June Descends

I was doing really good there in May, posting nearly every day, and then June descended on me…

My younger brother got married on the 2nd, and the rehersal was on the 1st. On the 3rd, my wife and I went to look at some houses, one of which we really really like. On the 4th, we made our way to the last day of the Georgia Renaissance Festival and spent most of the day there. On the 5th, I was “on vacation” from my regular job doing work for my actual company (sounds confusing, and it is) and spent a bunch of the day talking to banks. On the 6th, having forgotten to pay rent I had to go get a money order to pay it, and worked yet again for my actual company, put a bid in on the house we like, and went to play trivia at the North River Tavern. On the 7th, I put in another day on the grind at the actual company and finally slowed down enough to watch a couple of movies with the wife (The Family Stone and Mr. Wonderful, it was her night to pick since I made her watch Shocker last time).

The rest of the week looks to continue to be crazy, and on top of all that, we are eagerly awaiting the results of our house bid which should come early next week. So forgive me should I continue to forget to post for a bit. I’ll get back on track soon enough.

23 June 1998

Today seems short. Had a good interview today, maybe a job will come of it. I like them. They seem to like me. Decent pay, good benefits. Here’s to hoping, should hear from them again to-morrow.
After that I had some… bizarre job calls. Atlanta has one of the largest (if not THE largest) IT job markets in the nation, yet people keep calling, talking about jobs out of state, and even with my resume on 4 different job boards and talking to a dozen or more placement agencies, I can’t seem to get very many people to hear me out around here. Though I must say, if someone from Florida, say the Tampa/Clearwater area, were to call with a job offer, I wouldn’t turn them down. 🙂
Anyhow, now to today’s tale… about 2 1/2 weeks ago, on a Friday night, my watchband broke. No big deal. It’s happened before. The following Monday, I had an interview. I didn’t feel like getting a new watchband, so I searched my room and found an old watch I hadn’t worn in awhile. It looked better for interview purposes anyway, it’s gold with a brown band as opposed to the other which was a black plastic sports watch. So, I put it on and notice the battery is dead. I head to the store on my way to the interview and get a new one. So today, 2 weeks later, I’m walking into the building where I have my interview today and this guys asks me what time it is… simple enough, I look at my watch and then kind of give him this puzzled look as I say, “I don’t know.” It seems that my watch had devoured the battery, because it was dead again. I even fiddled with it to see if maybe it just wasn’t contacting fully in the watch. But while I was sitting, waiting for the interview, and during the whole process (I was interviewed by 6 people, and only 6 because the 7th guy was on an important call) I kept thinking about the watch, trying to figure out where and when it had gone dead. After a while of thought, it occurred to me that the last time I had looked at my watch was when I had put the battery in and set the time and made sure it was running, which means I looked at it again maybe twice in the next 20 minutes to see if the hands were still moving. In 2 weeks I hadn’t looked at my watch, not once. Even when I put it on and take it off, I don’t look at it, not the time anyway. I always just grab it off the dresser and put it on, or unband it and toss it on the dresser. It even occurred to me that 4 days ago, on Friday the 19th, I had asked someone else what the time was at the movie theater, when I myself was wearing a watch. It just seems odd to me… because I know that I used to look at my watch all the time… back when I was working. I don’t mean to say that in 2 weeks I hadn’t looked at a clock… no… I have my alarm clock so I know when to leave the house to get where I’m headed by the time I’m supposed to be there, and I’ve checked the time on the TV so I know when to change the channel to catch my favorite shows, all while I’m wearing a watch. In any event, all this just kept me thinking all day… about time… and at about 1pm today, just as I was reaching home (with a new watch battery in pocket) it finally dawned on my what had changed to make me not use my watch. A subtle difference in my life… I no longer wanted out. Whenever I use a clock today, or ask what time it is, is because I have a time to be somewhere or I’m waiting for something to begin… 6 months ago, while I was working at my last job, I looked at my watch all the time because I wanted to know when I could leave. I was counting down to ends instead of beginnings… Needless to say, I am much happier these days than I was 6 months ago. I guess the lesson here is, if you are counting the minutes to get “out” as opposed to the minutes to get “in”, then maybe it’s time the situation changed.
Well, that was long… I’m sure it’ll happen again…
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Today’s Song: Girlfriend by Matthew Sweet… just before getting to my interview today this song came on the radio… good tune… great vibe… brought me up to the level of energy I needed for the interview.
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Today’s Movie: Nick of Time. While my head was spinning with time today, I pulled this movie out of my archives and watched it again. Pretty good film. I like the idea of a movie filmed in “real-time”. And Christopher Walken is always a plus.

21 June 1998

Finally moved my .plan stuff off of my IRC /finger to my web page, which I finally decided to work on.
So far I think I’m going to include a page for the various games I play (1 page for all the games, not a page for each game) and just sort of cover what I’ve seen that I have liked, new stuff I’m looking forward to and other assorted stuff. Then there is the North 5 page… hopefully that will come to something worthwhile, checkout that section if you have a moment (and if I have something there). Of course there is the “Me” page, where I have my resume and other stuff about me… I’ll think about posting a picture. And then there are these… the .plan files, which I will try to update every day.
Anyhow… gotta start cruisin’ the Sunday Classifieds soon… still lookin’ for that job. BTW, if you know anyone in the Atlanta area who is looking for someone, check out my resume and pass me on to them and shoot me an email telling me who to talk to. Thanks…
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Today’s Song: Zeroes by Spacehog… Just had it on today and kinda diggin’ the groove… Resident Alien is one of those CD’s that once it goes in the player it doesn’t come out for a couple of weeks.
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Today’s Movie: Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan (Letterbox Edition). After seeing some trashy sci-fi, I decided to watch one of the good ones. Has anyone other than me noticed that the good Star Trek movies are the even numbered ones, and they all reference Moby Dick? In any event, the Letterbox version of any movie is preferable to the sliced-n-diced version. “From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee. For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.”

18 June 1998

I keep going to these job interviews where they give me a logic test. On average they are about 25 questions long. Most are aaround 20-25 but then there was that one company that had a 78 question test. In any event, I go to these places and they hand me the test and say, “I hope you have plenty of time, this’ll take about 2 1/2 hours… maybe 3.” 30 minutes later I turn the test back in and miss maybe 2 or 3, but more often none (I missed 10 on the 78 question test). They laud praise on me like I’m the best thing since sliced bread, and then DON’T offer me a job.
Am I missing something?
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Today’s Song: Radiation Vibe by Fountains of Wayne… it’s been a while since I loaded this album in the CD player (happens when you have 400 CDs), but after another disappointing job interview hearing this tune just made me smile… a feel good song.
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Today’s Movie: Westworld. After watching Outland I’ve been getting into this “older” sci-fi mode. If you have never seen Westworld, do so… Yul Brenner as a gunfighting rogue android is worth it alone.

17 June 1998

I finally decided to bear down and really learn something. I’m preparing for when Half-Life comes out, and I’m hoping it will be an open enough game that you can make homegrown mods on it like Quake II. I’m going to sketch it all out and hopefully do it for HL… but if I can’t I’ll try Q2.
Anyhow… there is that… and I’m going to also start working out some map ideas for TF2. And I think I need to teach myself Visual Basic for a job I might interview for.
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Today’s Song: The Warrior by Scandal… I know it’s trash 80’s, but I had it in my CD player and when that came on I spawned as a sniper and made 11 kills in 11 shots. Sometimes I kick ass.
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Today’s Movie: Outland. 1, it has Sean Connery. 2, it has guys depressurising in deep space. And 3, it’s what I’m going to base my mod on.