Category: Jay
Posted by Jay at 4:29 pm
A few days ago, we finished the Recipe View and launched it on Viewzi.
I think it is a fantastic way to search recipes, and was really excited to show it to Tricia. After about a minute of looking at it, Tricia asks, “Does it have Southern Living recipes?” Well no, as it so happens, it didn’t.
Hmmm… turns out Southern Living hosts their recipes, along with several other magazines, on myrecipes.com. It also turns out myrecipes.com has the sort of data that we need for this particular View (a rich picture contained in a well-labeled div). So now we have Southern Living recipes.
There are advantages to being married to the product manager (that is, the guy who helps decide what gets built next).
Posted by Jay at 8:07 am
Sunday night found most of us viewzers huddled around a table sorting out the final details for our launch until almost midnight. Thankfully, the table was at a nice country club, so it wasn’t all that bad. Monday morning at 7 a.m., TechCrunch posted their exclusive coverage of our launch. For the next 12 hours, Viewzi was live but only accessible via the TechCrunch link. Then at 7 p.m., the wall came down fully and we were live.
It has gone fantastically! All the new platform code, some of which was written just days before launch, worked flawlessly and the site absorbed a massive increase in traffic without so much as flinching. At 8 p.m. last night, a huge group of us (well, huge for a company of 12) met at Kenichi and celebrated the success with wives, husbands, and even a set of parents. What fun! There’s pretty much no better way to enjoy your success than to eat some raw tuna.
Now go use the coolest search on the internet to find something fun.
Posted by Jay at 5:07 pm
My first post on the Viewzi blog went up a few days ago. More to come over the next few weeks.
Posted by Jay at 9:47 am
Yesterday, Tricia and I celebrated 13 years of marriage. She was amazing then, and is so much more now. What a privilege it has been to grow and love and live and work together these many years. I am not the man I was (which is a good thing!), and much of that change is due to Tricia’s patient love for me.
May God bless us with many more decades together. I love you, sweetie!
Posted by Jay at 9:38 am
Okay, first, let’s just clear up one thing. The whole “newzi” rhyme was Tricia’s idea. So if you loved it, now you know. And if you didn’t, well, there you have it.
Yesterday around 4:30 p.m. a news-team of two showed up at our offices to put together a story on Viewzi’s upcoming live launch. Stephanie Lucero interviewed several of us, got her footage, and had a story run on the 10 p.m. news. We were on the air at about 10:15 p.m. The end of the story included a teaser for a referral code found at the story’s accompanying web article. At approximately 10:22 p.m., our servers became a giant molten blob that sank into the earth’s crust…
Actually, the platform did amazingly. And the story had a fun “local boys try to make good and take on the big-bads of internet search” angle to it. You’ll see me briefly. If it was a movie, I would be listed in the credits as “Man 1, 3 men at a table”. Here’s the video. Enjoy!
Posted by Jay at 10:15 am
It is with great pleasure that I announce I am now an employee of Viewzi. It’s a great bunch of folks working together on a great product, and I am extremely excited to be part of it. I began contracting for Viewzi on April 7 after a whirlwind interview/discussion period. On May 1 I became a regular employee and showed up on the About page yesterday.
Viewzi’s got several great ideas all rolled up into one product. Ask yourself, should search results always look the same (e.g. a text list)? No! The display of results should merge two things: the intentions of the searcher and the results. I may enter “Madrid” as a search term, but I likely have a goal in mind such as “I wonder what it would be like to stay in Madrid?” or “I think that song I heard on the radio had ‘Madrid’ in the title”. Should travel information and MP3s be presented in the same way? Not to humans. Viewzi solves this need. It’s all about the Views.
Also, should everyone be forced to use the same means of traversing search results? No! Even with multiple Views, you still need to be able to customize your experience. Viewzi is currently hard at work on the first wave of enhancements to support user customization.
What about the long tail of niches? If you know you are searching for recipes, why get song titles or travel destinations in your search results? Why even search sites other than recipe sites? Why indeed? Viewzi tailors niche Views to appropriate data sources. So for general search Viewzi uses the big 4 and others. But for all the other Views, it pulls from a rich diversity of specialized sites and data sources.
And all this is built on an open platform that (eventually) allows anyone to build their own View. Viewzi isn’t trying to figure out the best way to search automobiles. Instead, Viewzi is building a platform that will allow the wisdom of crowds to settle that issue, and even come up with a diversity of answers.
If you are interested in joining the beta, I’ve set up 50 referrals for our steadfast readership. Go to www.viewzi.com/invite and enter the referral code “hornes.org” and you are in.
Posted by Jay at 4:44 pm
I am very excited to say… not much, at this point. But in about 4 weeks, I’ll have lots to say, and I’ll be excited about it, and I’ll also say why I don’t have much to say right now. But suffice to say, as of today I am no longer looking for new employment. And that is very good news at the House of Horne. Thanks be to God!
