Yesterday got away from us. It was a fine spring day and, well, the time just went too quickly. I think that we'll be hearing that a lot.

I got a lead on a job yesterday. It would be a three-month contract in Arkansas, documenting procedures and policies for the IT group in a nursing home chain. If it happens, I'd, in effect, be commuting to Arkansas. I've been saying in my job applications that up to 25% travel is ok; I didn't think that I'd get the year's travel done all at once. This would be an interesting challenge: setting up a document control system, training the team on how to maintain the docs after I'm done, and, oh, yes, writing. I need to remember that I've had some good contracts and a couple where the wheels came off. What's the phrase - undercommit and overdeliver? Something like that. The VP with whom I spoke indicated that her company might have a long-term, management opportunity as well. We keep all doors open. I'll learn more about this opportunity today.

I had lunch with a former manager. She left high tech early last year and has no intention of returning. She is working on several not-for-profit activities, some as hobbies, some as serious volunteer activities. She's an inspiration to show how one can make quantum career moves.

Tomorrow we get to have Lily with all day. Jennie's mother is moving from Rockport to Northampton. Adam, Jennie, and Mike are handling the move. We've not planned out all of the details of our day with LilyGirl, but it may involve swimming at the Y, a trip to a local petting zoo, and other outdoor activities.

The doctor heard a strong heartbeat from Lynn and Mike's baby, due in November.

I'll be at DBM for most of the day, reviewing the fundamental of job searching. In the overnight mail, I received a couple of leads from colleagues. I'm not really keen on giving up two days, but I can't say that what I've been doing has worked really well.

We've had plenty of rain this month, a record. With the warm sunshine, the leaves are showing up early. We may have full cover by early next week in some places.

Sandra asked me if I was paying more attention to the news of the world these days. Truth be told, I'm not, at least not much. Previously I would listen to Morning Edition and All Things Considered on NPR while commuting. At home, I play music. I might spend a bit more time on the newspaper web sites and I did listen to some of the 9/11 hearings. I also get to watch The News Hour with Jim Lehrer more than before. So, overall I'm getting a bit more news, but not enough to make a difference to my understanding.

So how do we unravel this collection of wet threads and make a fishing net? (My grandfather wove his own fishing net. The net is hanging at the camp.) Where do the big ideas come from? It comes when we're the right distance from a problem, close enough to understand the details, but back enough to see patterns that are either there or need to be there. More on this in the coming days.

More than 21 days of music on my iPod now. The physical CDs had become quite disorganized in the past couple of years, so I had an eclectic mix when I started transferring the music to electronic form. These days the CDs are in order. I'm about midway through the rock collection, the largest of my groups. I haven't bought a lot of music recently because 1) I haven't had room and 2) there hasn't been an awful lot that interests me. Now that the physical constraints have been removed, I wonder what kinds of music I'll seek. My current collection of rock, blues, jazz, and folk is pretty much what you'd expect for someone of my age.

I'm reworking my resume a bit, including more about people management and process improvement in my summary.

A rainy Monday. I'm eager to be home today, to spend time taking care of odds and ends, phone calls, small tasks, the honey-do list., cleaning out the to-do folder.

This is the first time in my search when I don't have anything promising ahead of me. I am, as I mentioned earlier, in the queue for a director-level position, but there's only a 50% chance that I'll get to an interview. I applied for a manager job over the weekend, but they, too, were looking for some specific experience that I don't have. On Wednesday and Friday I am scheduled to attend training at DBM: resumes, applications, interviews, negotiations, etc.

We had a nice night at the camp. I raked away dead leaves and collected fallen branches for kindling. On Saturday night we had a great sauna. The water is cold, but not bitterly so. We'll turn the water on in a couple of weeks. The temperature fell into the 20s on Saturday night. We're looking forward to having company at the camp this year. We'll start inviting people in June, once we're there more regularly, the water is warmer, and we've finished the spring cleanup.

I spoke with Pete yesterday afternoon. He's in typically great spirits. Aside from lifting heavy objects, he's under no restrictions and may do whatever he can do.

While rummaging through some old bookmarks, I found this site that provides an online version of the Myers-Briggs test. I am an INTP. They provide descriptions of the personality type here and here . The IBM management training provided something similar and the results were quite similar.

A few of the job-search resources have tried to tie the M-B type to career goals. Reading the descriptions also gives me some ideas about what's going on with my interviews. This is a good topic for pondering on a rainy day.