Beating My . . .

blankets, people. Blankets! (Ha. Ha. Ha. Get your minds out of the gutter.)

I woke up this morning around 7:40AM to sun pouring into my apartment. This is the second of three days of unusually warm, and unusually gorgeous, weather in Madison. So, with a clothes drying line less than 10 feet form my back door I took the two wool blankets off my cot and hung them up outside in the sun to air out. It’s pretty windy today so I am letting them stay out there a while. I don’t have an official/authentic fabric beater like you would find in an 18th- or 19th-century home but the side of my broom seems to work just fine. I might just leave the blankets outside all day. They are made of thick, tightly woven wool so the chance to air out them is nice to have before they go back on the cot for the rest of the Fall/Winter season.

 

Below are some pics in case you don’t believe me.

View From My Back Door

Blowing in the Wind

Blankets Getting Mooned

Sleep: It Does A Body Good

Man do I feel better today. When I got home yesterday after my drive back from Syracuse I felt like crap. I was super-cranky at the kitty—She would not stop mewling—ornery about having to un-load my car, and sore from sitting down for so long. (Even with stopping every 3-4 hours my hips just ached by the time I got home. I plan to go for a short run today to loosen up myself and then go for a long run tomorrow.)

I had some family and friends try to chat with me online and I finally had to log off just so I could finish checking e-mail and then take a nap. A four-hour nap helped but I still had to un-load my car. The kitty continued to meow at me every 2-3 minutes and followed me out to the car and back in again every time I brought in another load of stuff. (I know she has abandonment issues and is very insecure about my absence but you would think after having slept with me during my nap she would feel better.)

I got most of the back seat cleared out but have the rear storage area chock full o’ stuff. One thing I did last night was bring in and assemble the pieces of my shoe rack. I could finally get all my shoes up off the kitchen floor and do a decent job of sweeping. I’ve been trying to keep my apartment shoe-free—and for the most part have succeeded—but now I plan to make it official: When you come in my place, shoes come off. It’s a home not an office and as such you should walk around in socks. (Having a shoe-free apartment should also help keep things cleaner. But as I have wood floors I don’t have to worry as much about tracking dirt in the house as I would if I had carpeting.)

Finally, around 11:00PM the kitty would not stop meowing at me and, after shooing her off the table for the millionth time, I grabbed her, tossed her on the floor (with some force I am sad to say) and she left me alone. I felt terrible almost immediately and went to check on her. She was hiding among my belongings in the bedroom. When she saw me she hopped up on my cot and started meowing again. This time I decided to lay down with her in hopes it would stop the mewling. It did and I fell asleep.

I woke up in the night once, to pee and put an extra blanket on the cot, and kitty was right there with me still. As she never sleeps with me all night I guess she is still feeling tramautised about the move and my absence this past weekend. I woke up this morning to bright sunshine forcing its way through the seams of my closed blinds. I got a good 9 hours of sleep and woke up dreaming about the TV show Lost. This is strange because a) I don’t have a TV b) I have seen parts of Lost episodes only 2 or 3 times and c) I can’t remember doing or talking about anything related to the Lost series.

Whatever it was, I woke up feeling refreshed, rested, and with a much-less-meowy kitty. I had breakfast, looked at the headlines, checked out Facebook, and am looking forward to un-loading the rest of my car. There is nothing like a good night’s sleep to do wonders for you.

 

PS: Khrystin’s color guard performance in the state championships was really good. However, they came in 3rd place (out of six teams) in their school class. This year’s squad is young, with mostly freshmen and sophomores so they don’t have quite the skill of last year’s squad which actually came in first place (and that was comprised of almost all seniors).

What A Pretty Dog

Was out for my walk and saw this beautiful Weimaraner out for a run with her parent. This is the second time I have seen this dog while out on a walk. Pretty is probably too conservative a description, though. This dog was striking looking with erect head, solid, muscular body, and the most beautiful silver/gray coat. She just strode along-side her parent with grace and ceaseless effort. The woman was running with the dog or else I would have stopped and talked to her just to pet her dog. (Can you tell I want a dog?)

