Job Searches and SQL.

08.24.2014

After almost a month I'm still on the job hunt. That sounds a little bad, but I'm still limiting my job hunt searches to those jobs I wouldn't dread going to (i.e. not on the Arsenal). On Thursday I had a phone screen/interview with the local credit union that was supposed to last around half an hour but instead was closer to an hour. That may sound like good news, but the more I talked to the guy the more I thought of how I wasn't a good fit for the job. A lot of that stems from my lack of formal learning of .net and the Microsoft world it comes from. I know how to do plenty of things, I just don't know the name of what it is that I'm doing. A lot of that comes from years of anti-Microsoft thinking ingrained in my head.

My phone call also led me to think that I need to add more details into my resume. I worked on getting my resume down to 2 pages and only managed 2½ instead. When I was talking to this guy, he seem shocked that I knew HTML. I've been writing HTML for 18 years. How did I not stress that on paper? With that in mind, I've gone back and filled in more details per job and listing all of the little things I've done, especially HTML, CSS, and writing SQL queries, as those seem to be the big questions I'm asked about.

Speaking of SQL queries, my phone call had an interesting question or two when I told the guy I knew and had written plenty of SQL. He casually asked if I knew the difference between a LEFT JOIN and a RIGHT JOIN, and I casually answered yes and told him it just depended which side of the tables you wanted your records. He then asked casually if I knew what a UNION was and I told him it returned all the records from both tables that met the search criteria. His questions were so easy I started thinking about it afterwards. Was there something simple I had missed? I don't know if I had ever written a UNION query, but I made JOINS all the time. 99% of the time I just used the default LEFT JOIN and didn't really think anything about it. So I went to the Google to make sure.

Luckily what I thought was the difference between a LEFT and RIGHT JOIN was right. They're the same, at least the way I think about it. I found out that UNION is a little different than what I thought, or more importantly how I was asked. In a JOIN, records are combined in the results. In a UNION, records are tacked on to the results.

How often am I really going to need to use a UNION?

Permalink programming/interweb

I would walk 400 my-uhls - is that a song?

08.11.2014

It's been a little while since I mentioned anything about my walking regimen, but I'm still going at it. I've switched from 5 times per week to 3 times per week, but upped my distance per walk from 3.7 miles to 4.5-5. I've also slowed my pace a little, due in part to not walking as much with Gina (as she tries to get over a bout of plantar fasciitis) but a slower pace is also easier on my knees. I tell myself the longer distance helps to make up for it.

I've also started walking in the morning instead of the evening. Starting a walk at 6AM helps to beat the traffic, plus just moving around during the course of the day seems to help keep me from feeling as stiff as when I walk and go to bed soon thereafter.

I'm not sure how much of this is in my head and how much really makes a difference, but I still feel better every day.

Permalink diet gastric sleeve

Painting The Next Generation

08.06.2014

As I've been talking about painting something other than Dust minis, I finally moved forward!

I did not move forward to any of the minis previously mentioned, instead I dug out the War Rocket ships that Jerry gave me for Christmas a year or three ago. Painting non-people is a little different - more smooth surfaces, which I'm not quite as good at painting, at least not yet. As such, the War Rocket ships are my tutorial and learning squadron!

The first ship, well, the first ship didn't have a picture taken since I learned a lot from a lot of little mistakes. First, red paint doesn't cover primer worth crap (the above pictured ship was primed red to begin with). I also tried varying my order of washes, highlighting, and painting (not a good idea with light/bright colors). As such, the first ship is now sitting in a bath of Simple Green to see if the paint can be stripped and the ship salvaged and re- primed. This worked with a batch of Dust minis, so I'm holding out hope here as well.

For the above ship, it was primed red - plain old Krylon Flat Red. After that I added some gold (Vallejo) and painted anything window-looking a shade of what I can only point at as baby-blue (another Vallejo paint). Just to see if there was a difference in how metallic paints covered, I used a different brand (Citadel) silver. To wrap it up I washed the ship in a black-ish wash (Citadel- Nuln Oil) and went over everything with my usual gunmetal silver drybrush.

I missed a few spots of detail here and there, and there's an errant drop of silver on the top of the hull. Overall, it looks about as good as I had hoped. I'll pick out another ship later and try a similar color scheme and perhaps try to pull out a few more details - the canopy is going to be a challenge to get all the details and not overlap the paint.

Below is a sample of the final ship (above) versus a freshly primed ship with the windows filled in. Before putting them side by side, I hadn't noticed just how much darker the wash and drybrushing turned everything. It's not nearly as comic-book-like as I originally imagined/feared.

Permalink gaming miniatures hobbies

The search continues

08.01.2014

Job Search 2014 has been going on for a month now. I last had to search for a job in 2006. It was the first time that I didn't have an "in" somewhere and actually had to hunt down job opportunities all on my own. Things have changed a little in 8 years. All the jobs are listed online (way back when, some were only listed in the Classifieds section of the newspaper). Luckily, job titles have gotten better so I can search for more than "software developer".

LinkedIn seems to be the go-to source for recruiters. I've had a profile for years but never really used it. A couple of weeks ago I filled out my work history and started to connect with people I've worked with. Not everyone I've worked with... I learned that lesson on Facebook. Since updating my profile I've been contacted by 4 recruiters and replied to 2 of them. For the 2 I didn't respond, I'm not desperate enough for a Nashville commute just yet, and I didn't really qualify for the details of the other.

I'm not sure if making those LinkedIn connections will make a difference - does number of connections affect whatever search parameters recruiters are putting in? Hopefully people I haven't spoken to in over 5 years won't wonder why I'm suddenly poking them on LinkedIn. I don't want to be a creepy Linker.

I've had 1 interview out of the 17+ resumes I've emailed out. Thus far I've been primarily applying for PHP jobs (I like the PHP), but on paper I may look overqualified for most of those jobs since they ask for ~5 years experience and I've got 12 years of PHP & 19 years of programming experience. But I'm not too dejected yet.

With that said, I still stay up until 2:00 in the morning at least once a week scouring the job listings online because I can't sleep.

Permalink rambling random

This last pound took 2 months

07.24.2014

This past week should have been my 9-month post-op doctor visit, but I opted not to go. The 9-month visit is the same as the 3-month visit. All the doctor does is weigh you, shake our stomach to check for gall bladder stones, and in my case say that I'm not losing weight fast enough (which as I've stated here before I agree with, but as I'm still losing weight and have suffered ZERO negative side effects I ain't a gonna worry 'bout it). I also had a job interview to prep for, so that gave me enough of an excuse to skip the doctor. At the 1-year post-op I have to get blood drawn and tested, so I'll plan on that counting double to make up for missing this appointment.

Yesterday I finally hit the goal I've been going after for months. For the first time in at least 18 years, my weight has dipped below 300. Granted, it's only by 6/10 of a pound. I had yet to eat or drink anything for the day. It doesn't matter, it counts!

Mentally, 299 seems like a bigger number to me than 300. 300 has 2 zeros, which are nothing. 299 has 2 nines, which are big. It's silly how my brain works.

Now to keep myself under 300. The next goal is 291 - not that far away! 291 would make for a total of 150 lbs below my max from last February.

Permalink gastric sleeve