Posted by Jay at 2:52 pm
I’m going to write a post. It needs a witty title, and I’ve come up empty. So I’m having a contest. Suggest a title in the comments, and the best one (well, the one I like best) gets used. I’m guessing I’ll be biased toward something that sounds like it came from the pen of Dr. Seuss, but we shall see. I’ll change the post slug and everything (that’s wordpress-speak for the permanent URL). Okay, here’s the post.
When I opened the door to the garage, I noticed a smell. An evil smell, but I was thinking about other things and hustled the kids into the car so I could get them to school on time. Next I was off to the outplacement office for several hours of solitude and job searching. Then back to the car to drive home for a very late lunch. And when the AC kicked on, there was that evil smell again. “It’s soaked into my car!” I thought to myself, dismayed.
I chatted with Tricia while driving home, and she thought she had smelled something in the laundry room. I figured the smell had come in from the garage, which meant I had probably caught a stray mouse in one of the many traps hidden around the garage (leftover from the war that took place a couple months ago). When I got home, I checked it all out. Nothing. And the smell wasn’t very strong in the garage. Strange.
I ate lunch and then headed to my car, intending to drive to the library to work for a few more hours before dinner. The moment I opened the door to the garage, I was overcome by THE smell. The garage was thick with it. Hmmm… that meant whatever had died had to be… IN MY CAR! I drove to the library, parked in the parking lot, popped the hood, and started looking.
It took a few minutes, but I found it. I could only see the middle part of the body buried deep within the interworkings of a packed in import engine compartment, but I’m thinking rat. Either that, or squirrel, but my money is on rat.
It’s still out there, stinking up my car. I’m in here, trying to work, and thinking that this is one expense we will just have to bear. See, once I use our grill tongs to remove the critter this evening, those tongs are going straight into the garbage. And since we will be grilling for company this weekend, I’ll have to replace them. Some things are not meant to be washed and then used again for food prep.
Posted by Jay at 9:58 pm
First off, thanks to everybody who has been checking in on Tricia and I, expressing sympathy, and praying for us. Tomorrow will be three weeks since the layoff (really only about 2.5 weeks since I began the job search in earnest) and I had some good news to report. We’ll get to that in a moment.
I have continued to find this whole process of finding a job extremely time-consuming. However, with the kids on spring break last week through this Monday, I did largely take a break from it Friday morning until Monday evening. Instead, I built a picnic table with the kids on Friday (still have to finish the sanding and sealing), and then we all went to the Arboretum on Monday. Our family was treated to free parking and passes courtesy of a wonderful neighbor who loaned us his season pass (good for up to a family of six… just right). Oh yeah. There was also the small matter of the lake.
I’ve actually felt pretty good this past week. I don’t really notice intense, almost dizzy bouts of panic like I did that first week. However, my body is sending different sorts of signals. As I previously mentioned, I had my first real migraine in a couple years a bit over a week ago, and it was huge. Then I had a smaller one a couple days later. And I can’t seem to sleep very much, which is making me feel more and more fatigued. So I figure I’m still not yet “anxious for nothing”, and there’s more to learn from this whole experience.
I’m on my, oh, I don’t know, let’s say eighth version of my resume. I’ve been focusing on patiently working connections rather than simply submitting my resume via job posts. And that brings us to our good news. I had spotted a job at TI that looked interesting, and then ended up making a connection with the husband of a former colleague who was in that very group and knew the hiring manager.
Which led to my first interview yesterday. A phone interview, but an interview all the same. It went well, which was gratifying. I was startled by how nervous I felt. Normally, I’m fairly confident and have a decent track record in interviews. But yesterday I was feeling more like a guy who couldn’t keep a job and a lot less like the up-and-coming leader I’ve felt like in previous interviews. So I spent the final few minutes before the phone rang on my knees praying, which was probably a good thing to do even if I hadn’t gotten a bit wobbly in the legs.
Success in a job search feels very binary. You succeed when you get a job. But large goals are so much easier to manage if broken into a series of smaller steps with attendant celebrations (or recriminations). So I’m celebrating the interview and wanted to publicly acknowledge my thanks to God for his provision.
Posted by Tricia at 8:56 pm
Late this winter, before all the layoff business, Jay made a promise to build us a picnic table for eating on the deck. But with the loss of his job we instituted a “no unnecessary spending” policy and try as we might, we could not justify the expense of the materials for the longed-for table, no matter how practical, and inexpensive a solution it was. However, certain folks in the house were still hoarding some Visa bucks they’d received as Christmas money, and after very careful consideration felt the picnic table was the most worthwhile cause they could come up with just now to use their money on. So yesterday morning Jay went on his way to Home Depot to gather all the wood and hardware necessary for his creation.
