I was six months late with my registration once, and it only bought me six more months before renewal. I guess they don't want to give you free time. You're paying back fees as well as paying out the rest of the time frame.

I've started filling a second bag of stuff to throw away. While doing this I realized I still had an ancient Motorola phone in the closet. It's so old that there's no point in donating it, so now I have list of electronics I need to recycle and I'm pretty sure Best Buy will take all of them.

I should take the winter coats I no longer want someplace nearby. I also need to take a lengthy pass through my wardrobe and take a crapton of loose change to a Coinstar machine. Because keeping myself busy with this stuff will keep me from freaking out too much, and it will come in handy if I do finally get someone interested in hiring me.

shrift, I have no worries about your hireability. But does the situation at work mean there's no chance of getting an internal transfer out here?

juliebird, everyone fucks up. I regularly forgot to pay my property taxes, which results in an additional $200 on top of the bill, and a nasty letter from my mortgage holder. So I finally got a clue and put a reminder in Google Calendar. So now every year I get a couple of emails from myself when it's time to pay my taxes. That definitely helps.

I've been at my current job for... six months. Funny story: today there was a contractor visiting, and I bumped into him in the hallway, and it was the guy who I'd talked to for three months last year about hiring me (and he never did). I went to lunch with him & two coworkers anyway, and gave him my personal business card when he left, just in case.

TNG is home safe, with a donut around her neck and her butt shaved bare. She whined all the way in the car, but she's sleeping in her bed very comfortably now. Now we'll have two weeks of quiet time with lots of drugs.

After a delicious meal in a basement French restaurant I am now ensconsed in the Claude Fuller suite of an historic hotel in downtown Eureka Springs, complete with portrait of Claude Fuller glowering down at my bed from its place over the mantel.

shrift, I have no worries about your hireability.

Well, I'm growing increasingly worried that I've worked at my company for six years but am no longer considered qualified to work there.

But does the situation at work mean there's no chance of getting an internal transfer out here?

I still think there's a chance, but I'm not sure if a role will open up before my core job changes. I have some meetings set up and a few things to pursue. I'm planning to cram in as many courses as I can to improve my chances.

I don't know. Maybe Facebook or Twitter would take me.

One thing you've got going for you is Company Name Recognition -- seriously, it will impress future employers if they see that particular name on your resume. (It definitely helped me when Lotus was still around. Nowadays, you find recruiters who don't even know what 1-2-3 was. Le sigh.)

This Claude Fuller, Matt? [link]

He looks like he disapproves of everyone's life choices. I hope you slept well anyway.

If it takes 4 tries to back into a parking space when there are plenty available, maybe you ought to rethink your parking strategy.

Rick: [link]

That was interesting Jesse. Like the author, I think that the situation for teaching and research is different. Our faculty still working in their 70's are some of our best teachers--one reason they are still working is the satisfaction they get from teaching day to day. And, conversely, if a tenure track Assistant Professor spends one more second on teaching than is necessary to be rated "Satisfactory" then it has to be for reasons other than career advancement. There is no payoff whatever and much to lose by investing any time in being better teacher. So I don't think that older faculty imperil the teaching mission.

But as I have found out just from having kids, it's hard to stay on top of the research game if you aren't willing to work 12 hours on most days, and all night on some, and that gets more difficult as you get older, so the research productivity of older faculty is often lower. And that is a concern to Deans who rely on grant money to balance the budget.