Randy Hemingway's Blog » life

too early

Randy — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:57:00 +0000

There’s pretty much no such thing as being too early, unless it’s waking up in the morning. I, foolishly, drank a Mt. Dew while golfing last night. (Man, I’m missing my keyboard at work right now) So, of course, I woke up at 4:00 this morning and was forced to toss and turn until about 5:00. Then, I woke up at 5:40, about twenty minutes before my alarm goes off, never to return to sleepy land. If you wake up before your alarm goes off, you’ve woken up too early. Anyway, so I got up and sent a couple e-mails to a couple more recruiters. They’re as bad as telemarketers now, except that I want them to call. It’s crazy. I probably have 2-3 recruiters call me every day. And they’re all from different companies. It’s kind of overwhelming. I try to return all the calls, but it’s nigh on to impossible with work and everything. I could call while I’m at work, but I try to avoid that. Well, I think I’ve rambled enough. Have a good day, and don’t do anything too early. Whatever that means

GRAWR! ME WANT COFFEE!

Randy — Sat, 03 May 2008 13:25:00 +0000

Ah! Nothing like a warm cup of coffee laden down with sugar and a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats, which is just mini wheats laden down with sugar. All part of a balanced, healthy diet laden down with sugar.

Spine-Tinglers

Randy — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:26:00 +0000

All right, I’ve been thinking about this a little while, and it’s time I get it out of my system before I forget it. Backstory: I’m sitting in church when Jason (our songleader) says to turn to “Amazing Grace” in our hymnbooks. I know what’s coming next: everyone belting out one of the greatest songs of all time, some people singing parts, and it always results in my spine tingling and my throat getting a little lump in it. So, I’ve been trying to come up with my list of spine-tingling songs that every time I hear them, no matter what how many times I may have heard them, I get that same old feeling. Here’s what I can come up with off the top of my head.

1) Amazing Grace

Reason: Especially on that last verse, if and when everyone goes up a key, the melody is pretty much in everyone’s vocal range and you can sing at the top of your lungs. Also, its message is so moving and wonderful, it’s just…wow.

2) The Star-Spangled Banner

Reason: Every time I hear/sing this song, I can’t help but think of some of the veterans I’ve known and their stories from battles they were in. I could preach a while about the disrespect some people show during the singing of the national anthem, but I won’t: this is supposed to be fun. Anyway, just thinking about the freedom’s God’s given to us here, and the sacrifices that have been made are enough to make your spine tingle.

Well, that’s a start. I’ll post more later, as I remember them. Let me know what some songs are that make your spine tingle.

Busy-ness is overrated

Randy — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:56:00 +0000

Where do I begin? There’s so much to catch up on. And I haven’t posted any cool tech stuff lately or anything. I haven’t had any time to read up on any of that in what seems like forever. It’s crazy what vacation will do to you…and buying a house and looking for a job and blah, blah, blah. Hey, I just checked my answering machine here at home. The first was one of the recruiters I’ve been talking to and I’ll get to that later, but the second was this guy who mumbles, “May I speak to *stumbling over pronunciation* Ran-dall Hem-ing-way please….Hello?…..Hello?…….Hello?” *click* The best part is our answering machine message has been erased from moving the phone around and stuff so it’s just the standard robotic woman saying, “No one is available at this time, blah, blah, blah” (she really says the blah thing. call us, you’ll see. ok, she doesn’t really, but you can still call if you want to…only if you have something to talk about). Craaaaazy. All right, well, I’ve got a HR rep from one company calling me on Monday to do a phone screening to “get to know a little more about me.” I can imagine why they do this:

*slow blurry, rippling fade to HR manager’s office. enter backwoods redneck*

Backwoods Redneck: Well hay-de-hoo there! What’s goin’ on, friend? That fine young lady out front thur told me I could come right on in.

HR Manager: *forcing smile while taking in BR’s tattered outfit* Yes, come on in. You must be BR. Nice to meet you.

BR: Oh, and mighty nice to meet youse, too. *smiling with all one tooth*

HR: Now, you’re here for the Personnel Management is that correct?

BR: Sho is, yessir.

HR: Excellent. Do you have any previous management experience?

