Hello, World! I exist – no, really!

So, I totally fail at keeping up with this blog. I don’t really even want to go into the reasons — but rest assured that reasonable reasons exist regarding my pointed absence, at least since late July.

I don’t even remember what I’ve posted this summer, and don’t feel like reading back through, so here comes a brief synopsis. I am working enough hours, as of June, that in normal circumstances I make more than I spend, although I’m still stuck as a freelancer at my main job, which sucks. I’ll have to pay double in FICA (Medicare and Social Security, mainly) taxes than a normal employee, and I’m already earning less than anyone else in my office, so it’s kind of like they’re rubbing it in my face.

On the other hand, the company I freelance for keeps asking me to do new stuff, so apparently they like me. I met with the liaison a couple weeks ago, basically because they wanted to see what my schedule’s like and if I’d want to do a regular job with them. Because I’m up to 3/4 time at my regular job, I didn’t sugar-coat – I don’t want to be a project manager, although I have enjoyed doing project support (helping out the PMs, checking editors’ and formatters’ work and such). I just don’t want to be the one training, explaining, and re-explaining stuff to other freelancers. I’ll happily check their work, but don’t make me teach them how to do it; that’s just exasperating to me. Also, it’s an hour-plus trip to their office from my main one, so I’d rather work remotely as much as possible. So they came back and offered me a new/additional position as a QA freelancer, which I can do remotely, and I took it. Went in for a day of training, have some practice to work on from home, and will let them know when I can go back in for a last couple hours of training.

…That was a long paragraph.

Also, I have moved. I’m now living pretty much exactly where I want to be, in a house that’s walkable to the University of Denver, so I can take classes and not worry about buses or light rail to/from the school. It’s also amazingly close to all kinds of stores I love, restaurants (including my favorite coffee in the city), a discount clothing & home goods store, and the bike ride to the library may be the best route in the city that isn’t on a dedicated bike path – it goes through one of the richest parts of town, with beautiful houses, quite a bit of shade, and a wide winding road that’s not very busy. Actually, scratch that – I like this ride better than the Cherry Creek bike path, in spite of the fact that the bike path goes along a stream, and I don’t see enough water in Colorado.

The house itself is nice, too – I have the upstairs to myself, almost as if it were a separate apartment, even though I have a roommate who lives downstairs. It’s got hardwood floors, a fireplace, a gas stove (this is critical, you see), and even when I get another roommate there will be an extra room for guests or an office or whatever. And it’s not particularly expensive, and it’s on a pretty quiet street, itself.

I’m replacing old furniture (going with the brown & orange theme from an earlier post), got a wood bed frame and a memory foam mattress that are a bit heavenly after sleeping on an old mattress/box spring set with no frame for a couple of years. A new bookshelf and a side table for my old crt monitor – I’m working on setting up my (also new) PS2 to play on the crt.

And stuff, and stuff. Ooh, and I signed up for a 5-session evening course on astronomy, centered around Edwin Hubble and the HST, which should involve a visit to the DU observatory. I’ve never even looked through a telescope before.

And August was my best month ever at Zazzle, with multiple unexpected huge sales. September’s ok, considering I haven’t done much at Zazzle over the past couple months, either, but I wish it were better. Fingers crossed for the second half of the month.

Also, Vernaccia di San Gimignano may be my new favorite wine. It bites a little, like my longtime favorite, Sauvignon Blanc, but it starts off sweeter and is more complex than the Sauvignon Blancs I’ve had of late. It’s a beautiful thing.

So, that’s me. I’ll sign off for now.

A brunch and some project support

We’re having a brunch at the office tomorrow for a coworker’s birthday. Casseroles involving potatoes and sausage and cheese, bagels and cream cheese from Einstein’s, yogurt and fresh fruit … mmm. This should be good.

‘Course then I have to go downtown right after work for the freelance gig, for 2-3 hours. It’s nice to do something different, and it’s good that I’ll earn a little more money. But dang it, I just don’t feel like it! I want to play on Zazzle. (Oh well — I’ll be looking at other languages, and that’s always a bit cool. Hopefully it’s still a European language, those I can at least figure out how to pronounce, not that that’s even necessary for the kind of checks I’ll be making.)

And I refilled my Starbucks card, which now has 5 stars on it – so I can add syrup and soy milk to a plain latte for no charge. Woot.

