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I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here

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I had my true first-day of work here, and while it was overwhelming, I’m also totally psyched to be there.

I was truly at work today. I went around and saw a ton of the things that I’ll eventually become an expert on but have only a bit of knowledge about now. I realized where we fit in the NBC network wheel and basically we’re the ones who maintain and manage the system that ensures that NBC’s entire broadcast schedule, 24/7, goes on the air without a hitch, from the placement of commercials to show overruns. If the system we take care of breaks, NBC doesn’t have a show on the air. Kinda awesome, but also kinda scary. Because if I or the group fucks up, then you’ll know about it. But after one day there, it was pretty damn cool. I don’t have a true office or a desk yet, but that’s hopefully going to be remedied soon. I will be getting a Nextel blackberry though (joy…) so work can reach me at any time….

On the way to work today, I made some friends. Well, they’re not really friends, but I talked to people on the bus after getting off the ferry in Manhattan. They were nice, especially Lisa with the Cowboy Hat. She totally had the New York accent going on (I LOVE that – everyone around here has it – I keep developing mine because seriously, the more you’re around it, the easier and more likely you are to use it) and was really funny and gave me advice about Manhattan living. She told me about the various transportation routes and other sage advice: don’t eat cooked stuff from street vendors; you’ll learn the hard way otherwise. We ended up chatting on the bus because traffic was RIDICULOUS slow on 50th Street going east, mainly because of the whole UN thing going on. Eventually walked the rest of the blocks, and even after we parted ways when I started walking down 6th Avenue to enter 30 Rock but via 49th Street, I start hearing my name being shouted out and it’s Lisa – she comes down to me and points out to me a quicker door into 30 Rock and sure enough, it worked. Lisa rules.

So that was my first true day at work. It was cool. I like my boss. I met a ton of my co-workers, but it was the firehose treatment so I really do not remember names but as time goes on, I’m sure I’ll learn who is who. Tomorrow (Thursday) I head up to the Englewood Cliffs facility to visit the CNBC folks there and more of our system facilities. This will be a drive then, and my trusty GPS will guide the way. I get to drive under the George Washington Bridge!

Jumping back to Monday – that was my Orientation Day. It didn’t start out very good though, except for the actual commute, which turned out to be pretty easy by just walking to Port Imperial ferry from my place, taking the Ferry across the Hudson, then jumping on the free NY Waterway bus down 50th street. I got there about a half hour early (about 8:30am) so I walked over to where the Today show was filming, which is right where I work. Sweet. I got to see a little bit of it, but then it was about 15 minutes till, so I went in to the visitor’s counter to check in, but alas, my name wasn’t there, nor was Marta Barnes. And for the next 45 minutes, I was calling all the numbers I had and no one was picking up. Turns out the HR people didn’t put my name on the visitor’s log nor on the Orientation listing, so I was basically crashing this party. Eventually my boss picked up though, and escorted me up. Orientation was cool, and provided a great way to meet others who were just entering the company; it also provided me great warm fuzzies in that I’ve joined an awesome company in GE. I can see myself being under the GE umbrella for a long time, especially in the entertainment division, as there’s so many places to go within NBC Universal. Oh yeah, also got a cool tour around the studios, including the Saturday Night Live and Conan O’Brien studios. Sweet. And to top of this pretty easy day, after Orientation while walking to the bus stop, there was filming going on for the upcoming Sex and the City movie, which was filming a scene at Christie’s Auction House, which is right across 49th street from 30 Rock. I ended up seeing Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristen Davis and Cynthia Nixon filming a sidewalk strolling scene right there. It was pretty cool.

During the orientation though, I started to stress as I started receiving word that my movers were going to be coming in the morning and then found out that the building I’m in requires you to coordinate your moves with them, reserving certain blocks of time (with the only one available on Tuesday being from 3-6!), insurance paperwork, etc.! WTF? Then I hadn’t confirmed my storage unit yet, and every time I called them, the woman who answered kept saying she’d call me back and when she did, my cell phone kept cutting out because T-Mobile coverage sucks deep in the bowels of 30 Rock. As I found out today, Nextel cornered 30 Rock’s market by installing repeaters, etc inside the building. So after orientation ended a little early, I made my calls and got the moving thing straightened out.

