Short because it's late and nothing really happend

Rained most of the day. Lots of job postings in the email bucket, only one worth applying for. Much wasted time because recruiter sites, especially CalJobs, can't tell the difference between an AND and an OR. Treats everything as an OR. Plus they send the same listings even though I've set the alert engines to only feed me today's new ones.

Got to wanting lunch around 1:30, tried Specialty's down the block but their computers were borked and the line to order was massive. Tried the one near NASA, it's closed on weekends. My two favorite Starbucks were jam packed, people sitting outside in the rain (WTF?) and the Clocktower coffee shop which usually has seating was also jammed and people were outside under the overhang, but it was COLD.

So I went home, nuked a beef pot pie and had a couple of chocolate pudding cups for dessert.

4:30 I was at Janice's to check out her intermittent backup drive. Unplugged it and plugged it back in and it popped. Power circuit went dead. She was using a very old adapter from some other product. The drive did not have any info on it telling what kind of power it wanted,  but the adapter is the wrong color & design for a Seagate.

Pointed her at Seagate's data recovery support page, and promised to buy her a replacement drive. The one she had is 8 years old, vast improvements have been made for less $$.

We went to Starbucks near her place, there were actually seats in the back room - the computer nerds somehow preferred the uncomfortable wooden chairs and long table arrangement to the small tables and padded seats. Apparently they are unaware their laptops have a battery and can run without an AC connection.

Went to Fry's, plugged in my car while nearly being run over by some idiot trying to park her gas guzzler Jeep assault vehicle in the electric-only slot opposite mine.

Found what I was looking for pretty quickly, a Toshiba 2GB drive about the size of a cigarette case, USB 3.0 powered, so no AC required. $93 with tax.  Also bought a better holster for my phone. Put them on separate bills, because Janice thinks she wants to pay for the new drive.

Home, was pretty full from the mocha, shot up some high-test insulin to make up for that (should have had my pen with me at *$s, but didn't) and noticed there was still a crab in the fridge. Looked online for how long they keep, and decided at $8/lb I'd better eat it NOW, while it was still smelling neutral.

Spook liked that. She almost took a piece from my hand, she likes crab so much. Anyting I dropped onto the rug for her disappeared quickly, but she hid it from me with her body.

No dessert. I may nosh on a wee bit of dark chocolate at bedtime.

Which is about now.

Plans for tomorrow:
8:45 at the Nova job center for orientation and maybe some personalized help
Sometime before 5, another urinalysis at Kaiser MV.
Expecting more rain, or at least cool and cloudy. My aircon unit is not liking this dramatic shift from summer to autumn.
 

Good Stuff Happened Today

Caught my low blood sugar episode before it had a chance to wreck my night - Klondike bar at bedtime when 81 Hgl was threatening to go lower. Had a pretty good sleep, maybe one more than the usual pee breaks.

Up at 7, used an alarm app instead of changing my clock radio from 7:30. That's the second alarm app I've tried, and both are now deleted because the first one put ads where I needed to press, and the other automatically told me it was time for bed at 9:30 based on my one-time 7 am alarm.

Was at NOVA job center at 8:15 for a 9 am class, but killed time by listening to Amanda MacBroom tunes and peeking inside the community garden across the parking lot. Checked in at 8:30, was directed to a room in another part of the office complex. Had time for a pit stop. Once again the staff was terrific, the signage clear and everywhere it needed to be. This was for their orientation. Excellent presenters, very coordinated, good materials, and they were done early with each section.

Three part session. Part 1 Ramina walked us through The Four Steps Of Job Hunting and tied those in with what services the center offers, and when, with hints at what classes are prerequisites even though I don't really need them.  Part 2 Chris explained how they got their funding, and tied that into step by step filling out some simple forms. Part 3 was Chris and Kim collecting our documents (for me it was passport card, unemployment benefits stub and layoff notice). Those were copied elsewhere and returned to us. And Chris explained that in a couple of days we would get email telling us we were registered, and how to get our badge, and that we could get one (1) 1-day pass between now and then if we wanted to use the facilities, take classes, etc before our badge arrived.

This place is hugely better than the company which my former employer hired to do a lot of the same thing. I wish I'd known about it a month and a half ago. Looks like both prerequisites are on the calendar for Wednesday, I will probably waste a couple of hours there.

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Next stop, MV Kaiser lab, urinalysis and kidney-related blood test. There was no line, for a change. I've already gotten the results, everything is normal. I expect to hear from my doctor or urologist or both telling me my symptoms was a false alarm. I won't complain if the urology hands-on test next Monday is canceled.

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Thought about going home for lunch, instead parked in the Sunnyvale underground lot by the PO and walked towards the new Starbucks, but got distracted and had lunch and laptop time at the even newer Prolific Oven. Love their chocolate dipped cream puffs. Some of their sandwiches are okay too. And this location is prime eye candy viewing, both in and out of the store. I sat near a window.

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Home, plowed through all the job alerts, found one iffy one to apply to, and reworded two of my alerts so I would stop getting offers to be a silicon chip inspector.

Walked around the gardens. I am so jazzed about the poppies and roses in bloom and how many bees have discovered the "bees friend" flowers. I used to be deathly scared of bees, now I have no problem observing them close up. One time when I was suppose to be bugler at a boy scout camp, a bee or something like one stung my lip, I looked like a Ubangi all week, and someone else got to bugle. :-(

Dinner time reminded me that I had another slab of corned beef in the freezer, and a couple of onions and some garlic and celery left, so I set that all up in the slow cooker with rosemary and basil from my gardens. I cooked up some corn dogs for tonight's dinner. Tangelo and oreos for dessert.

Watched a fascinating episode of Who Do You Think You Are,  which showed some minor Hollywood pretty boy that one of his ancestors was in George Washington's elite private guard, and a more distant fellow in the same line had been hung as a witch/wizard in Salem. Andover, actually. And that dude's dad and mom were two of Mass.'s first settlers.

While I was watching that I was cutting small slices of cheddar to snack on, Spook ate two of the three I set on the rug in front of her. Good sharp white cheddar was too much for her.

Chatted with Automation Guy, who is now in charge of a section of Amazon's automation team. He said Python is the language to learn, so I'll see what I can do about that. NOVA said there might be paid training available. I don't want to code for a living, but most of the QA jobs require some of that.

Both of the NAS units I had on eBay sold, they are boxed and ready to mail. One to Arkansas and the other to LA.

Plans for tomorrow:
Job search as usual
Expect to hear from a doctor or two
Janice's, install the new backup drive and start a backup