And the Beat Goes On!

No history, I'm still burned out!

I hear from my job opportunity today. It was not good, nor bad. The interviewee said that they hired a long-term planner, yet they were having another position open up. However, they were not going to make any decisions until after the State Planning Conference. They wanted to have a larger candidate pool. Apparently, it wasn't what they were expecting. And that means what for me........Well, I still expressed my interest and he said that I'd hear back from him in about a month.

I guess I was relieved that it was not another rejection, but I was still somewhat depressed this evening. I mean, really, what a kinda smack in the face is that to me. I JUST WANT A JOB! Oh well life goes on........but it just really sucks right now. I guess these are the times that the good Lord is trying me with. I will persevere.

I later brought my self out of those thoughts to realize there's MANY more things that need to be done, both job and non-job related. I need to take care of things, like walking, and just flat out getting more active. I did contact some contacts about looking into consulting positions. One thing's for sure is that the frustration is coming back. I need to find something to let it out!

I just realized tonight that one of my cats, Tiger, has put my desk on his daily routine of napping locations- making me realize how much I've worked on the computer and/or office the past month. I also recognized that I tend to call it a night soon after he moves from my desk to my futon due to the heat from the soft lighted glow of my antique looking desk lamp.

Although, it makes me feel good. He and Molly used to both sleep with me on my bed before I got married. Tiger hasn't since then like he used to. So it makes me feel like he still wants to spend time around me.

Laters,

All Quiet on the Western Front

I'm burned out on doing history.

No word heard yesterday on my job opportunity like the interviewee said. I hate when they don't follow their own words, but it may land me a job. I'm actually not worried as much as I usually get, which means that I'm either getting used to waiting or I have some sort of feeling that I have a job. I REALLY don't want to jinx this.

Kinda a so so day. Some stuff to do, but just hang'in around here with my wife. Although, she just came in bouncing off the walls wanting to go somewhere or do something. I'm not really in the mood, I should (cabin fever?) I just don't want to go somewhere today. So I'll send her off to go explore the town. Maybe I can get some suprise cleaning done for her.

Laters,

The Calm Before The Storm

That has more than one meaning........now our history lesson for today.

490 B.C. - The Battle of Marathon happens, the basis of the story behind marathon running.
1806 - Lewis and Clark return from the Pacific Northwest.
1846 - Neptune was discovered and verified.
1962 - The Jetson's aired for the first time on television.
2002 - The Mozilla browser, Firefox, was born.

Mickey Rooney (1920), Ray Charles (1930), Julio Iglesias (1943), Bruce Springsteen (1949), and Jason Alexander (1959) have B-days today.

Whoo HOOO! Arnold Schwarzenegger signs a bill to allow hybrid cars in HOV lanes. Finally, some smart ideas in which to make hybrid cars more "feasible" in areas with high vehicle impact areas.

First off, the two meanings.
1) We should get some rain soon. Hopefully!! The remains of Tropical Storm, then Hurricane, then Tropical Storm, then disturbance and now AGAIN Tropical Storm Ivan. That way I won't have to water my lawn as much to keep the grass somewhat happy. I've also been looking forward to some rain as well. I'm actually not one of those people that has to have a full and bright sunny day everyday. Granted I do enjoy the warm, breezy, sunny, not too hot not too cold days that makes me wish I was outside and/or makes me open the windows in my house. I also enjoy the dark, gloomy, rainy days that allows a person to take a restful nap, enjoy some time just watching it rain out the window, or just simply listen to the rain pound againt the roof or car as I drive around in it. Those are nice days as well.

2) Hopefully I'll hear from my job opportunity tomorrow. It's come down to that. We will see how it goes........ I also have yet to hear from two other positions I've applied for, I definately things are going slow, I still know that I have to work on my patience. Although, I think my continency now is that I'll start talking to my connections to begin looking at some consultants. I'm still weiry though. I don't want to sign my life or my family away for the next several years.

