Race For Research

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This weekend, my mom is participating in a fundraiser to raise money to fight  Multiple Myeloma, the cancer that my dad was diagnosed with last year.  Please help her meet her fundraising goal by donating some money to a very worthy cause.  The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation has a four star rating with Charity Navigator, and they fund research, like the experimental therapy my dad is now receiving.

Established in 1998, The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) is dedicated to accelerating the search for a cure for multiple myeloma. Multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cell, is an incurable but treatable disease. As the world's number-one private funder of myeloma specific research, the MMRF has raised more than $60 million to fund 51 laboratories worldwide. Our tremendous investment has already resulted in significant advances in the field of myeloma, including pivotal research that contributed to the recent approval of Velcade, the first myeloma drug in more than a decade. Currently, the MMRF is funding 20 new therapies now in Phase I, II, and III clinical trials - such as Revlimid - that have shown promise in treating myeloma patients at all stages of disease.

Headhunters

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I had a headhunter call me today, trying to recruit for an IT position in Waterloo.  I'm extremely direct when I get these calls, because most of the time, they're not willing to pay anything close to what I'm making now, or their benefits are laughable in comparison to the University's.  They generally find me via a Google search of my resume because I match a number of their keywords.  I've found that simply laying out what I make now (our salaries are open, as state employees) and saying that they'll need to beat that will get rid of most "recruiters" in short order, and today proved to be no exception.  The job market for IT people in Iowa is tightening quite a bit, but there really are very few firms that are large enough (and pay well enough) to need someone with my skills, and most of the ones that do have stacks of people lining up to get in the doors, they don't need to have recruiters cold-calling people they find on Google.

End of a crazy week

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This has been a crazy-busy week for me at work, one of my co-workers is out, due to illness in his family, and two of my other co-workers announced they're quitting soon.  On top of all that, I have all the gear we purchased with our end-of-fiscal-year finds to set up and get working, and I'm trying to get a mini-presentation done for Monday about the new backup system I'm building.  I need longer days, and more caffeine.