Floods, famine, and hope.

I went on a job interview yesterday. The opportunity came out of the blue, via a Facebook IM conversation. About 10 days ago, a friend that is the public relations manager at a local legal professional organization mentioned to me that that her assistant had just quit, and she was now scrambling to find a replacement. She is familiar with my situation, in part because she is involved in the local theatre scene here in Rochester, and helps with PR for another theatre company in town. In the course of the conversation, I asked if she wouldn't mind looking at my resume, and consider it as part of her search process.

She was concerned that the job would be a bit boring for me, as there was not a ton of writing, and that the salary was not in line with what I might expect. She felt that I was far more advanced in terms of experience than what the position called for. I pointed out that I have been looking for a way to break into the PR world full-time, and that this type of entry level position could be just what I needed. She said to send her the resume, and I did, not knowing what would come out of it.

Well, on Wed. I got an e-mail from her, asking if I could come in for an interview on Friday. Of course I said yes, and started to prep for it, visiting the website of the organization and learning all I could about it. This has been the best opportunity to come along in quite some time. Being a realist, I know there are never any guarantees, but I wanted to make the best showing I could.

Of course, things are never smooth, and Thursday night, just before Mrs. Nighttime and I were to head to our theatre for rehearsal (we're both in a play there, opening a week from today), we come back home to find that the water heater has blown. Half the basement was flooded, so we cut the water off and started manning the bilge pumps. (Translation - We broke out the mops and the shop vac, and poured the excess down the sump.) Mrs. Nighttime got on the horn to someone she kn0ws, an HVAC technician that services her building. He was able to get us a new water heater, and now 24 hours later we have hot water again.

When this happened though, it jarred me some. I got really snippy, and I knew it was that "Oh, no. I don't need this shit, not now." feeling. The other thing that concerned me was, how was I going to take a shower Friday morning? All I can say it's a good thing we're on good terms with our neighbors, at least the ones we know pretty well. The ones' down the block, whose home caught fire last year, came to our rescue and let me use their shower in the morning.

Making extra copies of my resume, I went downtown for the interview, and while heading there, I realized how I needed to get over the nervousness that was running rampant inside of me. It's amazing; I can go up on stage in front of 200 people, and be far less nervous than sitting across the conference room table from one person. I took a idea from an acting exercise called an "as if," and simply put it in my mind that I was not really at an interview at all. I was simply sitting down and having a talk with a friend.

It worked like a charm. The interview went very well, at least in my opinion, and I think I was able to convey what I wanted to achieve by working in this position. I stressed the idea that, even though the pay is lower than I would like, the possibility of acquiring new and needed skills (especially working with graphics programs, something I don't really do, since we farm out all our graphics work at my theatre), combined with the opportunity to finally work full-time in the PR world was worth not being concerned about the lower pay scale. I also stressed that this was something that I thought long and hard about, and it was not a "I need a job at any cost!" type of situation. I should know something hopefully by the middle of next month. As you can imagine, they were inundated with resumes, especially in this job market.

So, cross your fingers, toes, and whatever else you feel might be appropriate in this situation. The famine that has been my job search, I am hoping, has come to an end. If this comes through, you will probably hear my screams of joy across the country and beyond.

Implements of mass construction.

When Mrs. N. and I moved into this house in 2002, one of the things that attracted us to it was that the backyard had "privacy fencing." It came in the form of a stockade-style fence, with swinging doors on either side of the house. It is a far better option than chain link fencing, which I personally don't like.

The previous owners had the job done cheaply, and within the first two years of moving in, several of the posts began heaving upwards. It appeared that the concrete slabs that anchor the posts were not dug deep enough, and with the combination of rain, wind, and general erosion, parts of the fence began to give way as a result. We would prop them up with temporary fixes, but it became obvious last year that something needed to be done to four of the most seriously damaged ones.

