Monkey King

Here is a link to the Atlanta museum where the exhibit (I'm sure it is the same one) will be traveling after Cincinnati: Monkey King. Really it all looks rather interesting and I'm looking forward to learning more. Oh, didn't I say what this was about? ;-) I've gotten the museum job that I referred to earlier! :-)

I just got the call today. Oh, and I'll be working the supervisor position ($.50 more an hour). I have training the sixth of March and start work the eleventh. Hopefully with a schedule that should be three days one week and four the next I'll be able to put in hours at Atria where Chris works. I'm hoping when I tell them that I want to pick up work there as a second job, not just a temporary job while I look for full time work that they'll want to hire me. I know with my cafeteria work that I'm definately qualified, so I can only hope. :-)

History

Sometimes I wonder if it was easier searching for employment in earlier times. Yes I know there were many other drawbacks to those times, but I'm not going off on that tangent. Today though it seems as if everything (employment, learning, etc...) is so specialized. I'm having trouble finding jobs where they'll consider me since I'm not really a good fit for most things that I've seen so far. My history degree is great and I wouldn't trade those years for anything, but I sometimes despair of finding an position where I can utilize my degree, or at least some position that I'm qualified for.

It seems as though it used to be you didn't need as much training or specialized experience for many positions, or there was more on-the-job training. It is hard finding entry-level positions or ones requiring little to no experience that will give me even a semi-decent amount of money. It isn't that I'm greedy, but I know that at some point I need to be making enough money for me to live on my own and be able to take care of expenses and save for the future and emergencies.

*sigh* I need to keep reminding myself that God is in control and He knows exactly what is in store for my life. He knows exactly what I will be doing five months, years, or decades from now and I just need to remember that.

~Matt

Early Church

Yes, apparently according to the label this is an "early church." ;-) I have to go into church early with Chris again tomorrow, but thankfully this is the last week in February! I guess I am glad that I'm here to help out, but sometimes I'm tempted to get annoyed and gripe. Then I remember that my sister and brother-in-law didn't have to let me come here and that while I do try to be a help it is undoubtedly at the very least somewhat of a hinderance to fit me into the house. So I really am thankful and try to remember this all of the time, even when I'm tempted to be selfish.

Well I'm almost done with my book, the first of a trilogy that I'm rereading before delving into the second two books for the first time. But right now I need to get off here so Chris can get back to doing whatever he was doing and I can get reading; oh yeah, I'll be posting from the computer Chris uses for the mean time while I get serious about preparing my computer to be shipped off for repairs. I've installed Firefox and uploaded all of my favourites so I'm set. Now I just need to back-up my laptop. *sigh* It is such a pain. I pray that I will have the dilligence to do what needs to be done and the patience to persevere through that which I can not control.

~Matt

Be Warned

Some of you might find this a bit disturbing, though I'll keep it rather short and nondetailed. We think that the dog ate a stool sample that being collected from one of the kids; there was barely enough left to collect. My sister was feeling a bit nauseous, but I can't say that I really blame her.

Okay, enough of that. The day has gone well so far. I woke up before seven and was up in plenty of time to warm up the car and drive the kids into school, including the newest one (for his second day of school!). Today was pajama day for the first graders so they wore pajamas under their clothes and took blankets and pillows in to school.

Today I keep waiting to hear about the museum job. I can claim all I want that I refuse to get my hopes up but...

~Matt

Problem Solved!

Ha!! I knew I could get it to work! I finally found out what the problem was. Some of my pictures were too wide and working with some monitors on smaller resolutions (like 1024x768) the blog couldn't handle the sidebar and the wide pictures. I simply resized the offending pictures and everything should be working okay! :-) Thanks you four that responded. At least I know y'all are reading my blog... ;-)

Well my job interview went well today. It turns out that the lady who interviewed me lives only a street or two over from here, small world eh? I think that I answered all of the questions well and that it really would be a good job for me, being an exhibit interpreter in a museum. However if my job search has told me anything it is to not get my hopes up. At this point I'll just pray and hope that everything turns out okay. The job would be temporary, but it would last from March 12th to July 4th and perhaps would provide an opportunity for me to take another temporary or perhas (dare I hope?) even a permanent position at the museum (if I land the job that is, of course). I should hear back in a couple days.

~Matt

PS After noticing a couple words in the above image I decided to edit it and post a version that would be sure to offend nobody (not that it was that bad, but I figure it is better to display something nobody will mind than one that some may object to and stumble over).

