We heard today that S has a visa that means that she can start work at Corporation of Current Employment. It all came about rather bizarrely, S was determined not to apply for a job at CoCE, because it's where I work. Not that she objects to working in the same organisation as me, but if they were prepared to give me a job then maybe it's too contemptible a group to consider working for.
Anyway, S got offered a job without trying. She wasn't desperate for a job, she works for University of Previous Employment, and for the National Cancer Service (or something like that) in Wales, and they're both pretty flexible (which they need to be, what with having to work at the nursery every other day).
I was chatting with R one day, who was doing a systematic review - and he said that he needed someone who knew what they were doing to help with his review (that's what S does, btw). But, he said, he needed someone in Los Angeles, so he could meet them; and they needed to be able to be paid in pounds, from Britain. And where was he going to find such a person?
So S started working on that project, and (as she does) stormed in like an organisational whirlwind (if that's not too much of an oxymoron) and tried to make sure it was done right. The people at CoCE obviously liked this sort of thing (perhaps they are married to Germans?) and decided to offer her more work.
However, before they could offer her more work, they had to get her a work visa, which is the process that started a few months ago, and is very nearly complete. The piece of paper that says she can have a visa is now in the post, somewhere between a lawyer's office and CoCE. But it's not a visa - it's just a piece of paper that says that she is allowed a visa; and that piece of paper is all you need to be able to (legally) work (for CoCE) in the USA. (It's an H1-b visa, the same as mine, in case you're interested.)
Until you leave the country. When you leave the country, you need a visa to get back in again, so you need to turn that piece of paper into a work visa. The transformation process can only be done at a US embassy, by making an appointment several weeks in advance, so just how we manage to work that is going to be a mystery. (Although if we deny the existence of the piece of paper, presumable her old H4 visa still lets her in the country, even if it doesn't let her work.)
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Boys vs the Roomba
We've bought a Roomba - which, if you're not up on household technology, is a robot vacuum cleaner. It's battery powered, and it doesn't suck enormously hard, but what it lacks in power it makes up for with persistence.
You put it in a room, and it vacuums it. It starts off going in an increasing spiral, until it hits something, and then it gets a bit random where it goes. But it just keeps vacuuming until it's battery runs out. Then it sits on its charger for an hour, and it's ready to go again (if it's near enough to its charger when the battery runs out, it makes its own way to it, and sits on it. Usually it's not in the same room that it started in though.)
So, we have the boys (and possibly me) constantly scattering crumbs on the floor, and the Roomba constantly (well, almost constantly) scuttling about picking them up. The boys call all vacuum cleaners Nu-Nus (from the somewhat maternal vacuum cleaner on the Teletubbies) but this does seem especially like the Nu-Nu. First, because it follows you around, cleaning up (today I chopped onions in the kitchen, and didn't worry about the little bits falling on the floor - I'll just drop the NuNu in there later), second because of it's fidgety manner. It goes forward until it hit something, and then it turns a little, to try to get around it, goes forwards again, and so on.
Because we splashed out on a slightly more expensive version, it's got a remote control, so rather than letting it wander on its own, one can steer it. D and A have a number of remote control cars (it's the law that children have a number of remote control cars, because they are so cheap. When I was their age, I would have killed for a remote control car), but they have spent more time steering the NuNu around things, than they have with all of their cars combined.
The other weird thing about it is how much one anthropomorphises it - well, maybe not anthropo, maybe zoomorphises ... maybe I should stop trying to use clever words that might not even exist ... how much one thinks of it as an animal. It misbehaves, because I set it cleaning one room, but forget to close the door, and when I come back it's gone. Like a naughty little thing that has escaped, it's away cleaning the bathroom or the bedroom instead of the hallway (it's supposed to be doing our bedroom at the moment, but I suspect it's in the living room instead).
It also gets trapped - once it gets behind the dining table, or into the bathroom, it has enormous trouble getting out again. There's quite a small target it needs to hit to get out through the door, and when it fails, it turns too far and gets in again. I feel sorry for it, and like I should rescue it.
You put it in a room, and it vacuums it. It starts off going in an increasing spiral, until it hits something, and then it gets a bit random where it goes. But it just keeps vacuuming until it's battery runs out. Then it sits on its charger for an hour, and it's ready to go again (if it's near enough to its charger when the battery runs out, it makes its own way to it, and sits on it. Usually it's not in the same room that it started in though.)
So, we have the boys (and possibly me) constantly scattering crumbs on the floor, and the Roomba constantly (well, almost constantly) scuttling about picking them up. The boys call all vacuum cleaners Nu-Nus (from the somewhat maternal vacuum cleaner on the Teletubbies) but this does seem especially like the Nu-Nu. First, because it follows you around, cleaning up (today I chopped onions in the kitchen, and didn't worry about the little bits falling on the floor - I'll just drop the NuNu in there later), second because of it's fidgety manner. It goes forward until it hit something, and then it turns a little, to try to get around it, goes forwards again, and so on.
