In the STAte SERvice

At the end of the week I will have been working for the State for a week.

It has been miserable, but maybe not for the reason you may think.

Wikiguilt

Does anyone else feel this way?

New place

I have successfully (maybe) relocationized from where I was (the middle of the state) to where I am now (the pinch of the state), a difference of about 4 hours and maybe 20 to 40 % relative humidity. I now live next to a river.

To my minor annoyance, yesterday I was not able to get online despite ordering service in advance. The ISP had to send someone out to check signal strength and then activate the service himself. Upshot of which was I had a night without Internet.

No, I didn’t go insane or do anything stupid. I read a little of a biography of Benjamin Franklin (neat dude) and pondered on my future life. Really, I was a little homesick for the old place, but then again, I had been looking forward to this move for some time. Sort of a “grass is greener” phenomenon I think.

Anyway, I have a PC and an Internet connexion now, so I will be able to blog againe.

I hate current day public building architecture

OK, I’m going to rant on this one, so don’t expect many citations like my last post.

Fear of… what?

I have a… well not a problem, since it doesn’t really cause me any loss, but… let’s say a mental twitch.

Cock swap, and the Fox

After the last attaque of the fox, the one Cock was so intimidated it ceded its position as top Cock to the original Cock and then hid under the nest boxes. I thought I’d try and see if the new-old Cock was better at defending his cycens.

At about 3 or so today, I heard a noise outside, so I went to investigate and discovered that the fox was EATING THE COCK.

I chased it off and the cock went up the road aways, trailing feathers every where.

Looks like I’ll have to keep them all in the Coop for the future. It is raining today.

The cycen across the road

Something (that Fox againe?) has been after my sweet cycens and chased one of the clear across the state road onto a neighbors property. I had to chase it between the properties of two neighbors who don’t like each other and eventually caught it in the road dreignage ditch.

Now the biggest Cock of the Flock is a notorious poltroon it seems and is now hiding from even the hens. I will have to do something I don’t want to do, which is keep them inside a fence like I use to, but they will not be able to eat all the grass and such like in the Yard.

I wish I had a Cock that actually defended his Hens.

New Jersey tax maps

Unlike some states or counties, New Jersey does a darn good job hiding its tax maps. A quick search turns up purveyors wanting MONY.

Here is the official source: http://www.nj.gov/transparency/property/

Go there, and then clique “Map Search” You can then search the map.

I have no idea why it is so scattered like this.

The sadness of weekends when you don’t (want to) know anyone

I live in a rural area. Unfortunately, I don’t share the same mindset as 90+% of the people around here. They are, to quote a public figure who interacts with a broad cross-section of society, not very cosmopolitan.

I will run the risk of being called names and say they are just plain shallow, uneducated and mostly closed-minded. If you know the stereotype about “inner city poor”, it is mostly applicable out here.

The upshot of this is that I really don’t know anyone who I would want to hang out with come the weekend. We have so little in common that it would be hard for either of us to meet in the middle and pretend that we want to be around each other.

To make it worse, this weekend I don’t have any PT work I can do to keep my mind occupied, I just have my chicekns, which I can’t talk to.

I have a book (well, many books) I could read, but the loneliness is weighing on me and oddly keeping my from enjoying being alone.

A new HR annoyance

I have already written about my dislike of HR people who don’t send rejection letters. I’ve got a new one: HR people who don’t respond to late-information queries.

Here’s my scenario: I interviewed about a week ago for a position. At the end of the interview I asked the usual question, “when can I expect to hear back?”. I was told that if I didn’t hear anything by this (past) Friday to call or Email them.

You can guess the rest. I didn’t hear on Friday so I Emailed and asked. Nothing yet.

This particular case is marginal since they’ve only had a little while to read the Email. In other cases I’ve gone weeks after an followup contact with no reply. If things are taking a while longer than they anticipated, a simple reply with an updated time (such as next Friday) would be the right thing to do. If they’ve found someone else, a good rejection letter is appropriate.