BR: Well, as I’m shore you’ve read on my reezoomee right thur in front of youse, I’ve had 10 children, all needing their fair share of management, if you know what I mean? *whispering behind hand* Larry the Cable Guy says that. He is so funny. I tell you what –

HR: *interrupting* Yes, well, have you ever worked somewhere where you would have to prepare expense reports or performance charts or anything of that nature?

BR: *staring blankly, then getting a knowing twinkle in his eye* Sir, I file my taxes every year. And I do ‘em mighty well, too. Don’t even have ter use a cumpooter to do ‘em neither! Young Betsy knows all about them things, but I’ve never –

HR: *abruptly* All right, well, BR, we’ll be getting back to you in a couple of days about the position. Thank you for coming and I’ll be sure to wash your chair, I mean, call you back on this.

*quick fade back to the present* Yeah, phone screening is probably a good idea, now that I think about it. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll keep you posted on how that goes. I think I’ve got a couple recruiters trying to get me into the same job. The job descriptions sound the same. I guess I’ll find out when I get hired twice. That’s gotta look good on a resume!

This morning, at 4:30, I woke up to my bed shaking! I just looked at the ceiling, trying to get my brain to process this. Once I finally got my head around the fact that it was an earthquake, I just kind of thought, Well, that was cool. Then, I tried, unsuccessfully to get back to sleep for that precious last hour. Once I finally got to work (kind of slept in. Oops!) people were saying, “Yeah, we’re on this big ol’ fault line and we could fall into the belly of the earth at any time and we’ll all die anyway, so why not by being swallowed by the earth” and all this kind of stuff. Ok, they weren’t really saying that but me and the guy I golf with were joking about it. Tomorrow’s headlines: San Francisco and Eastern Missouri shaken off the face of the earth! Well, I guess you had to be there.

Just another quick note before I go because I’m tired of typing. I shot a 61 on my first night in the golf league. I was happy. Most of my shots went fairly straight and through the air. I’m just doing it for fun and I want to keep it that way. Hope I can get a little better though. All right, I’m done. Go enjoy your weekend and stop reading boring blogs!

tolja

Randy — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:10:00 +0000

I got my car back today! The General (the name of my car: don’t laugh, and it has nothing to do with the Dukes of Hazzard) has come back home! I got a voicemail today and the guy literally said, “This is Harris Auto. Your Concorde’s ready. Ummm, bye.” I could either grouse about his mumbling or I could praise him for not taking a bunch of time to get to the point, but that’s beside the point: I got my car back! Oh, what a feeling of freedom! AND, they cleaned the contacts on my battery (they were corroding and looked like they were being eaten by a glob of white/green mold)…FOR FREE! Now, I will probably need to do something about those tires. *sigh* If it weren’t already paid for, it’d be a money-hole, but instead of a car payment every month, we’re paying about $1,000 bucks a year to maintain it. That’s like $83/month. I’d rather do that and have it paid for than have a car payment on top of that.

Crazy, man, crazy

Randy — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 22:08:00 +0000

I have not posted on here in a long time! At least it seems that way. All righty, here we go: I’ve been crazy busy. First of all, my car’s water pump decided to puke its coolant-filled guts all over the driveway when I got to work last Thursday (the day we were leaving for AZ, of course). So, I took it to the shop in town here to figure out exactly what was going on and how much it would be. The guy told me it was my water pump and that it would be $600! So, I got it back to work and parked it for the weekend. Then, I got the crazy idea in my head I could fix it myself. I don’t know what I was thinking…I don’t do that kind of stuff ever. One of the guys here at work was willing to help, but just for peace of mind, I limped it to another shop the next town over. “Limped” is an understatement. I had to stop twice to let the engine cool down so I could put more coolant in, and the shop is probably 5 miles from work. Yeah, it was that bad.
Then, I’ve been thinking about getting a new job for a while, but I just haven’t been as proactive about it as I should be. Finding a job is a major inconvenience. You have to spend time updating your resume, updating your account on Monster, updating your account on every other career search website in the known universe, write witty, captivating cover letters, and tailor each application to the specific company that you are applying to. After all of that, you have to talk to every technical recruiter that calls you (I think two are trying to get me into the same job opening…this should be interesting) and help them tailor their application to their clients. Sometimes, it can be a little disheartening when they’re asking about all this stuff their client wants in an employee and you don’t fit any of the qualifications. Anyway, so Tuesday night, Faith got on the hospital website where she works to look for jobs there and I finally went over and said, “Here, I’ll look.” So, all I did was update my Monster account. BOOM! The next day, four recruiters called me! One lady called and said, “We have an opening for an industrial engineer in Bridgeton, MO.” I thought, Boy, this sounds eerily familiar. No harm in asking: “Is this for Hussmann?” That really caught her off guard, but she finally stuttered, “Yes” like I was standing outside her office window and reading her computer screen over her shoulder. I calmed her fears by saying, “Oh, I already held that position.” She offered the position to me again, and I refused, so the conversation was pretty much over. All that to say, finding a job is a full-time job, seriously.
So, between trying to figure out how to fix my car and finding a job, my evenings are pretty much shot. BLAM!…there goes blogging. BLAM!…there goes corresponding with family and friends. BLAM!…there goes my nightly backrub. BLAM!…there goes dinner. Seriously…no, not seriously. In the end, my car will be fixed by Tuesday, and I’ll get a wicked good-paying job. So what if I’m busy right now. The benefits of this little crazy time far outweigh the…um…bad-e-fits. Whatever.

