you win some, you lose some

Almost immediately after what I believe would be called nailing the interview, I had a run-in with either a sloppy painter or a really relaxed pigeon. The end result is a Monica Lewinsky sized blob on my suit coat and a smaller, Paris Hilton sized one on my pants. I tried washing them and nothing happens. At least I only have to wear the pair around for the rest of the day.

Getting some traction

Job
The summer is rapidly moving towards its conclusion and I am not that much closer to solving the age old question of 'so ... What are you doing?'

I've been posting resumes and cover letters for the last couple weeks fairly regularly. Thus far it's been recruiting agencies calling, asking if I am interested in positions I was either not even close to being qualified for or way over qualified for.

This weekend I decided to re-work both my resume and cover letters a bit, and I suddenly started receiving phone calls from the jobs I was actually applying to. My first interview out of the revamped paperwork is tomorrow in downtown Chicago for a PHP Developer position. I'm hoping there's a chance that if I got the position, I could work remotely. But getting the position is a little more important for the next 6 months.

Volleyball
My volleyball skills have improved significantly. The one area of my game that has not improved is still my serve. In fact, I'd say it's gotten progressively more sporadic and mind-bogglingly messed up. But at least I can hit with the big guys now.

Running
My oldest sister decided to sign-up for the Chicago Marathon a couple weeks ago. My brother-in-law to my second oldest sister then decided to sign-up as well. I did not sign-up and am slowly wishing I had. Although I'm significantly heavier now than I was then (20 lbs), I'm sure if I started training again a lot of it would come off fairly quickly.

But I decided to stick with the volleyball and basketball routine I have going now. I'm in two volleyball leagues (Mon & Tues) and have been playing basketball on Thursdays with some pretty good players. Michael Flowers has even shown up quite a bit to show everyone how we are just fooling ourselves into thinking we're good at basketball.

troubleshooting

Why does everyone at work always say Foxfire when referring to Firefox? And then try to explain to us how we're supposed to solve their problem.

Things would go much smoother if everyone just acknowledged their inadequacies with computers by simply stating their problem, with no suggested "solutions" or "I think..." statements. If there are further questions that need to be answered, the IT staff will ask the relevant questions to get to and solve the problem.

Additional/non-relevant information just messes with the troubleshooter and makes them even crankier than normal.

Even if this is not true, at least it places us on guard.

I get really scared when I continually receive email with opening lines similar to the above. Not from what I have never read below the line, but from the thought that I may be that overly paranoid and uniformed parent one day. (shudder)

Not in the cards

I pretty much threw all of my chips into the IT Director position with AIESEC US. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, they will not be filling that position. Thus, I will not be moving to New York City. And I will no longer be a member of AIESEC US.

Now, I'm back at the job search thing. It's still weird explaining to people that I don't have a job... when I'm working full-time doing IT support and web design.

I really need to get the hell out of Dodge.

In my quest for a job, I convinced an old friend, Quentin Schiller, to travel to Malaysia with me this August. We previously took a road trip down to New Mexico. So even if Junior decides to do his own thing, I'm going to have increased pressure to follow through with the Southeast Asia plan.

When it rains it pours and when it's dry it's a desert. It's currently raining in the desert.

I think I need twitter. Oh wait, it's down.