An interesting conclusion

So I read this today, and it really got me thinking. Just a couple days ago, there was that video of the octopus using a coconut shell, which is one in a long line of recorded tool use by animals. It's amazing that humans and octopi can still be so similar on such a fundamental level, yet seemingly so differentiated. We are not special.



And we still have idiots who think evolution is "just a theory," which makes them look doubly dumb since they don't understand what "theory" means. I'm not sure what the proper way to react to those people is, other than weeping for humanity, especially since I'm referring to many Senators and aspiring Presidents.

Kinderbloggen, Year 1

It's hard to believe I started writing this (garbage) blog a year ago. I know it's cliche, but it seems like it was yesterday. Really. Even harder to grasp is the fact that Lenny is now already almost seven months old. If we were in a more stable situation (i.e. I had a job and Ariane wasn't still in school) it's possible that we could be thinking about kid number 2. It'd still be way to early, and we're not insane, so we aren't, but we could conceivably be doing this.

As it is, we've been lucky. Lenny has been perfectly healthy so far, she's an absolute sweetheart; I mean, 10/10: would have baby again! I'll get to spend probably another couple months here in Austin (at least) before I have to leave for my still-hypothetical job. In its own right, this job pursuit has taken a turn for the comical. Before October, I had never been to Oregon. I had been to Alaska, California, Washington, BC, and Yukon (not technically Pacific, but whatever), but with the next upcoming trip* I will have been to Portland thrice in the span of three months. So fingers crossed for this one. (Actually, really it's two interviews in one, one job in Portland, one in Albany, NY, so we'll see what happens. If I miss out on this one these two, I'll probably just learn to farm and raise goats.) Pros and cons in both locations. That's for another day. At least this company didn't advertise its jobs by talking about how stressful it is and how everybody spends a lot of the time yelling at each other. (Note: this is actually how Intel described themself all day during my 2nd interview with them; they were proud of it. The second group also told me 1/3 of the employees quit in the first year, which I no trouble believing, and former employees have openly thrown around the term "365 day-a-year slave pit that will have no trouble calling you in on Christmas." I still would have liked the offer. Meanwhile, the next company I'm interviewing with shut down for a week at Thanksgiving and is shutting down for 2 over Xmas/New Years. Very nice.)

It's probably time to start baby-proofing the apartment. Won't be too long before Lenny is mobile one way or the other. We're going to remove the coffee table (read: junk accumulator) in the living room so she has a space to play, but we'll have to seal off the kitchen, train ourselves to keep the bathroom door closed, anchor furniture, cover corners, etc. This is one of my top priorities when we get back. The nice thing about being unemployed is that I'll have the opportunity to do whatever needs to be done. I'll get a lot of quality time with Lenny while Ariane is in class. Not sure how we're going to pull it off, exactly, but we'll figure it out. In the meantime, I present Clarence and Leonard.




*So this second opportunity has bubbled up right quick. I interviewed over the phone before Thanksgiving, never got word as to whether they wanted me to fly up despite my inquiring a couple weeks later, then got a call out of the blue a couple nights ago from the same company for a different position. This time, the interviewer said they wanted to move quickly, and at the end of the interview he told me he really liked me and would let me know the next day. So naturally he called me at 1:00 pm the next day and I was still asleep (because I am roughly on the same level as a sack of garbage right now), said he'd like me to fly up to Portland to interview for both job the Portland and Albany jobs (the Albany job doesn't exist yet, so they were going to do it in Portland regardless) on Jan. 8, and asked if I had any requests for the flight. Since I didn't want to be like "Give me a chance to wake up" at 1 pm, I just said (in my most not-just-woken-up voice possible, "No, none"), so they booked the flight for me. I leave on Jan 7 at 3:00 pm Austin time, fly through San Jose with no plane change, then arrive in Portland at 7:15 pm Pacific. Also, this. I'll be lucky to catch any of it. This is decidedly not full of win. In fact, the amount of win contained in this is quite low. Plus I'm going to miss the Mizzou game unless I can watch from Germany. At least that one is at a reasonable hour (9:30 pm Central European Time).

