Baby Bootees Finale; New Job; Happy 4th!

Project:  Lina Lou's Bootees
Pattern:  Saartje's Bootees by Saartje de Brujin (Ravelry free download)
Yarn:  Filatura Di Crosa Zarina, sport weight, 100% merino
Yardage:  used less than 100 yards
Needles: Size 4
Cast on: June 18, 2014
Cast off: June 26, 2014
Cost: stash yarn don't count

Notes: I recently picked up a contract gig backfilling a young lady going on maternity leave for her upcoming baby girl, Lina Lou. The training was intense and didn't leave me much brain power to think about anything else for two weeks. But I have been admiring this pattern for a long time so it's an easy decision to make these little bootees for the baby. They worked up so quickly, and I still can't believe a human's feet can fit in something this little!

Happy Friday eve! And if you are in US, Happy July 4th weekend! Join the party on Andrea's blog, Tami's blog, and leave me a comment!

Village Harvest

Before this valley was lined with silicon, there were many orchards -- apricots, plums, apples, citrus fruits. Today most orchards have become business parks and housing developments. Some old trees survived on the few orchards left, still producing abundance of fruits. There are also fruit trees in backyards that owners could not digest the excess fruits. Village Harvest is a volunteer ran organization that collect these fruits and donate them to food banks. Volunteers get to take home the culls -- bruised, damaged, over-ripen fruits.

This is what came home with me yesterday. I shall commit my life to tree-ripened apricots.



Last week I took home a box of white plums. I pureed the plums, mixed with yogurt and made about 40 popsicles. Perfect treat for the post-basketball-game sweaty child.

RIF

Will learned that RIF equals Reduction In Force and the acronym was enjoined in his brain along with the other killing spell terms like pink slips, axes falling, layoffs, mass firings, headcount reduction, etc.

-- At The End Of The Day, Chapter 3 RIF happens, and it happens to the less fortunate ones, repeatedly. After two years of abuse, political infighting, working nights and weekends while watching my wages tumble with the company, I was quite relieved it was all over. I made a promise not to sue so I could get on with my life. Life as a riffer is quite enjoyable. In the week and half I've been home, I went on a field trip with Henry's class, had breakfast and lunch with my friends, took yoga classes almost every day, and of course, hang out with Henry every afternoon. Food finds its way to me at various times, not good. But I can find excuses. Could I be depressed? Maybe just a little? Here, some chocolate will help. I will burn it all off in my next trip to the gym, om the fat grams away.

In a Slump

I worked till 12:30am on Saturday (ok, technically Easter Sunday morning), for this. And did I mention that it's the second Saturday in a row? All comes down to this. My knitting is in a bit of a slump as well. My mom is visiting and I gave her all the wool yarn I've collected for her in the last few months. She's on fiber high. Evidently that included my car project (a charity blanket that I just started). So now I'm car-project-less. I have to find something absolutely mindless so my fingers can be on auto pilot while I keep my mind and eyes on the road. There is three-hour car trip tomorrow, I need a mindless project. Has to be mindless cause if I look down I'd get carsick. As a one-project-at-a-time girl, my main project, the Uptown Coat, is in a slump as well. I'm up at the arm holes, separate the front and decreased for the left front. It's not looking quite as well as I've hoped. The body was knitted in one piece and I only had a 29 inch needle, mighty hard to squeeze all the stitches together. At Stitches I ordered a 36 inch wooden needle from SonShapes for $35. That's a lot of money for a circular needle. For the next month I chugged along on my trusty little Clover, dreaming of the nice smooth surface of hard wood needle with the extra long extension cable. Finally the needle showed up (it's custom made, ought to take some time), one size too big. So I had a nice conversation with the SonShapes people and they were going to replace it, yada yada yada. Last week they called me again, they don't know if they can make the needle one size smaller. They don't know what size is a standard US size 10 needle. They don't know how to use a needle gauge. They have never heard of Clover. They wanted me to mail the needle back to get a refund. Did I mention they are five miles from my house? Tonight, I'm gonna put the coat on the back burner, and figure out what I really want to knit.

Parent University

In January Henry's school held a one-day "Parent University", to show parents what they teach the kids in the classroom. Since I never went to school in the US, I figured it was a good chance to see what it's like in elementary school.