Skimpy portions at McD’s, and freelance training

Is it just for me, or has McDonald’s been seriously skimping on the expensive ice cream and coffee drinks lately? The last time I got a mocha, it was like they had left double or triple the necessary room for whipped cream, but didn’t put any whipped cream in and didn’t bother to fill the drink the rest of the way. It was like somebody took a couple chugs before handing it to me. And today I got an Oreo Flurry, and it was literally no more than two-thirds full! I mean, I pay almost $3 for this thing and the lady hands it to me half empty, and it’s a small cup to begin with! (I could go to the grocery and get a whole tub of cookies ‘n cream for $2 this week!)

(Note to self: ice cream is good, but don’t buy it at McDonald’s. Coffee drinks are good, but less good at McDonald’s and you can now get them cheaper at Starbucks for a better drink, thanks to your 5-star Starbucks card. Use it.)

Anyway, I had that training this afternoon. Not surprisingly, it was mostly a PowerPoint explaining the different types of files we’d work on – some are checking fully translated files against glossaries, some are formatting the files to be sent back to clients so they’re not full of colored fonts and hidden text, some are running a pretranslator and checking it for discrepancies with the original (because we all know translation programs are not quite perfect yet), and stuff.

Also not surprisingly, my contact was wrong about the time it would take. She said 2:30-4:00. It went 2:30-5:00. Agh, well that’s one more hour at least. Sounds like they’ll want me to go in on Thursday, too.

Oh, and they gave me a free copy of Adobe Acrobat. So, as much as .pdfs can be edited, I can them edit.

http://www.zazzle.com/spiral_galaxies_ngc_2207_and_ic_2163_poster-228694179333575165?dim=32.0000×16.0000in&width=32.0000&height=16.0000&size=large&print_width=32.0000&print_height=16.0000&media=basic_poster_dye&rf=238756925549500114 of

Another freelance update

Happy Memorial Day!

So, the freelance gig appears to be happening pretty much for sure, now. I’m going in tomorrow straight after work for an hour and a half of “training.” I can’t imagine there’s too much to train about – “Ok, so, you want to have these two files open, and basically check that the translator didn’t screw up the numbers or names or stuff that you can figure out, not actually being fluent in one of these languages. ‘K?”

I just edited a file as an assessment of my ‘eye for detail.’ They said to take 25 minutes on it; I was done in 15, and that was with wasting a minute or two laughing (it was one page, and not even remotely solid text), as well as starting to read the Spanish word by word towards the end. Hablo un pocito de español, so I could check the content pretty effectively for missing text in the English (which there was, a good bit – they have to, you know, to see if you’ll catch it).

So that’s that. It’s gonna be boring, I’ll bet. But they’ll pay me, so it’s got that going for it. I can also make a bigger deal at the regular job about not working when I’m not on the clock. Since I stay most afternoons and work on my computer, I’m there, and they’ll ask me to do little things – little nothings, but they distract me from my own stuff that I’m working on and waste more of my time than they should, since they’re not hardly enough to count on my time card. If I have a gig elsewhere, it’s “Look, sorry, but I have to leave AT ONE to get to this appointment, and NO, it can’t wait. [You're not paying me? then you don't get my work. That's how it is.]” One can wish.

A Larger Freelance Gig (We Think)

Well, I should be getting a tiny 5-hour freelance project to do over the weekend. That’s not much (which is good and not-so-good), but it’s also not all.

After I first replied about my availability, the company asked if I’m full-time at my day job, because now they have another contractor project they think I’d be good at (I would). Only catch is, this one’s in-office, so I either have to take days off to go there or leave early from Centennial (my day job’s way south of town, the office where I freelance is downtown – it’s a lot nicer when I can work from “home”). It would be going in to the office and helping the project managers to check the first editors’ changes, basically.

They have not been very clear about how often they’d ask me to come in, or even how much time they want me to spend there for training – “we can work with your schedule and do a 1-3 hour afternoon session” – but they don’t say how many of those! even though in the first email they indicated more than one day of training. Really, guys, I have a regular job and I need advance notice if you want me to take time off to come to your office. Don’t you get that?

The general idea, though, sounds like it could work; and the people at work who need to agree, agree. So, I’ll give it a try and keep pushing these folks for actual, concrete, useful details. Seriously, I hope their point person for freelancers doesn’t do any of the editing herself.