fouldsy.com

The last few days I’ve been brushing up on OS X server and some Windows Server 2003 training ready for next week. Trying to cover all bases depending on what systems I’ll actually be working with and getting back up to speed on what I used to do on daily basis.

I got booked into gr88 Bear B&B for Monday-Thursday night which shouldn’t be too expensive and hopefully I can find somewhere to start renting for the following week. I also headed round to chat with Carl McIntyre who travels into Bethel during the week as well working for AVCP who offered me a seat with him flying in tomorrow evening in his Cessna 172 which helps out a little too. Will be nice to already know someone living in town to maybe meet up for something to eat or in case I need help with getting things sorted.

Always a little mix of nervousness and excitement when starting a new job, but really looking forward to getting into Bethel tomorrow night ready for Tuesday morning!

Move along, nothing to see here…

Missed a few upgrades (like three whole 2.x releases), but the blog should be updated to the latest version of WordPress. Always seems to take forever to upload all the files, but everything seems to be working fine. Still think there should be a way to incrementally update things rather than uploading the whole package each time – sure I’d stay more on top of the updates if there was

After Cheri` sent up a care package a couple of weeks ago, Mia has been trying to steal a candy bar. Kinda got her wish tonight:

Happy as a pig in the proverbial…

Got a phone call this morning from the school district in Bethel to confirm starting the system analyst job next week Guess I need to find somewhere to stay now… Looking forward to it though, and there’s already a little project lined up for my first day (Tuesday, since Monday is Labor Day public holiday). Plan to fly into Bethel on the Monday evening as even with the best will in the world the bush flights wouldn’t get me in by 8a.m on the Tuesday morning!

I’ve been filling in the paperwork for a new hire – working out your own tax deductions via the W-4 seems inane given all payroll info is going to be handled via computer which could spit out your deductions in an instant. It’s pretty different to back in England though where married filing jointly doesn’t affect things and child tax credits are handled separately too. Guess the idea is to have as much as possible handled within your pay check rather than additional credits here and there and then rebates at the end of each tax year which makes sense. Still think i prefer the UK way where you don’t have to even file a tax return under most circumstances and have it all handled automatically for you

Pending a reference check from Greencroft, today I was hired as the new system analyst managing application systems for the school district, scheduled to start next week It was a fairly informal interview, but a great opportunity to meet the other guys within the technology support team, and I then spent an hour or so with personnel and the technology director to give me a few things to start thinking about working towards to try and hit the ground running on the first day (always easier said than done!).

The role will primarily focus on supporting all the servers across the district in their overall day to day running including backups, updates, and routine maintenace, with two other system analysts in web systems and networking systems maintaining their actual roles such as looking after the e-mail system, school information system, distance learning courses, etc. I’ll also be taking care of the end user support with regards to the FileMaker database systems, as well as the increased use of the school information systems. It will certainly be a very challenging though equally as rewarding role, and the district also hired a new itinerant site technician yesterday that will travel between some of the villages – a good sign they’re continuing to move forward and improve their support services.

I’ll work the next few days here in Tunt to finish off the project dismantling the basketball project as I hate leaving things unfinished, and it will also help with an extra bit of money to see us through as it would be the middle of October before the first pay check from the new role would appear. Living in Bethel won’t be cheap! Hopefully the district will get in touch to confirm all is sorted on the reference checks and I can start next week, and this weekend I might also try chatting with Carl here in the village as he flies into Bethel during the week too working for AVCP so might have some suggestions on getting housing sorted.

At the start of the week I put in an application for a system analyst position with the school district up in Bethel. It’s a little different than what I was doing at Greencroft before I moved out to the US, and in some ways a bit of a step up and away from the network management side of things, but looks like a great new challenge. This afternoon I got a call back from the technology director inviting me for an interview next Tuesday afternoon (meaning, of course, it will snow on Monday evening and I’ll be stuck in the village on weather hold ) which is pretty exciting and encouraging, so this weekend I guess I’m brushing up going through my notes from past courses and exams, as well as making sure my suit still fits… But, small world, although the director spent 40+ years in Australia before moving over to the US, he grew up in England and still has some family in Chester-le-Street, about 7-8 miles from Durham!

