2 December 1999

Well, the party last night was fun. If I'd known Connie was going to fix that much food, I wouldn't have eaten dinner! She had chicken salad biscuits and minestrone soup and cookies and cake and bread and... I was pretty full from dinner, so though I greedily gobbled about three chicken salad biscuits, I didn't even try to touch the soup, even though it smelled marvelous. I had my first hot cider of the year, too. Yum!

The ornament exchange was fun - we drew numbers, and then in order of the numbers, picked a wrapped ornament and opened it. The rules were, once you had an opened ornament, you could demand an exchange with anyone else who had one - but only once! Of course, we all waited until they were all opened before beginning the trades. Most of the ornaments were - as expected - absurdly cutesy, hideously tacky, or religious in nature. I almost asked for mine back! I wound up torn between a Santa tree-topper, because I don't have a tree-topper, and the purple glass butterfly Elizabeth brought. I traded for the Santa and got Elizabeth to tell me where she got the butterfly. The Santa would be absolutely perfect if his clothes were a more traditional Christmas color - red or green or gold or white - but they're sortof pale purple. I'm not sure whether I'll use him as-is, or try to figure out where he was bought and try to exchange him.

I'd been slightly concerned that things would be awkward, since it was a party of "3GI Ladies" and I'm not technically at 3GI anymore. But except for one incident (where someone who'd started only a couple of weeks before the lay-off tried to introduce herself to me - and I think she was much more embarrased than I was) everyone seemed genuinely happy to see me. I got a lot of questions about whether I was going to the Christmas party or not, and I told them all that I was. (I'm too much of a Christmas freak to stay away from a party, anyway.)

I talked to my friend Jen yesterday, and she recommended that I send a thank-you note to the folks who interviewed me for the Webmaster position I want. I wasn't sure if it would come across as grovelly, so I asked the notify-list folks, and so far the responses are 3-0 in favor of sending the note. So a little later this afternoon I'll write something.

While I'm talking about jobs, I'll share with you the good news I told the notify list last night:

1) Someone at the party told me that she'd heard the company I'm interviewing with today pays very well and that the working environment is very nice. It turns out that I know someone who works there - an ex-3GI-employee who left several years ago. He came back on a visit one day and had very nice things to say about them, so I'm looking forward to this interview. (Though I'm still astonished that they're planning for it to take almost four hours.)

2) My dad called while I was at the party to let us know that Syscon's corporate office has approved hiring me, so I'll be hearing something from them as soon as they decide how much to offer me.

Once I have an offer in writing from Syscon, I can call the other places I've interviewed and say, "Okay, I have a firm offer - if you want me to come work for you, I need to know now so I can make a decision!"

Jeremy suggested that I take full advantage of the situation and let them start a bidding war. I'm not sure anyone is going to raise their stakes for me, though of course once I'm ready to make a decision I'm likely to call the next-best place and tell them so and see if they will. I admit it would be pretty flattering. But some small percentage of my decision process is going to be based on whether they'll let me put off starting work until January, so I can take a vacation and enjoy the holidays. With a job lined up and not having to continue the search, there are lots of things I'd like to do, starting with holiday baking, plans for the New Year's Eve party, and possibly a road trip to visit my brother and some friends that I don't see enough of.

I made fudge yesterday. Bought the ingredients, and for good measure, a new candy thermometer. Making the fudge, I decided to put both thermometers in the pot, just to see how they compared. I thought what I'd do is take a reading when the fudge started to boil. Now, water boils at 212^oF. This wasn't water, but the temperature differential isn't much - fudge boils around 214. So when it started to boil, I squatted down to get on eye-level, and looked at both thermometers. The old thermometer read 220^o, confirming my suspicions and explaining why my last two or three batches of fudge didn't harden - they hadn't been cooked long enough. I looked at the new thermometer, expecting it to be just about right. Heh. 210^o. Closer, but still off, and in the other direction. Damn. So I sortof guessed when to take the fudge off the stove, and it came out slightly grainy and very crumble-y. Oh, well. It still tastes good, and I have enough ingredients to try again. Only this time, I'll take them over to my parents', and use my mom's candy thermometer, which is much more accurate.

Today is the Four Hour Interview right after lunch, after which I'll be going to K.T.'s. She's going to pick up Matt on her way home from work (convenient that she works in Williamsburg) and the four of us (including Kevin) will have dinner together - probably the chili from the Texas Inn Tea Room that they picked up for us while they were in Lynchburg. I need to remember to pick up some tortilla chips on my way over.