So on Tuesday, I stayed home to prepare for the movers. I first drove down to where the U-Haul Storage facility was in Jersey City. Ugh. It was a nightmarish drive and I started realizing how the hell am I going to tell a truckdriver how to get here? So I drove back up to my neck of the woods and went past it, as Shelly had told me there was a few shopping centers up in the Edgewater area, which is a few miles up from West New York. As I drove up, I saw a few more storage unit places up there and realized that would be a LOT more convenient for me and the movers if it was actually nearby. Then I saw the awesome stuff: a shopping center with a Barnes & Noble, an Old Navy, a Bed Bath & Beyond, a McDs, and get this: a motherfuckin’ OUTBACK!!!!! All on the riverfront so it’s effin’ awesome. This truly is a great stretch of Jersey. After a quick McDs lunch, I went to one of those storage unit places, got a unit there (bit more expensive, but for me, the location is worth it), and cancelled the U-Haul one. And then a few hours later (and quite a few Project Runway reruns later), the movers began to move my stuff, first to the storage unit (I have a LOT of crap still, even after selling a lot of stuff) and finally here, where I finally have all my stuff again! Amazingly, everything JUST fit. Almost perfectly. If the room had been any smaller or bigger, it would have looked weird, but it just works. I’ll take pics shortly.

So that’s about it. My roommate is cool, the job seems pretty awesome (i have a lot yet to learn still but I’m good with that), I have my bed back!!!, and I’m in New York. As the ferry was leaving Manhattan this evening, the sun was setting and I was pretty content. That’s when I took the picture on the front page. There’s still a lot I want to accomplish, I’d love to have some friends, etc, but right now, this has been a great start.

Oh yeah, I realized my old OLD pal from Elementary school, Warren, lives and works out here too. I contacted him on Facebook and it looks like we’ll get a chance to do dinner – perhaps that’ll be a way into a social circle out here? Anyways… I rambled on a LOT more than I expected. Typical.

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Three… (T-3)

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And so begins the final countdown to me being a civilian. Fuckin-A.

It’s been over a week since my last update – bad on me. Don’t have a very good excuse, to be honest. It’s just that the last week or so has been kinda busy in the evening. Much of last week I was hanging out with people each night – a few nights I spent hanging out with Byron while he was out here (and I was continuing the addiction-to-Guitar-Hero program which went without a hitch), my old neighbor EB was in Denver for business so he came down here one night and we had dinner, and then I spent one afternoon at my Dad and Pat’s to help them set up their new HP Vista PC (I’m almost inclined to go to Vista myself…but then I think of all the asspain and think again). And then one night I spent studying solely for my Security+ exam which I took on Thursday and which I rocked: Out of 900 points, I got 863 (to pass, you need 764). So yay for me. It’s not as if I really need it anymore, but I’m glad to have it. I will NOT continue to prepare for the CISSP exam though, basically that’s a huge pain that I don’t need anymore (it was mostly resume fodder, to be honest), it’s $500 I’d happily have back in my account, and the next test I could take is 30 Sep and in Denver….

….and I won’t be anywhere near Denver on that day because I’ll have been at work at NBC for just over a week by that time! Yep, the NBC offer is a done deal and as of today, my first day at the job has been established as Monday, 24 Sep. Yowza. That makes it much more real for me. I’ve got just over three whole weeks to househunt, pack up my shit, and drive out to NYC. Heart is definitely racing! But I’ve been looking at a few places and I’m very optimistic about them. I think out of all the ones I’ve been looking at, I should find a great place. Here’s hoping.