You can choose three courses, two in the morning and one after lunch. One of the courses I took was Hands-On, Minds-On Science. I happened to have a science teacher (internal) as my group partner, so she showed me how to dissect an owl pellet. The pellet is owl's spit up with all the stuffs they can't digest (feather, bones, teeth, etc.). As the teacher told me, it's pretty clean and fun, much easier than dissecting a cow's eye which the kids will do in middle school.

Take a look at this picture. Apparently this owl ate two mice in a row, there are two skulls (circled), and various bones in the pellet.

What I've been doing

Working -- to be specific, every other Friday or Saturday night. Not many extra hours really, but cranking out reports in the middle of the night makes me feel like I'm working 24x7. As Cris said "you wanted a job right? now you got one." so watch out what you wish for.

Listening -- My Life in France by Julia Child; and Who Moved My Blackberry by Lucy Kellaway. You have to love food to enjoy the first, and you have to know the rotten corporate live to appreciate the second.

Stitches! -- Only spent an afternoon in the market, but thoroughly enjoyed showing off my De Colores. It's utterly thrilling to be stopped by strangers and be told "you've done a marvelous job with this jacket." I told at least five people about the Student Fashion Show that night, hope Fae got some good cheering for her few minutes on the runway.

Tahoe -- Took the family to the snow for a weekend, for Henry's birthday. The guys really enjoyed it and I managed to suck in enough air. The dry cold air did a number on me and I'm just feeling back to normal after three weeks. Reminds me why I moved out of Beijing.

Knitting -- Coat is coming along, very slowly. It took me a good part of a week to reorganize my stash to incorporate the purchases from Stitches. After hearing me mutter over and over again -- "where am I going to put all this yarn" -- the wise husband wondered aloud, "well, you might want to start knitting some of them ... " Wishful thinking on both sides.

Family -- Some of you already know that Bill's parents' got into a car accident on Sunday. Their car was totaled, my father-in-law suffered a broken wrist and they are both quite shaken. My mother-in-law is still recovering from her hip replacement surgery a few months ago. They damaged a nerve during the surgery and she cannot walk on her own. They will have to go through a serious lifestyle change, have to count on other people to do most of their caretaking. Something much easier said than done.

Henry's Summer, and my ramblings

Henry brought home his writing about his summer. It says: "Where did my feet take me this summer? I went to Indiana this summer. We went to see some of moms friends. We went on four air plans. It was an a exciteing trip. Moms friends were called the Feb99 group." My summer was a crash of events full of anger, frustration and desperation. Well, maybe not that bad, but the double layoff and job search and all the rejections are not for the faint of heart. I'm glad my son enjoyed the quick weekend getaway amid all the crisis, domestic and international. Speaking of Feb99, we got a nice fat package today from our friend Lori in Indiana, full of products to help us with Henry's eczema. And a cartoon shows a nekkid guy at the security checkout, hiding his delicacy with a boarding pass; when the lady says, "Boarding Pass please!" One thing I've learned -- friends and family, they are everything.

Blogger Fooled Me

I started a new entry about our Bufkin house the other day and only finished it this morning. When it was published, it went by the date of the draft, so you have to scroll down to find it, or click here. While I was at it, I found the draft I thought was lost long time ago, about the ending of my contract job at Portal. The draft date was in June, and it's linked here. Portal was a cool valley software company. May it rest in peace.

Brain Fart

This job search has been going for over two months. The job market is pretty hot, if you have the right skills. The recruiters obviously think I do and I get quite a few calls, so much so that I've stopped talking to the ones offering me accounting contracts in far out places like Redwood City. Company recruiters are much more welcomed in my dictionary. I'm even willing to use my precious cell phone minutes to talk to them -- I'm on prepaid plan, pay for every minute I use. And then there are certain reputable companies with good track record and easy commute, such as Apple, Yahoo, Symantec, etc. My ears perk up when one of them is on the phone, which obviously doesn't happen every day and so far has not produced very positive result. One can always hope. Never hurt if I just put in the effort. I'm consulting for a start up, good money, very nice boss and co-worker, very laid back environment, except for a nagging little thing about not going to have enough work to do. So I checked with boss this morning, they need her to do anther round of funding later this year; she'll need to travel a lot and won't be able to set up her "Finance Housekeeping" as she planned. Oops, that means no work for me. I wasn't terribly thrilled, I like this place after all. The phone rings, another recruiter. Yak yak yak. I answered all the questions half heartedly. The woman sounded a bit arrogant, as if hoping I'd take her more seriously. Oral English language penetrates my brains only when all my brain cells are active, and I didn't manage to get to that stage till the end of the conversation. So after she's done with "forward you to the hiring manager .... blah blah blah" I remembered to ask her (again!) what company she's calling from. It's Apple. If only words would come at the right moment. Henry and I are going to our Feb99 reunion in Indianapolis on Thursday, it’s our first time to travel alone. Bill starts a new job today, Henry starts school in three weeks. JCC is waving big flags to support the war. I’m a bit frizzled to say the least.

