sagawizard

jesshartley @ 7:01am: White Wolf Makes Strong Showing at ENnie Awards Nominations


Several White Wolf products (including my own Rose-Bride's Plight) made it into the ENnies nominations for this year's awards!
Find out more.

jesshartley @ 11:00pm: In which we're LIVE!
After months of planning and weeks of hard work and research (mostly on the part of the Viking) my new website is live.

Check us out at www.jesshartley.com and let us know what you think!

morgi @ 10:20pm: Blogathon 2009: It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!
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jesshartley @ 5:52pm: In which we understand!
Courtesy of glaucos   :

jesshartley @ 1:24pm: In which we are amused...
The new website is almost finished. At the Viking's suggestion, I added the Head Shot he did for me to my PR pictures.

This amuses me to no end! Screen capture from the site below....

gossamerspider @ 3:18pm: Statement Released By Zoo New England re: Closures Reported in the News
In signing the FY10 state budget, the Governor used his line-item veto power to reduce the amount of funding approved by the legislature for the operation of Commonwealth Zoological Corporation d/b/a Zoo New England (ZNE) from $6.5 million to $2.5 million. The $6.5 million figure was developed after careful consideration of all necessary expenditures and projected revenues, and represents a $150,000 reduction from the total amount of operating funding that was provided to ZNE in FY09 after two 9C emergency cuts totaling $400,000 (the funding level in the passed FY09 budget was $7.05 million).

The funding level of $2.5 million is not sufficient to continue operations of the Zoos and will actually cost the Commonwealth far more in FY10 expenditures than the $4 million in “savings” represented by this cut, and cost the Commonwealth millions more in subsequent years. For this reason, Zoo New England and many of its supporters are calling for the legislature to override this veto and restore ZNE’s FY10 funding (line item 7007-0951) to $6.5 million.

Specifically, as explained in detail below, the ramifications of the Governor’s veto are:

o Closing the Zoos to the public, at a projected cost to the Commonwealth of $9 million in FY10, and millions more in subsequent years;
o Immediately forgoing more than $4.35 million in earned revenue and private support that the Zoos are projected to generate in FY10 to offset operating costs (note: ZNE has been steadily growing its earned revenue and private support base, reaching record levels in both FY08 and FY09);
o Losing two unique, historic cultural institutions that attracted a record 568,797 people in FY09, including tourists from around the globe;
o Laying-off all non-animal care and facility maintenance staff – most of ZNE’s 165 employees – as well as the 65 paid Zoo Teens and 25 interns;
o ZNE financial situation would necessitate the reverting of care, custody and control of the Zoos to the Commonwealth for operation and disposition of animals by October; and,
o Depopulating the animal collection. It is believed that a minimum of 20% of the animals would not be able to be placed, requiring either destroying them or the care of the animals in perpetuity.

According to the legislation that created the public-private partnership between the Commonwealth and the two Zoos, Massachusetts General Law 92B, should the Commonwealth Zoological Corporation d/b/a Zoo New England dissolve, the care, custody and control of the Zoos, including the care for the valuable animal collection, revert back to the Commonwealth.

Zoo New England has been a very responsible partner with the Commonwealth. Realizing the economic struggles, ZNE approached the legislature this year and instead of asking for increased or level funding, as many continued to do, proposed a reduction that would sustain the Zoos and benefit the Commonwealth.

The total operating budget for the Zoos is $11 million. In FY 09, the Commonwealth contributed $6.65 million of this and the Zoos - through admissions, food and gift concessions, family memberships, rentals, educational programs and fundraising - generated the remaining $4.35 million. Additionally, ZNE is currently the primary filming location for a major motion picture that will bring in many jobs, millions of dollars of revenue to, and significant national publicity for, the Commonwealth.

While it seems counterintuitive to reduce staff in revenue-generating areas, the very nature of the Zoos prevents the reduction of animal care staffing without beginning the depopulation of animals. Zoos are institutionally unique with a living collection, whose cost to maintain cannot be adjusted in the short term. Thus initially, the only areas left to cut are in non-animal care, revenue-generating departments. This would result in a bare bones staff that would care for the animals and the facility, but would eliminate any that would service the public. Based on a phased shutdown cost analysis previously prepared, the Zoos would take approximately 3 years to shutdown and with approximately 20% of the 1000+ animals remaining unplaced.

