FIREWORKS AND WEAVING DREAMS

Actually, these are the names of two software applications for making webpages from Macromedia: Fireworks and DreamWeaver. I've been taking a course at the UCLA Extension in them since January. Yesterday was the final exam/final project. I'm slowly recuperating this morning from the previous long nights working into the wee, small hours.

My final project was also something practical: putting my CV online for my job hunt. It not only had to have the information (any minimal webpage could do that) but had to look professional, since who is going to take a candidate in computer-assisted language learning seriously if his website looks like a third-grader's?!

After a week of progress, I thought I was close to finishing up when I went to bed Monday night, but the longer I worked Tuesday on it for that evening's class, the more glitches came up. In despair about 4 pm, I had strong feelings of cutting the final class and just staying home, the page was in such bad shape. But I decided I had to present SOMETHING (and there was a final quiz), so I patched together what I could visually so that it at least LOOKED like a presentable webpage, although links etc. were still uncooperative. I drove through pouring rain to UCLA that evening in a glum mood. But my "presentation" went OK, and a few others' projects were in even worse shape than mine (it's always good not to be the WORST). A glutton for punishment, I begin a new quarter class in Macromedia's "Flash", a hot new multimedia application, a week from now!

NORTHERN EXPOSURE

Now I have a couple of days to recuperate and get ready for my "vacation" up to Seattle Friday. I'm visiting some Illinois friends who have been in Seattle for about four years and looking up some old Aramco friends, one an old playmate from third grade whose dad was the pastor in Dhahran in the 1960's. (I'm bit by bit working up a history of the Protestant Fellowship in Aramco, contacting former pastors, etc.) I'm taking Amtrak up the coast as far as Oakland, then switching to an airplane to fly up to Seattle. Both tickets were under $70! I've been wanting to do the train trip along California's spectacular coast for years, so now is as good a time as any. I'll rent a car while up north and drop it off in Portland before flying back to LA from there in a week.

INFORMATIONAL INTERVIEWS UPDATE

And I've been continuing with my telephone interviews of people in the publishing industry the last couple of weeks. One works in the eMedia division at Holt, Rinehart and Winston in Austin. One guy with Thomson ELT (English Language Teaching) in Boston was even trying to interview ME as I was trying to interview HIM. Seems they are starting a brand new online distance training program for ESL teachers overseas and need an "acquisitions editor" to develop the online program. I had emailed him my CV ahead, since he asked for it. I don't think that particular position is a good fit, but he was very persuasive that I should apply, and they may well have other positions in the new online program that I could fill better. Thomson is a huge publishing conglomerate with many divisions, including Heinle in ESL.

HELEN

And I was back up to see Aunt Helen in the mountains last Friday. She was finally willing to redo her will (she herself had brought up the subject when I visited earlier in March), so it seemed good to strike while the iron was hot. I arranged for a paralegal woman who lives in the mountains to stop by and work up a new will for her (the last was done in 1964!), including a power of attorney and living will, and I was on hand to reassure Helen and answer questions the paralegal might ask. Helen doesn't have a lot of assets left, but better to be prepared and have your money go where you want rather than the IRS. And the house hunt continues for a new, smaller, more manageable house for her in the village. I checked a couple of houses out, but most were either two story or too tiny. (In one bedroom, you could touch the four walls from the bed itself!)