I guess when it comes down to that. All evidence to the contrary from my past working experience is that I'd just like an 8 to 5 job for a while. Now, I know it will have some late evenings and things like that, but I guess it's has to do with having a stable or "predictable" hours with an "unpredictable" day. I guess that's always been from my "dream day". Here's a quick insight into my dream day. Get to work at 8, see the news and papers or things that need immediate attention, meetings and work in the office in the morning, working/non-working lunches, and meetings and field stuff in the afternoon with an hour back at the office before I leave somewhere between 5 and 6. A mix between in and out of the office as well as multiple tasking.

I'll let ya'll know how it goes soon........as a friend likes to say "Make it a great one!"

Laters,

Fitting It In Between Chores

This history goes out to my Dad on his birthday........Happy Birthday Dad!

1692 - The last hangings in the United States for the charge of witchcraft.
1789 - The position of United States Postmaster General was created.
1893 - The first American automobile was displayed.
1949 - Russia detonated its first nuclear weapon.
1985 - The Farm Aid concert happened in Champaign, Illinois.

Michael Faraday (1791), Erich von Stroheim (1885), Tommy Lasorda (1927), My Dad (194? he-he-he) Shari Belafonte (1954), Debbie Boone (1956), Andrea Bocelli (1958), Scott Baio (1961), Bonnie Hunt (1964) all have birthdays today!!!

Today is the Autumnal Equinox - FALL IS HERE!!!

I thought I would fit in a small entry before I talk to my parents. I'm assuming they went to a nice dinner and my wife's parents called just a few minutes ago, so better now than later.

I did find an interesting yet scary article about a current Supreme Court case that talks about what are the limites of emminent domain for cities. Right now some cities have few limits on exercising emminent domain towards any landowner. I hope the Supreme Court hears the case and there are limits placed that protect landowners in some form. Planning wise it helps, but is it ethical since land will almost always appreciate over time? Read it, and think about the implications!!

Laters,

Tense Timing?

Todays history lesson........
1519 - Ferdinand Magellan begins his aournd-the-world voyage.
1946 - Beginning of the first Cannes Film Festival.
1979 - Lee Iacocca is elected president of Chrysler.
1998 - Cal Ripken Jr. takes his first day off in baseball after 2,632 consecutive baseball games.

Dr. Joyce Brothers (1928), Sophia Loren (1934), Gary Cole (1956) have birthdays today.

As I mentioned last Thursday, I felt real lazy. On the other hand, I just think I've been slacking on stuff here since I heard back from this particular job opportunity. I think I'm just really, really uptight about this job opportunity along with hearing back from some that I turned in a while back. We will see........

I did have a secondary interview over the phone on Friday. It lasted less than 30 minutes. The only thing is, is when someone asks about something off topic but knowledge of the area or subject helps type of thing. Well, I got asked something like that. When do you know if it counts or not? I guess the answer is you don't really know. So I did what I always do, I told the truth that I really did not know, but could find out! In actuality it's really up to the person asking.

Anyways, I figured out this weekend that I needed to kind of redouble my efforts. So I finished trimming the hedges, worked on several of the rooms in the house. Really cleaning and vaccuming the baseboards and such.

Getting Back to Basics!

While doing all of this stuff, of which I am still working on, I realized I needed to find another subject in which to pour some more of my resources, as I did earlier this summer to keep my sanity. So, I'm actually going to see if I can find some more stuff on something else. I have a few ideas and am already working on something. Not real big, just basic stuff that will help my wife and I........I don't know, but as G.I. Joe said, "Knowing is half the battle."

Just to catch up. I haven't caught back up on my readings yet, but I'm slowly working on it. But I have been able to get my body back into a somewhat 'normal' sleeping pattern. Yeah. Although the cats hate it.

Laters,

Getting to the Meat of It!

Ok, I must be getting lazy. Today's history is here and here.

Tomorrow is my secondary interview with another job opportunity. I guess it's still quite far away until I start getting in 'preparation mode' sometime tomorrow morning.