He (and his trusty assistant, Nicolas) worked many long hours yesterday and today,
and just before dark this evening, the table was finished.
Finished except for a coat of protective stain/sealant to hopefully help it last through many ridiculously hot Texas summers.
We celebrated the table being finished…
by eating our colored Easter Eggs on it this evening
just before putting the children to bed for the night.
What a wonderful table!!
Posted by Jay at 6:22 pm
Or, how I’ve stayed busy thus far, in no particular order.
- Created a resume and sent it out (building a useful receiver list is actually quite time consuming)
- Created another resume that is intelligible to smart folks who happen to not have a background in telecom
- Sent that one out (much easier… just reused the previous receiver list)
- Answered most every email that came back in response
- Mailed rebate for new T-Mobile phone (easy)
- Mailed rebate for new laptop (hard… somehow lost the receipt and had to drive back to the store)
- Was conquered for the first time in my life by a piece of technology, my new T-Mobile Dash phone. I fought back, and I think I won, but it took quite a bit of time.
- Got my laptop set up the way a laptop should be set up.
- Filed for unemployment online
- Called unemployment office to discuss the set of questions that were impossible for me to answer honestly. Here’s how it went down. Question: did you receive wages this week? Answer: Yes. Question: How many hours did you work for these wages? Answer: Zero. Oops. Zero isn’t a valid answer. But my job related activities were to all cease the day I was laid off. And I’m still on payroll for the time being.
- Started jumping through hoops in support of unemployment insurance, whenever it does kick in. Pretty easy, really, as I was already doing all sorts of job searches and job applications and was keeping a journal of all of it.
- Did all sorts of job searches and job applications and kept a detailed journal. Wrote cover letters where possible.
- First went to the hospital at which all my children were born and then the county clerk’s office. Got a birth certificate for Josiah (already had one for the other kids).
- Used birth certificates and tax returns to prove my dependents are really my dependents so they stay covered on my insurance (for the short time I have it). I call this the new “No (love) child left behind” except, of course, they are trying to leave (love) children behind.
- Had the first killer migraine I’ve had in a couple years. Really bad. I’m at a loss as to what the trigger was, given that I generally get migraine’s from emotional stress.
- Canceled lots of services, including my broadband card with Verizon Wireless.
- Desperately tried to pay off my Verizon account, but no one would take my money since, you know, my account was canceled. Like this was a new situation they had never encountered. Eventually had to drive to an ATM, get lots of cash, then drive to a Verizon store and hand the cash to them.
- Sent in various signed pieces of information to various locations to secure my severance package.
- Went on bike ride with my dad, a round trip from Valley View Park to White Rock Lake. On the way, we were pushing into 70 mile an hour wind. I don’t remember coming back, as the 8 miles went by so quickly it was a blur, what with a typhoon blowing us home.
- Worked most nights very late into the night / early morning looking over job posts and responding to email.
- Pretended Friday was Saturday (you can do that when you don’t have a job). In the morning, enjoyed a wonderful grandparent’s day program at the Covenant School. Then spent some time weeding the yard and hanging out. Even flew kites with the kids at the nearby elementary school yard.
- Will probably end up pretending Saturday is Friday…
Posted by Jay at 1:46 pm
I was laid off Thursday by Alcatel-Lucent. At one level, I’ve known this was a very real possibility for some time now. It still came as a shock, and the initial information given me regarding the package was quite ugly. By Friday, however, I had a complete picture and was glad to discover the package was actually very equitable. So I’ve got some time to find another job.
Thursday was spent dealing with the initial emotions and panic. I was walked within an hour of being notified, sans my laptop and phone (both owned by my employer). I still have three boxes to unpack. Friday gave me a chance to work through the details of the package, talk a good bit to HR, and begin the slash and burn of our ongoing expenses.
By Friday evening I had also figured out that I did not want to put my job search at risk by performing it from the kitchen (where our home computer resides). I immediately began looking for a good deal on a phone and laptop, both of which I purchased on Saturday, after having a long discussion with my daughter about the concept of “it takes money to make money” to give her the chance to understand why I was spending money on a computer while cutting all sorts of other costs.
I’m now sitting at a table in our local library using their free wifi with my new laptop writing this post, listening to Royal Hunt and other obscure euro-metal bands on Pandora Radio. I’ve got a rough cut resume done, and an ever-growing checklist of stuff to do (sign the termination package, send in laptop rebate, etc.). My goal is to enjoy a day of rest and worship tomorrow, and then spend Monday morning putting together a job search strategy, as well as starting to tackle that checklist.
I leave you with the Psalm that came to mind for myself and Tricia (independently, I might add) on Thursday, and then showed up in an email to me from one of the deacons at our church the next day.
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