I’ve been waiting for the Droid 2 to be released for 2 months. There were rumors all over the internet about when the release date was. Verizon finally announced on Aug. 10 that there would be a pre-sale on Aug. 11, and the phone would be available for purchase in stores on Aug. 12. I was one of those crazy people who got up just after midnight on Aug. 11 to get the phone during the pre-sale. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t sold out by the time I got a chance to buy it. Verizon ended up shipping my phone out (via FedEx) that same day, and they had free overnight shipping for internet orders, so it was to be delivered yesterday (Aug. 12).

I was pretty sure that they’d try to deliver it while I was at work. I was hopefully they might try when I was home on lunch, but I figured that with my luck, that wouldn’t be the case.

The following is a sequence of tweets that had me hopeful that I’d be home when they stopped (even if I had to take a late lunch).

At this point, I sent her an email with the information she requested. I hadn’t heard back from her by noon, so I headed home for lunch (with my fingers crossed ) Just as I turned on to the street in front of my apartment, I saw the FedEx truck at the stoplight up the street waiting to turn onto 13th Ave. Crap. That means I just missed him. The following is a sequence of tweets after I got into my apartment.

Just after I sent that last tweet, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number but a little part of me hoped it might be FedEx. And to my surprise, it was. FedEx Robin called me to see if someone was going to be home for a while. She said she’d call dispatch and see if she could get the FedEx guy to come back to my place. She called back just a couple minutes later to let me know that the FedEx guy was coming back. Rock on.

Within 5 minutes of her calling me to let me know, the FedEx guy showed up. He said that I was lucky … if I had been 15 minutes later, he would have been out of the area. I was so happy that I didn’t have to go to the FedEx office that night to pick up my phone.

And to think … this all started with a random tweet where I said I was hoping they’d try to deliver my phone when I was home. To think that FedEx has employees with jobs where they search Twitter for tweets about the company is pretty awesome. I know that there are others who do it, but those seem to be bots or just tweets to get you to do something for the company. This was a case where they were trying to help me out. They were proactive with a customer and that is something that I wish more companies did.

I can honestly say that if I had to ship something, FedEx would be at the top of my list for shippers because of the experience that I had. I wish more companies would take notice.

So … thank you FedEx. Thank you FedEx Robin. Now I’m off to play with my shiny new Droid 2.

Since I’m back working again (just over 4 months at the new place) and coding every day, I have ideas race through my head for things I want to do with my own websites. Unfortunately, those ideas are racing while I’m at work, and by the time I get home, they’re gone. I need to start writing ‘em down I think. I’ve been using the CodeIgniter framework a lot. I keep trying to think of things I could do with it.

I’ve also dabbled in writing a Facebook app for a project at work. It’s a relatively simple one, as far as Facebook apps go … no interaction with the user or anything like that. I still had issues getting things set up initially, but that’s probably because I jumped in with both feet rather than reading documentation first. Oh well. I learn best by doing anyway. I’d love to come up with a Facebook app on my own, but I’m not sure what to do. The only thing that I can come up with is a weather widget. I started laying one out for my own websites already. I could create a script that can be plugged in to a regular website, a WordPress plugin, and a Facebook app. I just need to get my butt in gear. It’s hard to get motivated to work on my own websites after working on other people’s sites all day at work. But then again, I am usually sitting at the computer all nite anyway. I might as well do something useful rather than reading Twitter and Facebook and other mindless surfing.

We use WordPress quite a bit at work. I don’t deal with it since I’m the programming geek (php & MySQL), but I see what is being done by my co-workers. It makes me want to work on this place again. One thing I’ve never dabbled with is widgets. I usually just hard code the stuff I want in the sidebar since I’m just doing the site for myself. But I’ve seen what can be done with widgets and it makes me wanna give it a try.

There was a time where I was doing a lot of WP development. Yeah, it was just for myself, but I knew what was going on and what I could do. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything serious with WP. Even when I redesigned last, I didn’t delve into things I could have. I really wanna dive back in, but I feel so far behind. So many advances have been made to the core. I happened run across a site for a WordCamp in the cities. I’m seriously considering going. I think one of my co-workers wants to as well. It’s not until November, so we’ve got a while to make a decision. Anyone else considering going to it?