The funny thing is if this woman had stopped to talk to me she would have thought I was interested in her—She is very attractive—but right now I would rather have a new dog in my life than a new girlfriend. Maybe when I start working again I’ll try to find me a girlfriend, maybe one with a dog. But for the time being, I’d rather have just a dog.

 

The thing is when I was checking out my apartment my landlord said I could have one cat (i.e.: no dog) with the emphasis on one. As it turns out, the couple who had the apartment before me had three cats and two of my neighbors in my building have a dog. Maybe after I have been here a few months I will ask my landlord about getting a dog. It would have to be something small—I have a one-bedroom apartment—and older but I am sure I could find something at the pound. We’ll see.

Rejection Sucks

I’m not talking about dating. (It’s been so long since I was actively dating I can’t remember what that kind of rejection feels like.) No, I’m talking about rejection in the job market. Today, I called the local upscale grocery store where I had submitted an application last week and was told the usual spiel “Reviewing applications; Will call when there is an opening and if you fit our needs”. Blah, blah-blah, blah . . . blah-blah-blah.
I mean, my resume doesn’t scream manual labor but I’ve got a strong back and a good work ethic. Besides, if anyone knows anything about the computer support field, they would know you spend most of your time picking up and moving around computers and printers. Granted computers, and especially monitors, have gotten lighter over the years—I can remember back in the day when a high-end 24″ graphics CRT monitor would require two people to lift and move it—but laser printers and networkable fax machines are still heavy. I’ve got the strength and stamina to do manual labor (and the willingness). All I need is someone to offer me a job. Sigh!

 

I have to check again but I think I am up to 80 83 applications submitted so far this year (actually since mid December 2008 when I finished my masters thesis). Once I get my internet access squared away (tomorrow, I hope) I will have an easier time of searching online for jobs.

I have been in contact with a reference through a friend-of-a-friend situation about doing IT work in the education field but I am awaiting a callback from this woman. I am not looking to her for a job but rather to gain some insight on how best to enter the educational IT support field here in Madison.

I am at the laundromat now—Someone in this strip mall has an open WiFi network—but I will be going to the library this afternoon to a) get legitimate internet access and b) do some searching through the library’s employment-finding materials. (The latter might require a trip to the central library downtown.)

I think the only thing in my favor right now is the fact that the holiday season is approaching and there will be some—not a lot, but some—extra hiring during this time. If I am lucky, I should be able to put together several part-time positions during the holidays to get at least some money coming in. We’ll see how that goes.

The Madison Report: Madison in Seven Parts

As a follow-up to my post about getting around Madison by bicycle and on foot, I thought I should provide a brief overview of the city of Madison.

The city of Madison is divided into about 70 neighborhoods spread across seven regions. The regions are based around the Wisconsin sate capitol building in the center of the Downtown region which is dominated by cultural, governmental, and commercial entities. The other regions are listed below with their defining features.

Downtown: Seat of government for the state of Wisconsin, county of Dane, and city of Madison. Lots of cultural offerings in this area combined with the main commercial corridor for students, namely the State street pedestrian mall.

Near East: placeholder text.

Far East: Suburb-like residential area with some dodgy neighborhoods but mostly nicer, upscale neighborhoods. Home to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens.

Near West: Suburb-like residential area with some dodgy neighborhoods but mostly middle-class neighborhoods with a few upscale neighborhoods near the Arboretum and around the western edge of the university. Home to most of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, the UW-M Arboretum, several big golf courses, and several big cemeteries.

Far West: placeholder text.

South: placeholder text.

North: I know nothing about this area.

To find out everything you could possibly want to know about Madison from a geographic-based, socio-political perspective, check out the Madison Neighborhood Indicators Project here. For reference purposes I live in the Nakoma planning district but the Summit Woods neighborhood association.

To be continued.