If You Can't Say Anything Nice...

After a Week Off, Friday's Random Ten

Downtown Train - Tom Waits
Hell's Bells - AC/DC
Going Back to Georgia - Nanci Griffith
Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead
I Close My Eyes and Think of You - Paul Kelly
American Idiot - Green Day
Ordinary Day - Great Big Sea
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - Paul Kelly
The Logical Song - Supertramp
Early Morning Rain - Gordon Lightfoot

New Job

Not for me, for Jo. The offer was on the table when she went Eastwards for her job interview, but it is only official as of yesterday. My wife is now the Associate Director of the UNBC Library, a job that she has basically been doing for quite some time, only now she's being paid for it.

I'm very very proud of her.

Catching Up

Been quiet, lately, due to being so busy with work and with, you know, life. Here are a couple of links for you, though. The first is a great article in the Onion that makes fun of SF. The second, completely unrelated, is about a new conservation area in the South Pacific, which is encouraging news.

Keeping Those Balls in the Air

I can juggle. When I turned 13, as a joke Mom and Dad bought me the book Juggling For The Complete Klutz (because I was a klutz: get it?). I fooled them, though, and inside of a couple of hours had taught myself the basics. I still like to juggle now and again.

I can't, however, juggle quite as well as Chris Bliss.

The Answer Was "Yes"

The question was, Should I post this link for everyone to see? (Via Biomes)

Friday's Random Ten and Some Other Stuff

Black Cadillac - Rosanne Cash
Life's Railway to Heaven - Johnny Cash with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Listen to the Music - The Doobie Brothers
Station - Meat Puppets
Just What I Needed - The Cars
Going Back to Georgia - Nanci Griffith
It's My Life - Talk Talk
Memphis in the Meantime - John Hiatt
Jeremy - Pearl Jam
Did I Let You Down? - Folksongs For The Afterlife

Had a helluva soccer game today. Three goals scored in the first half, but then I came down hard on my ankle early in the second half. Seeing how we haven't had a regular keeper this year I've been the keeper (our manager was in goal at first, doing his level best, but it just isn't his position), so I went back in. Made a ton of big saves, but let in two tough ones, and we ended up losing 10-6. Since we had no subs and I wasn't the only injury, nothing to be ashamed of.

Jo and the boys come home tomorrow after a week in Alberta. About time, too; this house has been too quiet.

Gooooooaaaaaallllll!!!!!!

While I'll never be a big ManU fan (Liverpool is my team, always and forever), I do admire several of their players, especially Wayne Rooney, who is a magnificent striker and still has his best years ahead of him. Rooney's not the most refined character, of course, and often gets into trouble mouthing off at the refs, other players, or at the media.

That said, it's beyond me why Rooney would be paid 5 million pounds to write (well, dictate) not one, but five autobiographies over the next 12 years. And because of that, I'm predicting that in the future, a few people with a certain publishing house will be looking for new jobs.

Friday Random Ten

Watch Your Step - Joan Armatrading
Fixing a Hole - The Beatles
Stars - Janis Ian
Morning Train - Andrew Cash
I Would Be Your Man - Odds
One Last Love Song - The Beautiful South
God Bless Us Everyone (From The Christmas Carol Project) - Maria Dunn
Heaven Coming Down - The Tea Party
One-Trick Pony - Nelly Furtado
Everything is Broken - Bob Dylan

Feeling a tad under the weather today, and am taking a day off from work. And yes, I'm even getting a bit of writing done. Don't know if it's any good, though.

No Thought Balloons

I've been meaning to post this for some time, but have been remarkably forgetful as of late. Garfield, certainly one of the least funny comics of all time, becomes quite sad and poignant when you strip out the cat's thought balloons.

How to Not Attract Quality Employees

Jo (my wife, for those of you not keeping score), recently returned from a job interview at a to-be-unnamed small university in a small community a good distance from here. To fly there, she needed to fly to Vancouver, then to another city, and then to the destination community (this is standard fare when travelling from Middle of Nowhere, BC): total flight time was a tad over 12 hours.

Whenever she has gone somewhere else for a job interview, the interview and the whole process surrounding it has taken an entire day. I don't know all the details, but there has been the interview itself, a tour of the university, a presentation for the selection committee and a presentation for the library staff, and a meal, supper if possible, lunch if flight times precludes that. She has been picked up by someone from the library and often given a brief tour of the city so that she has some idea about where we might be moving.

All of that is especially important when trying to sell a community such as Prince George, or the unnamed city where she was recently interviewed. You have a smallish community, you want to entice good staff by showing them what great features you have: quality of life, safety, beauty, arts and culture, schools, all that sort of stuff.

So here's what went down with Jo: her interview was one of three that day, at 1:30 pm, and lasted all of one hour; she then did her presentation for the library staff, and during this presentation the man who would be her boss sat in the back of the room and appeared to be falling asleep; after the presentation the selection committee disappeared on her to discuss things, even though they weren't officially finished with her yet; she stood and mingled with the staff, and they drank juice, because this is apparently a preschool library; her hotel was in the middle of nowhere, with only one (mediocre-looking) restaurant in walking distance; nobody drove her anywhere, and so she took a cab to the hotel from the airport (not in itself a big deal), and she also took a cab to the university; while at the university she gave herself a tour, since nobody offered such; when it was all over, nobody offered her an expense claim form, and so she had to email HR after returning home.

All of this for an associate director's position, incidentally. Of course, even without all the other stuff, this university was lacking in a few special somethings, but my goodness, just how do you attract the right people?

We're staying in PG, needless to say. And I promise, there will soon be more on that.

So Very Busy

I have a boatload of things I want to blog about, and I hope to hell I can find the time soon. In the meantime, just back from a visit to the emergency ward, because Aidan was having trouble breathing. His normal asthma medication didn't make a difference, and on the peak flowmeter he was blowing as low as 40% of normal. Happily, all is well now, and so I can at least bring you today's Random Ten:

Real Fine Love - John Hiatt
Darling it Hurts (live version) - Paul Kelly
Baby Mine - Bonnie Raitt & Was (Not Was)
Lawyers, Guns and Money - Warren Zevon
Why Worry - Dire Straits
Lonesome Day - Bruce Springsteen
You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
Clumsy - Our Lady Peace
When the Stars Go Blue - Ryan Adams
Take Me to the River (live version) - Talking Heads