Two duty days left in the military (and then 3 years as an Inactive Ready Reservist…which means that if the Air Force has to call up personnel for some ridiculous reason, I could theoretically find myself back in Active Duty, but I try not to think too much about that possibility). Frankly, it’s hard to really fathom it. As you have probably seen on this site, since almost 365 days ago, I’ve been keeping a green count and at the time I started it, 365 days seemed like a long time. And to be honest, it was. The time did not exactly fly by, but that’s not to say it’s still not surprising that it’s nearly September 2007. I have fairly un-mixed emotions about the whole thing. I’m ready to be done. Cheyenne Mountain has not left the best taste in my mouth, primarily for the Air Force but probably for the military overall. It’s probably a situation of circumstance and location for me, as I know plenty of people who are still thrilled to be in the military, and good for them. But this past assignment has been quite enough for me to make up my mind that the military is not at all what I want to do anymore. Learned lots, but I’m definitely looking forward to being New York-Hobie for a few years!!!!! I figure I have two more updates to dwell on my military-related thoughts, and by that last one, perhaps I’ll be completely honest about a few things.

So I’ve got a lot of work cut out for me in the next few weeks. My plan is to fly out to the NYC area (on NBC’s dime, natch) to go visit the apartments I’ve seen and choose one while out there. That should hopefully be a very short trip. I’ll then have an idea of what exactly I’ll need to bring with me. Then I embark on selling nearly everything else I own. Yep, it’s time to clean house of all my big furniture stuff. Here’s a link to what I’m selling for those morbidly curious:

Hobie’s Moving Sale – Almost Everything Must Go!!!!

Tell all your Colorado-based friends if they are in need of some furniture! Then I’ve got to hope that my house either sells or rents. I’m resigned to the fact that I’ll probably have to rent it and probably at a loss on my part, but I’d rather pay a bit to ‘subsidize’ the rent then to have to pay an additional mortgage on top of my rent in NY/NJ. But that’s a rant for another day. Keep fingers crossed.

In family news, my mom had eye surgery. The primary reason was to remove the cataracts that are developing in her eyes, which are hereditary I think and something I probably get to look forward to in a few years. They’re working on her eyes one at a time, but a secondary reason and bonus for her is that they’re going to fix her vision while they’re operating. How sweet!! But it’ll be weird for her, as she’s had imperfect vision since she was 12 and glasses have been part of her face for so long now. I don’t know how it’ll be if she doesn’t have them on! But the first surgery went fine today and then she goes back in approximately a month. Yay! Other family news: Dad and Pat are going to be departing the Springs after this Labor Day weekend for California. It’s been great to have them around this summer, that’s for sure. Hope they have fun at their next campground in El Centro!

Okay, almost done for today. A few last trivial things to write about. First, I am hopelessly addicted to the new video game, Bioshock. Unbelievably fun and involving and creepy and eerie first-person shooter/game set underwater in a Utopia experiment that went all wrong. And then I also finished reading the graphic novel/comic book Watchmen. Highly Recommended!!!!! Can’t wait to see this movie…in 2009. Oy. Who KNOWS where I’ll be living then?????? 😉

Alright, enough from me today. I sent out a ‘Farewell’ email to most of all my past AF friends yesterday and heard back from quite a few of them today. I’ll definitely miss that camaraderie, but it’s easy enough to keep in touch with people nowadays, I have little excuse not to keep in touch with them. Seriously!

just a post, on life, pictures

So You Mighta Heard.. (T-12)

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…that NBC is going to give me an offer to work out in NYC! Should actually have something in my hands Monday or Tuesday!

So yes, I finally found out this past Thursday that a job offer was headed my way from NBC! Originally I was supposed to hear from them at the beginning of the week, but apparently they had one more interview to tackle before they could make a decision. Now, I like to tell myself that I won out over other possible candidates, but it’s entirely likely that maybe I’m choice #2 or #3 because maybe the others passed on the job. And who knows, maybe I will, because the one thing that is a possible deal-breaker for me will be if they don’t offer a competitive and reasonable salary. I have heard nothing but how expensive it is to live out there, and from looking at craigslist and roommates.com, I can attest to that fact. And actually, I am pretty much resigning myself to having to get a roommate, and while I swore I’d never do that again, I think this will just be a necessity. But luckily, I’ve found some very promising places on roommates.com so far. They aren’t in Manhattan, but actually in New Jersey, one in Hoboken and one in West New York. Both are really nice condominiums with a ton of great amenities, and I’d be able to actually bring my car and have it available, which is highly unlikely in Manhattan. And with the fact that I’d have to work probably in both Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey and at 30 Rock, I’m glad to potentially have the flexibility. So here’s hoping that I get positive word back this week.