Reader Poll

Attempt #2, post computer crash...*sigh*

Did you ever stop to think that you can type the entire word "poll" with your right hand? (when using the home key finger positions). Well anyway, I'd like to ask anybody reading this to respond. I've made some changes and would like to know how they affect people. Okay...here are the questions then. I would really appreciate if everyone reading this responds. Thanks.

1. Can you see my profile, previous posts, archive list, and my "blogs I read" list directly to the left of my post text?
1a. If "no" is it all the way at the bottom of the page or in another location entirely? (please describe where you see these things)
1b. If "no" have you tried maximizing your browser window? If "yes" did it help?
2. What is your screen resolution.
3. What browser are you using to view this blog?

Thank you for your participation, it will definately help me to improve this site for all viewers. As much as I like using Firefox I don't want this to become something that just Netscape/Mozilla type browers can correctly display, or vice versa with Internet Explorer. :-)

~Matt

Updating the Look

Well if you look around a bit you should notice something different. I finally added a list of blogs to my sidebar to make for easier navigation. If anybody reading this doesn't have their blog listed please let me know so that I can rectify the problem! Oh, and I also edited the appearance of my profile to include my picture, though sometime I need to edit the gif file...

Thanks to Chris and Mark (I viewed the source html for their blogs), my blog is looking better. :-)

~Matt

Interviews, interviews...

Facility: Originally opened in 1933 as the Union Terminal train station, the building was renovated and reopened in 1990 as the Cincinnati Museum Center, a joint facility for five allied museums and attractions — the Cincinnati History Museum, the Cinergy Children’s Museum, the Museum of Natural History and Science, the Robert D. Lindner Family OMNIMAX® Theater, and the Cincinnati Historical Society Library. According to a study by the University of Cincinnati’s Economics Center for Education & Research, the Cincinnati Museum Center is Ohio’s top-drawing museum.

Today I need to go into one place that I found on-line and fill out an application, and then tomorrow I have an interview at the Cincinnati History Museum (see above). This week has just been chock full of things for me! :-) The interview on Monday didn't go that well, but I don't think it would have been my kind of position anyway, involving sales and marketing. But yesterday I interviewed with a staffing agency and got some resume tips as well as some more testing. I need to experiment with mail merges in Word so I can become proficient. Oh, and I took another typing test. I didn't correct as many of my mistakes so I had 12 with an adjusted wpm of 79. But my total was 88! And I thought that I was going too slow! *sigh* I never understand my own typing scores.

Everything is going well, I've just been a lazy bum about updating this blog... ;-) I could say it was because I didn't want to search for an opening picture, but that would only be an excuse. Oh, and I did watch the third Back to the Future movie last night--a great end to the trilogy IMHO.

~Matt

Back to the Future

Yesterday I watched the first two BttF movies, having never seen them before. They were quite enjoyable to watch and at long last I know what I've been missing all these years... ;-) A recent episode of Stargate: Atlantis involved time travel and Major Sheppard mentioned the De Lorean and flux capacitor.

Okay, I had a great update typed up last Thursday, but it was "eaten" by blogger....grr...and I've not taken the time since to update. I have an interview this afternoon (14:15) and one tomorrow morning, plus a couple applications to return to other places and classifieds and internet job listings to go through. Today being presidents day all of my nephews and neices are home (Chris is still sleeping, or trying to), making for an interesting day (but at least I got to sleep in a bit and catch up on some sleep). I'll post more later about the interview, but for now I need to finalize directions and get ready to leave.

~Matt

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

I really enjoy updating my blog multiple times through the day, I think it lets me get my thoughts out in a more coherent way, rather than summing everything up at the end of the day (plus I get to search for more pictures this way ;-)). When doing this Google image search for "Jobs" I was reminded of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise)'s search in Mission Impossible.

Okay, so thus far today I've found nothing useful in the classifieds section (but I did mail in two resumes yesterday from the classifieds), but I've applied for 16 positions through Monster.com. Later I need to go make some copies of tax paperwork, but I think I'll also go to Career Builder and go through their search to see if I can apply for even more today! (and I'm not even done with Monster yet). I also tried (having forgot my previous experience) to apply to two jobs again, but thankfully Monster stopped me.

*sigh* I never thought that job hunting would be such a long and time consuming process... Well at least the next time I go through this I should have more expereience and be able to narrow down a field. I hope anyway! *crosses fingers* ;-)

I'd better get back to the searching so I'll cut this post off for now...

