Posted by Joel
Wed, 31 May 2006 17:52:00 GMT
I spent some time in Abir reading the Rails book, came back and worked on thra.symach.us for about the rest of the day and got a lot of things done in it. Went to Fly for dinner. Listened to my library and Justin's iPod on shuffle for the duration, and it was really great to have my familiar music mixed in with his new and interesting stuff.
I applied for another job. I really hate being ignored by employers and I hate that everyone plays it off as common and expected. I guess I have to get in and harass them a bit; but any time someone says they're going to do something and doesn't do it, especially if it directly concerns me, I tend to lose a lot of respect for them and our relationship.
I've gotten jobs (or at least responses) in the past without having to repeatedly email and call up employers, why does it seem to be such a necessity now? It's funny, the small startups with one or two guys are better able to remember who their candidates are than the more established companies that have HR people dedicated to the task.
Potential other trades include teaching. And I've been entertaining the idea of JET again.
Since I'm unemployed, I have both the time and interest to do things like read this Rails book or study new principles with this forum software. With a job, I tended to get complacent when it comes to learning, as I spent all day working in things without the same self-driven interest, so I didn't want to spend my free time learning about them.
I'll tell you the truth, I haven't written any tests for this thrasymachus program yet, and I don't know if I'm going to. Funny how none of those Rails "make a blog in 5 minutes!" videos include writing tests, probably because they're boring and time consuming and refreshing the browser achieves the same effect.
I must try to stop using the expression, "not a big fan".
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Posted by Joel
Tue, 30 May 2006 19:00:00 GMT
MDE06 is what Ben's roommate Katie has been calling "Memorial Day Extravaganza 2006". She is a girl of unfathomable cuteness and charisma.
It was basically a party. Lots of familiar people showed up, including Ben's dad Jim. I won't name them all, because really what's the point, but it was nice to be at a party where I knew so many of the people, all of them through staying with Ben at various times in my past.
I started the weekend energetic and smiley. I found myself completely ignoring my diet and just eating whatever junk I wanted. As time wore on I withdrew and mainly read my Rails book. For whatever reason, I became irritable, I guess because everyone just wanted me to do cleaning chores for two days straight in preparation for the party, and the general lack of comfort of not being in my own place, and nobody was into doing anything fun such as going out to eat. But that's wrong, because these people are all about fun. They are constantly joking the whole day through and I feel like I can't fit into that humor anymore for whatever reason. I really need to investigate why that is; in my younger days I was known for being funny.
I can think of a few people I'm still funny around. My sister, my college friend Rod, and my WoW buddies Ben, Will, and Marcus (who I still talk to long after quitting). My humor is mainly based on a paradoxical combination of self-deprecation and outrageous hubris. Around most other people, I am quiet and sober, although I laugh frequently at things other people do. I'm not sure what it is that makes me be funny around those people and not around other people.
When the party hit I felt a lot better and had good conversations with lots of people, old and new.
I ripped Justin's iPod and have been enjoying it.
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Posted by Joel
Sun, 28 May 2006 19:21:00 GMT
So, it turns out that not only is there already a Rails forum, it is called RForum.
http://rforum.andreas-s.net/trac/
Of course, I probably could have searched or something. I really have no idea what to make now. I just wish I could get a good idea that would actually be useful.
Edit: Although, it is kind of lame. Maybe I'll continue to work on mine, but I'll just give it a new name (RForum was never meant to be permanent, anyway).
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Posted by Joel
Sat, 27 May 2006 22:41:00 GMT
Justin came down and the two of us drove to LA. I got to listen to his excellent music selection on the way down, which truly puts mine to shame.
Lots of people showed up at random. We were at the Shortstop again and Paul and Richard and Elder were there. Then Mikey and Tim and Shelly showed up. And then Harvie. Just very unexpected. We had a lot of friends around and I had a really good time.
This morning Ben, Justin, Harvie and I went to a diner. But I haven't felt very talkative this morning, so I did some more work on RForum.
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Posted by Joel
Fri, 26 May 2006 19:15:00 GMT
So yesterday I decided to write forum software for some reason. I guess I was sick of not working on anything regularly, and kind of wanted to test out some new technologies I'd been reading about, like RJS, as well as generally get more practice in Rails and testing. I'm using Trac as well, this time.