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On a completely unrelated note, since I've been by my lonesome for a while now, I've had the opportunity to investigate some new music. Generally, music isn't my thing (my hobbies are 1) raging at the news and 2) sports), so I'm pretty slow on the uptake - I'm the kind of guy who when I start liking a band hipsters will then accuse them of selling out or being so mainstream... don't worry hipsters, I hate the Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective! But lemme tell you what, I just discovered Mastodon through Crack the Skye, and hoo boy is that band (and specifically that album) awesome. Of course, those pretentious dicks at Pitchfork only give it an 8.0/10.0 (album reviews to 1 decimal point, FTW, Pitchfork!).

My faith in the ability of some people to make metal that is actually good has been restored. Moreover, it's a concept album. I love concept albums, if they're well executed. What's the story? Let's take it from Wikipedia:

"There is a paraplegic and the only way that he can go anywhere is if he astral travels. He goes out of his body, into outer space and a bit like Icarus, he goes too close to the sun, burning off the golden umbilical cord that is attached to his solar plexus. So he is in outer space and he is lost, he gets sucked into a wormhole, he ends up in the spirit realm and he talks to spirits telling them that he is not really dead. So they send him to the Russian cult, they use him in a divination and they find out his problem. They decide they are going to help him. They put his soul inside Rasputin's body. Rasputin goes to usurp the czar and he is murdered. The two souls fly out of Rasputin's body through the crack in the sky(e) and Rasputin is the wise man that is trying to lead the child home to his body because his parents have discovered him by now and think that he is dead. Rasputin needs to get him back into his body before it's too late. But they end up running into the Devil along the way and the Devil tries to steal their souls and bring them down…there are some obstacles along the way."

OMFG that's awesome. And another album of theirs was based on Moby Dick. Jeebus. This is officially in my #3 favorite concept album of all time, behind Red Headed Stranger (#1) and OK Computer (#2), (look, Ma! I've got eclectic taste in music!) and now ahead of The Downward Spiral, which has been hurt by the fact that Trent Reznor no longer owns the most emotional song on the album (and maybe in the entire Nine Inch Nails catalog for that matter, this would be "Hurt," which now forever belongs to Johnny Cash; sometimes someone just comes along and Jimi Hendrixes your "All Along the Watchtower"). I haven't had time to swallow Leviathan or any of their other albums, but I am looking forward to it.

Happy Thanksgiving

Note: Look at this draft I started around Thanksgiving that I saved but never published. I am such a committed writer.
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Without question, the best holiday of the year is Thanksgiving. And today, Lenny ate her first "solid" food, some rice cereal mixed with Mommy's milk.

There's a video associated with this, but apparently we haven't uploaded it to the computer yet, so that's coming later.

Playing with Claire and Uncle Zack

I couldn't upload this to YouTube, so apologies for the crappy Blogger embed. There's a 2nd video (my battery died at the end of this one) that is too large to upload now, but will be up soon.

Still unemployed

It's a "No" from Portland. Hrmmmmmmmmmm.

Lenny is 5 months old today

And happy early Halloween.


Poor Lenny, nothing but skin and bones.

Lenny G

Respek!

Oh, October's almost over, you say?

I really ought to post more. So much is happening with a quickly growing Lenny, who can now readily roll onto her stomach... in her crib... which is terrifying. And she roars and growls, she sings when Ariane sings. She's awesome. The days flow into one another at this point. By now I've lost all my regular readers, so I might as well write nonsensical things, like anything Tracy Jordan says. I'm at work less than I should be, that I know.

