daily grind: April 2007 Archives

I will be unemployed . . . temporarily . . . for the weekend, that is.

Monday morning, at nine am, I will show up for my new job. Everyone asks me if I am excited. Well, I don't really know that I'm really excited. That is, I don't know if excited is the right word to use to explain what it is that I'm feeling. I imagine I should be excited.

Before I finished grad school in 2000 everyone and his brother's dog had an ingenious idea for the next, hippest, biggest, money-making startup that would bring in millions of dollars at the drop of a hat. My goal, even though I lived in the Midwest ( as far from Silicon Valley as you can get ), was to be involved with some kind of Internet, start-up venture. Sure, money was a part of that. But it wasn't the whole thing on my mind. I was drawn to the the prospect of being involved with a venture that had a desire to push the limits of technology, wasn't afraid of making mistakes and breaking the rules, and wanted to "try something new." Monday that's exactly what I will be doing.

By their own definition:

If you are looking to make a change and are creative, like to take risks and want to work at a place full of opportunity and excitement, this is the place for you!

I'm leaving behind some great people that I've enjoyed working with over the last five years. Although I'll miss seeing them and trading sarcastic emails, they'll hardly be forgotten. If I'm not excited it's because I'm not excited to leave them behind.

Every year, at about this time, along with getting the yard in shape I have to do something that absolutely terrifies me. I admit, I'm not a big, huge guy with rippling muscles and machismo that would make Chuck Norris' knees buckle, but I'm no pencil-neck geek either.

However, if there's anything that will make me run for the hills it is spiders. I hate spiders. They give me the heeby jeebys. Speaking of spiders . . . I'm glad I didn't see these really beautiful pictures of a Black Widow before I went down to clean out our storm shelter. I may not have been able to do it fearing a spider jumping on my back and sinking it's poisonous little fangs into my neck.

Because the local weather guys are anticipating some fairly strong storms tonight capable of producing hail, strong, staight-line winds, and ( quite possibly ) tornadoes, I had to put my fears aside and clean out the storm shelter. I really should have posted a picture so that a person can appreciate where I'm coming from. The storm shelter in our backyard is a concrete bunkerish kind of mini basement situated about twenty feet from our back door. It rises, just enough from beneath the ground to appear as if someone crashed a softball-looking spaceship from outer space and embedded it into out backyard such that three quarters of the ball became buried. I say spaceship because there are two aluminum vents in the top that I had to fix so that rain didn't fall into the shelter and a double-sided door about five feet long that runs from one edge to the center.

The shelter just might be large enough to accommodate two adults and two kids or two large adults. A very tall adult would probably have to bow their head even when standing in the center inside of it. A couple years ago I had to clean that thing out. There was garbage, stinking, foul water, and about an inch of some silty kind of disgusting substance covering the bottom of the floor. So, I spent a large portion of the day getting all the crap out of there and cleaning it in the event it would be needed.

Installing the vents on top has proven to keep the shelter from filling up with standing water, but the side effect is that it is a nice, cool, dry place now. So, if you know anything about spiders then you know that they are grateful for all my hard work and have moved in. So I have to take a broom down there and kick their eight-legged asses out every once in a while. Thankfully we've never had to use it. I really hate the thought of it.

Which would I rather face? The potentially 200+ mph winds and debris driven by tornadic winds or the eight-legged predator of my nightmares? It's a tough choice.

This weekend is pretty busy. A beginner BMX clinic for my daughter and soccer games for both my kids Saturday and Sunday. Lots of running around to keep me busy.

So far my son's team won and my daughter's team experienced their first loss this season. I actually thought they would go undefeated, but things just weren't clicking for them today. It was a difficult game for the girls today. They played a team that is one of the better teams. They've beat them before, but today just wasn't their day. Whenever that team and my daughter's team gets on the field together things get a little rough. Both of the teams have some aggressive players. There's pushing and shoving, and the ref doesn't catch all of it. As you can probably guess, whatever the ref doesn't catch he's going to get a lot of grief over at the hands of angry soccer moms and dads.

