Feb already
2018-Feb-05, Monday 22:59![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
texxgadgetI had a blast at Edwardian Ball in SF, but Im sitting out the one in LA this weekend because I cant afford the trip.
Im making progress on storage in Santa Clara.
Im splitting the unit I have down there into 2 units which combined will be less than the one Ive had since 2002.
Annual increases have raised it to twice what an identical one costs.
One unit will be furniture from my old apartment in Santa Clara, stuff bound for the computer museum, and boxes of clothing.
The other unit is everything else from that apartment. It was a full apartment.
Im looking for someone to take a queen size bed off my hands (frame, box, mattress --guaranteed no bed bugs)
I really dont want to move that again.
Im now out of San Carlos, as of last month.
Im consolidating everything into my unit in San Leandro.
Im also searching for both pallet rack & rivet rack shelving at decent costs.
Around the time "Starport" shutdown, I was in the middle of a deal to buy a building that I was going to
consolidate into. The deal fell through.
A year later the West Oakland building housing the artist colony
I had been since the late 1980s was bought by a big real estate concern and the colony scattered to the winds.
I still miss popping by late at night to pick up something and watching people fire dancing in the middle of Peralta St.
As things consolidate into San Leandro, Im getting a chance to finally sort.
Theres a bunch of stuff for the Computer History Museum.
Ill have to get with Steve soon to make the right things happen.
I was going to take some stuff to the museum for him after cleaning it up and a buddy of mine wanted to photograph it.
The photo project never happened and the stuff sat in storage.
This spring the cleaning will happen as soon as Im working again.
I need to get the air compressor going again to get all the crap out of the machines before wiping them down and delivery to the museum.
Ill have to double check what went with which system.
Then there will be another pass through a bunch of stuff from *ME*.
That which the museum doesnt take, Ill have to get to the next vintage computer faire and look for homes
that arent just out to scrap them for components.
I already unloaded a load of old TVs & radios on the radio musum in Alameda.
I finally found a taker for the mass spectrometer and hope to hand that off to Nathan this summer.
Im still figuring out if the elephant standing on my chest is muscle strain, stress or something more ominous.
Hopefully it can keep, because I cant afford any more medical misadventures.
Ive been out of work since Halloween.
Its been hard, but Im managing not to go over the edge, at least not yet.
I finally managed to prove to unemployment who I am, so eventually Ill get something from them.
I finally had to produce a certified copy of my birth certificate.
My last 2 jobs have been at below market rates but I took them because they were contract to hire.
I really should have known better. Lucy ALWAYS snatches the football.
Lyris was bought a month after I started and the new owners wanted the assets but not the people.
Conversions were cancelled.
HP split into HP & HPE which put THAT set of conversions on hold and then during the sale of the SAAS
division to Micro Focus, my last 5 months were 4 day workweeks, so I entered unemployment already depleted.
The workspace of jobsearch has been depressing with a combination of Bozo recruiters, an attempt at driving wages in Silicon Valley, aided by Bozo recruiters, and the fact that there is this magic skillset that
they want everyone to have.
Ive got it, but only like a year of each and they want like 4 years of each.
I get close but not quite, unless I want to drop to $20/hr less than I made on my last gig.
They want: Docker & Kubernetes, Python, Ruby, Go, Chef, Puppet, Ansible Salt, PHP & Java.
Python has become quite the Rosetta stone, as Ive learned enough about Python that a whole bunch of other things suddenly make sense.
This helps.
I had a lond chat with a networking person and learned a few things.
I had never considered myself that much of a networking guy.
I knew enough to know how much I didnt know.
Sure I can address, subnet, vlan, etc on a network. It was the routing stuff that had me stuck.
I knew how to set up routes, but I could not describe the difference between IGP & BGP.
I knew what they stood for but that was it. Well it turns out I know more about both than I thought.
So I guess I am a network guy.
In 2015, I was still shying away from security stuff because I didnt have that much experience.
I landed into something that I would later realize was "Security Ops" in mid 2015.
Several times, we thought the project was going to end and i started looking.
Each time, we got extended and I stopped my search, hoping to get 3 years in one place on my resume
with a security title over me.
I should have gotten out of there when they cut our hours, but i didnt.
At one time, "Systems Administrator" was a manyfold job.
The last few years, they have pulled the scripting, & automation
out of the job and turned those into "Dev Ops"
So now I have to market myself as "Systems Admin / Dev Ops / Security Ops"
I still cant get any of the indian companies to learn to google the timezone for an area code,
nor can I teach them to do time math.
The phone starts ringing at 5am sometimes.
The are even less responsive when I ask them to flag my profile in their systems as "California ONLY".
It takes hours to weed out all the east coast jobs, so that I can concentrate on things I am able to actually do.
I still get a lot of "Java Developer" reqs that Im "Perfect for".
It turns out that Im perfect for this job because the computer found the word java in my resume.
They dont see a reason to double check the computer.
Ive been trying to explain to one Bozo that someone else already submitted me at $10 more on w2
and they threw in insurance in the deal.
