Re: Happy Winter Solstice!

[Farrell Woods <http://www.adelphia.net/~ftw>]

Hi Bob,

Happy holidays to you & Noelle.  I read through your update,
it's pretty amazing, insightful, and occasionally provoking.

Thank you for keeping me on your list and letting me know
what's going on.  I enjoy hearing from you & the other folks
I grew up with at LS.

> News
>   * The sections to pay attention to are:
>     Lifestyle>Careers
>     Lifestyle>Family
>     Lifestyle>Home
>     Lifestyle>Transportation>Car

So we shouldn't pay attention to the other things you took the time
to write about? ;-)  I read through your entire note just the same.

> Lifestyle
>   * Careers
>     * Is job-less, or job-free?  Although I've had a number of interviews, I
>       still have no job prospects currently.  I guess there's still a lot
>       of competition in the job market and luck has not been with me.  My
>       resume's at resume .  Any job
>       suggestions/leads are quite welcome!

It appears at least around here that the economy is thawing out
somewhat.  Folks that I know in the UNIX biz are getting jobs,
but basically through networking as opposed to headhunters, etc.
Although I understand that there recently have been job openings
for headhunters as well.  It was really depressing for instance
when I learned that the headhunters I'd been in contact with
on and off over the years started losing *their* jobs.

I've been rather fortunate in that I've survived the downturns,
thus far.  I'm in the same cube but am working for my third
company (DEC -> Compaq -> HP) over a span of 12 years.

>   * Family

>     * Flea soup for the soul.  Basically, I made a special flight at the
>       end of August/beginning of September to deliver the cat to Noelle,
>       in addition to an interview at Yahoo!  (thanks Mike!), getting a
>       drivers license, and setting up the phone.  The trip was quite an
>       ordeal.  I only found out at the airport that you cannot carry your
>       pet through the metal detection machine.  In fact, you must hand
>       your pet to one of the airport security people and they carry the
>       pet through.  That one action freaked out the cat and she completely
>       froze, despite giving her tranquilizers.  She would not move at all
>       and it was difficult to get her into the travel bag.  Later in the
>       flight, she refused to leave the travel bag at all, even to drink.
>       She made it OK, 'though.

Glad to hear the cat is ok.  I haven't travelled with one, though
I've joked with Nancy (my wife) about bring one or both on a plane
ride with myself (I fly little, single-engine airplanes.)  Given
how they react to cars I have my doubts as to how they'd fare in
a light plane...

>   * Home
>     * Home Selling 101.  Here are some lessons I learned:
>       1) Never hire a broker/agent.
>       2) If you must hire a broker, do not give the broker the names of
>          buyers you've dealt with and don't like.  Also insist on knowing 
>          the
>          names of the buyers the broker comes up with to ensure it's not one
>          of those buyers.
>       3) Give yourself more than 20 minutes to carefully review the Purchase
>          and Sale Agreement, even if that means going past the Offer to
>          Purchase deadline.  You could save yourself thousands of dollars,
>          aggravation, and misunderstandings.
>       But I am relieved that it's over with.  Ugh.  Renting is a relief.

Glad you got through it!  I've bought and sold a house (well, sold half
a house - Ken Woodland and I bought a house together in 1991 and I
eventually sold my half out to him after I got married.)  Been through
a couple of refi's too.  Almost the same thing... I think a root-canal
might be more pleasant but at the moment I don't have that basis
to compare.  Just hearsay.

>     * Back relief.  We ended up hiring movers.  My plans for moving
>       everything myself was tabled after it was determined that it would
>       cost almost as much as having it moved by movers.  The main cost
>       savings was that I packed nearly everything myself.  Every day,
>       every waking hour for almost 2 solid weeks was spent packing stuff.
>       That was a lot of work.  But, I think it was worth it.

No kidding!

When Nancy and I moved into our new home we did all the work.  Packing
(and packing and packing....) then we loaded the stuff into a UHaul
or whatever and schlepped it to the new place.  That was a lot of
work, thankfully we had Ken and Karen (Ken's wife) to help out!
Friends can make a seemingly insurmountable task like that, somehow
manageable.  We are forever in their debt!  Or at least we owe them
several Moving Points (tm) should they decide to relocate.

>     * Whither Pacific Bell?  $61 is how much it cost for SBC to come into
>       the house to fix a phone jack.  It probably would have taken me an
>       hour to figure out how to replace this phone jack.  ('Though, it was
>       annoying that the SBC guy just came into my house and fixed the
>       problem without warning me.  I remember Pacific Bell used to warn
>       you before entering your house about the cost of doing so.)

I feel I'm on the cusp of flipping off Verizon.

They charge an outrageous rate for local service.  Nancy and I fiddled
with both local and long-distance services this year and haven't come
to what I feel is a truly satisfactory result.  She calls mostly
within  because that's where her family live.  I call out of state
because with the exception of my father, that where my friends and
family are.

But just today I decided to give Vonage (http://www.vonage.com) a shot.
These folks offer a VoIP service, based on SIP, that connects into
the PSTN.  You can check out the details if you like.  We're going to
give it a go and see if it works ok, and if it does we'll bid adieu
to Verizon.

Now if there's something I could do about the stranglehold that
Adelphia has on cable services...

>   * Transportation
>     * Car
>       * A short-lived fashion statement.

Wow.  We live in southern .  Public transport is non-existent
in our town.  You gotta have a car!

>     * Bicycle

Another wow!  Riding a bike on our streets is downright dangerous.
You remember what the roads were like in Sudbury?  Pretty much the
same deal here in Hudson .  But the people don't drive as well
as they once might have.  I'd be downright scared to take my bike
out on my road!

Anyways, thanks so much for keeping me on your list!  I really
appreciate it and it's good to hear from you.

Best wishes to you & Noelle.

Farrell