10.10.98

    It's Saturday — hooray! Got some cinamon rolls cookin' in the oven and a coffee by my side.

    For the last two days I've been installing Mac software at this clothing design/manufacturing company out in East L.A. I'm not exactly sure where we were since I asked the girl who got me the job and she wasn't exactly sure either. I saw a sign while driving around that read "Boyle Heights" — I'll have to see if I can dig up some data on that.

    Basically, though, the area was high industrial with lots of shipping and trucking and railroading. It stank, too. I think there must have been a human waste treatment plant in that area because the smell was so incredibly foul. Wouldn't you know that the AC in the Honda has conked out again so I had to drive with the windows down.

    The work wasn't too bad. We just went from office to office installing what we could. Some of these Macs are fairly ancient and just couldn't take the software. I felt bad for a lot of these people because they had to deal with such poor machines. Almost everybody had on-their-last-leg monitors. One guy's monitor was doing this wavy thing that made me feel like I was on some sort of hallucination trip. I can't imagine having to cope with that everyday.

    We weren't able to finish all of the computers so we'll actually be going back on Monday. The pay is nice and I'm hopeful that I will actually receive a check unlike the other guy I was working for who has yet to produce one.

    I got a small amount of kudos for the work I've done on my website. An article in HotWired titled The Online Job Hunt linked to me as a good example of a web portfolio. It's one of the few good things that's happened to me in a long while. Thanks, Lisa Schmeiser!

    I recently signed up to a special mailing list for online journals. You sign up for a session that includes around 25 other people with journals. Each week a new journal is featured and everybody critiques that journal. I just finished my week and feel a little taxed because of it. It's exciting and nerve-wracking to have people examining your work. I'm probably more prepared than some for negative feedback, having published writing and photography, but I got a good amount of positive feedback.

    One of the best things was just having so many people testing useability. I got some great ideas for ways to improve the site navigation and design. In the content arena, I found that many people wanted me to talk about myself more. That's okay. I talk about myself as much as I'm comfortable with but I recognize that I could push some boundaries a little. It's nice to know that people want to hear more about me (rather than have me shut the hell up).

    Some people like the descriptions of L.A. and some people could live without me saying a word about L.A. However, writing about the city makes me flex writing skills that wouldn't get exercised if I just wrote about me all the time. Any other readers want to offer me some feedback?

    Last night, T. and I went to see Antz. It was really enjoyable and fun. Go see it and laugh. We all need to laugh.