It appears my blog is empty and considering that many people now have asked me about it - I guess I better get off my behind and write something!

I've been kind of busy: new job, consulting work, etc.. and a new project that I'll maybe write about later tonight.

This will be fun.. I promised to drive a relative to NYC today.

I'm starting my new job next Tuesday, it's pretty much the same technologies (Java web services, etc) I worked with before but for a little more money and for a bigger company (specifically, a bank). Actually, it's apparently pure karma as I'll now get to fix the very things I complained about just a month ago. Go figure!

I'm all excited, there are cows living next door to the office. (Excited about the job, not the cows, the cows are just amusing)

This morning, as I was paying my bills, I came up with a whole list of annoyances with the bill payment system my bank uses. I'm pretty sure it's their own custom software, and well, it sucks. So i thought of writing them an email listing all the little things (like say, adding a payee should not be a 10-step process) that annoyed me.. then it occurred to me.

That's a Java-based website.

I'm a Java programmer.

I'm looking for work.

They're based in Connecticut.

hey..

But how exactly do you do that? "Excuse me, your website sucks, I could fix it, hire me!"

Speaking of job searches, I went on one whole job interview so far, they offered me a position (and it's a good one) provided they can find me a project to work on within the big company they work for. So.. it's a "maybe" job. Maybe I'll have a job, maybe I won't. I do keep my fingers crossed.. if they have room at the office near me, it's less than two miles away, the pay rate they offered me is pretty good and their benefits are excellent.

My bloody coffee maker died this morning. It led a good, long life of over 10 years, but still.. I can't be without coffee in the morning!

As of this morning I am no longer employed by Tickets.com. It wasn't my decision to leave, unfortunately it was helped along by the relatively poor economy and the company losing customers to Ticketmaster left and right. (Thanks Clearchannel, hope your monopolistic endeavors go along real well! (that's sarcasm)).

I am not happy about this, I liked my job and my coworkers -- I can only hope there is another position in Connecticut that will be as challenging and diverse as this one was. In the last four years I got to work on windows, solaris, hpux, osx and linux using Java, Perl, Delphi, JSP and even a smattering of C. MySQL, Oracle, Interbase... I almost learned C#, but didn't quite get there -- maybe on the next job. No, I'm not happy.

Everyone understands that businesses need to do what they need to do to stay in business but sometimes one has to wonder if the decisions being made really do benefit the company. A nice going away present was this press release from last week. I was heavily involved in both design and implementation of Tickets@Home, Replay and The San Francisco Giants Double Play Ticket Window. (Enter Office Space analogy here).

I wasn't really sure what to put in this entry, it's not meant to be my resume and it's not meant to be a rant, I think mostly I'm just disappointed that things like these happen at all. Not just to me -- I'm not the only one who was laid off from this company (this is the fourth layoff since I've started working there) or from any other company and like all other things, this too will work out somehow.

My resume? Drop me a note and I'll forward it -- kasia@this-domain

CCSU news:

Princeton Review, the college guidebook publisher, will include CCSU in its new, forthcoming publication, The Best Northeastern Colleges. Profiling 131 colleges and universities in the region, the guidebook is based on student opinion surveys, analysis of institutional data, and advice from the Review’s educational consultants. Each profile offers student opinion—and editorial commentary—about the institution’s academics, life on campus, and student characteristics. CCSU will be featured with 9 other Connecticut institutions, including Yale, Wesleyan, Trinity, the University of Connecticut, Connecticut College, Fairfield University, Quinnipiac University, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and St. Joseph College.

It is a little strange to see my Alma Matter listed in the same sentence as Yale and Wesleyan.. but hey, not bad for a small, dinky state school!

Baghdad Burning:

They say the people have nothing to eat. No produce is going into the city and the water has been cut off for days and days. Do you know what it's like to have no clean water??? People are drinking contaminated water and coming down with diarrhoea and other diseases. There are corpses in the street because no one can risk leaving their home to bury people. Families are burying children and parents in the gardens of their homes. WHERE IS EVERYONE???

In the last two days I have purchased:

One widescreen JVC 30" tube tv. Not HDTV since I don't imagine I'll be using that anytime soon (no cable, all I watch is movies) and it is an unnecessary adition to the cost. $499 - free shipping via brother.

One Philips DVD player - $69.

I would have also purchased a new cell phone but Verizon has temporarily taken the new Motorola (with bluetooth) off the market.. It appears the camera was crooked. So that's next week, or so they tell me.