For those I'm helping with the computers. UPDATE your anti-virus and anti-spamware. There's a bunch of new stuff out.

Now, I've been kinda racking my brain at some influential planners from 1978 to now. Off the top of my head are Andreas Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zybeck (New Urbanism Fame), but I really could not name many more. I guess that just shows my inexperience at reading the materials and knowings of things in urban plannning. I could name some others, but they're mostly off of my textbooks I read during my learning career. I do think the team above would work; unfortunately, I don't necessarily agree with their work either, but hey some of the people already listed on that top 25 list had some pretty outlandish ideas. In actuality my mind mainly leans toward architects. Yes, architect whom help shape individual lots within a city, but the architects I have actually read about and have opinions on, have large thoughts of larger cities and directionality. Here's some people on my list: Michael Graves, Lake Flato, Frank O.Gehry, and Robert A.M. Stern. My favorites being Graves, Flato, and Stern. It might also be because some do master planning as well. Urban planning and master planning, similar, just scale differences with complicability mixed in with the differential of scale.

Enough of planning now. Stuff like that at time seems moot since the discussions really have no end. As a professor put to my Urban Planning Class: What is the Planners role in city and society? Are we to be servants of the public? Should we do what they want us to do or should we tell them what they need? Mostly what I could figure in the plethora of hours discussed is that it is a little of a little bit of everything. In other words, planning is an art and a science, much like the rest of the world's jobs. Discuss that amongst yourselves!

Gotta go.
Laters,

Springing Back

Today's History........bet you missed it!
1814 - Francis Scott Key writes the Star Spankled Banner
1948 - Ground is broken on the United Nations H.Q. in New York.
1959 - Luna 2 crashes into the Moon and becomes the first human spacecraft to reach it.

Walter Koenig (1936), and Sam Neill (1947) have birthdays!

WOW! It sure has been a while.
Alot has happened, but I don't think I can explain it all.

Well, I had a job interview. I didn't feel all out confident in it. The style was different and I showed them some of my work, but I must admit I was impressed. I was impressed with the city (where they were in the planning transition, being a suburb of Dallas, I can explain it later!) ,the people in the planning department, and their approach to planning along with the direction of the leadership. Well, I must have done something good. I got a call for a request to a secondary telephone interview later this week. Sooo, we'll see. I'm praying.

Being in Dallas I got to do alot of things I needed to do. I took my car in for some warranty issues, but found out my car was not on the list. Regardless they found some other stuff we figured they might check after we noticed things the night before on our way to dinner. Anyways, I actually found a birthday gift for my wife coming back from my interview. I'd like to tell ya'll what it is, but she may read this. Incidentally, today I was able to do some errands catching up on some stuff and on the way to one of my favorite gallery, I found a place where I got her Christmas present. This is very unusual I though WAY FAR ahead.

So when I got back we decided to go see her parents near Houston for the weekend. I did some painting at their place since we're getting ready to move them from California to Texas. It was really nice. I got to paint some and rest some. I wished I could have painted more, but I last week had just taken sooo much out of me. Basically on the run from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. for several days in a row. Well, basically enough that I needed to take a nap. It's been a while since I took naps earlier this summer.

All in all the past few weeks have been nice. I got to spend more time with family I had not expected to. This was nice. I got some small stuff done and off my plate.

Planning related........
There's an interesting list of the 25 most influential people to affect planning before 1978.
The thing that really gets me....most of these people are DEAD. I'm interested on how current things are? I have a few ideas, but I'll have to leave that for tomorrow. You know, to keep ya hanging on!!! Unfortunately, I'm just mostly exhausted. I'll see ya'll.

Laters,

Busy Busy Busy

This will be a short entry. I'm currently not a home as I have an interview for another job opportunity. This week has been a really busy one so far. Already looking towards the weekend, more or less towards next week since we will probably go visit my wife's parents near Houston. I'll probably post early next week and fill in some things.

Laters,