Last week, we put our dear cat, Algie, to sleep. Every day since has been long and empty. Yesterday I brought his ashes home. And the house still feels wrong. [click for full article]

Related Post: Dear Peples, I Still Here. Rawr.

© 2010, jules.maas. All rights reserved.

It seems like something random and unintentional and totally unfair is happening to us lately. Something, that even though my head says it’s not, my heart suspects is a unwarranted galactic nuke sent by ‘Death as Christmas Future’ circa 1428. The solution to which, clearly, is for me to mount a posse to hunt that shrouded bastard down and BEAT HIS ASS.

First, eBay announced the closing of its Vancouver center in September 2009. News that on any other day, for any other company, would be a dime a’ dozen. Unless it’s you. Or SEVEN HUNDRED of your friends.

Then in April, Tim Paine died. I had no idea he was sick. Or how much. It was devastating to see the transformation from the man I knew six years ago, to know how he’d fought and to learn he had lost.

In July, an ex-co-worker and good friend got Breast Cancer. She’s going through chemotherapy right now. It looks horrible and hard and absolutely terrifying. She has a daughter, a husband, a life. And I really wish I could sit by her side just to help glare down cancer with a look that says, “bitch, BACK OFF!”

Jeannie Conklin died at the end of August. I remember the hair dryer collection she kept at her station. (Everyone collected something those days.) I remember she was FIERCE. And devoted. And 100% unstoppable. She inspired us all, reaching far beyond the walls of one support center in Salt Lake City.

Now, one of us has a brain tumor. And I just…I don’t even know what else to type. Except maybe, STOP IT, GOD, WOULDYA?

These are all good, GOOD people. They’re all fighters. They’re all young. They’re all strong and stubborn and smart and precious. They are people who have become a second family to me, and for whom I haven’t got a clue what to do for except to pray. Pray A LOT. 

And give whatever I can whenever they ask. Especially if it’s something as simple as spending the weekend recreating an sappy slideshow with no music* that includes a few people I missed the first time around**:

*Apparently, YouTube will strip the sound out of photo slideshows due to unauthorized copyright use, but has no problem whatsoever with non-copyright owners posting full music videos. WHATEV.

**Apologies to anyone who does not appear here. I have HUNDREDS more photos on disk (unfortunately, none of Jeannie) and would love to make them available to other eBay Peeps. Anybody have suggestions on a non-public place we could all contribute? As far as I know, photos from facebook make REALLY crappy prints.

© 2010, jules.maas. All rights reserved.

Between February and April, I was filling my “Crazyland” category with a whole bunch of stories about our 10 year struggle with infertility and upcoming IVF attempts. While this is a personal blog, I know for a fact employers land here whenever I’m ‘Googled’. And nothing says “hire me” like page upon page of HEY UNIVERSE, GIMME MAH BAYBES.

The logical solution would have been to write new content regarding Design! Project Management! Additional Work-Related Awesomeness! But that wasn’t what I wanted to write here. So I just stopped writing, period.

Instead, I put all my energy into my job search. I wanted a full-time job, and if I couldn’t have it, I needed the weekly unemployment benefits. Meeting benefit requirements meant writing 1500 different versions of my resume, creating 1500 job board accounts, going on interviews, to networking events, to job skills seminars. To say it was frustrating, spending so much time jumping through hoops and never landing on the target, is a lot like saying “We’re going to the Moon using this series of Ladders”. Ridiculously pointless.

The posts I was so worried about are gone now, due to the aforementioned blog-o-bomb, making the decision to stop writing feel all the more of a waste. But while I didn’t hit the target, I am keeping in mind that there WERE rewards: I did make new connections. I did create resumes that will help me in the future. I did sharpen my interview skills.

And I did sort out that as contradictory as it sounds, focusing on my writing and freelancing will make me 100% happier and 100% more likely to get work now that my unemployment benefits have ended.

Although it’s scary, and although it was offered, I decided not to apply for an extension. I can’t in good conscience spend one more minute of someone else’s money on a job search that I know for a fact is not going to get me hired.

A fact that I know because something else happened this summer. Something impossible.

© 2010, jules.maas. All rights reserved.

Jules: “Al, it’s gorgeous today. You want to go outside?”

Algie: “Meh.”

Jules: “You want to play?”

Algie: “Meh.”

Jules: “You want to go to the vet?”

Algie: “…meh.” [click for full article]

Last week in the Covington/Maple Valley Reporter, Algie starts peeing. ON EVERYTHING. And I officially become the crazy cat lady who has written about her pet to the point of blurring the line to mommy-blog zone.

Algie: “Hey. Check out this laundry. In the laundry room. Waiting to be laundered.”

Jules: “Whatcha doing, kitty?”

