Chipotle vs Moe's

When we moved to Rochester Caleb was so disappointed there was no Chipotle. Soon Moe's opened nearby which has a similar concept. He soon became a big fan. Then this year in August Chipotle came to town. So Caleb and Ryan decided to do a side by side comparison. Chipotle vs Moe's. We tried to get the same things on each. (can you tell which is which in the picture?) I am not sure which burrito won that night. But I think Caleb prefers Moe's (with the free chips and salsa it comes with).

A busy end to October

The past few days my parents have been visiting. They like to go, go, go. So, we had a busy three days and explored some new parts of Rochester. Here is a list of some of the things we did:
got pumpkins
saw giant corn stalk teepees
had hot cider
painted glass luminaries
visited the George Eastman house
walked through the Sacred Grove
bought milk from a local dairy
tried Sweetango apples
watched an improv comedy show
ate chicken pot pie
put in soffit covers
saw a 1940's musical review
carved pumpkins
took autumn photos
watched Fringe
drank hot chocolate
gave out Halloween candy
dropped off Caleb's lunch
visited Pittsford Wegmans
And that is not all. A fun time was had by all. We really enjoyed the visit and look forward to seeing them again soon for the holidays.

Cooling down

As the weather has been cooling down, so has the temperature inside the house. We usually keep it between 60-65 in the winter and decided it is time to turn on the heater again. So to keep us cozy we have pulled out some blankets. There are typically 2-3 on the couch for easy use. The dogs appear to enjoy them as well.
In the picture Sadie is the dark spot on the couch. She does not photograph well--always looking like a shadow. Sylvester loves to sit on things-people, pillows, Sadie, etc. Thus he is perched on the armrest.

Under Construction

For the past couple weeks this is what our street has looked like. Each morning as we leave for work the road is blocked by backhoes and dump trucks. They are replacing the water main in the neighborhood and so are digging everything up. They leave their equipment pared in people's yards, tearing up all the grass. It is quite a mess. They have made it through phase one but I thing they have several more weeks of work to go. What fun.

Safflowers

A couple of weeks ago I saw these really neat flowers at the store. I have never seen anything quite like them before. I thought that they would open up more but they never did. It is just the orange/yellow tops sticking out of the green bulb.

This is what I have learned about this unique flower:

Carthamus tinctorius, one the oldest cultivated plants of record. Seeds have been found in pharaohs' tombs dating back at least to 2000 B.C. and safflower has been cultivated by the ancient Chinese as an oil crop and for medicinal use. In more recent centuries the flowers have been used for yellow, orange and red dyes as well as 'saffron-like' food additives. In the U.S. in the first half of the last century saffron oil was used as a high-quality paint medium. Today the oil is a readily-available cosmetic & food additive, including its use as a cooking and salad oil.

Overnight Adirondack

In anticipation of a long car ride this winter, we decided to take Sadie and Sylvester on a little trip. This was their first car ride lasting longer than 45 minutes. Friday after work we loaded up the car and headed east. We spent the night in Saratoga Springs. It was a somewhat stressful sleep because we were constantly worrying about the dogs barking when people walked down the hotel hall.

Saturday we headed on a scenic drive through Adirondack park. This is very different than state/national parks that I am used to in the west. Other than some pretty scenery and some trails or pull offs marked along the road, it was not that different than driving down a country road with towns all along the way (commercial). There were many, many lakes and the leaves are starting to change. So it was a very pretty drive.

Several times along the way we stopped to take pictures and let the dogs sniff things out. They did pretty well with the whole trip. Once and while they would get anxious and whine wanting to get out of the back of the car but most of the time they just rested.

Job Hunt Update (Otherwise known as WooHoo!)

Since May when I finished school, I have been posting and submitting resumes. During an average week I would apply to between 20-30 jobs. I have only heard back from 4 companies in all that time. One wanted me to complete an assessment test and send it back to them. Two just sent me emails saying no thank. And the last one HIRED ME!!!

On Monday I applied for a job with Sutherland Global Services. Tuesday of the same week I received a call from them and did a prescreening interview on the phone. I guess I passed the prescreening process because at the end they wanted to schedule an interview for Wednesday at 1:00pm. The interview was a two part process. The first part was an assessment test, which took me about an hour. The second part was the actual interview, during which I met with the 3 of the 4 department heads of the division I would be working for. The interview went very well. They said they had to contact HR but that I was at the top of their list. One hour after leaving I received a call from the HR department during which they wanted to schedule a time to meet so they could present a job offer to me. On Friday I went in for that appointment and accepted the job.

So here is a little bit about what the company and what I will be doing.

Sutherland Global Services Inc is a premier customer management company with 18 years of practitioner heritage in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). Sutherland helps Fortune 1000 companies' design, build and manage their customer management operations. Sutherland's customer management operations centers are located in the USA, Canada & India. Headquartered in Rochester, New York, Sutherland's global workforce includes over 10,000 employees.

I will be a Level 1 Help Desk Analyst for the Blackboard division. It will be helpful for me to explain what blackboard is and does.

Blackboard is a company that provides educational institutions with software and hardware that help teachers and student interact with each other better. Blackboard has outsourced their technical support to Sutherland Global Services.
That is where I come in. I will be one of the people the school technical administrators call when they have issues with Blackboard. From what I have learned so far I will be working in a group of 3-4 people and our group will have 70-100 Blackboard clients assigned to it. I start on August 21st.