From a cost-benefit analysis perspective, it is simply less costly to maintain the Commonwealth’s funding at $6.5 million, enabling the Zoos to remain open, support essential functions, increase revenues, attract tourists and protect the Commonwealth’s investment.

Closing the Zoos at this time would be a particularly devastating loss for the people of the Commonwealth, as ZNE has been having great success. Specifically,

o ZNE had record setting attendance of 568,797 visitors, an increase of 9% over last year, which was also a record setter.
o ZNE had record setting Zoo Membership of 14,100 families, an increase of 8% over last year, which was also a record setter.
o The number of donors to the Zoos in FY09 increased 8%.
o ZNE just replaced an old, dilapidated porcupine exhibit at Stone Zoo with a new Gibbon exhibit – it’s receiving rave reviews and continues the positive momentum.
o Set construction for “The Zookeeper” movie is well underway at Franklin Park Zoo. The project is providing a significant economic boost to the Commonwealth in that it is creating so many jobs (lots of local tradesmen), filling many hotel rooms, apartments and local restaurants. It should also provide both short-term and long-term promotional value as the zoo in the movie will be called Franklin Park Zoo.
o The total number of visitors served in formal and informal education and interpretation programs increased by 30% in FY09 to 153,380.
o The total number of Massachusetts schoolchildren who visited the Zoos for free in FY09 was 39,282. ZNE conducts many teacher training programs to enhance in-school teaching/learning.
o ZNE’s zoo education staff members are leaders in the education field and true resources to the Commonwealth as a whole, for example: ZNE’s Director of Education was elected to chair the Massachusetts Environmental Learning Plan Committee, she is a member of the steering committee of the Secretary’s Advisory Group on Environmental Education (SAGEE) and panel review member for MA Science, Technology & Engineering (STE) Curriculum Frameworks.
o ZNE provides employment to 65 inner-city teenagers through an award-winning working/learning summer program, ZooTeens, that has become a national model for effective youth employment and is just celebrating its 10th anniversary this summer. ZNE has a host of other youth programs including Zoo Teen Ambassador, Junior Zoo Teen, Youth Education Specialists (YES), ECOTeens and others. These programs represent incredible, life-changing opportunities for young people, many of whom would be considered “at-risk.”

Zoo New England will be providing no further statement at this time.

jesshartley @ 11:30am: In Which We Share the Scare...

My Viking did a new PR photo of me...  I have the best Viking EVER!

tonysalieri @ 4:56pm: Making The Adjustment...
Well...

So I've got my resume finally done, and I'm ready to start sending it around. Got a few places I'm sending it out to. Also, I'm going to take the civil servants exam; FedGov jobs are probably going to become more plentiful, especially in IT/EMR and the such, what with the Census (although those are temporary, but a good way to get into the civil service network) and other Stimulus projects. Got a study guide, doesn't look too bad, a lot like The SAT for Grown-Ups. I'm going to really buckle down and pass the hell out of that thing.

We almost had to cancel our trip to WorldCon though, but my folks are going to give us just enough money to go as an anniversary present it looks like, so that's really nice of them...but if the job situation doesn't improve by October, my presence at Arisia will definitely be severely curtailed. I will probably just show up for Saturday to help out Barfleet, and that is that. That might also be the entire involvement with PiCon this year as well, and Connecticon is probably out of the question as well. *sigh*

So I guess the plan is that once this quarter is over, barring a miracle, I'm going to be laid off. I always knew this was a possibility going into a small family business as an owning partner, but I always hoped we'd pull it off in the end, that our ship would come in. It might still, there's one last chance on the horizon, but I have to focus on the here and now. At least I have time to prepare...that's a lot better shake than a lot of my friends got, who were essentially let go with zero notice.

-TS

jesshartley @ 10:53am: In which we are available...
Updates for those who are interested. Bullet pointed, since I'm kind of swamped at the moment.