Algie: “Something I’ve never done. In. My. Entire. Life. Hmm-hmm-hmmm…”

Jules: “KITTY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?” [click for full article]

© 2010, jules.maas. All rights reserved.

Last year, our cat, Algie, became very, very ill. I had a job, and was very, very busy. This year, Al got sick again. I didn’t have a job. And it was all very, very messy. This is what happened:

Winter 2009

Algie: “I feel sick. I will lay here looking pathetic. Or bored. Or annoyed. Guess which.”

Jules: “What’s a matter, kitty?”

Algie: “Woe. Is me. Oh, the woe.”

Jules: “Hm. Maybe it’s something you ate. It sure smells like it.”

Algie: “Hiss” [click for full article]

Last week, I hit job-search bottom and wrote a ranty email directed at pseudo-postings everywhere:

Dear Prospective Employer,

I would like to apply for this position because I actually have the exact skills you’re looking for. You should be aware that I obliterate every goal and every target anyone has ever given me, and I carry extra bottle rockets in my pockets for days when you’ve gotten used to my awesomeness or when the break room runs out of coffee. However, I’m not going to… [click for full article]

Two weeks ago, I went to a Networking event. Where I met tons of people just like me. And not one employer interested in hiring a web/print designer. Yeah. Super productive. AWESOME:

I discussed my frustration at the online application process with a man named Ben, and how I WISHED someone would invent a network like facebook, but for jobs…“You know, 85 percent of jobs really are filled by personal referral. But the hiring manager can’t just fill it that way – so they post the position, get a thousand applications, and then ignore all but the few they already knew they wanted.” [click for full article]

© 2010, jules.maas. All rights reserved.

But we only get so many obvious ‘moments of truth’ that present us with the option to live up to the person we want to be and the person that’s less scary to be.  More often, we just get ‘moments’ we make do with. Principles, like facts, are stubborn things. And sometimes, they won’t let you go.

Last week, I saw the most outrageous abuse of power I’ve ever witnessed personally unfold before my eyes. The only question was whether to say anything about it. According to my ex-coworkers & friends, the answer was no.

But as my eBay Peeps might tell you, I have a really hard time shutting up when The Powers That Be lose their sense of ethics/freedom/common decency and start fucking with people. (For instance: NOT shutting up, in fact, making a HELL of a lot of noise and getting a few others to do the same – when eBay Corporate mandated CSRs could no longer use their ‘ethnic sounding’ aliases. Discrimination, anyone? The matter died shortly thereafter.)

In this case, the Newcastle City Council was fucking with my friend AND a community I loved. So I wrote this. And now I’m a columnist.

Related Articles & Sources

BREAKING NEWS — City Council fires city manager, cuts more than $1 million from budget (Newcastle News)

City Council fires city manager, hires former community development director

Public Works director, parks commissioner resign

Newcastle City Council fires city manager, cuts more than $1 million from budget (Issaquah Press)

Department of Licensing
Trade Name: RTW Associates
Robert Todd Wyman

Public Disclosure Commission Contributions Report – advanced search
(select candidate/commission: Dulcich, John D; election year 2009)

John D. Dulcich Campaign Contributors

• Donner Brian, $1000
• RTW Associates, $500
• Stephen McCarthy, $500
• Seattle Business Insurance, $500
• Rich Crispo, $25 (candidate, now on council)
• Lisa Jensen, $520/website services (council member)

© 2010, jules.maas. All rights reserved.

eBay CS, 1999

© 2009 – 2010, jules.maas. All rights reserved.

This weekend we visited the Museum of Flight, a place where it feels there are thousands of stories I should know, but don’t. A place where I almost expect to see Grandma sitting on the next bench, ready to tell me a few.

I keep looking. But it’s still quiet. So I wander and wonder and take these for him:

A year, maybe two, before I left eBay, there was a campaign called “The Power of All of Us”. It will always be my favorite representation of the company, because it showed that its specialness had nothing to do with categories or fees or cars. It was the people. Doing good things. For the launch, they took the employees to a local theatre in Salt Lake City and showed us user stories. The kind that made us all feel warm & fuzzy inside, but which I can’t remember now. Except this one. This one made me cry.

Thank you, veterans.

