How’s the job hunt going?

👩‍💻 I had another job interview! And it was probably the most friendly and professional interview I’ve ever had. No trick questions; just honest sharing and good vibes, and I think I’d be a great technology and personality fit!

🙋‍♀️ I heard from the recruiter that I got the job, too, but I’m not going to believe it until everything’s signed and confirmed, and I’m still waiting for them to officially extend an offer. So, who knows?

Where did I go?

🤗 I took a trip out to Exeter to meet my Fedi-friend Martin!

🧭 I suck at navigating in cities. Drop me on Dartmoor with an Ordnance Survey map and I’m grand, but give me Google Maps and I’ll spin in circles. It’s too easy to rely on a blue dot that lies, and I’ll never figure out why the map sometimes orients north and sometimes follows my point-of-view. Everyone else manages, though, so I suspect I’m just stupid.

⛵️ Anyway, I couldn’t find The Quay (but I did find a haunted car park where I thought I was going to die). Then I couldn’t find Generator Hub. Then Martin found and rescued me!

💻 Wrangling Git’s never fun. It just ain’t. But we got a full Hugo pipeline up, running and pushed to GitHub, with a webhook for building and deploying to Netlify!

👋 Hello, Martin! Did you write your week notes yet?

💁‍♂️ Honestly, it was really nice to be in an office and talking to an actual human being for a change, even if he is an anti-fascist member of the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati.

😶‍🌫️ Exmouth’s foggy.

What did I eat?

🥧 I got a beef & stilton pasty from the Cornish Bakehouse on Exeter’s high street. It was cold, and more pastry than filling. Not for me.

🥘 I got a kalia from my favourite local Indian restaurant, Tandoori Nights, and–good lord–I could eat that every night. Absolutely bloody delicious!

What did I drink?

☕️ A lovely americano with oat milk from Mango’s Café & Bar courtesy of Martin. Ta for that!

What did I suck at?

🎵 My submission for the Spooky Tune Jam 2024, That’s Not Swamp Gas, ranked 30th of 39. For “how well did the tune capture the jam’s prompt?”, it ranked 38th of 39. For shame, I deleted it. I’m not proud of that, but I will admit it. I deleted it.

💁‍♀️ The theme was “Creature Feature”, and I picked “aliens” as the creature. The song was supposed to evoke a rural area with the military evacuating crowds being chased by mysterious craft that fly closer, and closer, and closer. Turns out it just evoked me being an embarrassing piece of shit.

🤡 Still, at least I competed ethically. I’d rather try and fail than cheat and rank in, say, the top five.

What did I learn?

🩸 Your blood vessels, measured end-to-end, aren’t 100,00 km long.

🚣‍♀️ The Daymark is a daytime navigational landmark for travellers at sea.

I played…

📎 Universal Paperclips. I didn’t really understand it. And then I reached the second stage, and I totally didn’t understand it. I love incremental games, this one ain’t for me.

I listened to…

🎹 I’ve been on a bit of a Mike Batt kick.

🐇 …especially everything he composed for the 1999-2001 Watership Down TV show.

✨ …especially Thank You, Stars, performed by Cerys Matthews for the show.

🌙 …and especially, of course, Better Than A Dream from The Dreamstone.

I watched…

🌙 A voice recording session for The Dreamstone filmed in 1992.

⚡️ A GoPro ride through an electron beam irradiator.

🌍 The first time the entire Earth was photographed made me laugh so hard it hurt.

🎃 And it was halloween, so: David S. Pumpkins.

I’m perturbed by…

💧 My landlord still hasn’t fixed the leaking boiler.

🙋‍♀️ Have I got a job or not? Will I get a contract before the rent’s due?

What’s coming up?

🤨 Uh… nothing? Maybe I’ll have a job to go to? Maybe I should keep applying for other roles? I’m floating in limbo a bit, here.

I need to remember…

☑️ …to keep myself busy. Downtime is depressing.