I’ve got a pretty sweet setup going on now (well, considering what I’ve had in the past anyway). I added memory to my laptop (from 1GB to 4GB), and I upgraded to Windows 7 (which I LOVE). I even got a new monitor that’s hooked up to my laptop (21.5″ widescreen). The dual monitor setup is perfect for development (I wish I had dual monitors at work). I still use WAMP server for local development. I even found out about a program (from my boss) that gives me a GUI for my local MySQL databases (HeidiSQL). I have no excuse not to work on my own websites (other than the fact that I’ve turned into a lazy ass).

So … be on the lookout (I’ve said that before, haven’t I ). I really will try to post more here. As with the ideas I have for my websites during the day, I have ideas for posts that never materialize (I think I need to carry a notebook with me to work … or just use Google Docs). I need to be better about that. I need to stop procrastinating and being lazy. I really hope I can follow through.

This past year has been trying. I lost my job last October but then found 2 short term contract jobs. The short term-ness and uncertainty really wore on me. But I found a full time, permanent job a month ago (so thanks for that early Christmas present. ) I’m hoping that the tide has turned and things will start going “up” for me rather than how they have been.

I thought that I should get you a list of things that I wouldn’t mind getting under the Christmas tree this year. These are just suggestions. I don’t expect to get everything on my list. It would be nice to get one or two things though.

• Wii games & accessories
  • Wii remote
  • Wii steering wheel
  • Endless Ocean
  • Mario Cart
  • NASCAR Kart Racing
  • Wii Fit Plus (with Balance Board)
  • Wii Sports Resort
  • Wii Game Party/Wii Game Party 2 or similar games
• DVDs
  • Cars
  • Gabriel Iglesias: I’m Not Fat I’m Fluffy
  • Moonlight – The Complete Series
• CDs
  • Chris Young – The Man I Want to Be
  • Luke Bryan – Doin’ My Thing
  • Lady Antebellum – Lady Antebellum
  • Love and Theft – World Wide Open
• NASCAR Stuff
  • anything Dale Earnhardt Jr
  • anything Martin Truex Jr (his new team for 2010 [NAPA])
• Misc
  • iTunes gift card (for music and/or iPod Touch apps)
  • gift card for clothes (I need to try ‘em on to know they fit)
  • my “man” candles (The Midsummer’s Night scent by Yankee Candle – they smell like men’s cologne.)
  • dark (dark, dark, dark) chocolate
  • Windows 7 upgrade
  • Flip camcorder
  • anything else that’s techie/geeky
  • a cowboy

You should be able to find something doable on that list. As you can see, I put the cowboy back on the list this year after leaving him off last year. There aren’t any country bars left in Fargo, so if I’m gonna get a cowboy, it’ll have to be from you.

Watch out for birds on your journey around the globe this year. I’d hate to hear that you crashed after hitting a stray snow goose or something. I’m too old to stay up and wait for you … I need my sleep. But I’ll leave out some baked goodies (if I ever get my ass moving and make ‘em). Tell Mrs. Claus I say “hi”.

Becky

P.S. I just thought of a few more items for my list:

• office toys for my new desk at work [or my desk at home]
• programming books [on subjects like: CodeIgniter, php, MySQL, jQuery]
• pictures for my bare walls [both in the living room and the bedroom]
• LCD computer monitor (preferably larger than 19″ and widescreen)

It feels soooooo good to be working with php again. For the past year, (at the 2 contract jobs I had) I was working strictly with html and css, mainly html emails. While I don’t mind working with css, I enjoy working with php and sql so much more. And not only am I working with php again, I’m even learning a new framework, CodeIgniter. It’s what they use at work.

I had my first taste of it today when I started on a new project. I think I’ll pick it up pretty quickly. While I haven’t used a framework before, I have worked with a “layer” concept at a previous job. We had separate directories for database, presentation, and domain layers. CodeIgniter has model, view, and controller “layers”. What I really like about CodeIgniter is the fact that you can put together an array of data in the controller layer to send to the view layer, and in the view layer, you have variables that have the names of the keys from the array that was passed to it. Or at least as far as I can tell, that’s how it is.

I’ve even been in a good, upbeat mood the past couple days. I really noticed it today. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m out of my apartment or it’s because I’m back working (with something I really enjoy even) or it’s just things turning back around in my favor. I’m not going to analyze it, and I’m definitely not going to take it for granted (or at least I’m going to try my damnedest).

Hopefully this means I’ll have a good birthday this year (it’s next Saturday). Now I just need to figure out what I’m gonna do to celebrate it.

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Based on this choice, I went to UND and pursued a degree in meteorology. After graduating from UND I took a job at a company where I was a “meteorologist”. Why the quotes? The job was more of an office assistant than a meteorologist. I did put together reports from field projects, but I didn’t do anything weather related during my 4½ years there.

