Ryan's Journal

They say that when you’re waiting for a phone call the best way to get the phone to ring is to hop in the shower. I guess when waiting for a job offer the best thing to do is to post on the internet that you didn’t get it. I still don’t have the job, but they want to talk to me further later on this afternoon.

At this point it looks like I didn’t get the job in LA — they haven’t called, and they initially said they’d get back to me by Monday (today is Wednesday). It’s a bit of a surprise since they needed a very specific set of skills, but I guess it’s a tough market — yesterday eBay had a job fair to fill 183 positions, and six thousand people showed up.

Since I wasn’t eager to get back to work I may just bum around for a bit longer. In the technology world that’s sort of like career suicide since after six months your skills get stale, but cubicles and hundred hour weeks were never really the thing for me anyhow.

Joe, Sheila and I stayed up and went out to the Baylands to watch the Leonids meteor shower tonight. Light in the Bay Area made the viewing conditions less-than-perfect, but it was still pretty cool to see several hundred meteors over an hour long period. At the peak we had occasional bursts of eight or ten meteors simultaneously streaking down at us, and from time to time a big meteor would leave a green or red trail across the sky — definitely worth being dead tired tomorrow to get to see something like that.

This journal is considerably less interesting when I’m not roaming mountains north of the Arctic Circle. Anyhow, I drove to Los Angeles last night, interviewed for a six-month long contract job this morning, then drove home and went out with most of my Accenture start group (from September 1998). They are all awesome and it was great to see everybody again. As to the job, I should know on Monday if I got it. I’m torn as to whether it would be better if I do or do not get this job — the Alaska trip reinforced the idea that the most important thing is to each day make the most of the hand we are dealt. Getting this job would give me some resources to do good things, but not getting it would give me an excuse to get out on the road again. Either way, things are still looking good.

This journal originally started out as a way for me to avoid having to write e-mail (yes, I’m that lazy). In an effort to continue avoiding having to write e-mail, the answer to the question everyone seems curious about is that I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do now. I had originally planned on going off to Spain and living simply for a while in Barcelona, but after the elections I feel like running off again would be an irresponsible move so I’ve put my name in the pool for a contracting job in Burbank. If that job comes through then I’ll be off to Los Angeles for a while to earn some money (don’t worry Jason, I would only be subservient to “the man” for six months). Once that job ends it’s almost a sure thing that I’ll be off on another trip, although the destination is anyone’s guess.

A big part of me wants to just ditch mainstream life entirely and run off, but another part of me wants to have the means to do something when I hear about a plan to clearcut national forests or drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (calling it “ANWAR” diminishes the fact that no matter how much oil may be under it, it’s supposed to be a WILDLIFE REFUGE). Sadly, my people skills aren’t my strong point, so about the only way I can fight these sort of things is either by helping groups like the Sierra Club or else trying to share how special these places are through writing about them or photographing them. Unfortunately both of those options require having a bit of money in the bank — it’s a Catch-22 that in order to enjoy the wilds I seem to have to spend time away from them. If I can compromise by letting the cubicle be a temporary means to an end than hopefully my heart can remain in the wilds while at the same time my mind is working to help keep them wild.

In a sports world that is increasingly about money I’ve always been a fan of the Indian’s Jim Thome — he’s a guy that just loves playing, and more importantly loves playing for the fans in Cleveland. An interview in the Cleveland Plain Dealer makes me respect the guy even more. Some interview highlights:

Q. Favorite player outside the Indians clubhouse?
A. Beyond the guys I’m close to in the game, like Richie Sexson, I’d say Shea Hillenbrand of the Red Sox… He’d be on my All-Animal Team any day.
Q. All-Animal Team?
A. Yeah, you know, guys who are wild men on the field, crashing into walls and always getting dirty. Animals.
Q. You are driving a new Hummer. Why the Hummer?
A. It’s a manly car. It’s green and I can take it in the woods and, you know, run over trees.
Q. If you were commissioner for a day, what is the first change you would make?
A. Have an off-day every week and play a doubleheader on Sunday. Players get a regular day off, and fans get to see two games for the price of one.

It’s much too late to be awake, but the photos from the trip are now up. I wasn’t able to scan the first roll and a half of film because I had to return the scanner, but some time in the next month or so I’ll try and finish the job. Anyhow, photos are available both as a thumbnail index and also in a slideshow format. There are a lot in there, just to warn anyone connecting via a modem. Enjoy, I know I enjoyed taking them.

While passing through Reno I had the thought that most of the people I was seeing are made of different stuff than the folks up North. Quotes from Alaskans after a recent magnitude 7.9 earthquake that lasted three or four minutes prove it — a woman living in Healy simply said “It was a long one.”, while a man said only “At my house, I lost the hot water heater.” I miss it up there. Story is at CNN.

About half of the trip photos have been scanned in, and I’ll do my best to get the rest done before I have to return the scanner tomorrow afternoon. Please let me know if there are any broken links, other problems or suggestions for displaying images better as I’ve had to hack together a quick bit of code to handle putting so many pictures out in any sort of organized fashion.

For those of you who might be curious what I look like while huddled on a mountain in minus-ten degree weather, or what a muskox looks like when photographed from a far closer distance than is probably safe, I’m slowly getting photos scanned into the Alaska Photos section of the site. It will take at least until Monday to get everything sorted out and online so please bear with me. I miss Alaska.