September 30, 2010: No House, Again

I had to be up extra early this morning.  I got up before six and was in the office before seven.  It has been rather a while since I have been in the office that early in the morning.  Surprising there were a couple of people who were in before me.

It was not a super busy day but there were issues needing my attention very early.  I went home for lunch around one and it turned out that FedEx and just beaten me there and my new Apple iPod Touch 4th Generation had arrived.  That is amazing since I only ordered it on Sunday night and I had opted to get it with engraving so it was supposed to take an additional three to five business days before shipping and here it is, only four days later, and I already have it in my hands.  Just three and a half days from the time that I ordered it, with engraving, on a Sunday.  Considering that these things are such a hot commodity that you pretty much cannot get one in a store, that is really amazing.

I got no time to play with my new toy, however, as I had to get back to work.  I only had, at most, five minutes to check it out before I had to get back to work because it takes forever to get it set up enough to even let you really turn it on the first time.

So we got work on the house this afternoon from our real estate agent.  The counter offer from the sellers is not good at all.  Basically, like the first sellers with whom we dealt, instead of coming back with a decent counter they just effectively repeated the asking price even though the market here has been hit pretty hard this month locally and the prices should be coming down a bit more.

So that means that we are not going to be dealing with that house any more either.  Dominica and I talked about it at length and the asking price for the house is just too high considering the scale of the work that we would have to put into it on day one.  Things like completely replacing the fence and gutting the entire kitchen are a bit much and we were only happy to do them if the house was cheap enough.

Now we get to start the process of looking for a house again.  Not fun.  House shopping is really not something that we enjoy.  But it is several months before we really want to close and houses close weeks faster in Texas than they do in New York so we might have been looking a little early anyway.

As soon as I got home we packed up and headed off to La Cima for our monthly membership dinner.  Normally we would not go on a Thursday night but we had our free meals to use so we had made reservations several days ago to be sure that we could get in and take advantage of them.

Watson was sitting at the bar when we arrived so he joined us for dinner.  I was in a “crabby” mood tonight and had the Maryland-style crabcakes as my starter, the corn and crab chowder instead of my salad course and for the main course had the crab-mandarin salad which I had never had before.  So every course (except dessert) was crab.

We were all pretty full and got our desserts to go which was much more responsible than we normally are.  Liesl did very well tonight.  The iPod was a hit when she was getting restless towards the end of dinner.  I was able to put on Dora the Explorer via Netflix streaming over the La Cima wireless and Liesl was completely entranced by the sudden appearance of her favourite show right in my hand.

We went home and pretty much were right off to bed.  Busy day tomorrow.

This weekend we have no plans, except possibly visiting a pumpkin patch with our little pumpkin.  She loves pumpkins and we think that she would really enjoy it.  She is the perfect age for that kind of stuff.

September 29, 2010: No Word on Second House

Managed to sleep in a little this morning.  Still wanting to make sure that I am totally rested to be as ready as possible to fight off the stomach bug that has been plaguing the family.  I am likely fine now; it has been long enough.  I don’t want to push my luck, though.  Once I start getting exhausted my schedule does not have very much time allotted for making up sleep so I need to be sure to stay rested.

I was up kind of late last night.  Was talking to some people in Australia, discussing Netgear’s latest ProSecure UTM50 product which looks awesome.  I really want one of those myself.

I was up until almost one in the morning.  It was good, though, as I was amazingly productive and managed to fight my inbox down to just nine items which feels great and I got completely caught up on SGL which is always a major challenge.  I also did that write up on testing the waters of IT that dad had requested.

The morning flew by at the office today.  Quite busy.  Not slammed or falling behind, just quite busy.  Makes the time just zip right by.

For lunch, Dominica had a hankering for Jamba Juice and we had a free Buy One, Get One Free coupon so that was a total score.  They make awesome, healthy stuff and it is a great source of fruit which we often struggle to get.

For lunch, Dominica felt like Jamba Juice so I walked there (yes, I walked to the office today) and picked up our lunch smoothies and then walked home.  Feels great to be out and walking again.  Boy have I missed that during the hot summer months.

After work this evening I went to La Cima with Watson for a “quick” dinner.  Dominica and Liesl did not feel up to going so the two of us just went and did our usual pasta and wine flights.  It was a good dinner.  We were not out late.  It was about eight thirty when I got back home.  Plenty of time to hang out with Dominica and Liesl for four hours before we all turned in for the night.

Do IT: Testing the Waters

A question that I often get from people looking at going in to IT is how to decide, from the vast array of career options, what paths make the most sense.  IT is a massive field and the range of careers within the field is pretty wide and the differences that exist between different types of firms is very wide as well.  Few fields offer the dynamic range that IT does and this is both a blessing and a curse.  Few people entering the field really have a good idea of what they are going to want to do and can be lost simply because too many choices are available to them.

