Erieversible

First of all it was a possible job opportunity in Cleveland that disappeared when the company implemented a freeze on hiring new employees.  Now the rumour is that at least one major local employer has implemented a similar freeze.  Not just slow-downs, but freezes.

When we moved to Erie I knew in advance that there were 4 full seasons, that Autumn would be cold and Winter even more so.  I was looking forward to a proper variety of weather, and had no worries about the low Winter temperatures.  I hadn’t reckoned on the economic climate getting so bad.

We’re lucky.  We are able to look for work elsewhere, or to hang on in Erie for a while.  Others are not going to be so lucky.  Looking at the size of the UK Government’s banking bailout package, and comparing it to the size of the US bailout package, I have to wonder…..is $700 billion anywhere near enough?

I fear not.  I also think this will be a very cold Winter indeed for Erie.

I am considering a job.  In Cleveland.  It is a 9-month contract so, for now, we would not plan on moving away from Erie.  Does anyone have any experience of commuting from Erie to Cleveland?  I suspect it would be possible but make for long days.  What about when the snow falls?  Current thinking is commute quite a bit on a daily basis but plan for some weeks being spent M-F in a hotel in Cleveland.  So, is this crazy?

Slightly technical topic today - colors.  But I’ll throw in some non-techie chat at the end….

I’ve been preparing some artwork for business cards for Celtic Grid and suddenly realised (or re-realised, as I knew but had not remembered) that the printing process uses a CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) color model.  Most screen based computer graphics are in RGB (red, green, blue).  Anyway, I needed a tool to produce CMYK output and found a quite good one in Photoline.  It is shareware and comes in both Windows and Mac versions.  I can’t speak for the Windows version but the Mac version does the job very nicely and is a great example of shareware - though is a tad overpriced so I may look elsewhere for a longer term solution to CMYK production.  Suggestions welcome.

On a non-technical note today was the first day that I’ve had to drive in the rain, and therefore follow the law that when my windscreen wipers are on my headlights should be on.  I knew it, of course, having fully learned the PA Driver’s Manual.  Oh yes.  Definitely.  :-)  But today was my first ‘real’ experience of the law and I have to say two things:

1.  It’s a very good law
2.  I wish more people were aware of it / obeyed it

Having lights on makes a great difference and if the same law doesn’t apply across the US then it should.  So there.  That’s an alien’s view!