Basically, the job search and outprocessing has still dominated my life the past week. I found out how much I’ll actually be getting from the Air Force when I separate with the VSP – taxes suck! So I ended up playing the Powerball to try to make that money back…. and well, that didn’t work out either. But I knew that I’d rather win $245 million over $210 measly million. Seriously. But I’ve been really trying to get other jobs lined up, especially locally in either the Springs or in Denver, as if NBC falls through for some reason, I think I’d rather stay here and live in my house for a few years more and wait out the bad real estate market. And there’s actually plenty of opportunities out there, so again, cross your fingers. I just can’t believe I’m 12 days away from being as Jenny said, a fucking silly civilian!!!!!!

And oh yeah, Big Brother 8 is such a dramatic mess…and I can’t stop watching. Actually, the ridiculous drama seems to have calmed down for the time being though. Have to wait and see if ED will flip out again soon. That’s good stuff.

Here are some pictures that Erin took a few weeks back in July when we had a Group picnic at the Mountain Man Park at Cheyenne Mountain. Turned out pretty good! Thanks Erin!

6 July 2007 – Pics at CMAFS Park

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I also will have some pics up, hopefully tomorrow, that I took from the past few days. Oh, if you haven’t been going to the Shooting Gallery, please start. And also, I have been trying to get myself to write more DVD reviews, and my latest is up for V For Vendetta.

And how could I forget???? Byron, Connie and Aidan came out to the Springs for a few days! Byron will be out here all next week for an inspection he’s doing, but the week before he brought the whole family out. It was great to see them, and they stayed over a few nights which was cool, but then they went camping here at Farish and then up at Estes Park. I should get to see Byron this week as well, so that will be fun. Alright, now it’s late and I’ve got to go to sleep. I better not even look over at my game PC and double click on the Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword icon. I suck at the game but I can’t stop playing it.

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I Heart New York… (T-22)

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…but definitely could have done without the completely ridiculous adventures I had getting there and coming back home.

So first, we all had a great time in Las Vegas! I didn’t lose all my money, ONLY half, which for me is a mighty accomplishment. It is actually due to me not playing craps the way I was supposed to be, and I lost my money accordingly. But the last night I was there, I played for 5 hours doing the things I was supposed to and outlasted tons of people at my table. It was sweet. But of course there was a lot of stuff that went on, but I’d rather wait till I put together all my pics and then do a proper Las Vegas update. So hold your horses on that, wouldya?

As for the debacle that is also known as my New York City interview trip… Well, let’s just say that if I don’t get a job offer, the signs were definitely there to back that decision up. So I was set to leave on the 7th of August, a Tuesday, from Colorado Springs, flying to Denver first, and then taking a direct flight from Denver to LaGuardia airport in New York, arriving around 6:30 in the evening. I was planning to check in to my hotel out near the airport and then take the train in to make sure I knew how long it would take to walk from the subway to 30 Rock, and also just to get a chance to be a tourist again in NYC and take some pictures (please note, I have NO pictures from NYC, so you now have an idea of how things went in the future…). I get to the check-in counter at Colorado Springs and the counter agent makes a face and goes, “Oh, that’s not good…”. Wonderful. I was beginning to think of my Puerto Rico travel nightmare, which up until these past two days was one of, if not THE worst, travel experience ever.

So why wasn’t that good? Because it turned out United (who I pledge to never fly again on if I can help it) had cancelled my flight from Denver to LaGuardia. No reason given, just cancelled. And the gate agent could not find any other flights to get me to NYC that day. She would get real real close to finding something, then nope, not available. We even tried going West first, going to LAX then maybe flying direct to NYC that way. Not happening. Finally, 30 minutes later, she found a way: Take my original flight from CS to Denver, then fly from Denver to Dulles Intl in DC, then Dulles to LaGuardia. But of course that many flights means I get there later – and yes, amazingly, all those flights actually flew as expected and I got to town around 11:45 pm. So sightseeing and studying my notes and reviewing stuff for the interview…didn’t happen. Then I thought I’d take the hotel courtesy shuttle from LaGuardia to the Holiday Inn Hotel I was staying at in Queens (btw, I was totally in Ugly Betty’s neighborhood). About 35 minutes later, the shuttle finally comes after I had called in a request to get picked up. So now I finally get to the hotel around 12:30 or so and then end up having to pay for the hotel room myself because the hotel needs to see the physical card that it was booked on, but of course I didn’t book it with a card of my own, GE Travel did. Whatever, I am hoping to get reimbursed for that. The cool part of the day was getting travel advice from the very New Yawker hotel guy Mike at the front counter, so I felt confident in getting into the city the next day and having plenty of time for an on-time arrival. So I get my clothes ready for the interview, and promptly pass out in my bed (which was in a suite, sweet!)…