© 2009 – 2010, jules.maas. All rights reserved.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, imagine reading an 8000 page book that repeats the following paragraph (that is actually 15 times longer than this excerpt) over and over and Over and OVER:

<body bgcolor=”#FFFFFF” leftmargin=”0″ topmargin=”0″ marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ class=”bgimage” onload=”MM_preloadImages(‘images/large_button_view_agendas_f2.gif’,'images/large_button_
view_minutes_f2.gif’,'images/large_button_view_ordinances_f2.gif’,'images/large_button_view_
resolutions_f2.gif’)”>
<!–#include file=”inc_header.asp” –>
<table width=”792″ border=”0″ align=”center” cellpadding=”0″ cellspacing=”0″>
<tr>
<td width=”5″ rowspan=”9″ background=”images/index_r12_c1_h.jpg”><img src=”images/index_r12_c1_h.jpg” alt=”" name=”index_r12_c1″ width=”5″ height=”57″ border=”0″ id=”index_r12_c1″ /></td>
<td width=”126″ valign=”top”><!–#include file=”inc_left_top.asp” –></td>
<td width=”654″ rowspan=”2″ align=”left” valign=”top” bgcolor=”#FFFFFF”><table width=”654″ border=”0″ cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”3″>
<tr>
<td align=”center”><img src=”images/header_residents.jpg” alt=”Residents Header” width=”650″ height=”100″ />
<p align=”left” class=”small”><a href=”index.asp” class=”breadcrumbs”>Home</a> &gt; <a href=”city_hall.asp” class=”breadcrumbs”>City
Hall</a> &gt; <a href=”ch_city_departments_and_staff.asp” class=”breadcrumbs”>City  Departments &amp; Staff</a> &gt; City Clerk</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href=”javascript:void(0);” onMouseOut=”MM_swapImgRestore()” onMouseOver=”MM_swapImage(‘index_r10_c3′,”,’images/index_r10_c3_f2.jpg’,1);”></a><a href=”javascript:void(0);” onMouseOut=”MM_swapImgRestore()” onMouseOver=”MM_swapImage(‘index_r10_c5′,”,’images/index_r10_c5_f2.jpg’,1);”></a><a href=”javascript:void(0);” onMouseOut=”MM_swapImgRestore()” onMouseOver=”MM_swapImage(‘index_r10_c6′,”,’images/index_r10_c6_f2.jpg’,1);”></a>
<table width=”635″ border=”0″ cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”2″>
<tr>
<td width=”509″ valign=”top”><p><span class=”xbigMaroon”>City Clerk</span></p>
<p>The City Clerks Office is a great place to start if you have an inquiry. If we are not able to help you, we can definitely direct you…

Not only do you have to READ that, you have to CHANGE that. By cutting and pasting and hunting down random, old, broken code. By doing a lot of twiddling with tables and widths and heights. By opening and closing and refreshing every single page on the site. All of which means clicking the same damn mouse buttons one-hundred-million-zillion times and your Carpal Tunnel won’t like it ONE BIT and oh my god, who INVENTED the mouse?! BECAUSE I AM GOING TO KILL HIM.

It really wasn’t supposed to be so intense. The idea was simple: in order to save time, money, sanity and user confusion – we’d simply leave the structure of the site alone, and just refresh the existing images. By creating new images and saving them over the old ones, the site would instantly look brand new.

HOWEVER.

What I failed to realize was that while this site does use CSS, it does not use it EVERYWHERE. And in plain English, that means there were little pockets of code changes that had to be made on EVERY. SINGLE. PAGE. Also? The designers (being designers) did not stop at just updating the images on the site*. They also updated the fonts. And the Tables. And the location of breadcrumbs. And the alignment of text. And DOUBLED the number of buttons through the cunning use of mouse-over effects.

So the project took 5 times as much work as expected. But truth be told, I still loved every second of it. Because:

1. I am a geek
2. It looks HAWESOME

City of Newcastle website 1.0

City of Newcastle website 2.0

*By ‘designers update’ I mean the designers ‘sent me four sample pictures of what all the elements on the site are SUPPOSED to look like’ not ‘sent me all the images I’d need to MAKE the site look like what they want’. No. I had to create every last image, too. And that’s important because even though I can’t take credit for the DESIGN of the site, I am DEFINITELY taking credit for the UPDATE of the site. Because that? Was a helluva lot of work.

© 2009 – 2010, jules.maas. All rights reserved.

• nDog
  Saturday, May 30, 12pm – 4pm
• 4th of July
  Saturday, July 4, 6pm – 10pm
• Concerts in the Park
  Wednesdays, July 8 – August 12, 6:30pm – 8pm
• *Newcastle 5K Fun Run
  Saturday, August 29, 9am
• Newcastle Days
  Saturday, September 12, 12pm – 8pm
  Sunday, September 13, 11am – 5pm
• Arbor Day
  Saturday, October 10, TBA

NOTE: Due to a very special, expensive, time-sensitive and non-stress requiring project**, Trav and I will be TOTALLY UNAVAILABLE for visitors or trips the entire month of September (possibly into October).

*The Newcastle 5K Fun Run is operated by the non-profit Newcastle Running Club in conjunction with the City of Newcastle.
**more to come…

© 2009, jules.maas. All rights reserved.