Why this sudden drive to buy electronics? To help the economy? Yah, right. To fight depression after the election? Not quite. Nope. I have a valid excuse, really , I do.

1. My tv of 11 years ($400 27" Sharp) died. It's really been dying for a year and required progressively more wacking to work.

2. My DVD player refuses to play half the DVDs I put in (it's about 7 years old) and i can't use the subtitle menu on some of the newer DVDs (what the heck did they change???).

3. My cell phone (it's only 2 years old, sadly they're made to last about that long) is having issues. The batteries (I've two that i swap) only last a few hours each which is quite annoying and the #3 key doesn't work half the time. So it's either buy new batteries and put up with the flaky key or just buy a new phone. Phone it is.

So there is an excuse for my recent relentless consumerism and I suppose I just need to justify it to someone. Hi.

PS: Purchase a new tv stand, the new tv won't fit in the old one and watching movies on the floor is only fun occasionally.

PPS: Having a widescreen tv fucking rules.

Not that it matters or should matter.

I like Ralph Nader and i wish more people would vote for him, unfortunately, in this election it is not a luxury anyone ought to take. The election is too close and stakes are too high. Yes, it's something people have said every election "This is the most important election!", but this time it really is very important. It is very likely that we will lose one or two supreme court judges in the next four years. Whoever is elected president will get to appoint their replacement. Supreme court judges last quite a big longer than four years and given the chance, Bush will appoint fundamentalist, religious judges. That will be a disaster for this country, including those who want to do away with the two party system.

This is why this election is so important and this is why it is not the time to make a statement. If you really wish to change the two party system and give third-party candidates a fair chance in a national election, petition your state senate! It's the take-all electoral vote system that is a major contributor to a partisan election. If the electoral votes per state were graduated (as it was done at first) candidates like Nader and Badnarik would have a chance to get noticed in a national election.

The presidential election is not the way to change the system, it's at the state level.

We need to stop this senseless war, we need to stop supporting corporations by screwing the people and the environment, we need to help the poorest not the richest. Healthcare costs are rising at record levels at the same time that cases of childhood asthma nationwide are also rising. Corporations are responsible for a smaller portion of the federal taxes at the same time their profits are record. Jobs are lost and a large percentage of those created are in the service sector paying minimum wage or little above. This is what needs to change, this is why George W. Bush needs to be fired as our president.

We geeks are curious people. That's probably what makes us smart -- we like to know how things work and learn in the process. it's this very quality that led me to conduct dangerous experiments with old household lamps, pieces of wood and live 200v sockets as a child. I often wonder how I survived into adulthood.

Today i had a good reminder of this trait of my personality which led me to think that maybe, just maybe the positive side effects of this adorable quirk do not quite out-measure the negative ones.

Someone mentioned "do not try to take the keys off of your a mac laptop, they're a pain to put back on".

A natural reaction, of course, was me snapping off the shift key on my powerbook. "Hey, how hard could it be!"

I can now say with much authority that powerbook keys are indeed, a bitch to put back on (if you think "bitch" is a bad word you should have been near me during the twenty minutes it took me to figure out how the damn pieces fit back together -- the damn, frail, plastic completely non-intuitive pieces).

I now have a working shift key again and a strong conviction that a natural curiosity is not always a good thing -- until the next time someone says something challenging, like "nuclear reactors are kind of tough to build".

She's back! She's back! She's back!

No idea where she was for nearly six days, but she's clean, looks about the same weight and is not hungry so probably in someone's house. I'm just glad to see her back and healthy.

(This is of course, my kitty-cat).

.. is really a chore. I cannot imagine anyone would do this for pure satisfaction of creating something useful. While that's great.. and I enjoy helping others, it's the few jerks who chooose to make everyone around them miserable to compensate for their lack of a meaningful life that make it annoying.

This is where running your own server comes in handy.

(1) web server

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} 24.171.49.245

RewriteRule (.*) http://www.joke-archives.com/computers/howtogetalife.html [R,L]

(2) mail server

/^From:.scgower@charter.net/ REJECT This server does not accept e-mail from \          

                                                   idiots, thanks for playing

Petty to do this? Probably.. Petty to post it in a weblog where I know it will be read by a lot of people and archived by google? Most definitely.
Does it feel great? Most certaintly..

Don't call a girl who knows unix a "cunt".

More and more people offer gmail invitations on forums and other discussion medium..

