Thursday, May 06, 2004
A bad morning dealing with rejection
I got up, briefly, to check my email this morning, a bit blurry from Cam Engine's second band practice, read it, and went back to bed til noon. Some days it's just not worth getting up until the sun peeks out over the west side of the mountain.I've been searching to do something unambigously good in my life with my computing skills, and although I'm struggling to make PicketWyre Labs and Rockhopper Recordings do that, occasionally I apply for a job that seems truly worthwhile... my first email this morning:
- Hi Mike.
Thanks for your interest in EFF's Technical Director position. We have hired someone who has been working on our issues for a long time, and we think it will be a great fit. I wish you the best with your job search.
Shari
I emailed back, "Thanks, Shari, I'll keep doing what I can for the EFF, from the outside. Hope your new guy kicks ass."
After that there was the rejection email from Kevin Werbach. I wanted to get into the Voice as a Data application track at the upcoming Supernova 2004 conference and get a chance to speak...
- Thanks for your interest, but I'm afraid the conference program is pretty well set at this point, and that panel in particular is full.
I hope you'll be able to join us as an attendee!
-k-
I think, I've gotta find a venue for this talk... maybe I'll slip into supernova as press, put a couple bogus signs, take over a conference room - or better yet, pull the war-e-bike out front and start haranging the smoking laptop carrying set about working on the beach - with a VOIP mic in front of my face so people think I'm just talking on a cell phone...
At these prices maybe I should just meekly request a press pass and do press-like things.
...and so I started opening my normal (e.g. physical) mail.
Bills, bills, bills.
And, oh, after that? the rejection letter from the childrens book company for my short title on asteroids - about a child that wants to live off-planet (sample rhyme: "Kid... your mommy and daddy are both unemployed, and you want to live on an asteroid?")
And so back to email:
Whup... turned down for the emerging technologies conference as press, once again. I take it blogging has already emerged, and I gotta do something different now.
In the last year I've attended more conferences than the previous 10, combined. It has been a tremendous learning experience. I've grown to resent the years I spent locked in my cubie, keeping someone's network running 24x7, while everybody else got to go to meet interesting people, future wives, etc.
I've got into most of those conferences as a member of the press. I like that. I don't call what I do "Press" by any means, my mission in life is to match seed crystals with supersaturated solutions - but someday I'll write something commercial I hope.
I thought: I'm 0 for 2 on spring conferences for the day and I guess I should go work in the garden, or mixdown this set or, yea, maybe call a friend on the east coast...
My long distance service was off. Oh yea, a 15 dollar bill. Well, I could pay that, or fix the cisco load on my router so that vonage phone works at home...
I just gotta find a venue for this !@#! talk.
And then I went back to bed and pulled the pillows over my head. ¶ 8:53 PM