If you are coming to IT from nothing more than an interest in computers and technology you may easily find that the doors are just too wide open and there is no clear path upon which to set out on your IT career adventure.  Surely there are career paths beckoning you but they may be hard to identify.

There are, in my estimation, two basic ways in which you can set out to decide effectively where you want to begin your IT career.  The first is through academics whether formal or self-study.  This is the traditional approach and has its merits.  The academic approach allows one to sample many career tasks rather quickly and offers the benefit of creating academic credentials while doing so.  The disadvantages are significant, though, most notably that the sampling that you receive is often very much unlike what a real world job often entails and the insight gained may be skewed dramatically from reality.

The second approach is to do projects on your own attempting to mimic the field and, when possibly, move into entry level positions or internships where you will have an opportunity to sample many career paths.  Some companies actually have special programs designed especially for this purpose – to give young professionals, often recent college graduates, a chance to move through many entry level technical positions sampling each one for several months giving them time to settle in, learn the basic functions and get an appreciation for the challenges and rewards of different roles.

Of course, blending these two approaches is an option as well.  Taking just a few college classes, working on an entry-level industry cert and playing with several different technologies at home are all great ways to earn an early position or an internship so mixing and matching for your time, ambition and personality is advised.  The goal is to discover what career path holds the most interest for you and getting exposure is key.

Some IT careers like desktop tech, helpdesk and developer are highly exposed and moderately well known to people outside of the field.  Other career roles such as systems analyst, database administrator, network engineer, architect or application support may be a bit too abstract and uncommon for someone just entering the field to really understand.  The only true way to get a feel for many of these positions is to work in IT for some time and get exposed to their roles and experiment with their job tasks.

There is no one method that works for everyone.  Often people looking to enter IT have a good feel for whether or not they want to be in the standard IT support track or in the software engineering and development track but it is not uncommon at all for people to err on the side of development just to discover that “programming” is a thing that a lot of non-IT professionals say but seldom mean and that the imagined world of development is not at all what most people think of as IT.

While any advice should be left to an individual basis, someone with the time and resources to explore multiple options should carefully consider the benefits of taking a broad-stroke approach.  Local community colleges often offer some pretty good introductory courses at reasonable prices that provide part time students with access to professors, other students and some structured learning.  Even just two or three classes covering basic concepts like programming, web design, hardware support, databases or similar classes could go a long way to providing exposure to a variety of job options.

This knowledge can then be applied to self-study.  If databases are of interest, for example, then installing, configuring and tuning some database products might be a place to start.  A few good books, some free trial or open source software and you are on your way.  Once a good idea if this is a career for you has begin to take shape you can leverage this focused information into looking for an internship or entry level position that will, hopefully, provide some exposure in the area of IT in which you are most interested.

Once you start in IT it is generally pretty easy to move from one job role to another.  IT experience is often measured primarily in total experience time in the field and not in terms of experience within a specific job role.  Specific experience will be used to move vertically up within a specific job role but horizontal moves are common and expected.   Once inside the industry, getting a good look at the jobs performed by other roles and the way in which they work is easy and a better understanding of options can be acquired.

The most important piece of advice for anyone considering going into the exciting field of IT is, of course, get started right away.  IT is more accessible than just about any field so peruse the local college’s course offerings, swing by the local book store, read “Do IT” on SGL, pick up an extra PC, download some software… get started and see what you enjoy!

September 28, 2010: Getting Caught Up

The overall health of the family is much improved but not one hundred percent yet today.  Moving in the right direction.  I am still doing okay and not sick myself so it looks like I am probably out of the woods now.  Everyone slept in a bit this morning, though, just in case.

Work was surprisingly not too busy today.  I really needed that opportunity to catch back up after the last several days really wiped me out.  I like being busy but that is more than I can sustain for any long period of time – especially when we are in the midst of house hunting, being sick, traveling, dealing with insurance woes and everything else.

Andy and Miranda are officially Texans now!  They arrived sometime yesterday or today down in Round Rock!

Today was recovery day so I was out running errands when time allowed including going to the bank for quarters, hitting La Madeleine for lunch to bring home for everyone, getting some immunity boosting fruit from Jamba Juice, etc.  Plus lots and lots of work.

We managed to coordinate with our agent this evening and we out to Las Nenas to meet with her to get everything put in for the bid on the smaller house.  It was six thirty when we finally managed to make connections with her.

After dinner we hit Tom Thumb and CVS for basic errands while we were out.  We have been running low on supplies recently and needed to stock up on basics including components for Oreo’s dog food.  We will need to cook for him tomorrow.

