11.4.98

    Well, T. and I did actually get out to a haunted house on Sunday night. It was loads of fun and pretty scary.

    The dog-walking thing is going pretty well. Some of the dogs are just adorable. Some of them are pains in the butt. I've been walking around five miles every morning. It's frustrating, though, because I want to go to the gym later in the day but I just don't have time. Well, so far I haven't had the time. I walk the dogs until noon then come home, shower, eat lunch and work on client sites. I guess I just need to make myself and make it work.

    Yesterday, I drove way out to Agoura Hills to interview for a job. It is at least thirty miles away. The interview came out of a random email from somebody who saw my resume at Web Jobs USA. Of course, this came right after I decided to take a part-time job and work from home the rest of the day.

    I'm being cautious with my feelings about it. The company seems really interesting. They do all sorts of media including video, print, audio and, of course, web. The offices were nice and the guy I spoke with seemed genuinely friendly. It wouldn't be a bad outfit to be a part of.

    They asked me the ubiquitous question: "So, when are you available?"

    I'm beginning to hate that question. It seems so loaded. You don't want to sound desperate and you don't want to sound like a traitor to the company you're currently working for. I have, in the past, said "immediately" to people who seemed antsy to hire someone only to have them wait months and months to finally get around to hiring. It seems, sometimes, that the worst thing you can be is truthful.

    I told them that I have some commitments currently but that if they are interested in hiring me I'd be willing to reexamine them.

    Then I came home and helped T. celebrate his birthday. He turned 24 on the third. I made him a double-chocolate, chocolate cake and gave him a weight belt and Danny Elfman's CD Music for a Darkened Theatre. He also gets to pick out a year's subscription to any magazine. If you're a fan at all of Danny Elfman I highly recommend that CD set. It has the Edward Scissorhands score and Beetlejuice and tons of others. It's spooky and sad and passionate.

    The weight belt was not quite the success I thought it was going to be. I got the nicest one on the rack, a heavy leather one, and figured that if he wanted a different one then he would have his pick of price-ranges. I don't know anything about weight belts so I asked some yokel at Sport Chalet which one I should get. He was so entirely unhelpful. I made it clear that it was a gift for my husband and that I had no idea how to differentiate between them. Apparently, he didn't either. The one that I bought would have barely fit around my head let alone my waist, let alone T.'s waist. I was highly pissed and I won't be shopping there ever again.

    You can wish him a happy belated birthday if you like—be sure to tell him I sent ya!

    Earlier today, I had a show and tell session with a client. Unfortunately, they weren't wild about the design I had given them. I don't know what they were expecting but they didn't really like the colors (though they didn't have any other suggestions) and they were ho-hum about the navigation. They showed me another site that they liked that I really disliked. It's sometimes very difficult to help people somewhat new to the web understand the philosophy behind the medium.

    To make things worse the salesman that I'm working with wanted me to show them Gabocorp's site. If you're familiar with Gabo then you'll know that this was one of the first and best sites doing Shockwave Flash on the net. The first time you go to the site it's a lot of fun and you can play with it awhile but there's really nothing there except for the Flash. Now, why on earth this salesmen wanted to show off a technology that the client wouldn't want to pay for and that is not suited to their product or topic matter I have no idea. Basically, after playing at Gabo we went back to the mock-up I had done and the client said, "And here we are—back at our boring, little page." I was fuming.

    I don't know whether I should say anything to the salesman or not. I will have to work with this guy continuously as I am merely a contractor for him. I'm not sure how to tell him tactfully that he made me look bad. However, I definitely don't want that happening again.

    Now, I'm off to meet with a very interesting person who has information about The Jerk™.