I was laid off from this company in December 2003 (they eliminated the position). This brought me to a point where I had to make another choice. At the time, I wasn’t really sure what to do. I had taken over the company’s website, so there was one option. Another option was an office/administrative assistant. I was actually one of the final two candidates for an administrative assistant position with Pepsi Co. in town. They ended up going with the other individual, but that was actually the best thing that could have happened to me. I decided to pursue the web development option, which landed me with a smaller local company. I worked at the company for about 3½ years until they closed their doors. At that time, I went to work directly for the final client that the company had. I was with that company until October of last year when I was laid off due to budget cuts (thanks to our lovely economy that still hasn’t recovered).

There was no need to make a choice at that point. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to continue in the field of web development. I just needed to find another job. I managed to find two contract positions. The second of those was supposed to turn into a permanent position, but thanks to our lovely economy, my contract was ended (3 months) early (and 17 other people were laid off).

This brings us to the present and another choice that I must make. This choice has not been easy for me. It has nothing to do with my choice of careers. I am now, more than ever, confident that I want to continue working in the field of web development. The choice is “where am I going to work?”. I’ve been struggling with this for the past two months (or more actually). There really aren’t many positions around the region (ND/MN/SD) that aren’t .NET or Java or some other language/technology that I don’t have experience in. I’m looking for php/sql based positions since that’s where my experience/background is.

I know that I need to look outside of my “comfort zone”. I just really don’t know where or how to start. I have looked for opportunities in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, but haven’t really found any that excited me. I don’t want to take a job somewhere only to find out that I’m not happy wherever the job is. I did apply for a position in Edmond, OK, but I still haven’t heard anything back (and I was a little excited about the position and the location).

It has been almost two months since my contract was ended, and I’m basically still at square one. I know that there are people out there who have been out of work for much longer than that (in fact, I was unemployed for about 7 months when I switched from a career in a weather related field to a career in the web development field [that was almost 6 years ago]); however, my savings will only last so long, and I’m not collecting unemployment.

I have found one position that is in line with the type of work that I’m looking for. I don’t know the name of the company because the position is through a job agency (and they won’t tell me until an interview is scheduled), but that isn’t really that big of a deal at this point. The thing that has me delaying pursuing it is the salary. Their high end is lower than my low end. It would be a $6/hr pay cut from my last position and a $3/hr pay cut from the position before that. While I don’t expect to start at a new job at the same pay rate as the one my last contract was with, I still have my acceptable range. This one is below that. BUT … the position is a permanent position, not a contract one. AND … if they have decent benefits and are progressive about reviews and pay raises, then this could be a good opportunity. But I was told that they are looking for more of an entry level developer, and with my experience, I don’t consider myself entry level any more (at least not when it comes to php/sql development). I have not written this option off yet. The only down side that I really see (at this point) is the pay. But even if I do pursue it, there’s no guarantee that I would get it.

So that brings me back to my current choice. Do I pursue this position (so that I can stay here), or do I put on my “big girl pants” and seriously start looking for something out of state? I’m really struggling with this one. I need to do what’s best for me … but I have no idea what that is. I just wish I would have an epiphany or would see a sign and know which path to follow … which choice to go with. I’m tired of struggling with this choice. But … at least I know what I want to do. Now I just need to make a choice as to where.

The business cards that I got are Moo Cards. I’ve heard people talk about them on Twitter in the past. They look like really nice cards, and they’re not all that expensive. I got the sample pack because I want to make sure that I actually like the design I put together before I commit to a larger set. I don’t want to spend a lot of money on business cards that I decide I don’t like (especially now).

I thought I’d share what they ended up looking like. I tried to follow the same style that I use on my professional (i.e. resumé) website. I blurred out my phone number and email for my own sanity [don't need crazy people calling me at all hours of the day/nite ... not that crazy people read this blog ... or maybe they do ... LOL]. But otherwise, you get the picture of what they ended up looking like. If you have any suggestions as to how to improve them, let me know, but please be kind with your comments.

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According to the website, they won’t be shipped until Oct. 6, so it will be almost 2 weeks before I get them (I selected standard shipping, so it could take up to 5 days to get to me in the mail). Now I just need to try to be patient (and that’s not one of my strong suits. )

The food … the food … the food. The biggest thing I was looking forward to on the food side of things was the funnel cake. I love me some funnel cake. I’m craving one right now just thinking of it. My funnel cake cravings even got us (me, Lisa, Robin, and Neal) backstage to meet Emerson Drive 3 years ago. This year, I got my funnel cake on Wednesday nite when we (Robin and I) went to see 32 Below. As for the other food, I always go for a brisket sandwich. I got that Thursday nite. The only thing that I didn’t get that I wish I had was cheese curds. There’s always the fair to get those tho.