Because we splashed out on a slightly more expensive version, it's got a remote control, so rather than letting it wander on its own, one can steer it. D and A have a number of remote control cars (it's the law that children have a number of remote control cars, because they are so cheap. When I was their age, I would have killed for a remote control car), but they have spent more time steering the NuNu around things, than they have with all of their cars combined.
The other weird thing about it is how much one anthropomorphises it - well, maybe not anthropo, maybe zoomorphises ... maybe I should stop trying to use clever words that might not even exist ... how much one thinks of it as an animal. It misbehaves, because I set it cleaning one room, but forget to close the door, and when I come back it's gone. Like a naughty little thing that has escaped, it's away cleaning the bathroom or the bedroom instead of the hallway (it's supposed to be doing our bedroom at the moment, but I suspect it's in the living room instead).
It also gets trapped - once it gets behind the dining table, or into the bathroom, it has enormous trouble getting out again. There's quite a small target it needs to hit to get out through the door, and when it fails, it turns too far and gets in again. I feel sorry for it, and like I should rescue it.
Ex-Cat
We were away recently (S was in Germany with the boys, and I was in England, teaching), so N came in every day to feed the cat, and generally look after it. (Also G recently started working at CoCE, and so he was staying here too - but he was either travelling to places for work, working, or partying, so he wasn't going to be great in the cat department).
The cat, I should mention, was getting on in years - she'd been in our possession for 12 years, and I got her from the Cat Protection League, who thought she looked about 2 years old. However, when I'd had her for 10 years, she still looked about 2 years old. She was getting a bit too old and dim to leave the house - when she did, we'd spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around trying to find her, because she didn't know the way home. She'd had other problems too.
Anyway, all was going well, until Friday, when we got an email saying that N had found her bleeding from her stomach, had taken her to the vet, and she'd been put to sleep (as they euphemistically say [euphemise? Is that a word]).
When we got back we rang the vet for the full story, and they said "She was hit by a car." (Amongst other stuff, they also said that she had a very weak pulse and low blood pressure, couldn't move her legs and was generally unresponsive.) Which was very mysterious, as she never (she can't) get out, and if she did get out, she wouldn't be able to get home, whether she'd been hit by a car or not.
So we don't really know what happened. The only thing we can think of is that she got into some sort of tussle with a raccoon - she had taken to spending a lot of time outside on the balcony, sleeping there for most of the night, and we have seen raccoons on the balcony occasionally (and we think they've come into the flat once, to get the cat's food), but I don't think that raccoons would attack, and if they did attack, the cat would leave.
The cat, I should mention, was getting on in years - she'd been in our possession for 12 years, and I got her from the Cat Protection League, who thought she looked about 2 years old. However, when I'd had her for 10 years, she still looked about 2 years old. She was getting a bit too old and dim to leave the house - when she did, we'd spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around trying to find her, because she didn't know the way home. She'd had other problems too.
Anyway, all was going well, until Friday, when we got an email saying that N had found her bleeding from her stomach, had taken her to the vet, and she'd been put to sleep (as they euphemistically say [euphemise? Is that a word]).
When we got back we rang the vet for the full story, and they said "She was hit by a car." (Amongst other stuff, they also said that she had a very weak pulse and low blood pressure, couldn't move her legs and was generally unresponsive.) Which was very mysterious, as she never (she can't) get out, and if she did get out, she wouldn't be able to get home, whether she'd been hit by a car or not.
So we don't really know what happened. The only thing we can think of is that she got into some sort of tussle with a raccoon - she had taken to spending a lot of time outside on the balcony, sleeping there for most of the night, and we have seen raccoons on the balcony occasionally (and we think they've come into the flat once, to get the cat's food), but I don't think that raccoons would attack, and if they did attack, the cat would leave.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Film Review
I've gone on about the LA Weekly before, but there was a review of the new Die Hard film in it. Here's a quote from it:
"...he’s a Sisyphean figure wondering how the hell he got to here and wishing he was home with a beer in his hand. Nineteen years after doing Christmas Eve battle with money-grubbing German terrorists in a Los Angeles office tower, McClane is so far past his sell-by date that his existential exhaustion becomes more than a mere character trait; it’s his entire raison d’etre. Set over the July Fourth weekend, the proudly post-9/11 Live Free or Die Hard is festooned with references to anthrax alarms ..."That one not quite a paragraph has about 5 words in it that have never appeared in Metro. And one that I had to look up.
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