Monday, March 8, 2010

The Unemployment Chronicles: Week 11

In the world of job searching: I worked kind of hard this week. Two things happened to encourage me. First, I paid my bills. Nothing is as motivating to make money as paying one credit card with another credit card. I also applied for more student loan deferment. Second, my formerly unemployed roommate got a job. Now he is a mechanical engineer and had he gotten a job at a power plant or something I would be as disappointed or motivated, but he got a job as a product development engineer at a small company working on pieces for shoes, among them running shoes. Uhh... yeah.

I checked all the websites for aerospace companies in the area, applied for half a dozen more jobs including internships. I asked about a possible part time job with the local Boy Scouts, again no go. They would like to have me in May, but that's another ten weeks away.

So It looks like I am in the lead for one of the professional blogging jobs I applied for. It seems that I will get paid by the click or visit. I proposed this because that way if I get more traffic I get more money. I am a big fan of getting paid on commission. Maybe that's why I'm not getting paid now?

I finally finished my documentary on Pakistan! Well, I finished the director's cut. That is the 2:29 long version. I know about 11 people who would want to watch a two and half hour documentary. So I'm going to work on cutting it down, and retroactively asking the "actors" for permission when I decide how much each person is in it. My goal with this documentary is to be real. I don't want to make these mountains seem dramatic or romantic or insane. I want to show it like it was. As the 2:29 version stands now it's about 99% accurate. There are a few things from the expedition I left out. Some things are not meant to be shared. However, comparing my movie to other related documentaries I have seen they really miss a lot of the personal feelings. Most mountaineering documentaries portray experienced, jaded, professional people and in mine I am the main character. Everything was new for me. I think that it all elicited a higher emotional response than my more experienced friends. I had never been to a mountain when someone died. I had never seen a helicopter evacuation. I had never had dysentery in the middle of nowhere Asia. All of these things were freaking me out! I think that in places you can see the fear on my face. In other places you can see the disassociation between the fear and the danger that everyone has up there that keeps us alive and moving.

In Janzen Gear news I borrowed a sewing machine! This means that fabric prototypes will be appearing shortly! I haven't played with it yet but I bought climbing webbing and plan to start making harnesses shortly. I also talked with several investment casting companies because after further research it seems that investment casting is the best way to go about making the head of my ice axe. As far as ice axes go, it is by far the most complicated head on the market. That probably means it's going to be more expensive. Cilogear upped the ante with backpacks, why not Janzen Gear with ice axes? (Besides I have a few ideas for crampons and carabiners... I also know more about metal than most...) I also applied to two different competitions with five digit monetary rewards which could float Janzen Gear and I through 2010.

The rest of my time was spent: running 94 miles. I was hoping to get more miles in but I had two good workouts so I'll take it. One of those was a hill workout which after grade and altitude conversions means I was doing some of my repeats at sub 5 minutes per mile effort. That is very good news although for the actual hill I was doing over 6 minute pace.

I finally got to see another friend that I worked with in the summer of 2008. However we only hung out for about 45 minutes. We went to the Frozen Dead Man Festival in Nederland. Apparently in the past some guy in Ned wanted to be frozen so when he was almost dead or dead someone put him on dry ice, he was poor and could not afford the more expensive cold chambers. Then apparently the story got out and now they have a festival complete with no parking, 1500 people, and two local brewing companies.

I did go skiing, only four runs. I did a few runs and was so dead from running that I quit at lunch and slept in the car. (I managed the ticket free. I'm not in position to spend money skiing right now. Thank you friends!)

Motivational quote of the week:
"Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible." Buy at Amazon.comDoug Lawson.

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