….and wake up to the sound of torrential rain on my window around 6 in the morning. I think, “Oh great” but realize, okay, fine, I’ll take a cab instead like the NBC people had suggested. But I turn on the local morning news and find out that the rain had been part of a torrential storm that NYC hadn’t seen the like of in forever. Trains were stalled in floodwaters, tunnels were closed – the city’s transportation infrastructure was basically down to a standstill. Ohhh…..kay….. So I eat some breakfast (a bowl of cereal cause I was a bit nervous about the whole interview) and then get the front desk to call me a cab around 7:45 am to ensure I’d be down to 30 Rock by 10. I rush up to my room, change into my suit, pack everything fast, check out of my room, and realize I’ve just “hurried up and waited”. Because my cab didn’t show up till about 9:15am, because basically everyone in New York was cabbing it in to the city and there were no spare cabs around. So by this point, I figured there was no way in hell I was going to be on time, so I repeatedly called the POC who I was supposed to call in case of problems, and no answer any of the times. So I’m thinking I’m screwed. But I get in my cab, which turned out to be a towncar (leather seats, nice!!! – what a way to go to the city for an interview in a nice suit – I’m totally ready for NYC), and my crafty driver drove us through the back streets of Queens (to avoid the completely stalled Grand Central Parkway) and over one of the bridges into Manhattan and onto one of the highways at the perimeter of the island. Manhattan is huge. Anyways, after all that great speed and progress, the slowest part of the drive in ended up being while driving on 49th St from the shore towards 30 Rock, which is between 5th and 6th Avenues. By a miracle of God, I ended up at 30 Rock’s plaza at 10:05, which for all intents and purposes was on time. I walked briskly by all the hordes of tourists who wanted to go take the NBC tour and look at the Today Show’s windows and made it into the inner sanctum of the NBC elevators – and the interview began! But not before I realized I had no idea how to operate NY elevators – I got in one that was open and discovered there were no buttons inside to press. So I exited and figured it must be a private elevator or something. Then I see a guy get in another elevator and jump in with him. I was to go to the 2nd floor – we went to the 7th. There again were no buttons to press inside the elevator. I really began to think I was not nearly as sophisticated as I thought I was, and in fact quite a retard. Then it dawned on me – there was a bank of buttons off to the side of the many elevators that had numbers on them – and you press the number of the floor you want to get on there and then a little display tells you which elevator to wait in front of that will take you there. Definitely not what I was used to!

The guys who interviewed were totally cool about the small delay I had and didn’t seem to hold it against me. I ended up getting interviewed by 5 different people throughout the morning and afternoon (each on their own – it wasn’t a panel interview) and throughout the interview we would walk around to the main guts of the NBC broadcasting facility, which was amazing. The NORAD command center has nothing on this place, seriously. I saw where they put together and distribute all the feeds for each of the different time zones, as well as the ‘Live’ control booths where people monitor and edit the Today Show, NBC News live broadcasts, and Live Sports events. It was pretty cool. Anyways, I think the interviews ended up well (my recruiter called me this afternoon and said that he received positive feedback from the NBC folks today and that they liked me a lot….we’ll just see if that equates into a job offer). Around 2 though, I left from the 2nd building I had to go to (the last person was in a building on Madison Avenue, so I hoofed it over there looking like any other number of NY business folk) and decided against a cab this time as I still wanted to go on a subway. So I walked down Madison Avenue towards Grand Central Station – which was incredible. I was literally in one of the world’s most recognizable transportation centers, and it didn’t disappoint. So that was about the extent of my sightseeing – NBC and Grand Central Station – yes, that’s not a lot but that’s all the time I had. I did find the subway station I needed to go to and got on a train easy enough to take me right back to the Queens area near my hotel. Of course, the weather was ridiculously muggy now that it had rained all morning, so my suit was not exactly keeping me cool. But I got back to the 111th St & Roosevelt Ave station for Subway #7 and walked my way through definitely the most hispanic part of Queens I could have found, me, the white boy in a suit, strutting my way as if I had no care in the world. And honestly, there was nothing to care about at that point, as my interview was done and now I got to go home…..

