De-blued

I was in a funk. But it was nothing that the right company couldn't dispell in a hurry.

I'm glad I put on some decent clothes and went out and had a nice meal... I'm especially glad I got to hang out with AF, and it was nice to see B-, and meet a few new people (one of whom I took a particular liking to, a charming newswoman).

So now maybe I can stop feeling sad and useless, and look forward to enjoying the weekend.

Round 2

A second interview at CD is scheduled for 3 pm tomorrow.

I find it ironic that I'm being more heavily vetted for this job waiting on tables than for most of the consulting projects I've been contracted for at tens of thousands of dollars. Is there tremendous competition for this job? What in heaven's name are they looking for that requires this level of scrutiny?

In the meantime, two prospective web dev projects continue to percolate forward. If everything materializes, it's going to feel like 0 to 60 in 4.8 seconds.

Small World

I've always been a bit skeptical of the "6 degrees of separation" theory ~ that is, that any two people on the planet can be connected by a chain of no more than six acquaintances. It may be much more true, for example, for the widely travelled, highly developed world than for isolated tribes in an unwired third world.

Still, it's a lovely and a useful idea, and I am frequently impressed how often a game of "Do You Know..." turns up a mutual acquaintance. So I enjoyed reading how reporter Lucy Leveugle (great name!) was able to establish a chain of connection between herself and Purev-Ochir, a nomadic Mongolian herdsman. It took her 9 steps, but there's no way to know that she took the most direct path. Perhaps it could be done in six.

Having gone to all that effort, and despite the fact that she was the first foreigner he'd ever met, the reporter and the herdsman apparently didn't have all that much to say to one another.

I was merely a diversion to his day, and what he really wanted was to get back to finding some of his straying flock.

It's not enough to make the connection. To keep it alive, there must the basis for, and an effort to sustain, an actual conversation. And that's true whether it's over a far-flung chain of acquaintances, or face to face across a table.

[via mirabilis.ca]

My DSL is down

Oh, how dependent we become on our technology.

Forecast: lighter than average posting until the issue is resolved. Mild withdrawal symptoms are to be expected.

[Update: it's back, thank goodness.]