"I have x invites, contact me with your email address"

.. and of course my first thought is "Looking for valid e-mail addresses to spam!".

I fear I grow more cynical by the year.. maybe if this election doesn't go to Bush it'll improve. Maybe.

A nasty cold full of sinus pressure, achy throat, runny nose, icky cough and back pain in the middle of June. Fever, I forgot about fever too.

I left office early today (that's 5pm in my world) in search of an experience I've been hearing quite a bit about lately. It appears there is this thing around that provides fresh air, happiness and an overproduction of pheromones in the animal kingdom. They call it "spring". What better way to experience such phenomena than a visit to the local park where squirrels roam trees and birds sing love longs in search of mates. Went home, put on my shorts, a linux t-shirt, my old, tired running shoes and headed for the trails.

I haven't run in far too long. It's been a long winter and even longer start of a baseball season (work, don't ask) so I didn't really look forward to exercise, being out of shape makes it less than fun. I have forgotten how much I enjoyed this.

I ran through the woods taking much needed walking breaks over the particularly muddy or rocky spots. Listened to the birds call out their desires as I jogged. Some unusually brave deer feasted on fresh, green grass by the trail. I tried talking to them, but they weren't particularly responsive. I ran some more. Passed by mountain bikers riding down the muddy trail, a thought of "you shouldn't be riding here, it's too muddy, you're destroying the trails" passed through the more sensible parts of my brain, but I smiled anyway, waved, they didn't. I ran on. Rain sprinkled through the trees and I ran back to the car.

I left drenched in sweat and rain, muscles complaining of being overworked too soon and too much, exhausted but exhilarated, downright inspired.

I'll pay tomorrow.

Anyone who knows me can attest to this little trait of mine. I just cannot take a compliment. I have to turn it around into a sarcastic remark, joke or just outright deny the truthfulness of the claim. This does not appear to be a problem for most adults..

Let's see an example A normal, adult conversation involving compliments may sound something like this:

"You have nice, well formed calves that speak volumes of your athletic ability."
"Why thank you! I do train them hard and often to attain this look!"

With me, it sounds more like this (recent real life example):

"Your weblog is one of the better written ones I read"
"Dude, what the hell are you reading??"

Let's analyze what just happened here.
Someone said I write well. Instead of accepting that, thanking and being happy I turn it around and insult his ability to recognize good writing. Bad Kasia, no cookie for you.

When it comes to social behaviour, I tend to be slow and obtuse, so it shouldn't come as surprise to anyone that I just realized very recently that maybe by denying someone the right to give me a compliment I am insulting their ability to recognize something worth complimenting.

Therefore, I apologize to anyone who has ever tried to compliment me and got a sarcastic remark as a response. Thank you, my writing isn't half bad, I do have nice eyes and I am pretty witty.

I will be in Northern California at the end of this week for a few days. Jeremy is nice and sociable enough to organize a blogger-dinner-meet-thingy on Friday. If you're a serial killer or more than slightly psychotic kindly skip this one though.

It will be nice to wake up in the morning and not see snow outside.

Warsaw to the non-Poles among you..

I need to stop reading Maciej's weblog or at the very least his entries about Poland. All it ever achieves is a deluge of nostalgia and memories of ancient history from more than 15 years ago.

I grew up in a small, suburban town five minutes (by bike, 20 by train) outside of Warsaw.. Warsaw. All those skipped school days spent in the Museum of Technology in the very ugliness of architecture described by Maciej in his entry.. the Palace of Culture and Knowledge. It is quite possibly the ugliest building ever built.

My first half year of high school was in Warsaw (the rest in US), a medical Lyceum "Na Mokotowie" (for some odd reason I thought I'd be a doctor back then, I think it was more my mom's idea than mine).. I spent more time in Old Town cafes pretending to be a college student than in class.

I used take the bus to the airport and pretend I was to leave on one of the flights out.. and then, one day, I did.

Maciej "Why I like Poland". That was an unexpected joy to read.. I haven't been to Poland in fifteen years and I'm quite sure it has changed more than just a little since the fall of communism but it's good to read about all those little things I remember so well.

What I miss most about Poland and think about on regular basis? Common courtesy.

No one enters a store, house or a train until all those leaving have a chance to leave. I hate how in US people always push their way in.

On a train or a bus, a young person would never sit while an older one is standing (or a man when a woman is).