Hire Me!

Randy — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:24:00 +0000

My Monster profile: http://myprofile.monster.com/Randall/Hemingway/intelligentdesign

The big day

Randy — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 15:14:00 +0000

Well, my sister, the oldest of the four kids, is getting married today! Since she’s been living in Tucson for a while, and her soon-to-be husband lives here also, they decided to get married down here at their church. That’s fine with me. We’ve had rain almost every day for the last month in St. Louis, and in New Hampshire, where my parents are from, they’ve almost broken the record for snowfall this winter. We are LOVING the sunshine and warm weather. Anyway, I’m writing this post on my brother’s MacBook Air. It’s really cool. If I travelled a lot and had a lot of business stuff going on all the time, this would be the perfect laptop to travel with. It’s wicked thin and light and, most importantly, it’s a Mac. I know there’s a lot of controversy out there, but I love Macs, that’s all there is to it. Sorry if I’ve offended you, but you can use whatever computer you want and love it and keep it to yourself. But I digress. My sister’s getting married. We’ve been waiting a while for this to happen, but the Lord finally got her and her fiancee in the same place so they could meet. We’re just glad that she’s found a good guy and they are happy together. That’s what’s most important. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Crazy Weekend!

Randy — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:37:00 +0000

Whew! this weekend was crazy! Usually when several days in a row are really busy, you look back and say,”Man! That went by wicked fast!” This weekend was different for some reason, though. It felt like I had a 4-day weekend it took so long. First, on Friday, Faith and I went to sign the contract on our new house! Now, I’m having daydreams about all the stuff I can fix up in the house and where my workbench is gonna go and parking the cars in the garage so we don’t have to keep scraping them off every morning and blah, blah, blah… Anyway, then on Friday, after the house thing, we went straight to the church for our first presentation of our Easter contata (a play with songs every now and then). Faith was in the choir and I had one of the three speaking parts. It was fun, but the crowd was pretty small. As long as the message got across. Then, we went to my in-laws for the night. Saturday, my mother-in-law helped us with our taxes. Then, we went home and thoroughly enjoyed getting back to our queen-size bed after sleeping on my in-laws’ double bed. Sunday was a normal Sunday except we had our second contata performance that night. That was fun also, and it went really well. Afterwards, we had a little fellowship time downstairs. And that rounded out the weekend for us. It seemed like it took forever, though.

Another Saturday

Randy — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:40:00 +0000

Faith is working today, but that doesn’t mean that I’m just sitting at home doing nothing! Well, I kind of am, but I won’t do nothing all day! If you don’t know already, Faith and I put an offer on a house on Thursday. Now, we just have to wait to hear back from the seller! They should be calling some time today. So, the waiting continues….and still, it continues even now…..and now, too. ANYWAY, while we’re waiting to hear if our offer was accepted with tears of joy or rejected like a 5′2″ point guard going in for a lay-up, I have other business to attend to: namely, …. ROBOTICS!! This is long overdue, but here is the video of my very first circuit (well, I built a bunch of circuits in college, but this is the first I’ve built on my own)!

Maybe later, I’ll have another part of the robot built. I’ll see if I can get some more done on it today and post another video. Well, I guess I’d better get to work.