Disclaimer: This is a personal post, so feel free to skip it if you don’t want something non-tech related. Thanks.
I recently applied for a promotion at work. I was(n’t) completely qualified, but I held out hope that I’d make it at least to the interview stage considering my long history with the school, my reputation, and really, because I was an internal candidate (who the hell throws out an internal candidate from a job?). I figured that if I could make it past the first hurdle, I’d have a decent shot, and hell, at least I’d get something out of the experience. But, as you’ve probably guessed, I didn’t make it. In fact, I was pre-screened out as not meeting one of the the minimum requirements — 2 years IT Supervision ((Supervision is a specific term in HR, meaning Hiring/Firing/Reviews. It is different than “lead”)). Now, I only gave myself a 30% chance or so of making it past this hurdle, as I had to angle the experience I did have toward making it seem like I had what was needed. And at the time I turned in my application, I didn’t really expect anything.
But, once I heard I’d been pre-screened, I realized I was pretty pissed off about it. Mainly because, as I said, I had really nothing to show for it. No notes on my application, no feedback from an interview, nothing. And all the while, I thought “shit, how do you get into Management if no one ever gives you the chance to manage?” Also that a single word change that happened sometime between the draft the IT group approved, and the one that was posted, went from me being qualified, to me being unqualified.
Just a quick post, but the other day, my Roomba proceeded to suck up a baby wipe (that my son had apparently left somewhere randomly and I didn’t see while picking up the main floor before bed), and the brushes jammed up enough that it didn’t trigger the “clean brush” warning, but probably overheated the Cleaning Head Module (CHM) motor (see picture). After removal, the brushes refused to run. Spinning the brushes manually was easy, so it wasn’t physically seized. Unfortunately, replacing the motor (eBay) is basically the same price as buying a whole new CHM. Checking the electrical resistance on the motor was about 8ohms. Not too bad, but, I’ve never cleaned the motor, so I gave it a few good squirts of DeoxIT, and spun it a while. Checked the resistance again, and it was 22k ohms. Huh. Hooked it up to my bench PSU at 9V, and powered it up. Nothing. Crap. 
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything not related to reviews, work, projects, etc, but given the news today, I thought I would post something short.