Posted by Doug
Fri, 24 Aug 2007 18:00:00 GMT
My company is loosing a top notch designer. He got a great gig locally with some big names in the usability field. It’s a great opportunity for him to advance his craft. That leaves us without someone who has an eye to usability, standards compliant HTML/CSS, browser compatibility, and most importantly design. if you are someone who is interested in the position or know someone who might be interested, please let me know.
Our previous designer worked remote with 25% on-site (roughly one week a month). He was a FTE with travel expenses and remote office expenses paid. We’re looking for a similar arrangement ideally. Well, ideally, we’d pay to relocate this person to Harrisonburg, VA as a FTE. We’re totally cool though with working remote with similar travel requirements. As a last resort (or maybe as the interim solution) we’d hire someone on some type of contract for work. I’m just a Sr. Developer/Team Lead, so I don’t know the details of what such a contract would look like.
For those of you familiar with blah blah blah (lawyers made me change this), we’re a language learning software company. We’re profitable and privately held. We’re growing fast and going through a lot of internal change. We have new recruiters, so the hiring process should go smoothly. Contact me at dalcorn@rosettastone.com if you’re interested.
Posted in Internet, Programming | Tags designer, jobs, rosettastone | 1 comment
Posted by Doug
Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:50:00 GMT
It turns out today is the four year anniversary of the blackout that had 40 million Americans and 10 million Canadians without power. I was in Cleveland at the time. Here’s my story of Sitting in the Dark.
I wrote that article using the last remaining minutes of my laptop battery. The whole thing freaked me out a bit as you can tell by the writing. To this day I make sure I travel with a flashlight. I hate to recycle material here on my blog, but I enjoyed the flashback.
Tags anniversary, blackout | 1 comment
Posted by Doug
Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:30:24 GMT
Last night was the Perseid meteor shower. As it was also a new moon
an relatively clear skies, it was to be a particularly good year for
viewing. It seemed like a good idea to me to try and work something
out so the family and I could watch the show. For those who don’t
know, I have four kids ages 9, 6, 5, and 9 months. You never know how
an event like this is going to go. Sometimes our best laid plans fall
to ruin and sometimes spontaneous things work out.
I did some checking yesterday afternoon to verify if I really wanted
to attempt this “trip”. Was the weather going to be ok? What was the
cloud cover supposed to be?
Where’s a good location with a dark
sky? I
decided on Cowan Lake State
Park as an out of
the lights but still close by location. There was a cookout at church
last night, so my plan was to leave from church around 8:00pm and
setup a “mini” campsite at the park to watch the stars.
As things go, we didn’t actually leave at 8:00pm. It was more like
8:10pm. Then we had to stop by the grocery store to pick up some last
minute items. Oh, and by this time Amanda, our 9 month old is pretty
frustrated she’s not home in bed. So we didn’t actually start for the
camp ground until around 8:45pm. We got off the Interstate at about
9:05pm. The part office closes at 9:30. It’s actually getting dark
now and we’re driving on back roads of Ohio trying to find the camp
ground. Something goes horribly awry and we end up back at the
Interstate about 10 miles further up than we got off. Luckily there’s
a sign for Caesar’s
Creek so we just
decide to go there.
We don’t get 2 miles down the road until we come across an accident in
the road. Policemen, firemen are everywhere. There’s a boat turned
over off it’s trailer in the middle of the road. No one is going
anywhere. I decide to turn around and head back to the gas stations
at the Interstate. I get some drinks and a bundle of firewood.
Here’s the lucky part: the road to the camp ground at Caesar’s Creek
is different than the road to the boat launch into the lake. So,
we’re able to get to the camp ground in another 10 minutes or so.
It’s now 10:00. The baby’s pretty much been crying non-stop since
8:30. We setup camp; whereby I mean we setup our lawn chairs, spread
out the blankets, and build the fire. We also brought the pack-n-play
as an attempt to let the baby sleep. That was a no go. Carla walks
around the camp ground a bit carrying her trying to get her to sleep.
Meanwhile the fire is doing fairly well, so the rest of the kids an I
roast some marsh mellows. Of course, I’m pretty interested in seeing
the stars; but the kids can only think about the fire and marsh
mellows.
Finally things start to settle down. Carla’s gotten Amanda asleep in
the pack-n-play. We got all the kids, Carla and I laying down on the
blankets. Carla and I are trying to keep the kids fairly quiet. It’s
pretty close to 11:00 and there are folks nearby trying to sleep in
other camp sites. So we arrange the kids in a star pattern with all
our heads together in the middle. That way we can whisper and still
hear each other. It seems idyllic, but of course isn’t. There’s kids
wiggling, bumping heads, complaining about being touched, complaining
about not having enough of the blanket, complaining about pretty much
everything. I’m trying to stay calm and enjoy the moment. I’m trying
to explain why we’re supposed to be seeing so many meteorites. I’m
trying to explain the 5 minutes of astronomy I know. By this time
Carla and I have seen a handful of meteorites between us. Of course,
with the kids carrying on they haven’t seen any. Justin, my 6 year
old, claims to have seen a dozen by now… about three each time Carla
and I see one.
And then it happens. For about two seconds everyone is quiet.
Whoosh! A meteorite flashes across the sky brightly. It’s so bright
it seems to leave a smoking trail in the sky. All five of us see it
with gasps of awe. There’s shouts of “I saw it!” and how cool it was.
As soon as it happened we all calmed down again expectant of another.
And then the wiggling started back up.
I tell you though, that was probably the best five seconds I’ve had
all year. It was a moment of perfect family unity, excitement and
awe. All my planning and hopes had paid off. We laid down under the
stars and saw a meteorite!
We probably could have packed it up right then and headed home, but we
didn’t. We stayed another hour or so. Each of the kids saw a handful
of meteorites. Carla and I saw quite a few. Josh, my 9 year old, was
a little disappointed he wasn’t seeing all the ones Carla and I were.
As the night was wearing on I declared that the next meteorite we saw
would be the last. Thankfully, Josh saw it at the same time as Carla.
By this time it was about 12:15am. Three of the four kids were sound
asleep. We threw all the junk back in the van, loaded the kids up and
went home.
On the whole, the night was a huge success. I hope I never forget the
emotional high of those five seconds.
Posted in Family | 1 comment
