I had a really fun phone interview last Friday. The questioned were geared more towards finding out my personality but did have a few techie questions thrown in.

Do I consider myself to be artistic? An appropriate question for the interview. I was upfront and said that I don’t consider myself to be an graphic artist, that I’m normally work with a graphic artist or a team of graphic artists helping them make their work web friendly.

The guy interviewing me said he looked at my work and told me I was a brave soul for building a website for Big Orange fans (University of Tennessee) and living in Alabama. If you don’t live in the southeast that might not make sense but the interviewer liked it.

What are my 5 favorite movies? The Lord of the Rings and then said that counts as 3 right? He laughed. Then I mentioned Phantom of the Opera, V for Vendetta and the Shrek movies – I like the computer generation on them.

What type of music do I like? I told him I’m rather eclectic in my tests since I grew up listen to Armed Forces Radio we got everything. I figured I better not tell him I like Rob Zombie.

What was the last novel I read? I had to confess the last book I read was a tech manual.

Do I think Microsoft is evil? That one made me laugh. I explained that even though my dad raised me on Macs I realized it’s a PC world so I learned to use both.

Intermixed in these questions I was asked, What is my favorite development tool? Dreamweaver, but that I’ve used Front Page and was one of the original beta testers of the product. I also mentioned I can use Notepad as needed. He also asked if I knew anything other than HTML/CSS like PERL ect. I said while I couldn’t write javascript, php, cgi, or mivascript from the ground up I could break it and fix it.

His final question was do I consider myself a geek? LOL – I told him I’m a geekette.

I did get a follow-up call on Monday. Yes, they were looking for some one with more graphical talents even though I had all the technical skills they were wanting.

Sorry about the “interruption in service” – I was playing with WordPress and forgot that an index.php takes precedence over an index.html. I’m moving my play ground over to www.lesliekirk.com and no – I do not have the domain name leslieallbert.com. So everything should be right in the world again.

30 years ago today – April 4, 1977 – I enlisted in the USAF and was on my way to Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas for the next 6 weeks. After Basic Training I would be off to Lowry AFB in Denver, Colorado for technical training to be a Precision Measurement Equipment Specialist.

If I would have stayed in for the full 30 – I would be retired today. But when it was time to re-enlisted I weighed the options, my now ex had 10 years in – he was half way to retirement after 20 years. I ran the risk of being station in one place, with my ex being stationed in another and neither of us being allowed to have our daughter with us. With that in mind I opted to not re-enlist. In hindsight – he still never was really anyplace I was at with the girls but at least the girls were always with me.

I also told myself that I could make more money on the outside as a government contractor – which I did wind up doing. If I stayed in I probably would have become a PMEL Superintendent for a lab that hadn’t been converted or perhaps gone back an taught at the tech school. I had been asked if I wanted to remain at Lowry as an instructor but I explained that I just didn’t I could teach a subject that I had no practical experience in – I needed bench time first.

That was then … this is now.