Today I agreed to become Oculan‘s newest Sales Engineer. I’m excited about the opportunity, working with some good people. I’ve got one more week of bumming around before I get cranking.

…it’s important not to leave your name and address at the scene of the crime.

The Raleigh News and Observer has more.

We’re getting major repairs done on our house this week, courtesy of our plump insurance settlement from December’s ice storm. Our house’s foundation has serious moisture problems, requiring joists to be replaced. This entails jacking the house up a bit, lots of sawing and hammering, and even a crew of brickmasons to open holes in our home’s exterior to get to the rotted joists.

We’ve been treated this week to loud sawing, hammering, and random, unpredictable bumps during the day. With each one, I tell Kelly “that’s the sweet sound of freedom.” You see, this stuff’s been on our list of things to get done before we sell our house.

And it seemed for so long like we’d never get around to doing it. It’s been needing to be done since we moved into the house four years ago. Facing the daunting bills for doing the job right, we simply avoided it as long as we could.

The misery of December’s ice storm led to the joy of getting a fat insurance check; one that covered more than just our roof repair. Overnight, we could afford to knock out the big repair headache that had been bugging us for years. That tree might as well have been heaven-sent.

And through some other miracle, our daughter Hallie has slept through every loud crash and disruption. It is a happy home, if not necessarily a quiet one.

I may pass on seeing the Nickel Slots tonight in favor of the lunar eclipse taking place. Here in Raleigh we’ve been fortunate to have some absolutely perfect weather – sunny skies, low humidity, and nice cool breezes. Overnight, however, all that changed, as high-altitude clouds rolled in.

Aside from the clouds, the weather is still very nice. But clouds and eclipses don’t mix. With any luck we’ll get skies clear enough to see it.

I’ll probably tag along with the folks at UNC’s Morehead Planetarium as they conduct a lunar eclipse viewing session.

I just got word that an offer letter is coming my way! Woohoo! Providing the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed, the job search should be over!

It’s not a moment too soon, either. As some wise person remarked “romance with no finance is a nusiance.” The strain of having no income was beginning to show around here. It was exactly one month ago yesterday that I got “let go.” Funny way of putting it, isn’t it? “Let go.” Kicked to the curb. Dumped. Fired. Sacked. Laid off. Call it what you may, it 5uX0red. But its over now.

I’ll save the celebrating until tonight, when the Nickel Slots take the stage at The Pour House in downtown Raleigh. Right now, I’ve got to finish building a server for my friends. It’s gotta be in Chapel Hill this afternoon.

After reading my own blog (shocking, isn’t it?), I realized I was busting too hard on Eric Raymond. Well, maybe not, but the guy stays pretty busy. Who am I to fault him if his software doesn’t work?

After contemplating that, along with my broken and woefully unmaintained bplog blogging scripts, I hit upon something.

“Hey. This is open-source software, dumbass,” I thought. “If it breaks, I get to keep both pieces.”

So I imagined what ESR would say if I told him Bogofilter doesn’t work. He might say “well, fix it your damn self.” Ok, not knowing Eric that well, he might not really say that. But he could.

Thus, I have discovered the perfect open-source motto: “Fix it yo’ damn self.” Don’t like something? Dig in. Go crazy. Nothing stopping you from greatness.

So open source users have nothing holding ’em back. Kinda cool.

“Fix it yo’ damn self.”

I’ve been chatting with Doc Searls via email for the past day or so. After visiting his page on a regular basis, I let him know that I enjoyed reading what he had to say.

Today, he put a link on his blog back to my site after I told him of my brother Jeff‘s wonderful experience with the helpful folks at WRAL HD. WRAL was the first station in the country to broadcast in HDTV. Yet for all of their high-tech foresight, they still haven’t forgotten the number-one rule in business: customer service.

To all the visitors from Doc’s page, welcome! I hope you’ll find interesting reading here. It takes time to write. Especially for me, since I tend to sweat over every sentence. Guess being married to an editor can have that effect, huh.

In spite of the time committment, the feedback I’ve gotten on my writing has really made it worthwhile. For now, the only feedback I can get is through email. I have yet to fix the comment part of my Bplog scripts, as my friend Tanner (among many others) likes to point out. Maybe the rainy weather this weekend will compel me into some hacking.

Anyway, make yourselves at home. I’ll do my best to keep you entertained.

I spent part of the day bugging my friends to link to my page. I also signed up my page for the GeoURL service, which lets you specify a webpage author’s exact location. Click on the GeoURL link on the left bar of my page to locate other nearby webpages.

I also played with BlogShares, a stock-market-type ranking of weblogs. Should be fun competing! (All friendly bets please. No wagering.)

This week is one I have been targeting as decision week in regards to my finding a job.

I’m in serious discussion on one position now and expected to hear something on it by today. Nothing has been heard, so now I must explore Plan B.

Plan B is a short, six-week contract at GSK doing LDAP work. I can’t fit a career into six weeks, but it helps pay the bills until that regular job materializes. I did LDAP work at Glaxo two years ago so the contract would be easy for me. My thought is that the income will give me breathing room to explore more long-term opportunities, including some within Glaxo itself.

Only problem is that I don’t want it to screw up the “serious discussion” job should I not be able to take it for another six weeks. I’d like to hold on for a few more days to hear about it. After being between jobs for a month as of tomorrow, however, I don’t have much of the luxury known as time.