It's up at thra.symach.us, and is presently called "RForum", and much like my other projects, could quite likely be abandoned. Either way, that's what I did yesterday.
Besides that, not much went on. I've been in a better mood.
I'm eagerly anticipating hearing back from the big company. I have foolishly gotten myself excited about the idea. My friend works there, and he gave me their t-shirt, and I'm wearing it. If this doesn't work I'm going to give up and became a farmer or something. I will till the soil.
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Posted by Joel
Thu, 25 May 2006 19:39:00 GMT
Yesterday I was very uninteresting and I was tired all day.
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Posted by Joel
Wed, 24 May 2006 18:13:00 GMT
Yesterday was a pretty good day. I slept in. I read the Rails book some more and did some contract stuff.
Justin called and we made plans for going down to LA again this weekend, and I'm sure that's going to be awesome.
David and I went for a run. Then we got some sushi at a local place which was really good. Then I watched the latest Sopranos episode, which was great.
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Posted by Joel
Tue, 23 May 2006 15:51:00 GMT
I got up, got dressed up all nice and went to an interview in the financial district. I thought the company had a good product before but I've kind of changed my mind on that. Furthermore, they quizzed me on way too much CS theory for my liking.
I come fully prepared to demo things to them, and they have the gall to ask me if I understand things like object oriented programming and inheritance, and in completely confusingly worded sentences where I have no idea what they want. They showed little interest in seeing my past work.
Much like the super big company they tested my knowledge of SQL joins (both inner and outer). I'll tell you what, I have never used an outer join in my life before Saturday. I looked it up purely for the big company's worksheet, and it took me all of 5 minutes to figure out how to accomplish the SQL query they needed. "It's surprising how few people know the outer join," my interviewer comments. However, the difference between having resources available and having to give responses purely from memory is huge. Real programming work, thankfully, doesn't occur in a vacuum.
I consider my pragmatic experience, versatility, and ability to find relevant information quickly my strong point, not to house completely useless information to the web trade such as the difference between a stack and a heap, which, if I wanted to, I could look up in two seconds.
Anyway, burned out about the exasperating experience I returned home, without hope or much interest in the job. I got depressed and spent a few hours laying in bed, napped for a little bit, and just listened to music. I didn't eat anything the entire day except some coffee and wine.
Later, I worked on the project for the big company and finished it and I'm pretty proud of it. I admit I am becoming more hopeful with them, since they actually have replied to my emails thus far in a friendly manner.
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Posted by Joel
Mon, 22 May 2006 18:26:00 GMT
Yesterday I met with some friends from an internet community I chat in. People have often commented on how I tend to start laughing unexpectedly while using the computer, and the reason for that is because I chat in IRC and on forums. The groups have come and gone, but I've belonged to some form of internet community since I was 11 year old.
I still can feel embarrassed by that, because I realize it's not really normal. But the fact is, I really like chatting online.
Anyway, I met with a few guys from RH. There were six of us altogether and most of them drove in from the Sacramento area. The original interest of the channel is anime, which I and others of them haven't really watched in years, but regardless we still chat daily. We went to the Exploratorium and had a geeky time. I'd never been there before, but it really is a lot of fun. Afterwards they wanted to eat, and I wasn't sure where to bring them, so we went to Cha Cha Cha in the Haight again, and they seemed to like it.
The worksheet for the big company continues to plague me. I've turned in all of the worksheet except the last problem. However, my implementation of the last problem is becoming increasingly awesome as time passes, and I think they're going to be impressed.
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Posted by Joel
Sun, 21 May 2006 17:10:00 GMT
The last part of this worksheet is almost like a college project in size. I suspect I'll be done with it by the end of tonight.
I got drawn out of the project to go to a fondue party at Sergio and Jessie's place. This is easily the worst cheating I have done since starting my diet. It was nothing but cheese, chocolate, and alcohol, but at least I tried to limit my intake.
The best part of the evening was going up on the roof of their building in Nob Hill and looking out over the city. Truly a sight.
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