Aurora Borealis

Mr. Tldz feels like the phone interview with Google today went well.  He has a phone interview with another company set for Wednesday, and he’s been told by the relevant recruiter that the company he phone interviewed with last week still wants to bring him in for an in-person, they just haven’t come up with the scheduling yet.  And he’s heard from recruiters today about at least 2 additional positions he may apply for.  Eventually something good will come of all this…

Mr. Tldz had a phone interview this afternoon and they’ve already indicated they want to bring him in for an in-person interview.  He has an in-person interview tomorrow and another phone interview scheduled for Monday.  And he seems to hear about at least one new position pretty much every day.  Something will come of all this activity, right?

Mr. Tldz had a phone interview for a contract position with AT&T early this afternoon, and they’ve already called back and scheduled him for an in-person interview on Friday afternoon.  And he continues to hear from recruiters about other positions to apply for.  So this is good.  Saying our prayers and keeping our fingers crossed…

Now I’ll have to go and pull up some pictures of Agent Murphy.  He’s demanding to see himself on the monitor.  (The other day I was going through a lot of his baby pictures, and now he apparently thinks his mug is always supposed to be on the computer screen!)

So the company that was in such a big hurry to hire has decided not to bring Mr. Tldz in for an interview after all.  (Not a big loss, as he already had concerns about whether the job was really a good fit for him.)  Unfortunately, the company he interviewed with last week has selected someone else.  Mr. Tldz was feeling rather discouraged there for a bit.  I pointed out that we’d been a little anxious about how to handle these early leads because there are some others out there that look more promising career-wise; and I told him that I’d prayed we’d know the right thing to do if we had to make a choice between an offer from one of these and pursuing something else.  So, I said, now it’s easy to know what to do.  Apparently neither of these is the job he’s meant to have.  Then a little bit ago he got scheduled for a phone interview with AT&T on Monday, and there’s still the Google technical phone interview the following Monday; so he’s feeling a little better now.

I saw the perinatologist today for an ultrasound.  The placenta may have shifted slightly, but, in the words of the sonographer, a “sliver” is still covering the cervix.  I’ll have another ultrasound with them in two weeks to check the position of the placenta, and if it hasn’t cleared the cervix (they don’t seem hopeful of that) we’ll proceed with a scheduled C-section. 

Everything looks good with the baby.  Garbanzo is measuring at 4 pounds 12 ounces and 3 days ahead of my original due date.  The sonographer noted that Garbanzo has long legs.  (Agent Murphy used to stretch out his legs and show off on his ultrasounds.)  Amniotic fluid level and blood flow through the umbilical cord are good.  As the doc put it, “Everything with the baby is beautiful.”

When I see my OB next week, I need to talk with him about whether I should get another round of steroids (2 shots on 2 successive days) for lung maturation.  I had a round May 4-5 when I was in the hospital.  The perinatologist doesn’t really think I need another round this soon, and apparently the steroids don’t do any good after 34 weeks, so the latest I could get them is next Thursday-Friday.  Part of me wonders why we wouldn’t just do another round since it isn’t effective after 34 weeks, but if the lungs don’t show up as mature after that, we can’t go back in time and do the steroids.  Anyway, we’ll see what my doc says.

Then, during the 36th week, I’ll see the perinatologist for an amniocentesis the day before my OB wants to do the C-section.  This tests the baby’s lung maturity.  Apparently they really try to do the procedures just a day apart.  I asked why, as opposed to doing the delivery 2 or 3 days later.  The perinatologist told me it’s a legal thing, because if they have evidence of lung maturity, don’t deliver the baby right away, and then something happens, they’ll be held accountable — “Why didn’t you just deliver the baby?”  Gee, we don’t have any problem with medicine being driven by fear of litigation, do we?  Good grief.

In other news, we were glad to learn that Google wants to proceed with Mr. Tldz as a candidate.  Unfortunately, the earliest they could schedule him for an in-depth technical phone interview is the 14th.  Meanwhile, other applications just grind along.  No news on any yet.  As best as we could learn from MARTA (our state representative was able to rouse a pretty quick response from them) the position we’re expecting to hear back on this week will still be accessible under the current service modification proposal.

So pretty early in this job search, Mr. Tldz was contacted by a Google recruiter. Turns out he was seeking to fill a position outside of the Atlanta area, but he sent Mr. Tldz over to another recruiter who is filling Atlanta positions.  In the meantime, I contacted a friend from the IHM Moms group whose husband, B. works for Google.  (We had dinner at their house a little over a year ago, and Mr. Tldz and B. swapped a lot of unix jokes while C. and I just shook our heads.  So it was clear that B. has a similar technical background to Mr. Tldz’s, though it was also clear he’s now in some sort of managerial role, though we weren’t sure exactly what he does.)  I asked C. to forward Mr. Tldz’s resume to B. in case he was aware of any openings at Google or elsewhere, since he seemed to move in the right technical circles for that.  She said she was happy to do so.