A pregnant woman or one with a small child is not only given the right of way, but also a first place in long lines in stores. During communism and food shortages, lines would last for hours (that's each person waiting for hours on end to buy something as basic as toilet paper) but this courtesy was still always observed.

One would never enter someone's house in their outdoor shoes (or your own house for that matter, that's what slippers are for) that's just beyond rude.

I still do all these things and get the funniest looks from people sometimes when I give up my seat in a crowded room to an older person. After fifteen years, I'm still very much Polish. I wish more people were.

New year's resolutions? No.. don't really have any. I never make them since a resolution made on the first day of the year isn't more likely to be kept than one made on any other day of the year.

Regardless.. for this year.

Run a marathon, that's all I have so far.

Took me a while to convince myself to spend this kind of money ($999) for a camera.. but heck, you only live nine times!

I am quite sure everyone has noticed that it is giftmas time again. I have been buying my share of holiday gifts for friends, family, co-workers.. Wait, co-workers? Who needs another coffee cup warmer, desktop calendar or more packets of hot cocoa.. Well, okay, maybe we all need more hot cocoa. Considering that and the fact that my credit cards began barking at me every time I open my wallet I decided to give my co-workers home-made gifts. I make pretty damn good tomato sauce (if I do say so myself) and that sounds like a perfect gift. Little jars of kasia-sauce!

First things first.. the jars. Connecticut is the land of SUVs, yuppies and Martha Stewart wannabes, should be easy to find adorable jars with tartan-pattern lids to give as gifts! So begins the great jar quest of 2003.

First suspect: "Bed, bath and beyond". It's a super-store filled with useful things like flower-covered garlic presses, cotton-candy makers and George Foreman, lean, mean grilling machines. But not canning jars.

Next: "Linens and things", a clone of the previous suspect in nearly every aspect including location (across the street from each other). This was great.. I was busy perusing the canisters, bottles and other assorted storage devices when my eyes fell on an unassuming box with a blue-white checker pattern. Bells rang, sun shone and angels sang as I read the words on the box..

"Home canning kit"

!!!

"Includes seven necessary home canning supplies".

Seven, okay, so that's what.. 4 jars a book and some tongs or something? No problem, I'll buy three boxes! I greedily read the tiny print that listed the contents..

Jar rack. Neat. Funnel, that's useful. Lid lifter, yah, need that. Sure-grip-jar-wrench, okay, why not. Tongs, figured. A ladle, well okay, already have one but one can never have too many of those. Complete instruction booklet. Uhm, wait.. where are the jars?

No jars

No problem, don't panic, they have a kit, they must have jars.. I grabbed the nearest gum-chewing teenager draped in a branded apron.

"Jars! Do you have jars?"
"Sure" She waved at canisters.
I whispered through clenched teeth.. "Those are canisters.. "
"yah? Isn't that like jars and stuff?" So young.. so innocent, so unexposed to the Food Network.
"I need jars for canning" Imagine me desperately gesticulating the whole time.
"You need cans? We don't sell cans."
"Nevermind" with an exasperated sigh.

Moving on.

Pier I, they have weirdo stuff. Nothing. Jo-Ann's crafts. Nada. Micheal's crafts. Zip. William Sonoma, for the serious cook, nothing. Apple store, new AC adapter for the powerbook (I wanted an extra). Dozen other "home supply and craft stores". No jars. I went to store, after store, after store.. my god, I went to Walmart. Still.. no jars.. At this time I concluded Martha Stewart must have sold her soul to the devil for canning jars.. no other explanation why she has them and I don't!

Concluding my shopping for the day.. visited Filene's to buy the gift my mom requested (sort of, I took liberties with her wishes).. more by habit than with hope I walked by the kitchen section of the store.. A lovely lady offered her assistance. She had beautiful curly, black hair and a thick accent.. obviously not a native what could she know about the marthastewartesque method of giving gifts in quaint little jars? Yet some flicker of hope remained..

"Long shot, but would you have canning jars?"
"No."
"Didn't think so, thank you"
"Wait!"

My heart palpitated, I waited.

"Stop&Shop, that's where I buy mine!"
"Stop&Shop?" this is the grocery store I go to several times a week for my basic food needs.
"yes, just ask them!"

I felt it would be too much to declare my love to her. Would it be too much if I went back there with a home-made jar of tomato sauce (with mushrooms) before christmas? The same sauce that's simmering right now while 12 shiny, new, stop & shop bought canning jars dry on the rack.

I went to bed with the best intention to wake up early and go for a run. My cats apparently decided otherwise and forgot to tell me.