• Family - Good. Viking's back to work after having enjoyed his first week-long vacation since moving out here to Arizona. Valkyrie is mourning the quick passing of summer, but keeping busy as well. Parents seem to be in good spirit and health, and I'm still hoping to arrange a quick trip up to the NW to visit the older two kids, father-in-law and his wife, and my sister and her family if the airline rates stay low.
• Job Hunt - Not so good. Really loved the international phone call rejection from Jagex, but it was still a rejection. Not getting so much as a nibble on the office jobs. It's very hard being a) over qualified and b) out of the area that I'm job searching in.
• Freelance Work - Great! Keeping busy, and will be announcing participation in a new project later this week. Always looking for more opportunities, but very pleased with what's going on.
• Interesting new stuff - Found this site, which I think is awesome. It connects librarians/teachers with authors, via skype, so that they can connect writers and readers in an immediate (but cost effective) way. It's called Skype An Author, and I encourage all my writer friends to participate. Here's my page on the site.
• New Releases - Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas is out now, and there are rumors that rogue copies of Swords At Dawn have made it into the hands of some lucky readers. Also, there's the pre-generated characters group for Changeling: The Lost that I put together, which came out earlier this week.

That's about it for now. I'm finishing up my redlines on my essay for Family Games: The Best 100, which should be out soon, and then doing some polishing on my website, which should be re-opened by the weekend. I had forgotten the whole 4th of July/travel/vacation thing, in making my earlier estimates of release dates!

jesshartley @ 7:18am: In which we love the clouds...

I love monsoon season, here in Bisbee. This was taken as we started our way out to Yuma last weekend, but is a pretty typical sky for this time of year. Of course, as I say that, it's now perfectly clear here at the house. Blue skies, warm but boring, juxtaposed with dramatic (but potentially disastrous) thunderstorms. That's monsoon season.

jesshartley @ 3:24pm: In which we spread the word...
I'm a firm believer in trying to work within the system. But when big corporations don't play by the rules /they/ have set up, it's nice to see someone using their own talents to try to make things right.

Check out the story here.

Then watch the (very funny) video:


Then spread the word. Let's see if we can help Dave and his folks get some response to their plight.

tonysalieri @ 6:33pm: And So The End Has Come...
We had a meeting tonight, and realized that at the rate things are going, at the rate our family company has been losing money in this economy, we will be bankrupt in a matter of months. While it's still possible that the new spinoff we're working on launching might help out, it won't be ready in time to make a difference...assuming it's a success. One of us needs to head off and get a full time job elsewhere, and that would be me.

So I am putting together a resume, and looking for a job. If anyone knows of a position fit for a MCSA/Network+/A+/Former CCNA tech with a decade of experience in banking, medical, and educational IT fields, in the Western/Middle Mass., or Eastern Connecticut areas, I would appreciate it if you could let me know.

-TS

roboknee @ 1:10pm: Game Day Jitters
Got the butterflies in my stomach. Hoping Space Buddha won't stop me from running tonight's adventure. Had this story in my head for 10 years and tried to adapt it and run it 3 other times without success. Wish me luck.

morgi @ 9:29am: More blogathon details
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morgi @ 8:39am: ( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

morgi @ 8:16am: ( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

tonysalieri @ 11:07am: My Take On This Sarah Palin Issue
In March of 2008, before anyone even heard of Sarah Palin, she had made a statement at a Newsweek confab where she essentially said Hillary Clinton should suck it up if the media are being critical of her.

Fast forward sixteen months later, and we find Sarah Palin quitting out on the people of Alaska who elected her to serve four years....Ms Palin could only give them two and a half. She suddenly punched out, on the Friday before a huge national holiday, delivering a long and rambling presser (even by her own crazy standards) in which she seemed to suggest that the world could benefit from more retarded children, not less, and complaining about all the media attention she got. And a day later, her legal team suggests they might start suing bloggers who "defame" her. You know, now that she's a private citizen.

...kay.