The music … the music … the music. Who can beat a concert for only $3 (or $5 if you don’t have a discount coupon). They usually always have someone there that I want to see. This year it was 32 Below on Wednesday and Rodney Atkins on Thursday. I’ve seen 32 Below so many times that I’ve lost count. But I will always go see them every chance that I can. Since I’ve seen them so many times, I didn’t take my camera with me. I have enough pics of them as it is.

This was the first time that I’ve seen Rodney Atkins. He did not disappoint. We were fairly close to the front (thanks to the fact that I was there early and staked out a spot), so I took a TON of pics. I ended up with 90 pics. I would have had more, but I deleted the ones that ended up blurry or had hands or heads in the way. The pic to the left is just a sample. You can find more in my photo gallery. I also took 4 videos. Unfortunately I don’t have any software to process the videos to put online. The only thing I have is Windows Movie Maker, and that crashes every time I try to save a video.

Overall, it was a good RibFest this year. And I’m glad the crappy weather waited until AFTER the concerts that I wanted to see. The weather was beautiful on both Wednesday and Thursday nites. There was a while on Thursday where I thought it was gonna rain … it sure did get windy. But no rain fell. I got my funnel cake and brisket sandwich … I got to see 32 Below, October Road (they opened for Rodney), and Rodney Atkins. I can’t wait to see who they get for the concerts next year.

I believe that the fact that I don’t talk about things is the reason this patch has been so rough for me. I was using Twitter as a release for some things … but that’s not the right outlet. I’m surprised I still have as many followers as I do. But then again, they probably don’t pay attention to my ramblings anyways.

I’ve decided that I need to get things out somehow. So that is what this blog post is for. I’m warning you now … if you really don’t give a damn, then stop reading now. If you’re curious, then click on the link to keep reading the rest of this post (if you’re on the main page that is). Sure, I could have made this post private or password protected, but I’ve decided not to do that. Who knows … I may come to regret that, but I can always change things later if I want to. So … here’s your last warning. What comes next is going to be me uncorking that damn bottle … well, not fully but at least a little.

Where to start, where to start? That is the question. LOL I guess I’ll start with that big ol’ elephant over in the corner … I have no job. That is my biggest source of angst at the moment. I know it’s not because of anything that I did. It’s the damn economy. The company I used to work for sells aftermarket accessories for trucks and cars (mainly trucks). When the sales of trucks went down, so did their sales. So they had to cut the budget somewhere. I guess I was one of those cuts. I have no idea if any others were laid off at the same time or not, but that really isn’t relevant I guess.

That was back in October of last year. I did have a contract job that lasted for 4 months, but that was only 4 months. I’ve been unemployed (yet again) for almost a month now (the contract ended at the end of March). There has been one opportunity that I’ve been pursuing since just before my contract ended. I had an interview for it last week. Apparently they felt that the interview went well, but I won’t hear any more until early next week since the head of the department is in a conference in Alaska. I found another position at the end of last week and applied for that. It doesn’t close until May 6th, so it will be a while before I hear back on that one as well. So, here I sit in my apartment driving myself completely nuts. LOL

I have a theory about why this stint of unemployment is hitting me so damn hard. Before I was laid off back in October, I had been saving up to buy a house. Since I would be a first time homeowner, I could get away without having a down payment, so I was just saving up for the closing costs. Based on my calculations and the amount that I was putting into my savings accounts, I figured that I would have enough to start house hunting by the end of THIS summer. I was so stoked about that fact … you have no idea. I am so sick of living in an apartment … especially now that I have a downstairs neighbor who doesn’t understand what a “respectable volume” is for listening to his music (don’t get me started on that). It’s more than just being sick of living in an apartment though. I mean, I’m 33 years old. I was making a decent living. I don’t have much debt (just a student loan, but that’s a “good” debt, if there is such a thing), and I have really good credit. Owning a house would be a good investment … even though the economy is in the toilet. I felt that it was time for me to head in that direction. Losing my job and not knowing where or when I’ll be working again sure put the kibosh on that dream. So much for being in a house of my own by the holidays. And that just breaks my heart.

