blog one another

Facebook status feed

Would you like to share your Facebook status updates outside of Facebook?

By accessing your Facebook status as an RSS feed, you can put add it as a little box on your blog. Your status then acts like a micro-blog, providing miniature snapshots of your activities or state of mind.

And (if your mother isn't on Facebook) you can even set up the feed in Mom's web browser so she can keep up …without having to be overwhelmed by the rest of Facebook!

Merry Christmas!

How it went

Well, it turns out I had just one interview. The recruiter said the hiring committee wanted to make sure I was still up to snuff -- that's the good news. The bad news is I overheard him tell the interviewer, "But that doesn't mean you should go easy on him." I started out OK on the coding problem but started going down a wrong trail. After a while, the interviewer asked me to stop, work on it at home, and email my solution to him -- which is not that great. On the other hand, it was easy to solve at home and I could see my initial attempt wasn't that bad.

So we'll see. I won't hear anything until folks get back to work, sometime after January 5th. For now, I feel I have earned a break from my work (finding a new job) and am kicking back.

Did you notice I said "hiring committee"? At Google, it looks like interviewers submit a form detailing their experiences and observations of the interview. This form goes to a committee which makes the hire/no-hire decision. I've never heard of any other tech company doing this; it's an indication of how Google likes to rethink the way things are done, which I like.

Being unemployed can make for a stressful Christmas. I think it contributed to the lack of enthusiasm in putting up decorations. We didn't even find our personalized stockings -- hopefully they're still up in the attic. We did manage to get the tree up, though, and it should be a really fun time.

So Merry Christmas! As we look back to the First Coming, let us also look forward to the Return of the King.

It's a Very Unfunny Muppet Christmas Movie

We thought It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie might be fun for the last Sunday before Christmas. I mean, it's muppets! How can you lose?

Muppets… with sexual innuendos, talking about topless bars?

Worst of all, nobody was laughing.

After half an hour, the family voted unanimously to stop the movie. We turned instead to higher fare, The Simpsons Movie, where we got to see Bart's penis. And we all laughed.

Prayers please

One thing I had forgotten about unemployment is the emotional whiplash. Hope gets you up, then your hopes are dashed (or wither away). Then new hope appears. It's exhausting.

When I took my last job at Adobe, I turned down an offer from Google. Having lost my job, I turned back to Google, and was surprised to hear that if they have made a job offer to you in the past year, it can simply be reinstated! They can do this because unlike normal companies which hire you for a specific position, Google hires you for your skills and then they figure out where to place you.

Except it's been more than a year for me -- closer to two -- so the recruiter couldn't just wave me in. Instead, they asked me to interview with just two people. This is significantly less then the usual phone interview plus six people! The recruiter said he'd try to line it up for this past week, but like many tech companies around here, Google is about to shut down for the holidays, which means that people start leaving early to take extra time off. I went a week without hearing anything, which was depressing. Finally I resigned to the fact that nothing was going to happen until January, so I may as well try to relax and enjoy the time off. This was last night.

This morning, I found that they did manage to scare up two people to interview me -- this Monday! Whiplash! By Christmas, I should be elated or defeated. The nervous excitement, the mix of hope and fear, makes my eyes tear up unexpectedly. I am hopeful that with just two people, I'll be a shoo-in. And I am fearful that with just two people, if I mess up with even one of them, it'll kill it.

So if you pray (and even if you usually don't), I would really appreciate your prayers for me at this time. I want God to open or shut this door, and for me to be at peace if… aah, what a crock! I just want this job!

Lamb of God

I had quite forgotten about this old recording, which is a quick once-through of the verse and chorus of the first song I wrote for corporate worship. The song itself is my interpretation of the Agnus Dei, written in 1999. We used it often and it became well-worn, so I made this sparse recording in 2006 to help the band give it a new drive.

Maybe I'll do a proper recording of the whole song someday, but I thought I'd put up what I have: Lamb of God

Update: I posted the guitar chart as well as the audio recording

Oh no, not again

Five years ago, I was laid off from Adobe.

Today, it happened again.