December 2008

There were 82 posts published in December 2008 (this is page 3 of 9).

Time Warner Cable raising rates

To get a head start in losing customers before the February DTV changeover, Time Warner Cable is raising its basic cable rates 20% next month. The cost of doing business continues to increase, according to a spokesperson.

Uh-huh. What about the cost of losing business? I am so glad I’ve got our TVs ready for digital broadcast TV, and that we use Earthlink’s high-speed cable modem service rather than Time Warner RoadRunner.

If in the future I decide we need premium channels, I’ll be giving the Dish Network a call, but Time Warner won’t get a penny more from me if I can help it. Cable service has never been more irrelevant than it is today.

In fact, I should become more aggressive in setting up my neighborhood wireless Internet service. Let’s see how Time Warner’s rate increases look when compared to free (or close to it).

Luxury

Man, I could get used to 8 AM wakeups. It will be bittersweet when I have to give them up for a commute again.

Porch plastic

When my grandmother wanted to protect her screened back porch from the wind, she put up a sheet of plastic around it. I’d like to do something similar for our porch, but a bit fancier.

What I’d like is to have zippered plastic panels I could install on the inside of our porch screen between my porch posts. In the winter I could zip in a thick, clear poly panel and remove it when spring came around. It would become a quick and dirty greenhouse, which would be a much better place to put my sensitive plants than our garage.

Seems no one makes such a product, as far as I can tell. There is mention here of using greenhouse poly for it, but nothing specific.

Anyone seen such a product, or should I scare up some venture capital and start a company?

Phone interview!

I just got off the phone with a large storage area network company in the area for a short-term contract. It went really well! They want me to come in for an in-person interview tomorrow afternoon.

There are still lots of details to be worked out and there’s no promises at the end but I’m certainly encouraged. This is a top-notch company that would be great to join.

Wish me luck!

No lack of rain this year

What a difference a year makes. Today our back yard is saturated – the steady rains we’ve had recently have dumped so much water on us that it has nowhere to go. We had a small stream in our backyard after last night’s rain.

Contrast this with how things looked last year, when we were in the midst of a serious drought and Falls Lake stood ten feet below normal. It was Christmas 2007 when Falls Lake fell to its lowest point ever.

The big difference was the month of September [PDF], when we got almost five inches more of rain than normal! That actually turned our rain deficit from Jan 2007 into a surplus of almost 2 inches! November and December should push the totals up even more.

There are still other parts of the state still suffering from drought, particularly the mountain areas. I hope they get some good snow in the coming winter months.

Dear recruiters

Dear recruiters,

If your job description has any cliches like “proven track record,” “best of breed,” “arena,” “seamlessly,” or any of the other idiotic business cliches, don’t waste your time contacting me.

Love,
Mark

Voiceovers

Yet another caller to Chez MT.Net has remarked that my voice is worthy of voiceover work. Now that I truly have some Copious Free Time, I may finally dust off my USB microphone and create a demo CD for mailing out to local media.

Part of my inspiration came from reading Phil Hartman’s bio on Wikipedia. Phil believed his best work was his voice work.

Heh. Looks like I’ve been talking about this for five years now. Guess it’s time to put up or shut up, eh?

WSJ story runs – without my interview

Dadgummit. The Wall Street Journal article about being jobless at Christmas ran two days ago without any of my interview being used.

Ah, well. Its still a good read, even if it won’t help my job search after all. Maybe I need to learn how to be a more colorful interviewee?

As far as the issues the article raises, I admit to confronting them, too. At the time of my interview, I told the reporter I thought Christmas would be largely the same. Since that call, I’ve discovered that I see the holidays as more of an obstacle rather than something to celebrate. It’s tough not to blame the holidays for the lack of phone calls: “if only the hiring managers were in the office I’d already be employed.”

If as a kid I thought the wait for Christmas day was excruciatingly long, now the wait for Christmas to be over feels just as long. Sad, isn’t it?