I know that eventually (hopefully sooner rather than later) I will be working again. And eventually I will be able to get back on my plan toward home ownership. But what I don’t know is where the hell that will be. I’ve said it before on here, I want to stay in the Fargo/Moorhead/West Fargo area. My family is within driving distance, and my friends are here. But there just aren’t very many web programmer job openings around here, at least not ones that don’t require .NET or something along those lines. The job that I interviewed for would be perfect for me. It’s doing a lot of the same things I was doing on the contract job. But it also involved working with php … which I feel is my strong point (and I enjoy coding in it). So I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will work out. I do have one concern about the position. The company has multiple offices, and the other web devs are all in Duluth. So I would be the only one in the Fargo office. I’m worried that the company would rather have all of the web devs in the same location, and I really don’t want to move to Duluth. But if they felt that the interview went well, maybe they wouldn’t mind having a single web dev in the Fargo office. I guess only time will tell on that front.

If this opportunity doesn’t pan out and if I don’t hear from the other one I applied for by the middle of May, then I’m really gonna have to take a hard look at moving. I can’t wait forever for something to show its head around here. I don’t want to use all of the money that I’ve saved for a house to pay bills while I’m waiting to be employed again. I’ve been lucky so far. I’ve had enough in my checking account to pay bills, so I haven’t had to take any money from my savings accounts. But that’s only because I haven’t been putting the extra into savings like I had wanted to do. I should be able to pay rent for the next 2 months before I have to dig into savings.

Wow. I sure did ramble on about that, didn’t I? LOL Time to change the subject. Another big thing that I’ve been wrestling with is my weight. At the beginning of the year, I decided to change some things about myself. One of them was my exercise routine and nutritional plan … to actually have them. LOL I was doing good too. I lost about 10lbs in January. Then I started slacking off and eventually completely stopped my plan. I haven’t exercised in a while, and I’ve gone back to my poor eating habits. I haven’t gained all of that weight back, but I have gained back about half of it. And I’m really not happy about that. I know that I need to lose weight and eat better, but with the mood I’ve been in, I just haven’t given a damn. It doesn’t help that I’m an “emotional eater”. If I’m bored or stressed or lonely or pissed or whatever, I tend to eat. And my choices are not good. Whether it’s chips or Snickers ice cream cones or half a (frozen) pizza at a meal, I’ve been eating whatever the hell I can get my hands on. I might eat healthy snacks if I had them in my apartment, but the healthy food tends to be on the expensive side, and I’m trying not to spend more money than I need to. That makes trips to the grocery store a bad experience. I tend to leave the store either exasperated or pissy.

I need to get back on track. Since I have some time on my hands, I need to get back into my exercise routine and start eating better. I need to plan out my meals so that I have a good shopping list rather than just finding things in the store ad and picking up whatever looks interesting and isn’t all that expensive. I have my Walk Away the Pounds DVDs and my elliptical machine. The weather is starting to get nicer out (even though it’s been wet the past few days), so I need to consider taking walks outside (weather permitting).

I think this post is getting a bit long, so I think it’s time I ended it. Did it help to spew all of this? I’ll let you know. I do know that I need to stop bottling things up. If I don’t stop, that bottle is gonna explode on my one day … and that won’t be a pretty sight. I still have a lot of issues that I didn’t include in this post, so there’s plenty left in that damn bottle. It’s not like I don’t have someone to talk to. I know that Robin would listen if I need to talk. I tend to not bother her because she has her own things that she’s dealing with. But I know that she would smack me around if she felt that I wasn’t talking to her because I didn’t want to bother her with it. LOL I better make sure I stand more than an arm’s length away from her the next time I see her (after she reads this).

But I’m not here to complain (this time anyways). I’m just enjoying this beautiful day. And it’s only gonna last for a day, unfortunately. The high temperature forecast for tomorrow is only 48°, and there’s a chance of snow tomorrow nite. Yes … I said snow. Mother Nature sure is a bitch this year. LOL

But before long (hopefully), the weather will be warm on a regular basis. Then I’m sure I’ll be bitching about it being too hot. But then again, I’m not happy unless I’m bitchin’. LOL

One thing that I have discovered this afternoon is that I need a bigger table on my balcony. I can’t use my mouse … just no room. And it is rather short. It’s perfect for when I’m outside reading … to put my phone and my drink on. But if I wanna bring my computer outside, it just doesn’t cut it. In fact, I ended up moving the laptop to my lap. I can see the screen a little better, but it’s still pretty glare-y. Oh well. It’s too beautiful a day to be sitting inside.