Goll! I still don't have a job! This is really getting silly.

I remember back in 1994 when I was looking for a better paying job in Salt Lake City. I sent out 12 or 13 résumés and got nine phone calls asking for interviews. I had to turn down a couple of offers. And that was before the Internet craze.

So here I am - Internet/Linux/HTML/Perl guy... unemployable, so far.

Got a call from a guy at that dot-com in Salt Lake City that I helped out last Saturday when they had server problems. His story was that they probably would hire me if they could, but they have a hiring freeze in effect right now while they push for increased revenue.

I had also applied for the Webmaster position at Utah State University. I have some contacts inside various offices at the university that had advised me that candidate review was progressing very slowly because people on the hiring committee were out of town at conferences and vacations. Then, suddenly, I hear they are asking the top three candidates to give presentations this Friday. Being as how I have not been contacted, I deduct that means I was not selected as a final candidate. I understand they had something like 40 applicants and they whittled that pile down to three candidates in the first round. Wow. Oh well.

Meanwhile, I'm getting some vibes from a Logan company that they might be interested in bringing me on board as their webmaster and EDI specialist. They haven't extended an offer yet. Hell, they haven't even called me in for an interview yet. However, a friend of mine who is friends with a high-up officer at this company says they seem very interested in my skills. The high-up officer has been asking lots of questions of my friend about me.

So far... it feels as if I've had a lot of carrots dangled in front of me. From my perspective, it's getting somewhat silly because I'm just not used to not being desired (employment-wise).

What have you been doing?

You'd think without a job, I'd have all this free time and I'd be making good use of it. Strangely, that doesn't seem to be the case. I seem to be spontaneously working on various projects in spurts, but never really applying myself continuously to any one thing. I think that's because there are so many things I could be doing and it's difficult to decide on something I want to do.

But... I probably should make some sort of decision and go forward with some kind of project- possibly one that may boost my employability.

The best movie-night yet!

Tuesday night (26 June), I had three of my friends over to watch a couple DVDs. My buddy Dave brought over a LCD projector from work and we watched the movies on a bare wall in my family room. We watched Groove and O Brother, Where Art Thou?

• two films I've really had an affinity for lately.

I've borrowed projectors for watching movies at home two or three times before, but none of the projectors used in the past were as nice as the projector Dave brought this time. He brought a Proxima DP6810 and it was nice! 900 lumen brightness and XGA (1024x768) resolution. The experience would have been better if I had a long S-Video cable to go from my receiver in the front of the room to the projector in the back of the room. Instead I ran a composite video signal back on a single cable. There was some interference in the signal - probably because of the long cable run - but it was not too distracting.

The only thing I found lacking in the Proxima projector was that it did not have a keystone control to compensate for image distortion due to inability to project the image straight on. That would be nice.

I keep saying I'm going to put a projector in our family room... but I guess I need a job first. *grins* Plus, I promised Christine I'd finish the basement bathroom before I would consider getting a projector again.

Hey! Maybe I just found my project to work on while I'm not employed!