Last year, when Mrs. N's. parents made their yearly trek up north for 6 weeks in the summer, she got her dad to show her how to reset one post, and armed with this new found knowledge, we set forth this past weekend to start our version of the Saturday and Sunday afternoon post.

First, the right tools for the right job were needed: (this is only a partial accounting of them)
...and of course, the proper constituents for said re-posting efforts:
and at the end of a long frickin' day, you end up with these: (left and right posts, respectively)
The cardboard tube acts as a form for which the concrete will set into, and then we cut it away and back fill the hole.

While all turned out well, it did require double the usual amounts of Tylenol and other pain killers for my shoulders and back. Things just don't heal like they used to. One more post to go, and if there are any more that need fixing, I'm breaking down and calling a contractor.

This is why I'm happy that I never made the decision to be a day laborer. I was happier (and better at) trying to repair people than fences. Oh, and for the record, we did not uncover Jimmy Hoffa in the process.

The view from up here.

While it was supposed to be warmer than it turned out to be on Sunday, it was just warm enough to start some preliminary clean-up from the ravages of winter out in the back and front of the house. Cleaning out leftover leaves that seem to gather in a certain corner where the garage juts out from the rest of the house, composting them, and some general other clean-up duties. There is one task however, that I decided needed to be done sooner rather than later.

One of the advantages of having my house situated where it is, is that since we are on the highest point in the county, flooding is not something we worry about. We let the folks way down the hill from us take that upon their heads. This means that as a result of our choice of location, we were not required to purchase flood insurance, which is something mandatory for many folks here, especially those that have homes near the Genesee River, which is only a few miles away.

Location, location, location, is the business mantra. We made a good choice for us when we moved in almost seven years ago, save for one tiny issue:

Wind.

I don't mean gentle breezes. I mean big, brutal, "We're not in Kansas anymore Toto." winds. This area of NY State is, on the whole, rather flat. Yes, the hills become more prominent the further south you go, but we are definitely not in a mountainous region of the state. Hence, there aren't a lot of trees on my property to act as wind breaks. I actually only have three in the front yard, and they aren't really even big enough to stop much of anything. So, when the cold winter, or warm summer winds from storms come barreling through, they can cause damage.

Specifically, they can cause damage to my roof.

One of the early skills I needed to learn as a home owner was taught to me by my father-in-law, who had the audacity to actually build his own home in Buffalo in the mid-60's.

Show-off.

But I digress. Since he had these particular skills, he was able to pass on the knowledge of how to replace roofing shingles. Now, I grew up in apartments my whole life, where when something went wrong, you called up the "super," and waited for the offending issue to be taken care of while you went about your daily business. Ah, not so as a homeowner, as I quickly found out that I was the super. For me, the only reason for going up on the roof back-in-the-day, was to take a girl up to admire the view from the top of my 33-story building where I grew up, before admiring the view she had to offer.

Let's get back to the wind. On the occasions when the winds can whip through here at upwards of 50-60 mph, it means that come spring, I make my annual trip up to my roof, (sans girl) to see what hath been wrought upon me by mother nature. Also fortunate for us, we have a low-pitched roof, which makes navigating up there far easier.

Last Sunday I completed that task, and much to my surprise, only one shingle had to be replaced.
Yep, that dark patch in the center was the site of the missing shingle, which, incidentally, I found in my backyard during a lull in the snowfall. The roof was in surprisingly good shape, and we had some truly wicked winds come through this winter. I spent a total of about 15 minutes, inspecting the roof and replacing the shingle.

While up there, I always like to take the time to look around from the top. It's a nice little view. We live near the airport, so I can always watch the planes taking off and landing, as we are in the landing pattern on certain occasions.

Yeah, it's not the most glorious of views, but it beats staring into neighbors windows, hundreds of them in the housing complex where I grew up. In general, I didn't give a crap what was happening in their apartments...unless of course, there was a girl in the window.

But I'm not going to go there.