I checked with Apple today and my iPod Touch 4th Generation 32GB that was supposed to take almost two weeks to get here has already shipped after I ordered it on Sunday night with engraving and it is due to arrive here yet this week!  It is literally faster as well as cheaper (I get a corporate discount) to buy an iPod from the Apple Store and get it engraved (I just had my name added to it in case it got lost) than to try to get it at the local store which I tried to do several times.  Very strange.

We got confirmation today that we really do have health insurance now.  Now we just have to pay $4,500 in premiums over the next four paychecks!!  Ouch.  Health insurance costs quite a bit more than many people earn.  How does that work?  If anything points to why American health care is all screwed up, this is it.  There is no way for normal people to afford healthcare.  You just pray that you end up in a situation where your job is able to get it for you.  They have managed to maneuver the healthcare system to be the biggest supporter of big business anywhere.  Only big business has the means to get healthcare coverage for employees and all people rely almost completely upon their employers for health insurance since individuals pretty much have no way to ever get it – no matter what the cost.  Very tricky system that they have there.  We’ve been dealing with this for months both on our own and using a broker that whole time too and there was almost nothing that we could do.

The evening was very short tonight.  Pretty much just got home, got Liesl into bed, did some laundry, and everyone but me went to bed.  Too much for me to do to just turn in.  I am playing catchup with everything since last week got me so far behind.

September 27, 2010: Liesl’s First Real Stomach Bug

Not long after we went to bed last night Dominica woke up with a start and said that Liesl was sick.  I had not heard anything which is amazing as normally it is me who hears Liesl and Dominica sleeps right through anything.  Liesl was indeed very sick.  This is her first real stomach bug and the first time that she has been sick at all in a very long time – long enough that I am sure that she does not remember ever having been sick previously.  It must have been quite a surprise for her.  She was very upset, as you would expect.

So we spent a good piece of the early part of the night cleaning up Liesl’s bed and giving Liesl a bath.  It was a huge mess and Dominica is pretty susceptible to other people being sick so it did nothing for her constitution either.

We put together a make-shift bed for Liesl and she eventually went back to sleep.  It is extra difficult for her to sleep as her Cheer Bear and her other motley assortment of bedtime friends were all a bit… in need of a cleaning – including Violet, her LeapFrog bedtime animal that sings her to sleep every night.  Not having her nighttime music had to break up the routine even further.

In the morning I emailed work to let them know that I was home taking care of the sick people.  By morning Dominica was sick as well.  So pretty much everyone has been affected except for me.  I almost never get sick so that is not really any surprise.

The weather was really cool today so we had opened the windows before going to bed last night and had them open all day today.  What a great change that was.  We haven’t had fresh air in the apartment for months.  I’m sure that the air conditioner enjoyed the holiday too.

One Friday we started the panic task of getting health insurance.  We have run into all kinds of snags with our insurance recently with Dominica’s COBRA having expired and having attempted to get private insurance as well as getting into the risk pool in Texas but nothing worked.  We kept getting told that everything would be fine and that we wouldn’t have any issues right up until Friday when we were denied insurance at the last possible second so that there was pretty much nothing that we could do to get anything else.  The health insurance system is definitely designed to create breaks in coverage no matter how hard you try to avoid them.  You are often forced out without any options and then everything is a pre-existing condition.

So all weekend we have been concerned about the state of our insurance and we worked on it more today.  We are hoping that my work insurance will still be able to cover us.  We are waiting to find out.  Not all of the paperwork that we have needed has come yet which is making things even worse.

Dominica pretty much slept the entire day.  I basically didn’t even get to see her at all.  Liesl was feeling a bit improved today but definitely not up to par.  With everyone sick and me working from home I was unable to go out to get the quarters necessary to allow us to do the much needed laundry either.  One more task for tomorrow.

We spoke to our real estate agent today.  The broker and seller for the house that we had tried to buy last week called again and sort of put in a counter offer.  Not really but it was more like one this time.  But the price range is still not something that we will entertain so they are just out of luck.  We’ve had time to think and that house just isn’t for us.  Too bad but they had their chance to unload it and they missed it.  We feel better not having gotten it.

So we did put in an offer on the less expensive house today.  Hopefully we will hear something sometime tomorrow although, as we have seen before, the “speed of Texas” is in effect and we will likely not hear anything until Wednesday at the earliest.

This evening Liesl went to bed very early and Dominica and I stayed up “late” watching Indoor Out on the DIY Network via Hulu.  We got some good ideas about using our outdoor space but mostly we got ideas of what not to do.

Today, Liesl turned twenty-two months old.