So what about the Job Search?

I haven't made any updates on here about the job search, so here is the latest:

Nothing..

I feel like I am making zero progress on finding work, and it is getting discouraging. I have responded to a couple of interesting opportunities, to hear absolutely nothing back. I have called some recruiters, people I have worked with in the past, and have not gotten return phone calls. I haven't, and I don't intend to, blast out my resume to job sites, because I am not desperate, nor do I want my resume floating around.

I am trolling the job boards, but that is more amusing then anything else. Plenty of jobs out there, but few at my desired level, and the 2 or 3 I have responded to via either the job board or company website have yielded absolutely not one single call back, for jobs I KNOW I am qualified for.

I have been reaching out to the network, and folks have definitely been responding, which is great, I love to hear from you all, so that is positive. No real leads have emerged from that, but I wasn't expecting many from the network. Just staying in touch with folks is what I am aiming for there.

So what is next? Hound recruiters until they call back? The jobs I am looking for are most likely in their hands. So I am somewhat dependent on working with them. Not sure how to get them interested, guess I have to brush up on my marketing.

If anyone has any ideas, or better yet a job lead, let me know via a comment or email.

Certainly not desperate from a financial situation, but I have been home way to long now. It is definitely time for me to get back into the workforce and do something meaningful.

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Nobel Peace Prize?

Nobel Peace Prize?

Really???

Sure, President Obama has changed the tone of our foreign policy, but seriously, does the Peace Prize committee REALLY believe that Obama has accomplished what people like Lech Walesa, Desmond Tutu, Mother Theresa, Aung San Suu Kyi, Elie Wiesel, Albert Schweitzer, George Marshall and Linus Pauling have? See the list at this link. Maybe I am missing something, but I don't see the accomplishments that compare him to any of those people.

Not that Obama isn't trying, and he still has 3 years at least to accomplish some of his lofty and possibly peace prize deserving initiatives. But this is way too early to reward him with this prestigious award, one that has carried so much meaning over the years.

Why does politics have to enter into everything? That's all this can be, politics. Obviously, to me, this is meant to send a message to Obama and the world, to influence our foreign policy. The "Norwegian Nobel Committee" (5 people elected by the Norwegian Parliament) obviously agrees with where Obama is headed, and is trying to encourage him, and put their stamp of approval on his direction. But so what? It still doesn't mean his direction will lead anywhere. It might.. or it might not. That's the point. When he accomplishes something, THEN award him the Nobel.

This can also be construed as the third shot across the bow of George Bush's presidency. In 2002, the Nobel committee awarded ex-President Jimmy Carter the Nobel "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development". Then in 2007, they awarded the Nobel to Al Gore and a UN Agency "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change". Not quite sure how that is related to the Peace Prize, but ok he definitely raised awarness around the globe on climate change, so let's give his the benefit of the doubt. At least they both accomplished their goals, and were awrded the prize after a consensus developed on their impact.

Obama may yet deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. But the committee should have waited until he did. Plenty of other deserving people out there who make a difference every day.

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One of my (many) hobbies.. sports card collecting

You may have noticed a new widget on the title bars on the side for First Place Sportscard's eBay store..

I have collected sportscards since I was little. My parents collected them for me when I was young, then I did myself as I grew older. The passion has ebbed and flowed, but it is a hobby that has carried through my whole life. It has expanded to collecting memorabilia, and I have some very nice pieces that I have up on the walls of my home office, as well as other places in the house (Thanks to my tolerant wife)

I have even owned a sportscards store for a couple of years, and that was some of the most fun I had. People would bring in their cards just to talk about them, and the stories that would accompany the cards were colorful and amazingly interesting. Owning a card store is difficult even under the best of circumstances, and eventually the fun was gone when the shop wasn't even breaking even. So we ended up having to close up shop, but I still long for the days when I was involved with cards.

So on this downtime, I have revived the business, albeit a lot smaller. I have opened an eBay store, and am currently selling cards, both from when I had the store and newer material that I am obtaining for the specific purpose of selling. I still have all my contacts in the industry, so getting material is easy, if not cheap.

I don't expect to make a pile of money doing this, but it is a great way to re-engage in my hobby, and have something to fill in the downtime.

Since I don't want to clutter up this blog, I am going to start a new one, at blog.fpsportscards.com. That should be up in a day or two..

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Great new iPhone App.. Cultureous- Washington DC

One of my former employees from Discovery reached out the other day, letting me know that he is no longer at Discovery, he and his family have moved to Paris, France. His wife is part of their Foreign Ministry, and her new posting was back in the City of Lights. That's a loss for Discovery in my opinion, he was working on some interesting projects, and he is a very talented programmer with other skills such as project management.