Sometimes there is too much work

I'm trying to stay awake after working here till midnight last night. Yesterday was my first day to have a badge (took them two weeks to produce one since the office manager was on vacation and she's the only person in the company to code new badges), so I came in early thinking that I could leave at a decent time. Best laid plans, you know how that goes. We were planning to go to Jazz on the Plazz, our regular Wednesday night outing during the summer. At 5:30pm I shut down the computer, checked up with everyone all around, made sure they didn't need me to do anything else, packed up and ready to go. Then the other consultant wanted a print out of my report for the accountant, luckily they were able to take care of it. Then the accountant wanted the same report, for the past six months. Then the CFO gathered everyone, she wanted clean financials since last year, which is pretty much the start of the company. She wants them by the time she comes in the next day. Before I knew it, the PC was rebooted and I was calling the husband to let him know not to wait for me -- "just need to wrap up some stuffs here, I'll see you guys at the park." 7:30pm, the husband checking in, Henry was waiting for me to have dinner. Just barely got started with March COGS. 8:30pm, call the guys, obviously I wasn't going to the concert. Finished March, starting April COGS. 10:30pm, message on my cell phone, the husband wants to make sure I was still alive. My head was tumbing in COGS. 11pm, correcting mistakes for the past consultants. The accountant grabs a coke to stay perked. Midnight, home sweet home.

Fringe Benefits

This week I'm consulting at a start up in Santa Clara. Engineers work late, so they cater dinner every night. Besides that there are also free bagels and donuts on Friday morning. Free soda and water (bubbled and no bubble). If you don't feel like dealing with the bottles, there is a regular water dispenser as well, for hot and cold bottled water -- unlike some more environmentally friendly big companies that only provide filtered water, which also happens to be cheaper. The grounds in this business park is very very nice, and the buildings are small since most companies are very small, so you get to park the car right outside the entrance. There is no big garage that's a mile from your office. I don't drink coffee, but since some of my friends do, I learned that Peet's is much superior to Starbucks. Netflix has Peets, and a small competitor of BEA called Tibco in Palo Alto. Netflix has free soda and bottled water, but for hot tea you have to settle with the filtered stuff. They have free hot and cold cereals as well, pump up the sugar. Free popcorn in the first floor breakroom, but you have to make it yourself in the big machine. Cisco has or had free popcorn in individual bags, along with free soda and bottled water. Not to mention the nice (not free) day care facility on site and free gym. Cisco has been sponsoring the Vasona Christmas light show for the past couple of years and they let Cisco badge holders (employees and contractors) go in for free one weekend in the early December. Octel used to have free popcorns as well, and had someone make them in the afternoon in the big machine. They also had a free subscription of Mercury News for each floor, but Lucent cancelled the subscription for second and third floor in my building to cut cost. They did let us keep our Friday morning bagels and donuts. Veritas Mountain View campus has espresso machines in the break room. Just a fraction of the super nice campus.

Bosses are idiots -- this one anyway

I had my share of good bosses and some bad bosses. There was an accounting manager in my early days that wrote me up in my review for being five minutes late in the morning. But there are by far more positive examples to offset them. There was Kathleen hired me at Octel (the voicemail equipment company bought by Lucent), showed me her appreciation in my passion in international work; and there was Rose that hired me at BEA, after my three-year hiatus from the work force, at the bottom of the economy, gave me the chance to get back on track; and then there was my mentor at BEA, guided me to a promotion which jump started my assorted adventures since last year. My ex-manager at BEA takes the cake. When you are unemployed, double unemployed, people don't call you back (or don't call you at all) for the jobs you are interested in, running out of medical benefits, you tend to start "network", diligently. So logically I go back to the companies and the managers I worked for before, that I respect and expect them to lend me a helping hand. First, I called this manager, he was not aware of any openings but asked me to send him my resume any way and he'll look around. Second, couple of days later I found on Monster.com an opening in HIS own area. I wrote him a very sincere email, please, pretty please, consider me. Third, he replied, confirmed he was the hiring manager; but (the BUT) I don't have experience using the particular software application. Excuse, big fat lie. And he very kindly referred me to HR. Fourth, I talked to his staff, confirmed the application is not hard to learn, then wrote him again, pleading my case. And by the way in case I failed to qualify for any opening at BEA, would you please be my reference? Fifth and final, he came back today and politely said, my competitions are "super users" of the software, and they have the "desired skill-set". How people are afraid of making mistakes. They want to take the safe route, hire the people that can do the work in front of their noses, and that will more than likely the end of the ability as well. Somewhere someone believes that a good analyst is not a super user, a machine operator.