The Sixth Sense

Okay, I know I'm a bit behind the times...but last night I finally saw The Sixth Sense. It was a great movie. I'm not a fan of horror, and while Night's movies mix in a taste of horror I really think they're suspensful drama. They are much more upbeat than horor though they do have very suspensful moments. I've now seen four of Night's movies and enjoyed each one, though Unbreakable was a bit stranger (I think I need to see it again). And after watching the end of The Sixth Sense I definately want to go back and watch it for clues and such...:-)

~Matt

They Stole My Idea!!!

If you ask people who know me well they'll tell you that I've talked about this before. It doesn't make sense that the security screeners just confiscate everything that people try to illegally take aboard airplanes. Undoubtedly sometimes people are trying to smuggle stuff onboard, but many times they make an honest mistake and forget to take something out of their pocket. But it doesn't matter, they lose it forever. I've said that they should keep envelopes there so people could mail their things home, and I'm sure be charged a small fee to cover expenses and such. Well I just heard on tonight's FOX Report (Fox News Channel) that the TSA has started doing this!!! You can now mail home things that you mistakenly brought to the airport. *sigh* I wish I'd actually said something to somebody important before... *sigh* Oh well...

~Matt

Amazing Library

Yes, the library is such a wonderful place, and DVDs are such wonderful things... :-)

Since I've procured my local county library card I've been investigating the library's holdings. Unfortunately they don't have some books that I'd like to get, but they do have a good selection of DVDs. Ever since I've seen Signs I've been a fan of M. Night Shyamalan's work. I've now seen The Village and Unbreakable and so the only one of his films that I've not seen is The Sixth Sense. Therefore I put the DVD on hold at the library, and the library's website says that it is "In Transit" though not yet ready for me to pick up at the local branch. Of course I was at a loss when searching through the system for any other DVDs that I might want to check out...it is always like that when I actually get the chance to procure a DVD. When I have no chance I know the movies I want to watch, but those memories disappear when I actually get an opportunity! I searched through Blockbuster's site then and found a couple of other selections, namely Back to the Future (I've not seen any of them).

Okay, I need to go finish setting the table, so I'll put up this post. I'm doing it from another laptop so I can't upload any backgrounds again...*sigh* Perhaps tonight. I've uploaded an image that I want to post about...(Medical Investigation).

~Matt

Job Searching

Okay, well here is the update I didn't have time to post last night. The sales job I found out after checking around was a good deal, for a sales position. However I decided to let the opportunity lapse after consideration because I felt that I wasn't cut out to make it in a sales position. I would rather have a steady income coming in that isn't dependent on me getting people to buy something. I have been busy since applying, and as a matter of fact I have a couple resumes that I need to send out today and a couple left to e-mail I think. I also have to make a call at 11:00 today to follow up on a lead for a truck driving position. Like I've said I'm just looking for anything at this point, ;-).

Well I can't really think of too much more to add, oh wait there is something more. I found out that Frank Peretti is coming out with a new book in April, Monster. I've liked each of his books so I will definately want to be getting this one. I also found out that you can pre-order it (up to April 11th thankfully since I don't want to spend any more money in February that I don't have to) and get a couple bonuses from Family Christian Stores... :-)

~Matt

Babysitting

I'm off in a few minutes to babysit two of the neighbor kids. My two older nephews can't do it, one has soccer and one has to pick his grandma up, so my sister volunteered me for it! But I don't mind. They're good kids and one of my nephews will be going along as he likes playing with them anyway. I'll take a good book and relax... :-)

~Matt

American Income Life

Well the logo (being two files) didn't transfer here as well as it did on-line, but you get the picture I think. AIL is the company that I interviewed with this morning, and overall I think it went well. Most of the time was me telling about myself and my history. I'm going back tomorrow for a second stage interview where there will be several other people present. At this point I'm not sure where this will go. To some extent this does appear to be a sales position, and that isn't exactly what I've been looking for. But I don't know too much at this point and I want to investigate more before I make a decision. I don't even know for sure if they'll offer me anything and if they do what salary and benefits could be. So I'm going back tomorrow at 10:00. I'll see what happens from there.

Here you can see the new look of the Cinderella castle in Disneyland start to emerge. I'm not a big fan of the pastels...


Here is a view of part of the gardens at the J. Paul Getty museum in LA. I think I'll post more of these in my next few posts.


~Matt

Interview

Hopefully this interview will go better than the last one. I had a call yeterday from somebody who had seen my resume on Monster.com and wants me to come in to interview today at 10:30. I don't remember the name of the company unfortunately, it went a bit fast, but this does sound somewhat promising. The interview is described as tentative where they'll be sizing me up and seeing where I could fit in at the company. I'm going to take my shower in just a bit since my brother-in-law said that I should leave by about 09:30 just to be safe.

