Hot. Hothothot. Hothothothothot!

Summer has arrived with a slam here in the Southland. It's gone from 85 and breezy to triple digits and large, angry thunderstorms rolling up from Mexico, making everything muggy and sparking numerous fires. For Pasadena, though it's just meant hot and humid with no breezes. It's weird, because this is the weather we usually get in late August/early September. The forecast is for it to sizzle through the weekend and then settle back into the upper-80s/low-90s for the rest of the month.

And, of course, my big interview at McGraw-Hill was scheduled for the hottest part of the day on the hottest day of the year (so far). So I kicked the air conditioner on around noon and kept near a fan while I was in long sleeves and a tie. I can only use the air conditioning in my car when it is in motion, as the compressor stalls out the car while it's idling. It's one of those things I don't want to spend money fixing on an old car, so I just toughed it out until I got on the freeway. (And, besides, it was only an eight-mile trip to the McGraw-Hill offices.)

I have a really good feeling about the possibilities of this position. I met with Mike, the director of operations in Monrovia, and kind of went over the various publications they produce there. He said they're looking for someone to spruce up the design of the publications, maybe do some training with the designers there, and also get in there and produce some of the magazines, as well. Sounds like my kind of job.

I showed him my portfolio, which he seemed genuinely interested in and impressed with. Then he took me around and introduced me to those who were there. Like at the Reporter, there were a lot more cubicles than workers, and I got the feeling that this was the first expansion for the group since our recent economic unpleasantness.

Just looking at some of the magazines they had produced, I could tell that there was a lot of room for graphic improvements. They layouts were good, but just didn't go that extra mile, visually, and a lot of the layouts were rather pedestrian (and I mean that in the nicest way, just in case Mike's reading this!)

So he's just starting to interview and said it would be two to four weeks before there was any decision made, and that he would probably call in a few candidates to work with him and his superior from the New York office before making a final choice for the job.

So I'm going to hop onto Lynda.com and take some refresher tutorials, since it's been a year since I was running InDesign in the trenches, so to speak, and the last six months I've been preoccupied with stuffing my head full of Dreaweaver and Flash and Web-based designing. One does like to hit the ground running.

I just got a wonderful long e-mail from my friend Jessie, who has been teaching in the Silicon Valley area up north. Seems, for various reasons that sound good and wise to me, she's going native and has taken a teaching position at an international school in Trinidad. All I can say is YOU GO, GIRL!

And stay there long enough so that Steve and I can come freeload off you for a couple of days. Neither of us has been to the Caribbean, and Trinidad has always, in my mind, been the epitome of island living. And promise me we'll get to drink stuff out of coconuts. Yeah, coconuts.

We're hoping to get the estimate on the flooring work within a week or so. It's important, since I really can't start moving on the budgets for any of the other remodeling until I have that base cost in hand.

The Internet connection was out all last night and into this morning, but it's fixed now. The weekend's coming up. No other job prospects popping up on the job sites, but that's okay for now. Life is good.