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So I read that last night’s baseball game between San Diego and Colorado went on for 22 innnings – that’s 22x more boring than baseball usually is. Wow, I’m having trouble staying awake just typing about it.

A little tax refund has led to kicking off some household projects this last weekend:

• A new bbq – knew it was finally time for a new one after the boxer puppy ran off with the cable that goes between the battery and the spark. No, we did not spend $2000 on it.
• ceiling fan for the living room – started to install it but there doesn’t appear to be a ceiling joist we can use to mount it to, will call in the semi-pros (if they’re not too busy grilling on their $2k grill)
• outdoor speakers – bought some cheapos for mounting to the pergola but the wood is so hard I could not get the screws in far enough. Will have to get some molly anchors and screw to the house instead. Oh, and we need a semi-pro to bring a masonry drill (if he’s not too busy installing our fan)
• roofing for the pergola – hope to extend the time we are able to stay outdoors by putting some stuff on the beams, provide some shade for us and the animals in the summer. Haven’t purchased it yet though.
• floor tiles for the living room – job for the real pros, later.

Since buying the Flip I’ve posted some puppet videos, some MINI videos, and a flying video but from now on they will only appear on the appropriate site, and there maybe some videos that I put only on Viddler. So if you want to keep up with my mad directorial skillz you should either:

1. Sign up for your own account at Viddler.com, add me (ukpylot) as a friend and set your preferences such that you are emailed when I upload something new
2. Or, if you want to keep under the radar, you could add my video feed to your favourite RSS reader: my video feed

Now, I can’t say there’s going to be anything great but wouldn’t you kick yourself if there was, and you missed it??

Courtesy of my brother-in-law at his place last evening:

• Have someone else do all the cooking, leaving you to quaff Red Stripe
• Use some tasty home-made rubs
• Eat steaks made from the Grand Reserve champion steer at the recent Fair
• Cook steaks on a $2000 Traeger Grill over apple wood pellets

Hard to go wrong with that recipe.

I just posted a new video on my Viddler page, this time some clips of a flight I took last night from San Diego to Imperial and Brawley airports. There’s more of a narrative at the post there, but since I know many of you don’t read it I thought I’d also post the video here in case you wanted to see it.

The mount that I bought for this flight was too big for the dashboard so I had to hold the Flip in my hand, so there are no takeoffs or landings – need two hands for that! It’s a bit shakey, and the propeller looks really spooky in the shots, but it’s a new video so what the heck! I’ll try for a better solution next time.

Another year, and here we go again. Green everywhere, people proud of their 0.0001% Irish blood (and that’s just the Guinness they plan to drink this evening), suddenly everyone wishes they knew Gaelic. Argh, enough already. Most people claiming Irish blood probably have an equal amount of (insert other European country here), why is no one going crazy for BoyWithFingerIntheDyke day? Dutch beer is sooo much better than Irish, anyway – a double victory!

So I’m telling you again people, stop it.

At the end of our interview we ask our candidates to do a simple software design on the white board; yesterday’s candidate was so confused by the idea that she never even took hold of the pen, let alone stand up out of her chair. This is like interviewing potential home designers and saying could you sketch where the furniture would go in the new TV room. You’d expect them to draw a square and put some marks or words like ‘sofa’ or ‘table’. Maybe they would ask you questions – what furniture? Do you have a preference? You would not expect them to just stare at you and say they nothing.

I phone screened all three applicants this week and something I had been concerned about in advance was language difficulties – all the candidates were Indian. All three had spoken clearly and succinctly on the phone so it was a shock to meet them in person and find that we could all barely communicate. And it wasn’t just me, my co-interviewers (both Americans) could not understand them (or they understand us) either. So we’ve come up with a conspiracy theory. The phone screens aren’t the candidates at all, we speak to some well-spoken and knowledgeable person who gets through that hurdle, but then the real person shows up and it’s a totally different experience.

Anyway three interviews this week, all pretty much the same. Three more next week but they are from a different agency so I have hope of a higher quality.

Gormless: stupid, brain-dead, like a total moron etc.
Here comes Nerius with that gormless look on his face.

(Yes, we really have a guy here called Nerius).

I’ve been involved in interviewing contractors at work, we’ve been looking for a bunch of Java web application developers and I’ve probably been involved in 7 interviews so far. Part of the interview is to do some on the feet thinking, to design a small component. I don’t care about the end result so much as the thought process. With the exception of two people, all the candidates were rubbish. Everything else would go great but come to do any real thinking and it’s a disaster.

The resumes had me jealous of the experience and cool projects, but I have to wonder what these people are actually doing. Is the candidate pool in the tech world really so poor? It does give me hope that I can find something else when the time comes – if I can get my less-exciting resume through the phone screens….

One more onsite interview tomorrow, and if she is no good then its back to phone screens. Ugh.

Introducing Honey Bear, starring Oki the Okapi and, of course, a guest appearance by Sharkie the Shark.

Calling Garp – are you ready for your closeup??