It's been so long since I posted that in the meantime I have:
Had an article published in Microelectronic Engineering (nerdy title!)
Had two (two!) more accepted (one in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society and one w/o revisions, awesome sauce, in the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A [super nerdy title, awesome])
Killed one before finishing
Finished my dissertation (first draft, excellent)
Been politely turned down by DuPont (your questions were ridiculous!)
Not heard back from the first interviewer (didn't want to work in the Mojave Desert)
Had another campus interview (still waiting)
Visited Oregon* for an interview (nervously waiting... very, very nervously)

(Quick aside: I left for the interview on Monday morning to return Wednesday - can you believe there are no direct AUS-PDX flights? I know!, so I sent an email to my boss, the building manager, and the other guy on my project [i.e. the guy who now owns the system since I am DONE, BUDDY] saying, and I quote: "I will be out until Wednesday, I am heading to the Oregon Country. Don't worry, I won't ford any rivers. I've lost too many oxen this way." My boss emailed back: "Don't waste too many bullets shooting buffalo along the way." I've always liked my boss.)

You might notice that "have been offered a job" is not listed. Right now, all of my eggs are in the basket for the job in Portland. Got to feed the baby some way.

So that this isn't just about me, here's some pictures (makes for an easy post). As always, click to embiggen.

Lenny's preferred sleeping position once she learned how to get up on her side and rotate her entire body. Her feet are sticking out.


Somebody got a highchair so she can join dinner conversations. She likes to talk politics, and I am trying to teach her that is a faux pas, but since she doesn't speak French she goes on and on about it. She's got interesting ideas and opinions (End Mommy's monopoly on breast milk! It violates antitrust laws!). Still no solids.


And a play thingy. Which has sounds! Loud ones! That's going to be such a regrettable decision!


Hoodies: get them started early.


Sometimes you don't have a free hand when you are walking from one room to the other...



*As obnoxiously noted earlier this week via phone, I have now defeated Zack in the race to visit all the west coast of the US and Canada. He didn't know we were competing, but you snooze you lose. That puts Alaska (Inside Passage + Denali + Fairbanks), BC (Vancouver + Fraser, which isn't a city), Washington (Seattle), Oregon (Portland... but really just Hillsboro), and California (San Diego) under my belt, with Yukon (Carcross) thrown in for good not-quite-Pacific-coastal measure. TAKE THAT, ZACK. Also, I think I'm probably beating you in airports: Fairbanks, Seattle, Portland, LAX, San Jose, San Diego, Anchorage, Dallas-DFW, Dallas-Love, Houston-IAH, Houston-Hobby, El Paso, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Harlingen, Little Rock, STL, Indianapolis, ORD, Minneapolis-St Paul, Detroit, Atlanta, Toronto, Newark, JFK, Albany, Memphis, DC-Dulles, Zurich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Split, Heraklion, London-Heathrow, Austin, Cincinnati, Raleigh-Durham
Oops: Forgot Vancouver, Calgary, and Cancun.

Blog neglect

I wish I were writing way more frequently, if only to record things like Lenny's first tummy-to-back roll, or our morning walks spotting all the deer. I apologize to all the regular readers (all three of you). Lenny made it to her first tailgate last weekend, though.


Hook 'em!

The walks are the best. It's amazing how close we really are to the hills, and some of them are killers. I plan to take the camera one morning to document some of the sweet views you can get here.

Alas, it appears our time in Austin (this time around?) is running short. Where to? Who knows as of yet. I've dpne one interview complete for a position in California, either Ventura County or... uh, well, the middle of the Mojave Desert. Next week we'll interview with another unnamed company (not NASCAR, on the hood...), which is on the other side of the country in Delaware, maybe elsewhere, because they do everything. Others who have indicated any level of interest are in San Jose, CA; Niskayuna, NY (essentially Albany); Portland, OR; Houston, TX; NYC exurbs; Amsterdam, Netherlands (only after years in Houston, though); here in Austin; Phoenix, AZ; San Diego, CA; Japan (no thanks!); and wherever the hell Frito-Lay is located (I'm too lazy to look it up). No one even pretended to be interested in shipping me to Dresden. Still looking anywhere.

No time, just vids