Going for the long drag

Officially signed up with ProMatch today. This is the networking group sponsored by EDD in Sunnyvale, most service high tech workers -- engineers, managers, high tech workers changing careers or moving back to US after long term oversees jobs. A few years ago they had to keep a five months waiting list, with over 400 active members in the organization, but now they only have about 100 people, and everyone has to volunteer minimum four hours a week to keep it running. So far everyone is telling me "It's going to be easy!" "Revenue is hot!" "It's a hot market out there!" Until that fat job lands in my lap, I'm not taking it easy. Day 3 of duel unemployment family. It's actually kinda nice, in a way. We've always complained that we don't spend enough time together; now with Henry in Summer Camp full time, we take walks, talk, read, even watch movies in the afternoon. I don't mind this at all. Now just need some rich daddy to pay the mortgage and health care ......

End of very short term contract

That's all I can say for now, will have to wait till I get paid to gripe and whine. Actually I wrote up a lengthy entry yesterday about the whole thing, but it got lost in cyber space. Hope time will help me see it with better eyes and make it an interesting story.

End of very short term contract

I guess you get what you wish for, or when something seems too good to be true, it must be too good to be true. But I did see it coming, not much I could have done about it. Back two weeks ago, an agency called me for a short term accounting job at Portal, I did a quick 15 minutes phone interview with the hiring manager, next thing you know they wanted me to start working right away. The rates a fairly high, said they really needed someone to close the books before the Oracle merger hits. I didn't want to take the job, it's short term -- three months max, and I'm looking for long term growth and commitment; even if I did well and could stay with the company, I have no desire to work for Oracle; and I really want to get out of accounting. But money is money. So I called back the agency and told my contact that I could take the job if only I could continue with my job search. The lady gave me the very reassuring promise, that she had the conversation with the hiring manager about how to make the job more enticing to me, that it'd be fine for me to take time off for interviews, and that they completely understand my need to find a permanent position elsewhere. With that said, what else could a girl ask for? Portal seems pretty desperate to get people in, for whatever reason. I found out the reason very fast. Portal had a whistle blower last year, had to reopen their books for two years back, issue restatements, close the books again. They were delisted from NASDAQ since they couldn't release financials for the past few quarters. Then Oracle comes along and offers to buy the company. People started leaving in droves, including payroll. Now Portal Finance is counting on consultants and contractors to patch things together. On day three of my tenure I became one of the key personnel to close FY06 which ended on January 31, 2006, along with a long time consultant who's counting down minutes to his last day (today, hopefully). However I was not aware of the importance of my presence until I announced to my boss about an upcoming interview. No one from the agency had mentioned to the boss about my job search. She was shocked and soon called the agency to complain about the miscommunication. My contact from the agency called me while I politely pointed out her promise to me and she changed a few words and told me they had the "understanding" that I'd need to find a job, but denied that she had talked to Portal about it. Liar Liar!!! In the hindsight, what I was working on at Portal should have been done months ago and boss had been putting it off till the last minute, then having the consultant checking my work which brings the question, why do they need me so badly? Well obviously they woke up and realized they didn't have to, so I was promptly released.

Working -- for the moment

I picked up a contract job and started working on Wednesday. It's a very nice building in Cupertino, cool valley software company, a year or two ago every finance person and software engineer would be thrilled to get an interview there. Now the company is in the jaws of THE software giant, the shark, the one ate up two other cool valley software firms in the last three years. This comes after a whistle blower caused the company to issue revenue restatements last year, no financials were released for two fiscal years, company stock was delisted. Now we are crunching numbers to make the company look presentable in front of the shark. But hey, it's a job and it pays.

