soapbox

So, a friend at work is looking for people to collect survey data in Florida.  It goes about two weeks ( of course my company pays for room & board, in addition to normal hourly pay ) and then they pay for a couple extra days in the hotel so you can enjoy Florida for a bit.

Here’s the description I got:

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Resource Systems Group, Inc is an employee-owned consulting firm with offices in Vermont and Chicago, IL. We are seeking talented, motivated individuals to join our White River Junction office. From this location we serve a committed base of regional and national clients. The following positions are available:
Interviewers: Market Research
Periodic full-time work for 1-2 weeks per project

The Market Research practice conducts user-friendly computerbased intercept surveys to support its advanced analytic research methods. Interviewers travel in teams of 2-3 to survey sites that are usually in U.S. metro areas. Interviewers are responsible for working in small teams to recruit participants and provide assistance to survey respondents who are intercepted in shopping malls, government offices, and other public locations. The ideal candidate is a team player who is good with people, bright, energetic, responsible, and resourceful. The position involves traveling for periods of 1-2 weeks at a time. Scheduling is based on project needs and interviewer availability.
• Outgoing, friendly, and assertive
• Comfortable with using computers
• Willing to travel
Please email resume and cover letter to employment@rsginc.com. We are an equal-opportunity employer.

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Sure it might be two weeks of work in FL, but if your advisor is gone what does it matter? The job description is more general, but she says they really need people soon for work coming up in Florida.

If you, or someone you know is interested, just follow the instructions or reply to this.

Oh, and sorry for using the blog like this, but they need people fast.

I suppose it’s a little bit late to be telling stories about last weekend, but if it bothers you just imagine that I’m foretelling the future and talking about next weekend.

Statement: gas furnaces are both scary and cool.

Scary: they burn lots of gas (and in my case) boil water to send steam up to old-school radiators in every room.

Scary: radiators clang a lot, often times in the middle of the night.

Cool: the furnace actually generates its own electricity.

First of all the story… it’s been getting down into the 30s at night here and before going to sleep on Saturday, I noticed it was oddly cold in the house… 60. This is especially odd because the thermostat was set at 65. So I wandered down into the basement and noticed that the pilot light in the furnace was out. I’ll keep things compact and just hit the key words… down comforters (plural)… 50 degrees in the morning… huge hassle getting someone to service a furnace on a Sunday… hardware stores don’t carry the right part… when the furnace guy does come, he slaps me on the wrist for trying to fix the furnace myself because “it isn’t getting that cold” and “I could blow myself up.”

Now the cool part. The furnace that I have is a “millivolt” system because the whole gas valve-thermostat-everything electronic can run on with on .7 volts. (700 millivolts is kind of cheating, although the alternative system runs on 24 volts.) The cool thing though is how that voltage is generated. The pilot light heats a thermopile which generates the power. For safety if the pilot light goes out, the thermopile cools and stops producing the voltage and the gas valve slams shut.

Of course, it’s not so cool if the thermopile dies after 10 years of constant service and you can’t get a replacement one because they’re rare beasts. Double extra cool though if the power goes out while the guy is repairing the furnace and it ends up not mattering in the slightest.

I dream a lot. Sometimes I felt very exhausting when I woke up. And quite often I could actually tell I was dreaming. I think I might have managed to kind of control some of my dreams so I could do what I “wanted” to do. Have you guys ever tried to control your dreams? This article might help. I think I’m going to follow the instruction and first do some “Reality Testing” to see whether I’m actually in a dream now.

Coca Cola is apparently going to release a new drink in the next few months that promises to make you lose weight if you drink it… sort of a negative calorie deal.

I’ve always thought that a good cold diet coke already did that. ~600 grams of water being heated from 34 degrees to 98 takes 21,333 calories. That’s 21 food Calories. Eating ice would be even better since you have to overcome the latent heat.

Turns out there is more reason behind the Bill Buckner tragedy of ‘86.  There was a second curse working against him/the Sox that night …  Mike, sorry to post it, but after 20 years and a WS win, I thought it might be ok

Just wanted to A) point out the nifty new image released from Hubble and remind everyone why we need to save her, and B) point out this article about Bush being an ass once more and setting “defense” ahead of SCIENCE! in space.

p.s. Here’s the new space policy, at the BBC’s site.  I’m just starting to read it.