I'm a what?

A good result

I had my phone interview with the head of the Study Analysis and Report Writing Department from the company in Ashland today. It went pretty well, the position sounds really interesting and would be a good starting off point for me since I am interested in regulatory toxicology. I would get to interact with study directors and the clients as well as gain some experience in FDA regulation submission. The interviewer said that he and HR would contact my references and then we would set up an on-site interview.

"That's good Bobby, keep throwing me those curve balls"- Hank Hill

The turning of tides

For once, I have good news about my job search. I am meeting with the people from one of the labs at Purdue next Tuesday. I went to the website for the lab and they seem to be researching really interesting stuff involving membrane transport (and they seem to be publishing about two papers a year including this year in Nature). And today, I set up a phone interview for Thursday with a company in Ashland in Ohio. I will let you all know the outcome of the phone interview on Thursday.

"Give me liberty or give me death! But only the kind of liberty you find in a controlled, well-regulated society." - Dale Gribble

I'm German, so I like rules

I just finished watching this really interesting documentary called "Helvetica" which is the most commonly used font in the world (think Target, the Gap, Crate and Barrel, street signs, your tax return forms, all that is Helvetica in different weights and spacing). Helvetica was created in the 1950s in Germany (Helvetica means the Swiss in Latin) to be clean and easy to read. But by the 1970s there was a rebellion against using Helvetica. Including a very outspoken German graphic designer that said Helvetica, with all its letters looking so very much alike, was an army (and he was the source of the title). There were lots of interviews with graphic designers and typographers, and I guess I never really thought about the fonts that I use everyday. One of the graphic designers was comparing how he and his wife remembered the location of a restaurant. She remembered it as down the street from the dry-cleaners and he remembered it as down the street from that sign with poor spacing.

"I'm going to teach you all a little dance. The avoid-dance. Who has a child who keeps a messy room? The next time you walk by Junior's room, shut the door. Don't look at what infuriates you. Just do this little dance. Shut the door. Shut the door. Shut the door..." - Anger Management Instructor

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, I hope you all get to spend it with friends and family!


" 'Cause that turkey is so gosh darn moist."-Hank Hill

A sprinkling after a dry spell

I do mean to blog more than I have in the past month (but not blogging is preventing from complaining about searching for a job too much). The job search is going alright and I have learned with job sites are better. Hotjobs (through Yahoo!) is my favorite mostly because there are no solicitations on the websites (as there is on Monster). Plus the only emails I get are updated results from a job search unlike both Careerbuilder and Monster. I get stupid like reminders from both those sites including most job seekers apply for 3 jobs before landing a job (oh thanks Careerbuilder, I have been rejected from 3 jobs, thanks for your encouragement) and that a higher education can make it easier to land a job (um, Monster that hasn't really worked out for me yet). But I heard back about one of the lab jobs at Purdue asking for some references (it is for a molecular biology lab looking at ATP pumps in the cell).
In anticipation of company tomorrow night, I spent most of the day sweeping the entire downstairs (and I'm planning on sweeping once a week so the cleaning for Rachel, Bridget, and Lucy's homecoming won't be too bad). But the cleaning wasn't bad at all because mom bought a Dyson a few weeks ago (this is the model we have). I love this vacuum cleaner! It is really easy to clean out and the utilizing the attachments can be done quickly and you can use it on both carpet and bare floors. I always like to use stuff that has been well engineered and the user was actually taken into consideration during the design process.

"No, turn the other one!!"-Hank

A little delayed

I am a bad blogger, I know. I haven't had to much to write about for the past few weeks, but Lucy was home for a week (this past week) so that means time for a new post! While Lucy was here, she "helped" me work on Rachel's king size quilt (which I am still hoping to get done by this Christmas). We also made Christmas presents for family members while she was home (and some of those people read this blog so I won't say what it is) as well as weaned calves (more than once due to a fence problem.) I also finished another baby quilt for a friend of the family:
As as some of you may know, there is a writer's strike which means after next week there will be no new episodes of The Office (or anything else), so my Netflix account will be getting quite the work out until the strike is over.

"You got to pitch some woo at her, see what sticks."-Dale Gribble