Fine Time with Mom

It's always a pleasure to take advantage of living in one of the great vacation destinations in the world. Today, my mother and I strolled beneath the world famous Golden Gate Bridge along a path that used to be part of the Presidio Army Base in San Francisco.

We ate a pleasant lunch at the Warming Hut before heading out along the shore. I'm sure the hut is especially welcome on cold, foggy days, but today, the weather cooperated with temperatures in the low 60s and clear skies.

I learned something new about my mom today. She often takes this walk, and it's her habit to go up to the tourists and offer to take their photo together. It makes them very happy, and means they'll have a keepsake that includes everyone to send back to their friends at home. And, they'll remember a small kindness from a San Franciscan, too.

I hope we'll be able to go back to Crissy Field again soon.

Music from This Century

I think it's important to stay abreast of the music scene--or at least have some familiarity with it--to avoid terminal old fogeydom. As delightful as a stroll down 1960's memory lane can be, at some point one has to escape from the museum and live today.

So--I spent some quality ear time on The Pulse--SiriusXM bills it as "The 2000's and Today." That seems about right. It doesn't play hip hop or anthing too intense but you do get a nice sampling of today's artists. On The Pulse, an "oldie" is from 2002.

Appealing songs by female singers included Michelle Branch's Are You Happy Now, Sara Bareilles' Uncharted, and Pink's F'n Perfect.

Groups of guys entertained me: Switchfoot's Your Love is a Song, The Fray's Syndicate, Maroon 5's Misery and the amusingly named Fitz and the Tantrums, with MoneyGrabber--which sounded like an old Hall and Oates song.

After my sampling, I think the retro period of choice now has become the 1980's. For pure '80's, you can visit Channel 8 on Sirius or XM, of course, too.

Uncharted is my top pick, and I got a nice "Cold Play" feeling from the Switchfoot song, but I liked them all. Makes me feel young.

Metropolitan Comes Back to Life

Knowing that I had this week off--before starting my new job--I decided to turn my successful job-finding energy loose to get my 1956 Nash Metropolitan's replacement wiring harness installed and make the car roadworthy. As of this moment, the job is not 100 percent done--but I was able to start the car and drive it up and down the street tonight--something it has not done in a year. The photo is taken today, in my driveway.

We still need to go in and get all the electrical parts functioning, but I set myself a week to do this and it's only Tuesday.

Much thanks go to Mike Connolly, my neighbor, who is not only car knowledgeable and a professional electrician--he's a great guy too. Mike is patient, and was able to get a lot done--and still let me work on my car myself too. He taught me about crimping wires today.

I'm so excited. I'll make another blog update when the job is complete.

New VW Beetle Debuts in New York

After more than a million sales globally since 1998, the New Beetle is, well, new again.

See the story from Autoweek here.

My first car was a candy apple red 1964 Beetle. It was falling apart and had been poorly treated, but it ran for a couple of years and was fun to drive.

The New Beetle was based on a concept car and felt a little odd with its huge, extended windshield, but it did its job of keeping Volkswagen on people's minds. Being front-wheel-drive and water-cooled (based on the Golf) it wasn't much like the original car--it was much more powerful, that's for sure. It's bud vase on the dash was cute--and, from what I can tell, was often actually used by owners.

The original Beetle was sold in the U.S. from the late 1940's until 1979 (but elsewhere for longer). Many are still on the road--including a nice blue one down the street from me.

The new 2012 model is a lot different, but still looks familiar. It should be a good driver, and I look forward to slipping behind the wheel of one soon. The bud vase, however, is gone--sorry.

Visiting Garden Railways

Did you know that there are some devoted enthusiasts who build model railways in their gardens? I never knew this until today, when I joined the Santa Clara Model T Ford Club and the Arcane Auto Society to drive to four wonderful back yards filled with model trains.

