Where Does the Time Go?

I know, it's almost been a month since I posted anything on the blog. That's partly because nothing much has happened during that time. We've had a shower or two but the weather has been consistently nice (in the 60s and 70s), and we even had a couple days when it hit 80°.

The news about the quakes in Japan, the resulting tsunami and now the problems with their nuclear reactors is something that is foremost in my mind. It's a terrible time, and I heard a Cal Tech seismologist on the news saying there is a good likelihood that they will have another 7-magnitude earthquake as an aftershock of the first one. My heart and prayers go out to everyone there.

Of course, Californians can't look at this without thinking about the fact that we're overdue for "the big one" here. But, again, Cal Tech seismologists say a magnitude 8 quake in California would be qualitatively different since the fault lines are of entirely different sorts. Still, it's a reminder to be ready for it, no matter when it comes.

On Academy Awards night, Steve and I attended the annual Oscar party at friends Steve and Roberto's home in Claremont. This year we got a good seat in the living room (the love seat) and stayed put the entire evening, so we weren't relegated to plastic folding chairs like last year (which killed my back). The TV screen was smaller in the living room (as opposed to the 56" screen in their sitting room), but it was worth the extra comfort. And, although I thought the reorganization of the presentation of the actual awards was good, nothing of real note occurred during the evening.

Today is the anniversary of our adoption of Pitty-Pat the Kitty-Cat (more commonly known as Patty). Here's a picture I took of her last evening. The smaller photo is the first picture I took of her after she finally decided to come out from under the bed two days after we got her. Taking a look at the two photos, I don't think she's gotten much bigger over the course of 12 months, and I don't think she will in the future. Six-toed cats tend to be the runts of the litter, I understand.

One of the pluses of having her in the house is that Marcel, our 12-year-old black cat, has actually started playing on a regular basis. He's a rather sour cat with a sometimes-disagreeable disposition, but he has not only been playing with Patty around the house, but actually plays with cat toys on his own every now and then. Also, I think he's getting kitty dementia, since there are times he sits and stares at us, yowling, like he isn't quite sure where he is or who we are.

Another month and another dozen resumes have gone out. I never heard back from the Jim Henson people (it's been about five weeks) and there's no action on the position I applied for at the American Film Institute (graphic designer in their creative services department). I do have an old coworker from the Reporter who is now a lead editor at Variety, and she knows the president of AFI, so she's putting in a call for me on Monday. Every little bit helps.

I found out my last extension on EDD benefits will run through June. Since I've had a couple weeks where my self-employment (website work) has precluded a benefit check, my 99 weeks will ultimately end up being 103 weeks, just shy of two years. Hopefully, we won't hit that point, though.

I'm doing a second website for Steve's boss, for a line of pet products that they manufacture (feeding bowls and such), and the design is even better than the first site. All we need to do is sign the quote and I'm out of the gates with the project, which should be done in a couple weeks, since there's only about a dozen or so items they produce.

Also, I've tweaked my portfolio website a bit, putting some automatic animation into the navigation bars (my pixelated portrait) and adding a slide show of work samples; if you click on an image in the show, it will open the corresponding PDF file automatically. I'm hoping it will get folks to go deeper into the site than they have been (average visits have only had about four page hits apiece).

Life goes on. We lost an hour for daylight-savings time early this morning. It will be nice to have the sun around later in the evenings. And I'm seeing flowers around town, especially all the flowering trees here in Pasadena. Spring is a really great time here, so I plan on enjoying it.