….or did I? Basically, I got to LaGuardia and immediately saw that my departing flight from LaGuardia to O’Hare (another airport I will do my damndest to avoid if at all possible – that is the worst airport ever for delays, EVEN over Atlanta) had been delayed about a half hour. Okay, I should still have time to make my connecting flight from O’Hare to CS. So I check in, get through security, and find that LaGuardia is the worst airport ever for in-terminal food. Seriously. They had nothing, so I decided to go to Auntie Em’s pretzel place and the service people tell me that not only do they not have any food for another 10-15 minutes, the sodas from the fountain are almost hot. What….the…..FUCK???? So I tell them to go fuck themselves like a true New Yorker (okay, I didn’t do that, but in my head I did) and find a bakery-ish place and get a croissant and once again, a god-damn WARM bottled soda. But fine, I was thirsty, and wanted the soda. Anyways, I then discover that LaGuardia is the world’s worst airport for seats in the terminal. This place was a madhouse and apparently all the flights out had been delayed. Joyous. I do find a seat and soon realize that I’m sitting across from the Food guy from the Queer Eye guys. That was possibly the only highlight to the trip home. Because I soon realize that my flight has been delayed for not just a half hour, but a full hour and 15 minutes. That’s a potential problem. But I’ll play it by ear. So eventually we board the plane and as the plane taxis out, I nod off…only to wake up and realize we’re still not flying. At all. Then I hear the captain say that basically the ground traffic controller had directed us to one runway only to not let us take off and direct us to another! WTF? We finally get in the air around 7pm, a full 2 hours after I was originally supposed to leave, and unfortunately I had about 50 minutes for a layover in Chicago. So naturally when I get to Chicago I see I’ve not only missed my flight to CS, but there are no more for the rest of the evening, as by now it was around 9pm. I then go wait in the ridiculously long and slow customer service line to find out my options to get home. I see there’s still a Denver flight that leaves Chicago around 10:25pm….I may have a chance to get home on that, as I’d just ask a friend to come pick me up. So I slowly make my way through the line till it’s about 9:40pm – and the lady tells me that there’s no confirmed seats on that flight but did I want to know what I was rebooked on? I say, sure, thinking that if I can’t get on standby for tonight’s flight I’m surely going to get home the next morning. Well, she kind of chuckles in a way that means it’s about to preface bad news, and it was: not only was I not rebooked on any flights the next day (Thursday), I wasn’t going to be confirmed on any flights even on Friday (whether it be to Colorado Springs OR Denver)! Basically I couldn’t get a seat for sure until about Saturday. And because it was a weather delay from LaGuardia, United was not going to pay for a hotel. I think she realized how fucked this was so she signed me up for a United Mileage program which she told me entitled me to a higher position on the standby list (WHO KNEW?! So a lesson to all you out there, like me, who find that you fly standby a LOT more than you ever expected to, especially this summer! Sign up for those damn membership mileage programs, it’s in your best interest). So I walked over to the gate, praying to all the gods I could think of, to just get me home tonight. I did NOT want to spend the night at the airport. And amazingly, I ended up getting a seat and got to fly to Denver, where thankfully Jeff was willing to pick me up.

So seriously, the interview turned out to be the easiest part of my trip. And that doesn’t make much sense to me. But apparently I’ll hear back, yay or nay, by early next week if NBC is interested in making an offer. Cross your fingers.

on life, pictures

Back from San Diego (T-43)

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Holy Shit! I really only have 43 days left in the Air Force. It’s actually hard to believe.