It was all put on by the Bay Area Garden Railway Society, whose members generously opened their beautiful presentations to the public. How wonderful to open the gate and walk into a beautifully landscaped yard. And then, you look carefully and see miniature buildings, people and moving trains.

In the first yard, the trains ran on butane, and put out smoke like old locomotives. The other yards used electric trains, some of which made train sounds, but these are not the little ones you see in someone's den. These are G Scale--about a half inch to a foot--and with the buildings and other items scaled to them, you can see the panoramas clearly.

At the first stop, we visited with Robert Brown, who not only has a wonderful garden railway, but also is editor and publisher of Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette. It's a handsome four-color bi-monthly magazine filled with "Accurate Information for Fine Modelbuilding." Bob had a fantastic indoor train setup too that was far-ranging and incredibly detailed. And, it reflected more than 30 years of dedicated work.

Besides the appeal of the trains, gardens, and socializing was the presence of so many old and wonderful cars. The Model T folks drove a sampling of Henry Ford's favorites. I followed a couple between gardens and heard their distinctive engine sound--and moved at their distinctive speed, too.

The Arcane Auto Society members brought the usual selection of Peugeots, Minis, DKWs, microscopic pre-Civic Hondas, and even a blocky pink Powell pickup truck. As far as I could tell, everyone had a great time, and the weather was perfect too.

How to Get a Job

On April 25th I start a new job at Luidia. Visit their website to learn about the amazing eBeam products that transform flat surfaces into interactive and collaborative workspaces.

How did I find it? I treated my job search like a job. I got up every morning just as if I was going to work. That means I was online by 6:45 a.m. checking things out.

I contacted everyone I knew. I made lots of new connections on LinkedIn (more than 350 so far)--all people I actually know, of course. I was on Facebook too--and emailing--and on the phone. But I didn't bug people.

I got some nice leads from my connections, but I checked various online job sources daily, including Indeed.com. I also looked at Monster.com but it was not very effective. If I saw something that seemed suitable, I applied for it. Then, I went to LinkedIn and found out who I might know who worked there--or someone I knew who knew someone. That expedited my resume being seen.

I tweaked my resume whenever I felt it needed it. I kept it simple, but included anything of value.

I kept a positive attitude. I knew it was going to work out. When the first three jobs I interviewed for didn't come through, I was unhappy for a half a day and then got right back to work.

I pictured the successful result. I visualized the phone ringing with my job offer, and on Thursday, April 14th, it did.

I'm grateful to all the friends and former colleagues who supported me in this effort. I'm happy to start my new tech writing job in a little over a week.

I am thankful for the great help I got from Brian Bocchino of Gravity People, who worked hard (and quickly!) to make it happen. Contact brian@gravitypeople.com.

It's certainly helpful to have job skills, but I think that concerted effort, focus, and a positive attitude are vital to being successful in your job search.

Nonet

Yesterday, I had the great chance to play chamber music with eight other musicians in a nonet. If three's a trio and four's a quartet, nine is a nonet.

Chamber music commonly combines wind instruments or string instruments--think of the classic string quartet (two violins, a viola and a cello). But--some composers have used the larger ensemble to get a richer sound, mixing winds and strings into a mini orchestra. We had me on bass, plus a cello, viola, violin, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon and flute.

The group was about half men and half women in a range of ages but tending to those in their middle to senior years--but all full of vitality and energy. The photo is NOT us--as you can surely tell. The important thing was, we played together and made a good sound.

The difficulty of sightreading the selections varied. The first piece, by Louise Farrenc, was a beautiful mid-nineteenth century work by a female composer--a bit unusual--but it wasn't too much of a struggle. The second piece, by Bohuslav Martinu, was a hundred years newer, and had the intensity and intellectual brilliance of the 1940's. With its twist and turns in key, time signature and note length, it made for much more effort--and I got lost more often. This kind of chamber music is more work, but with enough practice could be a great experience.

A third piece, by Louis Spohr, was played as an Octet, because this bass player was called away. For what? Read tomorrow's post to find out. 8-)