Okay, here is a Disneyland background for your perusal. Welcome to Adventureland:


Here is the Matterhorn, sadly closed for repairs the day I took the picture:


Finally are you ready for a trip to Tom Sawyer island?


~Matt

Agenda

Well let me see how my agenda worked out today...

>unemployment agency - :) done, and I had fun driving around on Covington's one way streets right by the Ohio River
>call Beechwood and Kenton County Schools - :( by the time I got to this they were closed, tomorrow I try earlier
>Home Depot on-line application - :) done, but it was a long process
>Fax resume - :( Not done, I forgot to go to the place while I was out and didn't want to go back out
>Compile detailed resume - :) done, it took me a while this morning, but I think it looks nice
>Call temp agency - :) Done, and I don't need to do anything with my I-9 docs now that I have a Kentucky license
>Call TMC about loans - :) Done, but I've not yet talked to a person, just left two messages

Overall not too bad, I can get stuff done tomorrow that I missed today, but I have something more tomorrow morning. I have an interview in Cincinnati tomorrow morning at 10:30 with a company (I don't remember the name)...it is a tentative interview to see where I could fit in there for a possible position.


Tonight the chicken that I was supposed to cook for dinner wasn't thawed so eventually my sister and brother-in-law decided to go to McDonalds, thinking that it might be cheaper than ordering pizza. Um...it wasn't really... ;-) My nephews said that this was the first time the whole family had been out to a restaurant. Besides the cost it was a hassle, I completely understand staying at home to eat.

Okay, I guess I'd better wrap this up...oh, well I'll add a background in a minute after I resize the leading picture.

~Matt

PS Oh, here is the image that first comes up doing a Google search for "McDonalds." It is, um, disturbing...

And while I'm on the subject here is a picture I pulled from my folders just now, having forgotten that I downloaded it some time back, the McDonalds at Canada's Jasper National Park:


PPS Here are some backgrounds from TMC.

A shrub in the hills behind Hotchkiss, the picture was taken on a nice rainy day! :)


A view of Slight dorm from the bottom of Slight hill:


Here is a view of a small retaining wall up near the Chapel Media building:

Habits

Do you see anything wrong with this picture? Well I definately do...the mouse doesn't have a scroll wheel! It didn't seem like much more than a small convenience when I first used a wheeled mouse, but I'm so accustomed to it now that it was ackward to use an older mouse at the unemployment agency. I only had to scroll down a couple inches, but it was strange to have to go click the scroll bar instead of just moving the wheel... ;-) Even my laptop has a scroll button!

~Matt

Backgrounds!

Yes, I've decided that it is high time I share some of the pictures that I've taken and used as backgrounds. Now it may be that none of them interest you, but hey, at least I'll get to look at them again. :-) As these are all large files capable of being used as backgrounds I'll be using Image Shack. As usual the image above came up in a Google Image search, this time under the word "background."

This is the foot of the large pine tree in my parent's backyard:


Snowy wood fence at an Arizona gas station:


Icicles on a welcome center in Amarillo Texas:


A Kentucky rock at a rest area:


Okay, I'll put up more later...right now I need to concentrate on checking things off my list. I've completed my expanded resume but I need to get over to the unemployment office now.

~Matt

Buenas Dias

I can't even remember enough Spanish to properly conjugate an opening sentence, so I'm just going to stick to English, ;-). Oh, and don't ask about the image, I just did a Google Image search for "Buenas Dias" and this was on the first page of results...

At the insistence of my sister I've compiled an agenda for today and a partial one for the rest of the week. I'm keeping it in a notebook where hopefully I'll continue to add agendas for each passing day that I'm job hunting. I've entitled the section "Life, the job hunt days."

Today I'm going to visit the unemployment agency, check on a subbing requirement for the local school, contact the county schools for subbing requirements, check out the employment sections of Home Depot's web site, fax my resume for a receptionst job requiring no experience, compile a resume complete with addresses, phone numbers, and wage history, call a temp agency to establish my availability, and check with TMC about my loans. *whew* I know I could do more in a day but the list looks long enough for now, I'll have to see how it works.

I've almost finished Brian Jacques Redwall book Loamhedge so I really need to go over to my literary xanga (The Spectral Lounge) and update it with this information, especially now that I've started a new fantasy book. Ah...I've got so much to keep up with on-line, sometimes I wonder how I manage it...;-)

Okay here are another couple pictures, I think that I'll keep putting up one or two per day as long as I have good ones to put up. They may be ones from several months ago, but I promise they'll be good ones! :-) Again thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting (the thumbnailed images)--the fully visible ones are hosted in my Photo Bucket account.