He doesnt get it that 1099 is not a good deal. (You have to pay the FICA tax TWICE if you are 1099)
Im making progress on storage in Santa Clara.
Im splitting the unit I have down there into 2 units which combined will be less than the one Ive had since 2002.
Annual increases have raised it to twice what an identical one costs.
One unit will be furniture from my old apartment in Santa Clara, stuff bound for the computer museum, and boxes of clothing.
The other unit is everything else from that apartment. It was a full apartment.
Im looking for someone to take a queen size bed off my hands (frame, box, mattress --guaranteed no bed bugs)
I really dont want to move that again.
Im now out of San Carlos, as of last month.
Im consolidating everything into my unit in San Leandro.
Im also searching for both pallet rack & rivet rack shelving at decent costs.
Around the time "Starport" shutdown, I was in the middle of a deal to buy a building that I was going to
consolidate into. The deal fell through.
A year later the West Oakland building housing the artist colony
I had been since the late 1980s was bought by a big real estate concern and the colony scattered to the winds.
I still miss popping by late at night to pick up something and watching people fire dancing in the middle of Peralta St.
As things consolidate into San Leandro, Im getting a chance to finally sort.
Theres a bunch of stuff for the Computer History Museum.
Ill have to get with Steve soon to make the right things happen.
I was going to take some stuff to the museum for him after cleaning it up and a buddy of mine wanted to photograph it.
The photo project never happened and the stuff sat in storage.
This spring the cleaning will happen as soon as Im working again.
I need to get the air compressor going again to get all the crap out of the machines before wiping them down and delivery to the museum.
Ill have to double check what went with which system.
Then there will be another pass through a bunch of stuff from *ME*.
That which the museum doesnt take, Ill have to get to the next vintage computer faire and look for homes
that arent just out to scrap them for components.
I already unloaded a load of old TVs & radios on the radio musum in Alameda.
I finally found a taker for the mass spectrometer and hope to hand that off to Nathan this summer.
Im still figuring out if the elephant standing on my chest is muscle strain, stress or something more ominous.
Hopefully it can keep, because I cant afford any more medical misadventures.
Ive been out of work since Halloween.
Its been hard, but Im managing not to go over the edge, at least not yet.
I finally managed to prove to unemployment who I am, so eventually Ill get something from them.
I finally had to produce a certified copy of my birth certificate.
My last 2 jobs have been at below market rates but I took them because they were contract to hire.
I really should have known better. Lucy ALWAYS snatches the football.
Lyris was bought a month after I started and the new owners wanted the assets but not the people.
Conversions were cancelled.
HP split into HP & HPE which put THAT set of conversions on hold and then during the sale of the SAAS
division to Micro Focus, my last 5 months were 4 day workweeks, so I entered unemployment already depleted.
The workspace of jobsearch has been depressing with a combination of Bozo recruiters, an attempt at driving wages in Silicon Valley, aided by Bozo recruiters, and the fact that there is this magic skillset that
they want everyone to have.
Ive got it, but only like a year of each and they want like 4 years of each.
I get close but not quite, unless I want to drop to $20/hr less than I made on my last gig.
They want: Docker & Kubernetes, Python, Ruby, Go, Chef, Puppet, Ansible Salt, PHP & Java.
Python has become quite the Rosetta stone, as Ive learned enough about Python that a whole bunch of other things suddenly make sense.
This helps.
I had a lond chat with a networking person and learned a few things.
I had never considered myself that much of a networking guy.
I knew enough to know how much I didnt know.
Sure I can address, subnet, vlan, etc on a network. It was the routing stuff that had me stuck.
I knew how to set up routes, but I could not describe the difference between IGP & BGP.
I knew what they stood for but that was it. Well it turns out I know more about both than I thought.
So I guess I am a network guy.
In 2015, I was still shying away from security stuff because I didnt have that much experience.
I landed into something that I would later realize was "Security Ops" in mid 2015.
Several times, we thought the project was going to end and i started looking.
Each time, we got extended and I stopped my search, hoping to get 3 years in one place on my resume
with a security title over me.
I should have gotten out of there when they cut our hours, but i didnt.
At one time, "Systems Administrator" was a manyfold job.
The last few years, they have pulled the scripting, & automation
out of the job and turned those into "Dev Ops"
So now I have to market myself as "Systems Admin / Dev Ops / Security Ops"
I still cant get any of the indian companies to learn to google the timezone for an area code,
nor can I teach them to do time math.
The phone starts ringing at 5am sometimes.
The are even less responsive when I ask them to flag my profile in their systems as "California ONLY".
It takes hours to weed out all the east coast jobs, so that I can concentrate on things I am able to actually do.
I still get a lot of "Java Developer" reqs that Im "Perfect for".
It turns out that Im perfect for this job because the computer found the word java in my resume.
They dont see a reason to double check the computer.
Ive been trying to explain to one Bozo that someone else already submitted me at $10 more on w2
and they threw in insurance in the deal.
He doesnt get it that 1099 is not a good deal. (You have to pay the FICA tax TWICE if you are 1099)
