Status of new job

Well, I have been at the new job for several months now and I am still gainfully employed. That is a good thing. I have been code SQL most of the time, though recently I as able to write some java. It felt good to write a java application again. I was assigned a "conversion" project that had to be performed over a weekend. What a nightmare. The guy who did this before left the company so I was flying blind. We managed to pull it off but not without some hair-pulling. The job was supposed to take no more than an hour but I spend 13 hours working on the conversion. The main problem was the new security rules. I understand the purpose of the rules but they did make the job take much longer.

On another note, I am still playing D&D as much as I can. We meet about once or twice a month for a few hours so the game is progressing slowly but I enjoy the time with my friends. I have been playing World of Warcraft, too much, but the new Cataclysm release has made the game seem boring to me. Maybe, it is because I don't join groups or raid. I solo most of the time but this is getting old. So I am letting my subscription lapse. I started working on my stamp collection again. It has been many years so I had to fork out some money to bring things up to date. It is a three volume set now with nice heavy stock pages. I need to catch up on the current releases of stamps too. I have a suspicion that the US Post Office may not be around in the near future, therefore, stamps may go up in price.

Job Search - Update

I have been reading a lot about search for a job. I read that it takes about a month for each 10K of salary. I make good money so I cannot accept this as gospel. Other things I have read say that the 10K/month meme is for most people who shoot off lots of resumes and then wait for response

I have to say that I am guilty of this. I am working with several recruiters and have had four interviews since November of last year. Three of these did not pan out. As for the last one, I am still waiting for more information. It is a government entity so I expect the process to take longer. Meanwhile, there is talk that I may be extended again where I am working now.

At the National Renewable Laboratories where I work as a contractor, the funding is much different that in corporate, where I have worked my entire career. NREL is dependent on government funding. So I have no idea what will happen first. Will the money come in or will I get another position?

I don't believe in luck so I guess I better get off my ass and figure something out.

Successful Teams

I have been on successful teams in my career. I have tried to analyze why we were successful. My teams worked well together. I knew everyone's strengths and I had really good clients. But this article does a very good job explaining management's view of a team. Let me know what you think.