Yesterday Mr. Tldz had a technical phone screening with the Google recruiter.  Near the end of it, the recruiter asked if Mr. Tldz knows anyone who works for Google.  Mr. Tldz gave B.’s name.  The recruiter stopped short and said, “Oh.  He’s the head of the Atlanta office.”  Oh.  Who knew?  The recruiter asked what the connection is and Mr. Tldz explained that they used to go to the same church, and he was quick to add that while he knows this fellow, they don’t  know each other well.

The recruiter also asked if Mr. Tldz has any other leads going.  When he said he does, he noted that the recruiter seemed to “get” that they might have to step up their process if they’re interested in Mr. Tldz.

Mr. Tldz got an e-mail from a recruiter last night.  He talked to him today about the job (located near the Lindbergh MARTA station, so that should be pretty accesible) and the recruiter wanted to meet him.  So thanks to Uncle R. and our neighbor across the street for driving Mr. Tldz up to the recruiter’s office in Alpharetta and watching Agent Murphy for a couple of hours, respectively.  (And the Agent came home with a bag full of fun hand-me-down toys!)  At one point in the interview, the recruiter said, “Not to be insensitive, but how do you do these things?”  So Mr. Tldz said, “Do you want to see a demo?” and pulled out the laptop and got busy.  The recruiter was won over.

The recruiter indicated that this company has been looking for several weeks and is getting anxious to have someone start — as in, if they had their way, someone would start next week.  So we’ll see how this plays out.

Mr. Tldz feels like his interview today went pretty well.  They say they’ll have interviewed all the candidates by Tuesday or Wednesday next week, so he should hear something after that.  Meanwhile, he has applied/is applying for 4 other positions.  Five positions in the first week of a job search — not bad.  So we’ll hope something good comes of one of these or another that’s right around the corner.

Got my appointment with the perinatologist set for next week.  That makes 3 doctor appointments in June for which I’ll need rides.

Our freezer arrived Monday night, so we’re starting to use that.  And I’ve lined up a babysitter for the 2 days in June that A. is out of town.

Mr. Tldz had a phone interview today, with a round of in-person interviews tentatively scheduled for Wednesday.  We’re waiting on confirmation of the time for that.  Our new nanny, who just started today, is willing to load Agent Murphy into the car and drop Mr. Tldz off and go back later to pick him up (it’s supposed to be 2-3 hours of interviews), so we may be shifting her hours some on Wednesday.  Fortunately, when J. did our grocery shopping on Saturday she was able to drop Mr. Tldz’s “interview clothes” at the dry cleaner.  Our next door neighbor will pick them up tonight.

Today and tomorrow Mr. Tldz and I need to get his new laptop set up so he’s good to go for the interview.

He also was referred to a job by a former colleague at a previous job.  He found out more about the job today — a contract position that would be in an accessible location.  That’s become a big concern for us, because jobs that appear to be transit accessible  now (like the interview on Wednesday) may not be come July depending on what MARTA service cuts happen.  There are so many bus routes on the chopping block under the proposed cuts, and I haven’t been able to find any updated information about what’s really happening; which makes it hard to know which jobs to bother to pursue.  So yesterday I e-mailed our state representative explaining our situation and asking if he had any information about the cuts.  He responded first thing this morning that he’ll be back in touch.  I’m hoping he knows the right people to talk to to get good information.

We’ve had our occasional babysitter in every morning this week from 8-12 to look after Agent Murpy.  Originally that was so Mr. Tldz could work and now it’s so he can job search, etc.  She’s been taking him to the playground for extended periods each day and he’s been running himself ragged so he takes a good nap.  That’s a very good thing.  Now he’s decided outside is just the place to be and that he’s supposed to go to the playground every day.  When he’s not at the playground, he wants to be on the swingset in our backyard or riding his little car around the deck.  I hear him out back playing with Mr. Tldz now.

Unfortunately the babysitter is leaving town for a few months due to some personal stuff she has going on.  But we’ve hired a graduating (tomorrow) high school senior for the summer to come in 4 hours a day during the week and look after the Agent.  We’ll start with 8-12 and shift her hours as we need to in order to accommodate any interviews Mr. Tldz gets.  AS starts on Monday.  (Acutally, she watched him for about an hour on Tuesday afternoon because Mr. Tldz had scheduled a phone meeting with his boss; but that took a different turn — that’s when he learned his position, and really his group, is going away.)

Anyway, things continue to be stable with me and Garbanzo Bean, as far as we can tell.  And I’m managing to keep myself reaonably occupied.  I haven’t gone insane yet!  (At least not anymore than I already was.)  We made it to 30 weeks 4 days.  I really want to get to 35 weeks and then see how close we can get to 37.

The guys just came in.  Mr. Tldz reports that Agent Murphy did a good job calling his dog by name.  He patted his leg (the sign for dog) while saying “Aaah.”  Apparently they went down to the bottom of the stairs where she was and she barked at them.  So the Agent barked back, which caused The Dog to whimper.