I don't know about you, but this is a head scratcher. Is there another scandal on the horizon? Was she unable to follow her own advice for Hillary? Granted, she did get a tremendous amount of crazy media attention, but she did a tremendous amount of things that tend to attract crazy media attention, a lot of it based in hypocrisy. Decry spending as out of control, while lying about her support for the Bridge to Nowhere and accepting Evita Peron style clothing budgets; decry the politics of personal destruction while whipping up lynch mobs about Obama "paling around with terrorists", complain about the media attacking her kids and her family, but god damn if that wouldn't didn't drag out her kids to almost every major media event she went to in order to score cheap points.

I guess the end result is: Bible Spice got a lot of crap, and a lot of it was idiotic and unfair. But a lot of it wasn't, either. She was far from an innocent party in all of this. The going got tough, and she seems to have folded. Hillary has taken decades of crap and kept going. Palin had a chance to show us exactly what she was made of. Well..I guess she did, when you think about it. And it wasn't "sterner stuff".

-TS

jesshartley @ 8:12am: In whiche we've never been so impressed with a rejection...
Less than two weeks ago, I applied with Jagex, a game company in the UK. I'm going to refer to them by name because, honestly, I have nothing but GLOWING things to say about them.

I sent in a cover letter and my resume, along with my list of published works. They responded back, within a week, directing me to an online test site.

I completed the three online tests (including the Rock-Paper-Scissors descriptive here) and sent it off, expecting (based on my recent experiences with job hunting) to never hear from them again.

Today, less than a week later, I got an email from their HR department, asking about my status to work in the UK. I did a crash course on UK immigration policy and responded. Within a few moments, I received another email from HR, specifying that the head of HR would be calling me sometime to discuss the situation and asking when would be convenient for him to call.  I responded.

Less than 15 minutes later, their head of HR was on the phone, on an international call.

Unfortunately, while they were very pleased with my test results and experience, the UK immigration law requires that they're able to prove that they couldn't hire a local citizen for the same job. And that is very difficult to prove, without static qualifications, such as degrees or obscure technical knowledge.

Long story short, they loved me, but because of the immigration laws, they can't hire me. They're going to put a "very nice note" along with my paperwork in their database, and if things change, I may hear back from them...

But what really impressed me was the speed and expedience that this company handled my application with. Even though it didn't manifest in a job offer, I felt like I was a valuable and important candidate. I mean - an international phone call from the head of HR, when a rejection letter (or silence) could have sufficed? How professional is that?

What does that say about the company? About the folks they do hire? About how they feel about their employees?

I cannot even begin to express how impressed I was.

I may not be any closer to having a job, but today, I'm feeling like my skills and talents are appreciated. And that, my friends, is priceless.

jesshartley @ 6:56pm: In which the storm hits...
The desert is a dry and sunny place - except when it isn't.

Check out the videos and pics of the monsoon that hit our home earlier this evening!




Or check out the still shots here.

mercurysparkle @ 3:49pm: What happened to June?
It's almost July.

Maybe next month will be a little more sane.

mercurysparkle @ 1:06pm: Better living thru (some) chemicals

I truly despise shopping for myself.  I attempt to avoid it at all costs, yet have a Macy's charge that actually gets used regularly (just not in the women's dept).  For years, I survived on my brother's hand me down rugby shirts (pleasantly broken in and softened and preshrunk), jeans and boxy, albeit functional, black dress suits.  J. has good taste so I'm happy to trust him when I need stuff.

At some point in the past, when I was working for campus catering, I bought a few pairs of khaki pants.  The were industrial grade material that no matter what I've done (or how many lbs, I've gained or lost), managed to fit and not wear out.  Food service is particularly hard on clothing, and out door catering events really took their toll on my work shirts. 

Today, years later, was proof again of these pants staying power.  For our team lunch, the Chateau (om nom nom! yum!) catered Italian. When setting up, I managed to pour a good cup or two of sauce on to me: all the way down the side of my leg, past the cuff, into my dress shoes.  Yet, the super deluxe scotch guarded pants, didn't absorb anything.  It just beaded up, trickled down and puddled on the floor.  There are a few splotches near the knee where the scotch guard wore out, but for the most part, you'd never know I was the klutzy one today.

And now back to your regular programming.

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