softball game in town, so all the rooms in town were booked and the nearest we could find was in Gaylord.  Sunday morning we went to mass and to meet with the priest who will perform our wedding ceremony.  He seems pretty fun, and an OK guy.  After that, we finally headed home.

Monday wasn’t much.  Tuesday we were offered to lease our apartment until Dec 31, which is longer that what we were hoping for, but better than May, so we signed.  I better have a job by then.  Hell, I think I have to at least have part time by my birthday if we want to stay afloat.

That about covers it all.  Will let you know if I hear anything.

nick