2am: I wake up to *scritch* *scritch*... stumble into the hallway from whence the sound came to be greeted by a wide-eyed kitty standing in front of a closed bedroom door. Okay kitty.. opened the door went back to bed.

2:30 am: *scritch* *scritch*.. stumble into the hallway from whence the sound came to be greeted by a wide-eyed kitty standing in front of an open bedroom door. Gave kitty the evil eye "no kitty, bad kitty!", went back to bed.

3:00am: *scritch* *scritch*.. stumble into the hallway from whence the sound came to be greeted by, you guessed it, a cute, innocent-looking kitty in front of an open bedroom door. **BAAAD KITTY** "Stop it!". Pick up one kitty, remove one kitty from the hallway, put one kitty in another bedroom, stomp off to bed.

3:30am: *scritch* *scritch*.. stomp madly into the hallway ready to make kitty-stew (and I'm a vegetarian[0]).. Very innocent-looking kitty standing in the same hallway in front of the same open-bedroom door.. Brain-kicked in... kitty standing, doing nothing, door open.. but there's another door directly across the hallway that is closed.. the bathroom door..

Counted my kitties.. one missing.. open bathroom door, pitiful-looking kitty runs out in the general direction of the litter box.

Sigh, I have two cats, I just don't always remember when half-asleep.

[0] - Sort off. I eat fish.. but since they're not cute and cuddly do they really count as meat?

I went grocery shopping today. Since I live in the suburbs, that translates to visiting a large supermarket. As I was walking towards the store I noticed a black Mustang pulling into one of the handicapped spaces.. A young woman got out on one side and a five, maybe six year old boy from the other. Both very obviously not handicapped.

A minivan with a handicapped plate stopped dead in front of the mustang.. a man yelled out..

"Hey lady, you took the last handicapped space!"

I looked around, sure enough they were all taken.

The woman kept walking, didn't even make eye contact with the obviously annoyed driver of the van. The little boy turned around but his mom grabbed him by the arm and he trotted to catch up.

"Hey lady!"

They kept walking. I just stood there, I suppose I was hoping the woman would do something. Swear, yell, make eye contact, show some emotion.. Not even a shrug.

The man in the van yelled "I hope you get a hundred dollar ticket!" and pulled around the curb presumably to park way on the back where hopefully no cars will park next to him and block the wheelchair ramp. I walked into the store and dropped the requisite coins in the Salvation Army bucket at the entrance.

Like many fine lunatics world-wide I enjoy singing while driving. In fact, I enjoy it so immensely I have a whole separate playlist of sing-along-friendly songs by such talented artists as Edie Brickell and Tracy Chapman. I also enjoy driving with my car window down when it's warm.

It's been unseasonably warm in the bowels of Connecticut these past few days and that combined with a trip to the bookstore resulted in these two particular habits of mine occurring at precisely the same time. Since my iPod was playing my more-generalized playlist of random music I like, the result was me belching out "Owner of a lonely heart" in my finest imitation of a puberty-afflicted twelve year old going through a voice change. I pulled into the crowded parking lot, squeezed my little Mazda in between behemoth-sized SUVs and proceeded to the entrance to the temple of the paid written word. In other words, I went to my local Borders.

As I was browsing through the finest selection of Perl books on this side of route 9, a rather average looking 20-some year old with a smirk approached me.

"I heard you singing"

I think I may have blinked at that, not certain.

"Are you looking for an apology?"

I asked rather pleasantly, I tend to be polite to strangers. He chuckled and lied.

"No, no, you were pretty good! I was standing next to you at the red light, your window was down."

I wasn't sure whether I should congratulate him on his skills of observation or be disturbed that he appeared to have followed me into a store just to tell me he heard my bad rendition of a 70s-era rock song.

"Would you like to grab a cup of coffee?"

He waved in the general direction of the bookstore coffee shop. The kind filled with intellectual looking people discussing the important events of the world.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Aw, why not?"

Why not? Hah, where shall I begin.. Not like this is the first time I got hit on at the bookstore (last week in world war II history section), but that's not the point.

"I wouldn't want to risk any future offspring I may have being tone-deaf".

His turn to blink. I think I confused him.

"oh, okay, have a good one".

I believe I heard the squealing of tires as he rushed out of any vicinity of what he obviously thought was a lunatic in jeans. Hence ended my adventure for the day, time to eat the pizza before it gets cold.

I ended up not buying any books.