In the email, he also introduced me to a program he wrote for the iPhone called Cultureous: Washington DC. This great application is for anyone who is traveling to DC, or who is living there and just wants to know more about the city. It is not just a list of interesting things to see in DC, of which there are many, but goes way deeper and gives you insights and multimedia content that really expand your knowledge of the particular monument, museum, attraction, etc. The application has a clean and easy to navigate interface, and uses geolocation to point out locations that are close to you that you may want to visit. Well worth the $2.99 asking price.

Great job Peter, can't wait to see what you turn out next!

Here is the link to the application in iTunes Cultureous - Washington DC

BTW due to Apple's ridiculous application approval process, they gave Cultureous a "Mature" rating, since it references links from Wikipedia and such, where you MIGHT come across adult themed material. This is absolutely one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. If that were true, the Safari web browser on the iPhone should be labeled NC-17...

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Ok, time to get serious...

It has been a great summer, taking all this time off, spending it with the family. Traveling like I had been for the previous 18 months, I decided (pushed and prodded by my loving wife) that I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time during the summer looking for work. I would get plenty of quality time with the kids, do stuff around the house, get the hand surgery done, and squeeze in a vacation.

But that is all over now..

Kids just went back to school today, and this was my self imposed deadline for seriously starting up the search.

There are a lot of folks I owe calls to, since not only did I take a break from the search, but I kept the networking down to a minimum also. There were several reason for this; one was I really didn't want to talk about Discovery, and it seemed most folks wanted to know "the story", as if there was one. No story folks, just a parting of the ways, amicably, as often happens in the business world. Second was that I really didn't want to talk about any job search plans, because I was still mulling over my alternatives, and probably was taking the summer off anyway. Lastly, I didn't want to be tempted with any job leads, because if one had panned out, I might not have been able to spend all the time I have at home. I owed it to my wife and girls to spend the time I promised I would.

Now is the time to get things in gear though. I am starting the blog back up, getting organized, and preparing to get out there and find the dream job. I have no illusions that is going to be easy or going to happen overnight. But if you have ever seen "What About Bob?" staring Bill Murray, I need to take "baby steps" to keep the momentum going.

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CrunchPad, ultimate Netbook??

I am going off topic again, but I just read about a really neat gadget, that I think is worth talking about

It is called a CrunchPad, and it could be the ultimate netbook/eReader/web surfing computer. It is a purpose built machine, no keyboard, mouse, DVD drive, hard drive, etc. It has one purpose, and that is to get you on the Internet and surfing.

The current prototype is based on the Intel ATOM chip, see here, and utilizes a LINUX-based operating system and a Webkit browser. It will have support for Flash, currently a capability still missing from the iPhone, which is necessary for a ton of websites, especially those used by my daughters for web gaming.

The form factor is amazing in my estimation. It has a 12 inch touch screen, an onscreen keyboard, and is 3/4" think. The estimated street price is around $300, which could blow Netbooks out of the water!

Can't wait to see how this evolves and comes to market.. TechCrunch is estimating a press conference for end of July, early August..

Here are some photos published on TechCrunch:

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iPhone 3GS

I pre-ordered one of the new iPhones the day they were announced.. yes I am a geek. I love toys!

I was eligible for one of the subsidized upgrades, not sure why, since I had the iPhone 3G for just about a year, but I took my good luck and ran with it. The phone was shipped from Shenzen, China on Monday, and would have been here Wednesday if Apple didn't hold up the shipment with UPS. Not only am I a geek, I am an impatient one also LOL.

Unboxed it today, and had already backed up my old iPhone. I plugged the iPhone into my iMac, and away it went, activated in 30 seconds, and then proceeded to restore from the old iPhone backup..

First impressions: definitely loads applications faster, it is easy to see the difference. I took the old iPhone, wiped it clean, and then restored it with all the same stuff (applications, photos and music. Obviously the old phone won't connect to the AT&T system, since I ported the service, but it can now act like a iPod touch, with Wifi only access. Starting up the same app on both phones at the same time, you can definitely see a difference. The new camera is very nice, and the autofocus works great, along with the ability to tell it WHAT to focus on by touching the screen. That is pretty cool.

Other stuff includes the compass/magnetometer, an oleophobic (oil-hating) touchscreen that does a better job of keeping your fingerprints from being visible on the screen, and some other minor enhancements.

All in all some nice improvements, but not a major step forward. If you currently have an iPhone, and you have to pay the $499 or (gasp) $699 upgrade prices, I am not sure I would do that. The 3.0 operating system has added some nice improvements, and that is available on the 3G, so try that first and see if that slakes your thirst for new features.

Now we just have to wait for MMS (Multimedia messaging system) and thethering to go live, when AT&T gets up to speed.

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