Here are a couple of the family dog Sasha. She is a boxer and the nicest dog that you'd ever find, quiet, great with kids, and gentle. Before photographing Sasha I'd never noticed it, but apparently with dogs (or at least this dog) you don't get red eye, you get blue eye. The second picture of this lazy dog shows that quite well.


And here is an image from my trip to Las Vegas last fall. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that well, but all of my pictures from Star Trek: The Experience were at night or inside without flash... :( Oh well, the experience was great even if the pictures aren't.


Okay, I'd better get off to fulfilling my busy agenda so I'll end this post now...perhaps I'll make a mid-day update, or perhaps not, I'm not sure yet.

~Matt

PS Please tell me what you think of the pictures. Would you rather have thumbnails to click on (It is easier for me to post these) or would you rather I resize images to insert smaller ones directly into the post? I don't guarantee that I'll follow all recomendations, but I would like to hear what you have to say. Thanks

Hey Jude

When I was reading through Stephen King's The Dark Tower series I kept noticing that the song "Hey Jude" cropped up. While I was reading a companion book to the series I discovered that it was a Beetles song. I'd never heard it before so it slightly bugged me. However last night while I was watching the Super Bowl half-time show Paul McCartney played and sang the song! I don't know that it was my favourite song, but it was cool to finally hear it. For those of you that haven't heard the song here are the lyrics, courtesy of Brave.com

Hey, Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

Hey, Jude, don't be afraid
You were made to go out and get her
The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better.

And any time you feel the pain, hey, Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
Well don't you know that its a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder

Hey, Jude! Don't let her down
You have found her, now go and get her
Remember, to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better.

So let it out and let it in, hey, Jude, begin
You're waiting for someone to perform with
And don't you know that it's just you, hey, Jude,
You'll do, the movement you need is on your shoulder

Hey, Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

Okay, time for some pictures, it has been way too long that I've been promising to post them and never have. I will warn you that these are a bit large (all under 1 MB but over 500k), so don't try too many too fast on dial-up, ;-).

Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting.

These were the beautiful snowy conifers that we passed going through snowy Northern Arizona.

And here was the gas station where we exited from the freeway onto white roads.

Welcome to rainy Memphis.

The one thing that I really don't like about the move is trading the awesome California state flag for the Kentucky flag. It really isn't that bad I guess...but it can't hold a candle to the Bear Flag Republic!
vs
I just don't see much of a contest, the California flag is obviously superior!


My snow pictures I unfortunately can't post. I had mislaid my adapter cord for my digital camera so I had to borrow my mom's camera to go with Chris and take pictures in the local cemetary. Unfortunately I forgot to get those pictures before she flew back to California...I also forgot to give my parents back their CDs that I've been borrowing since I graduated high school...oops...but that is another story! :)

Okay, I'm going to head up to bed now...but I hope that this nice long and image rich (for me) post is good reading.

~Matt

Enterprise

Yes, I have heard the very sad news that Enterprise has been cancelled. I know there are those out there that think this is a good thing, but I simply can't agree with them. I've been watching Star Trek since the late nineties (for some reason I didn't catch any of the series from the very beginning except for Enterprise) and I've been having fun. In retrospect though Deep Space Nine is clearly my favourite, though Enterprise is a very close second. I think that Enterprise is far better than Voyager, and that one lasted for the full seven years.

While the Temporal Cold War was a bit unusual and a bit sticky to maintain they have successfully concluded that arc, at the same time showing us a tantilizing view of the founding of the Federation in 2160. I guess the hardest thing for me is that while I've really enjoyed Enterprise all along I've really liked this fourth season. The three episode mini-arcs are great for giving us quite a bit of detail and spreading out plots. The Vulcan trilogy for example addressed the many differences between Enterprise Vulcans and those of later Star Treks. *sigh* Well I could go on for quite a while, but to no point really. All I guess I'm saying is that I really wish that Enterprise were coming back, but now that I know it isn't I'm going to really enjoy each new episode. The finale should really be something to look forward to. At least the people at UPN weren't as stupid as the Fox executives that canned Firefly before it even had a chance. This way Enterprise has the chance to film a good finale that will wrap things up as best it can.

~Matt

How Many Millions?

I was rather disappointed with the Super Bowl ads this year...I can't believe that companies paid millions for these spots and then force-fed us some of the tripe that they did. Now some of the ads were fun, but too many were pathetic. *sigh* And that was the only reason I watched the game! I read a book during the actual game.

~Matt