so wednesday once i got to school, i went and talked to matt and he was like 'that's bullshit! i can't believe they didn't hire you!' well, i thought about it for a while, and i started to think the same thing. so i called techbridge back and tried to strong-arm my contact's answering machine into giving me a second shot. the machine was pretty unconvinced. but later, it told heather kelly what i said, and either it was more enthusiastic than i had been, or heather just understands the situation better than the machine. either way, she called back and said they'd give me a second shot. and i won't even have to work for free! they're gonna pay me a reduced rate and give me some project. if i rock out, then i've got the job. w00t. i'm thinking that i should still call this guy john jones and see about doing that lan installation bit, cause why not?

well, the unemployment continues. the woman who i interviewed with at techbridge said that they really wanted to hire me what with my passion for the non profit sector and all, but they couldn't afford to hire someone without this experience and that. again, the jobmarket is flooded right now with very experienced people looking to get back in the action. she threw me a bone, though. gave me the number of a guy at an npo that needs some networking stuff done. that's basically free money. so it wasn't all bad. i think that i'm gonna go and see if i can get unemployment insurance.

Well, USATF call and told me that they hired someone else. I think it boiled down to they wanted someone that would be immediately recognizable to the Track and Field community and I certainly am not that. So now I am shit out of luck and don't have many prospects for a job right away. The things with Nike, Reebok and Adidas all ran dry. I'm beginning to get the feeling that with all of the unemployment, the likelihood of a new face breaking in anywhere is really slim. I know I am more than qualified for all of the positions I have applied for, however I think with others being laid off all of a suddent the talent pool has all of these people with 5-10 years of experience. It makes my life difficult at times. Well, that's all I have. Hopefully there will be good news soon as the rest of my free time will be spent trying to get a job that will pay some fucking bills. Sigh.

M

it looks like martin will prevail in the most posts campaign, but that's because i'm the only other jackass in the running, and my life is decidedly less eventful. i'm only posting to break the constant stream of martin's words.

my updates will not be meaningful until tuesday afternoon (or possibly wednesday morning) when i get my job status update from techbridge. here's hoping for both of us unemployed schmucks.

outside of waiting for contact from job people, waiting for updates from the other kids who supposedly use this joint and playing video games, things are pretty constant (stagnant even) around "here". i hesitate to call my current residence any incarnation of the fort for myriad reasons, including the fact that i don't spend much time here, i don't live with fort people, and the fact that there isn't much wackiness to be had here at the cotton mill. fucking nazis.

one cool thing is that mn's sister-in-law annika is in from germany. so we've hung out with her a bit and that's pretty cool. also, mn's birthday is coming up, for which there will be a party (featuring annika, and mn's brother clint) to which everyone is invited -- tue the 30 at night. shortly following that (by which i mean about 2 hours later) we'll be taking off for florida and the enormous sims family reunion. my mom may be in attendance at said reunion, which is cool as i haven't seen her in a while.

so that's that (in a ditch).

Post #5 and I'm still rolling.

Had my interview with USATF again today. Not as happy as I was about the last one. I still feel that I can own this job, but the vibe wasn't as good on a conference call with guys as it was during the one on one call with a woman. I'll find out monday, so keep your fingers and toes crossed.

The one downside to the interview is they asked how soon I could relocate to California. So I told them 2-4 weeks at the soonest. I really hope they give me more time if I get the job, but I also REALLLLLLY need this job so I'll take what I can get.

M

What's up 4 posts in a row. I'm surely going to win the mosts posts award for this year.

Well, it was an up and down day today. I had a hard time getting to sleep last night, causing me to wake up late and not go to jury duty. Not a huge problem because I have 4 miss days, so there goes one of them. Spent some time driving, then Mikki called with that urget tone of "we need to talk." So I knew some type of damage control. I get over there, and then there is really no good way to put this . . . we break up. Her life is going one way right now, and when she looked at the situation she didn't see a future for us. I had been coming to a similar conclusion but was going to play things out a bit and see what happened. So there is the bad news for the day. It has been an odd day, similar in some ways to the day after my Mom died. I walk around and realize that this stable relationship that I have had for 2 and a half years is now gone, and am figuring out how that changes things.