But at least the future looks decently bright! Why, you ask? Well, this last conference was a bit more successful than the one in Chicago, as in the industries I interviewed with were a lot more interesting. What was even more interesting for me though was that I was attracted most to the sales jobs that were being offered! I know, go figure. No, I wouldn’t be selling vacuum cleaners or the like, but rather technology. I think I did pretty well in those sales interviews as both companies are interested in having me on, and I think I’m on to the second round, but I’m not sure when I’ll be hearing from them next.

By the way, here’s a link to the Shooting Gallery’s forum link in which I keep as up-to-date as possible on my career search:
Shooting Gallery Thread on my Career Search

In addition to the opportunities found in San Diego, a real exciting opportunity may lie in New York City with NBC! Yep, I interviewed with them last Friday afternoon over the phone and while I wasn’t sure the interview was going very well, at the end of the conversation the interviewer invited me to come to an on-site interview! I hope that it’s not overly technical as in they sit me down in front of a computer and say, “Make it work”. But if it is, well, let’s hope I have my act together and do my best. I would LOVE to take an opportunity in that area for a few years. How exciting would that be???? I just hope it pays decently, if I were to be offered it.

It’s definitely been exciting the last few weeks!

In addition to job hunting this past weekend, I also got to see family! Yep, Mom and Harv came down to San Diego and visited with me on Saturday and a bit of Sunday before I headed off to the conference prep-session. I was staying at Auntie Helen and Uncle Steve’s house in La Mesa, so that saved a LOT of money to stay there and it was also a lot more fun to stay with family than at a boring (expensive) hotel. It was definitely a quick visit, but it was great to see them all. On Monday night, Helen and I went out to dinner with my cousin Erin and Eric plus their son Finn, which was great, as I really haven’t seen them since I don’t know when. And then on Tuesday, Helen and I went to the Indian casino at Viejas, which was quite impressive. It actually reminded me a lot of Red Rock Station – and the casino is definitely high-caliber as opposed to something found in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Just still no craps tables though. But I ended up playing blackjack and for about 4.5 hours, was able to play with $100 and while I was up and down throughout the session, I ended up walking away with a $10 profit! (and that is stellar for me, let me tell you!) I just hope that is a good sign of things to come in Vegas in a few weeks!

Oh yeah, I also had another travel debacle on the way home from San Diego. I was at the airport and going through security, and I was about 4 people back from the actual x-ray portion when my line pretty much stopped. The other lines were going still, and I started getting aggravated. As I started contemplating moving to another line, it dawned on me that then the other lines weren’t moving either. In fact, all sorts of TSA agents and cops started showing up and looking at the monitor on my line’s x-ray machine. And the lines stayed shut down for 2 hours. Yep, they shut down the lines plus also brought everyone in the terminal and some planes back outside to security for a re-screening! It turns out that a TSA agent had noticed a bottle of something in a woman’s bag while it was going through the machine, but somehow the TSA agent ‘lost track of the woman and the bag’….. WHAT THE FUCK????? How do you lose track of someone? If you notice that shit in a bag, you immediately pull that person over to the side and make them dump the bottle. But no, instead, you realize you ‘lost track’ of someone and that means we shut down the airport. Yes, it was fun. Fortunately there was a cool woman to chat with for two hours while we were waiting, but when I finally got to my plane and it took off, I didn’t make my connecting flight in Salt Lake City to Colorado Springs. Luckily I made it on the standby list for the next flight a few hours later, but seriously, how annoying was that? But I (and all my belongings) made it back to the Springs and my house was still intact. yay!

16 July 2007 – Dinner with Erin, Eric & Helen

Erin, me, and Helen
Eric
Finn

18 July 2007 – San Diego Airport

What San Diego Intl looks like when the security line stops
Staying positive

And oh yeah, don’t bother me on Saturday. I plan on picking up and reading the last Harry Potter with absolutely no media connectivity till I’m finished reading it. I will NOT be spoiled by the well-intentioned or not media. If it takes me all day and a lots of pizza and soda to read it in one day, then that’s what it will take!!!!!!!