New Week, What Now?

Just realized the blog hasn't been updated for a few days. Henry claimed he was sick again on Thursday, last day of school, but was able to go to Bonfante with me on Friday. It was a great deal of fun on a very hot day, we both played in the new water play area, Henry got soaking wet. For Father's Day my sweet husband made me take him to Santana Row and bought him a t shirt with an island girl (big hanging boobs) dancing and big bold Tommy Bahamas logo on the back. This is a guy was never into loud graphs and logos on his clothing. Do I see mid life crisis coming? Monday morning, Henry starts Summer Camp, I head to Foster City for all morning interview (6 people) and rush back to San Jose for another hour of interview (only 2 people). Other than that, I'm sending out resumes and applying for jobs with all I'm worth. I even hear the comment that I have great experience and good companies in my resume, but where is the job offer??

Bending My Own Rules

Rules are made to be broken. Since I'm jobless, I'm determined to spend extra time at school and with Henry, so I canceled the sitter and the after school care, try to be a good mother. Of course when he's sick I need to be home with him. Monday is my birthday and I always try my best to take my birthday off work, it's my gift to myself. The job search front had been out of my control for the past week, with all the interviews, phone interviews, email messages to reply and voice mail messages to return. I decided that Monday is going to be "My Day", block off all the interviews, just tell everyone I'm booked. I planned to take a long walk in the morning, then read, write, or just plain hang out for the rest of the day. An agency called last Wednesday for a contract job at a large corporation, phone interview with the hiring manager Thursday afternoon went very well, and they wanted me in first thing Friday morning for face to face interview. Now Henry had a fever Thursday afternoon when I picked him up, and I wanted to keep him at home on Friday to recover. Bend my rules for the first time, luckily the dad could stay home for couple of hours so I could make a quick run for a 9am interview. Then they called Friday afternoon, interview went well, but I'm deadlocked with another candidate and they want me to be in on Monday for a test on revenue recognition rules and Excel skills. Now this is getting down right silly, I'm no college kid, ability is what we have and skills can be learned. The job is the kind of work I want to do, the company is good size and there is plenty of growth both for myself and the company, it's a contract with plenty good pay. But I don't like being manipilated. I will go to the test all right, just to finish what have started and see where that gets me. Done with bending my rules!

Day 3 of Unemployment

Four straight hours of interviews this morning, eight people, two companies in Redwood City, actually share the same parking lot. How did I manage that! First company is a dot com star and dot com bomb, now trying to start fresh. It's a manager position and I met with the 3 people that were to report to this manager, and the current manager (a consultant), the VP of Finance and HR manager. Everyone is really really nice, one of the ladies even called me "hon" and "poor girl" (for going through such a lengthy interview). Can't picture myself giving orders to these kind folks. Second company is a start up, going public in a few months. I can't understand half of what the manager said, both because of her accent, and her soft spoken style. The company lobby was well hidden, right next to some huge generators in a large wire cage. How much should I make from the stock options to make it worth the commute? Two recruiters and a hiring manager all got back to me with the same message -- wait, we might want to talk to you some day. They are testing my patience.

Job Search So Far

After eight days of job search, talked to at least a dozen recruiters, half a dozen phone interviews (one with a hiring manager), three face-to-face interviews with contract or direct hire agencies, there is yet anything solid to come through. The market is buzzing, but so are the competitions. Companies are picky -- you have to have the exact experience, the number of years in the area, know the software application they use, and then they'll consider contract to hire. Contract is good money, especially after Netflix's comp package. I'm not exactly picky about benefits (expensive and limited at Netflix) and time off (limited to none at Netflix), but I can really use some stability right now. Since January 2005, I've had four jobs, moved seven times; it's high time to settle down. I get antsy when there is nothing on my calendar, so I fill it up with interviews. I give everyone and every opportunity equal chance, be it a contract job in Redwood City or a management job over my head in Palo Alto. I have the deep belief that you have to go through 99 bad interviews to get to that one good one, and now I'm only at the beginning of the potential worst-case scenarios. It's a long way to go. What I'm looking for: Senior Financial Analyst with focus on revenue recognition, forecasting, reporting and contract review and negotiation, a permanent position in corporate finance environment in a mid to large size Silicon Valley company, preferably software industry. Somewhere out there, there must be a job for me.