For example, today one of the coaches/dads from the opposing team at my daughter's game became so perturbed that he began yelling, "Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!" from across the field. I think what bothered him was that the ref didn't call a foul that the guy thought he should have called. This was followed by some confusion about who should be throwing in after the ball had gone out of bounds. Thank goodness he didn't decide to get all violent over it. At one point he did come onto the field and was trying to argue with the ref. It's real easy to sit back and classify that guy as a major prick who is trying to live his life vicariously through his kid and since he never accomplished much he's not going to let his little girl grow up to be like him. But that wouldn't really be very nice to think of someone like that. Would it? Perhaps he doesn't realize that by behaving the way he does he'll probably guarantee that she does grow up to be just like him because he's teaching her exactly how to do it.

In case you hadn't noticed . . . I didn't post yesterday. More than likely, you probably don't care so I won't waste my time writing a lame excuse trying to hide the fact that I was just too damn lazy ( even though that's not the case ).

What's more, you get a great benefit from this because you won't be wasting your time reading it. See, us fortywhat?! guys really realize how important time can be. Well, that and food. What most people don't really realize about fortywhat?! guys is that food plays a very special part in our lives. I won't go off on any exercise in rationalization and try to explain how food is better than sex . . . because, well, it isn't - at least from what I remember?

But, when all else fails, food is the best thing that can warm my heart. Everyone has their favorites. The best food is that which satisfies after a bit of gratifying work in the yard. To put this in context, allow me to tell you a little story about a fortywhat?! guy who ignorantly decided to skip lunch yesterday only to be forced to fend for himself.

It's a sad story, but it has a happy ending.

Last week I mentioned that I interviewed for a new job.

As I said, I felt pretty good about how the interview went. It's always kind of hard to tell exactly how things go during an interview. The interviewee is always put into a position where there is a limited amount of time to make that first impression. You can usually tell if you answer the "real" questions well or not.

I mean real questions as opposed to those fluffy, filler-type questions like, "What do you consider your weaknesses to be?" I'm always tempted to answer, "Well, I really can't function without downing a fifth of vodka first thing in the morning while I surf porn on the Internet," followed by one of those uncomfortable smiles - like when you silently fart in a really crowded room and slyly slip away.

I've always wondered why people still ask those questions. I know the standard answer to that, but I mean, why do they really ask those questions? There are countless resources available that people can use as a guide for the best responses. Are interviewers really that lazy that they can't come up with their own questions? I suppose they do serve some purpose. They expose the people who are too lazy to really prepare for an interview and learn the preferred responses.

Enough with the rant, I suppose. The good news is that I was offered the job. We had to do a little negotiation with regard to the salary, but in the end it worked out. I'll start working for them the 30th of this month. In the meantime, I've been asked to help select my replacement. So, for my remaining days I'll be reading resumes and interviewing candidates.

Where'd I leave those links to the fluffy, filler-type questions?

Here it is. Tuesday morning. Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day. The temperatures soared to eighty-something and I got the Jeep washed over lunch. The dealer I bought the Jeep from gave me a coupon for thirty days of free washes at an touchless car wash. Although the coupon only gives you the basic wash, I splurged and had the wheels shined. Before picking up the kids at the bus top I put the top down. It was great.

Since we had to go out for another of my daughter's soccer games it made for a good evening cruising around with the top down till almost 8 pm after my daughter's team kicked the snot out of the other team.

Now, the temperature's dropped to near sixty. It's gray and rainy. The forecast includes snow later this week.

Mother Nature is a skanky tease.

With two tasks at hand this morning at work I'm trying to find the motivation to begin either of them. The same old thing.

After interviewing last week for a new job, I expected that I might find out where I stood as early as Friday of last week. I imagine that there is still the possibility that I am being considered for the position, but as the days add up this week my optimism is dwindling. They did contact my current employer. To me that's a sign that I am a contender, but it is kind of a double edge sword. With the cat out of the bag, so to speak, now my employer knows I'm looking. There are some that would fire me just for even thinking about it. Fortunately, that's not the case here. But, if they're going to call my employer I think they better be prepared to offer me the job. After all, I did give them three other personal references related to the kind of work I do that would have sufficed instead of calling my boss.

Regardless, I need to get this crap done so that at least I project an image that is consistent with someone doing their job.