You are currently browsing the Shawnogram blog archives for September, 2009.
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shawn (at) phantompower.org
September 29th, 2009
I recently guest produced an episode of the Millionaire Or Bust podcast. (An interesting coincidence, considering recent events.) I’m syndicating that episode here. I had fun putting it together and I hope you enjoy listening to it. Comments are welcome here.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 21:10 — 14.6MB)
September 27th, 2009
Jen is chronicling her experiences in unemployment with a new blog she started over the weekend. The site is called Between Gigs. Please go check it out. She’ll be covering everything from dealing with Unemployment Insurance to money-saving tips to whatever else comes up. I may do some occasional guest blogging as well.
September 25th, 2009
Went out to the mailbox last night to gather Thursday’s mail. Two items. One was a standard junk mail about holiday-themed postal stamps. The other, a thinly-packed envelope from the local school district. That first piece of mail was recycled without a second thought. I took the second piece to Jen. She was reading in the bedroom, a normal part of her pre-sleep routine. She opened the envelope and read the one-page letter inside. Then, she let out a simple, “Oh my god!” In case you don’t know, Jen’s been employed by the local school district since January. And the letter stated that today (Friday) would be her last day in the district’s employ. No detailed explanation was given. But somewhat surprisingly, budgetary concerns weren’t sited as the reason for her termination. This morning, she reported to school for her final day. She spoke with some staff, including the principal, and it was confirmed that she had indeed been fired. But when she pressed for details as to why, she was given a line about insufficient “skill sets.” Needless to say, she didn’t stay to finish out the day. After coming home, she got in touch with her union representative. And while it’s too early to say, it seems like district administration may have pulled some shenanigans here. It’s doubtful that the union’s inquiries will lead to anything substantial. But it’s good to know that someone’s watching over the district in this matter. Regardless, all I know at this point is that Jen’s officially unemployed. And I’ll admit, I was pretty shocked for the first twelve-or-so hours after gaining this information. But throughout the day, I’ve come to accept this situation. And for some reason, neither of us is overly bothered by it. In fact, we’re both looking forward to whatever’s gonna come next. Of course, we’ll be affected by this financially. Like most people, we’re living paycheck to paycheck. No savings. Also, we’re likely to be without health insurance soon. Those are not small considerations. But we’re not drowning in anxiety over them. (Check back in a month or two to see if that’s changed.) I hate to quote overused sayings. But, you know, one door closes, another door opens. For now, we’ll take things one day at a time. ‘Cause really, that’s all you can do. Also, because I have a lot of experience in dealing with government forms, I filled out the online Unemployment Insurance form on her behalf. And I was surprised by how simple it is. I’m guessing there’s a real deal application that we’ll receive soon in the mail, and this application will have been made from the souls of many dead trees.
In the meantime, if you get any good job leads, please send ‘em our way. I promise that, no matter what the school district thinks, Jen’s skill sets are just fine. In fact, they’re pretty awesome.
September 23rd, 2009
I thought this video was pretty cool:
So I made a video response:
In my video, I talk about guitars I own and guitars I used to own. You may even catch a few pictures in there of me with hair. Download the mp4 version for better quality than the YouTube embed. I’m working on these video compression settings to try and make improvements. Still have a lot to learn in that area.
Podcast: Download (40.2MB)
September 14th, 2009
(I just can’t help myself with these WordPress MU puns.)
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted any updates. And as is often the case when things get quiet around here, I wish I could say it’s because I’ve been spending hours and hours playing XBox 360 games. But most of my time has been focused on moving our websites to a new web hosting company. In the entry I linked to above, I talked about moving from standalone WordPresses to WordPress MU. And I’m in the process of doing just that. In fact, all of our sites except for Book Sandwich have been moved to the new host, and are running on WordPress MU. (I will be moving Book Sandwich later this week.) It’s turned out to be a much more lengthy and involved process than I had originally imagined. To keep the story short, I’ll simply say that not all of the features of a standalone WordPress installation work the same way under WordPress MU and the WordPress import function doesn’t work exactly as advertised. Still, it’s been a good learning experience and I think the problems I’ve encountered will be dwarfed by the benefits of WordPress MU. I’m also excited to have the main Phantom Power Media site back online. It’s doing a great job of aggregating everything from all of our sites into one nice, neat location. (I can now cross that off of my to-do list.) I’ve also added tag clouds to the sidebars of all of the sites.
As a program note, all of our sites should continue to work exactly as they always have. So, there’s no need to change/update any subscriptions, bookmarks, etc. If you run into any problems, please let me know.