So I go home and drive some more, which takes my mind off of things. Later on I get a call from a guy (I think his name was Jeb?). Turns out this guy is from USA Track and Field and he asks if I got the email about setting up an interview. I tell him no, thinking that I might have deleted it by accident. No problem we set up a conference interview for tomorrow (Friday). This means that I am in the finals. It is me and one other guy going for this position. I'm a little offset by the speed between the two interviews (4 days). Mainly that concerns me because it might mean that they want a guy there fast, and I have a few contraints. It is best for me if I don't have to leave Atlanta before January. If I have to leave before November we have issues between Ultimate and Jury Duty. But these are non-issues if I don't get the job, so I'll wait to bring them up. That's fucking great news however. As I took stock of things today I realized that of the three things that were constant in my life two years ago, Mikki, my Mom, and ultimate only the third still remains, and on a thread at times because of injury. I'm losing my friend-base as we all disperse to our own destinys, so getting this job is sooooo fucking important right now. Especially if I don't have a girlfriend, if I have a job I can dive into that and help establish some more flow back in my life. I need this really bad, otherwise I'm back to ground zero with little direction. Sigh, life can be very frustrating sometimes.

So wish me luck, and post something up so I can see that people aside from jeremy are still alive.

Oh, and kudos to Matt for getting something up and visible. Your a good man Matt Flagg, but then again we all knew that. I hope worlds goes well.

M

So at this point I feel that I have put in my time with Gran Toursimo 3. Don't be alarmed, I'm not done yet. But I'm been working on this around the clock and I am still only at 88.7% completion. I have all but 5 races completed and find it hard to believe that these five races (one series and 4 endurance) are going to get me the remaining 11.3 percent. I really just want this game to be over so that I can get on with my life, but c'est la vie.

I've looked on forums and they don't really tell me much. I found one that basically explained that I needed to complete everything to get 100%, which isn't helpful. Sigh. I'm hoping that I can get these PS2 to Cube adapters in so that I can start playing Soul Calibur 2. I also need Jeremy around at some point to help me finish Zelda, but we're a ways off from that also. Really the only thing on the list of games to beat that looks close is Mario Kart Super Circuit. Basically I've done all of the hard stuff it just involves me putting in the time. I know that is also the case with GT3, but with Mario Kart"all of the time" doesn't mean a week of non-stop gaming.

M

I've been back in the ATL now for about three weeks. I guess life is good. We won Shaen Adams (two weekends ago) beating Holes and Poles, the team that has ended our regionals the past two years. The weekend after that was Chicago Tune-up in which we finished 4th. I think we could have done better, we (being the defense) sucked after getting a turn and that was our foil for the weekend. The trip was fun, and logistical problems made it even more fun as we almost didn't have half of the team for the first game on sunday.

Oh, I got a call-back from USA track and field. I have a phone interview this monday. Hopefully things will go well with that, because I really want to get back in the olympic loop of things. There are a list of concerns, however. First, I don't want to leave atlanta until after december 2nd if at all possible. Because of school and ultimate and my Mom's birthday it'd be nice to stay here. Second, I don't know who I am going to play ultimate with in california. I know cali is fully of disc, but I've been working hard to get myself in position where I'm not on some team that makes nationals when there are enough bids in a region. I want to be on a team that is going no matter what, first or second by a large amount in the region every year. There is a slim chance that I can play for the Condors, but that is a 4-5 hour drive from San Diego. Last, if I do move to San Deigo I don't know what effect that will have on my relationship with Mikki. She will be in school for another year and I will most likely move onto the complex, which means I wont be able to split an apartment. But these are all small concerns until I am offered a job.

Well, I think that will be it for me right now. It was indeed good to see mark, and it is great to be back with old friends. Jeremy and I are breaking ourselves trying to finish many, many games right now. I will post soon I hope.

M

so this past weekend's (dragon*con weekend) rendez-vous with mark was a big success. spent a piece of each day goofing off with him, which was an absolute blast. friday night, we all hung out at martin's place eating and catching up a little. lots of people showed, but the night wound up early since martin was still pretty wiped from his journey home and needed his rest for a weekend tournament.

saturday was the party for which brad never posted details. played some pool and ate some cooked out burgers. but first i had to go to gainesville and help matt rig the credentials for this year's flatwater (sprint canoe and kayaking) world championships, to be held at the lake lanier canoe and kayak club (i'm not finding links for that shit. matt did the websites, so if he cares, he can post some urls). anyway, it was cool. never been out there, so i was pretty excited, but i hope that during the olympics, there were more seats. i think that this kayaking bit is a pretty big deal other places, so i would guess there'd be a lot of seating required. then again, what do i know?

then sunday, we all (and by all, i mean not nearly as many people as i expected) rallied at the marriot marquis -- dragon*con central -- to play settlers of catan with mark, sally and her boyfriend aaron (i hope i spelled that right. people spell their names in some stupid ways these days). settler's is a fuckingly fun game, so we all had a great time. i sure do miss mark. stupid mark.