debating taking either friday or monday off of work so i can get some work done around the house i’ve been meaning to do. the problem is that it’s going to be such nice weather i don’t know if i would want to be stuck at home doing a bunch of spring cleaning i’ve been meaning to do.

need to step up the job search. not because i’m worried about losing my job, but because i’m extremely concerned about getting into a rut with my current job. i need to put my degree skills to use before i start forgetting them! i’m considering doing the online MS in information systems program at umbc this fall – i could do it for the summer, but a) i don’t want to start the program if i do end up leaving work in the near future, and b) i don’t feel like trying to study and do homework when i’m vacationing it up in england.

ha, i just noticed: glenn ad = england. anagram!

anyway, i also thought about stepping up the job search more after chatting with john1082 the other night (got your voicemail too! i’ll check into both teams and see if i can find a few dates to choose from), and he brought up that universal adage: “money talks, bullshit walks, and spare change rides the bus.” i don’t know why, but it’s been stuck in my head the last day or two at the office, and then i saw this article in the washington post today… yeah, so the dude has been working for the city for 16 years, but how does this guy get paid $57k to fix parking meters, and i get paid about 2/3 of that amount and have to put up with a lot more bullshit during my workday than some broken parking meters? phooey on that.

this is interesting though, apparently the defense information systems agency has some openings for entry-level sysadmin interns:

This is a full-time, permanent entry-level position in a 3-year on-the-job development program aimed at developing technical, business, and leadership skills through participation in core training and rotational assignments. The program provides broad exposure to the different organization within DISA and ensures interns receive challenging assignments. Upon completion of the 3-year internship period, the incumbent will remain in the permanent position where hired. As a trainee, the incumbent will work closely with a team leader and/or supervisor, in a training capacity on assigned tasks.

the job is right here in annapolis, is rated as a gs-7 position (so i’d qualify), and provides a TS clearance. hm! interesting…

cynicalscribe fed a squirrel today! check the video i put up at glennfitzpatrick.com, or on youtube.

in other news, we think that anne’s cat (named “crackers”) is a mouser! apparently about a month ago a mouse ate some of a box of cereal we have, but we haven’t seen any mice around, and i think we thought the mouse must have been in the basement with me somewhere. but crackers is not allowed in the basement, and dad said today that he found half of a mouse in the dining room, and anne said that she found some blood on a homework assignment she had in her room, but we can’t find any sign of the other half of the mouse.

this last week has gone well, even with the awkwardness of my last post. still, i feel like it’s going to be an occasional elephant in the room, but oh well.

i’m still working on the special project at work. right now it’s a lot of “copy these specific details from the billing system into a spreadsheet, make sure it’s what the agency should have, and print it out so it can be reviewed by another team too”. not exactly what i was thinking of, but hopefully that should change once we start working on the more long-term vision of using this team to change the way some things are done and improve work overall. i’m trying to convince the people in charge of the team that we should consider looking into a quality system like six sigma, even though i’m not certified in six sigma and only know the basic principles of the system.

yesterday bruno_boy and i went suit-shopping; joseph a. bank was having a sale, buy one suit get two suits of equal or lesser value for free. so, three suits for the price of one. i was the only one who bought suits, but even those need to be delivered since they didn’t have my size in stock, boo. the manager threw in a free shoe-shine sponge for me since i mentioned i needed to buy it and maybe also because dave and i were awesome and patient with him when he was having a bad day at work and i asked nicely and maybe also because when we mentioned bad days at work i told the story about how a customer i had wanted to curse me with voodoo, and the manager’s eyes bugged out incredulously.

i’ve been loving the MLB at bat iphone app, especially since the paid version allows you to listen to all games live over 3G and wifi data connections — whenever there’s an orioles game on while i’m at work, i plug my phone into its power charger and listen to the game to help the day go by faster. even when it’s not the orioles, i’ll tune in… i’m definitely listening to a lot more games with other teams playing than i have in previous years, and it’s exciting to listen to other teams games when they’re in the same division and league to see how they’ll affect the standings.

i’ve also been reading this really interesting book: As They See ‘Em: A Fan’s Travels in the Land of Umpires. i bought it after i was listening to the indians vs. yankees game on thursday and the announcers said the strike that ended the came was a called strike by the umpire even though it was high and outside. since then i haven’t been able to put this book down and i’m about halfway through already. it’s really fascinating, especially to someone like me who contemplated going to umpire school about 6 or 7 years ago when i worked as a store greeter in my temp-to-hire position and basically figured “well, i stand around and get yelled at by customers all day. if i’m going to be standing around and getting yelled at, i may as well get paid to watch a baseball game too.”

john1082: i got your message, but unfortunately couldn’t reply since i was driving at the time. how long are you going to be in dc?

and speaking of travel, on friday cynicalscribe and i bought airplane tickets and hotel rooms for visiting london in june. hopefully we can meet up with geminid and jschlackman, and i want to try to tour the MINI factory at oxford (i need to remember to email them to find out details), and i’m trying to convince carrie that we need to go to the royal ascot race since that’s going on the same time that we’d be there too, and how many times does one happen to be visiting england when the royal ascot race happens to be scheduled? the answer is twice, in my case. in any case, ever since i found this out, i’ve been in a mood to watch “my fair lady” again:

(it’s so much funnier at 3:26 if your immediate thought is that professor henry higgins is blatantly checking out that woman’s rear end rather than observing her dress. you’ll notice i said “rear end”, because other slang terms for the posterior are bad form at ascot.)

argh, so many sentences in this post are rambling run-on sentences. i don’t think the nap i took earlier today has done any good for my sleep schedule tonight, and i don’t think the sugar babies i’ve been eating have done any good either. they haven’t done my writing any favors, that’s for damn sure, and that means that now is as good a time as any to go to bed and try to get some sleep.