But, I was wanting to move away from Windows-based systems even whilst at Greencroft and the school district is pretty much all Mac-oriented, meaning Filemaker would be a little different for me for example, and quite a bit of the role seems to involve the back-end systems rather than installing a new printer cartridge or replacing a RAM module, which is nice. Would mean basing myself out of Bethel, which is mixed good + bad – would be nice to get out the village during the week when everyone is busy teaching anyways and would mean I could easily get fresh fruit + veg brought back in for Kat, but the cost of living in Bethel is pretty extreme with heat easily going to be $500 a month, even before $200 round-trip on the bush flights to get me in + out of Tunt. Depending on exactly what the position includes, might even be possible to work out some time basing myself out of the school here in Tunt during the winter when there *will* be weather holds between here and Bethel.

Still, it’s a great opportunity to get back into working at something I enjoy doing and something I can make a difference with, and the money is very attractive. Would offer enough to rent somewhere in Bethel for during the week and fly back pretty much every weekend and still leave me better off than working two jobs for the school here in Tunt. Not quite your normal commute to work, admittedly. I’ll have to see how the interview goes and exactly what the role would include, as well as how to work the traveling, but would certainly be an improvement from falling off ladders

This evening the skies darkened to the east and flashes of lightning swirled around, though most seemed to be missing us. Then it hit! Only lasted about 5 minutes, but dumped a *lot* of water, all in good sized hailstones

Photo is a little grainy due to the all the hail falling – I was outside for less than a minute and got absolutely drenched. Bethel weather is reporting 60F and storms “May contain some small hail”. The joys of modern weather reporting, eh?

Whilst working on Saturday morning I decided to throw myself off a ladder for something to do I did manage to find the only place in the steel storage building to do this where I wouldn’t crack my head on a 4-wheeler, filing cabinet, or metal trolley, and also landed flat on my back as opposed to something silly like on a shoulder or ankle where a break or dislocation would have been an odds-on favourite to have happened.

Okay, so I didn’t exactly do it on purpose (and apparently the precedent was set by needing to get drunk before falling down and suing the school…). As I was stepping off the ladder onto the upper level of the building, the ladder slipped away from under my other foot, sending me 8 feet or so onto the wooden boardwalk below. Over an hour at the clinic today (ten points for guessing it’s not open over the weekend, though at least there is an emergency call out available if it had been serious) and all I got was some ibuprofen and told to take it easy, which is about all I was expecting, though the doctor that checked over the details back in Bethel did suggest going into the hospital if it get’s worse or doesn’t ease up in a week or so. Which was nice. Hard for them to done anything else really, as nothing is broken or obvious signs of problems other than swelling + bruising, and they were very nice whilst checking me out.

I might be going into Bethel in the next week or so in an attempt to get out of the heavy lifting business anyway- more on that one as things pan out. Could get Subway whilst I’m at it! In other news, Kat’s half-sister Cheri` sent through a care package containing 36 Twix bars

After having a photo selected for the Schmap! Edinburgh guide, I’ve now had two photos included in the guide to Anchorage The first was showcasing the shuttle bus the zoo operates from downtown to the zoo which is a pretty cool deal as it wasn’t exactly the easiest place to find otherwise! The original photo can be found here on Flickr, and the photo in the Schmap! guide is here

This second one is of a dall sheep within the zoo, a pretty good closeup given the camera I had at the time! Here’s the Schmap! page with the featured photo, and the original on Flickr. One of my friends on Flickr also has a photo or two listed which is pretty cool.

The mail has been a little hit + miss the last few days with the weather a bit rainy, so Photoshop Elements hasn’t arrived yet – looking forward to touching up the photos from our trips around Anchorage from a couple of weeks ago when it does as really want to get the photos online I’ve also just redesigned iainfoulds.com, the side-arm with a selection of prints available for purchase.

Hopefully tomorrow’s opening kickoff of the 2008-2009 Premiership season will be as entertaining as my virtual game in Fifa ’08 on the Xbox 360 this evening – final score was Sunderland 4 – Liverpool 1 Somehow, I think it’s still being slightly optimistic to expect a similar result tomorrow!

I’m going to try watching the match via foxsoccer.com which holds the broadcasts rights over here in the US – our pitiful satellite can’t pick up the actual Fox Soccer Channel, but I’m going to try streaming it online. The first three Sunderland games of the season are being broadcast, and the lads at safc.com have also just fired up the podcast again after doing nothing last season Providing the internet doesn’t disappear in the morning, will almost be as good as being at the Stadium of Light with dad having a pint at half time…

Okay, maybe not. But I will have the new strip on that my parents brought over a couple of weeks ago!