Not Necessarily Interesting News

My wife woke me this morning from what was probably my weirdest dream ever.

In my dream I had died and was sent to purgatory. In purgatory there was a rather large swimming pool with largish 2’x2′ stepping stones in a cross pattern in the middle of it. At the end of the pool, about where the diving board would be, there was a platform. On this platform was the MC for the coming festivities. I think it was Wink Martindale but I’m not sure as I was too busy looking at the line of people that stretched down the length of the pool and out the door.

I was standing in the middle of the cross of stones in the pool and Wink starts announcing what’s about to happen. It was explained that the line of people was everyone I had ever wronged in my entire life. Ever. No matter how slight the offense nor how indirect. Each of these people carried and item that they would get one chance to throw at me. If they could knock me off the cross into the pool I went to hell. If I could survive the entire line I got to go to heaven. There were at least 100 people waiting next to the pool with God knows how many lined up outside waiting their chance to send me to hell.

First up was Nancy Reagan. My wrong against her was making fun of her ‘Just say No’ campaign. She stepped to the platform, wound up, and chucked a danish at my head. WTF? I dodged it easily and she stepped down.

Next up was a kid that looked mildly retarded. I was told that I once made fun of him at a baseball game. He stepped up and tried to bean me with a teddy bear. I had no problem stepping out of the line of that one. He had no arm and no aim.

Then Kirstey Ally stepped to bat. I guess I made fun of her wieght or something. She winged a full container of Jiffy Pop popcorn at my. She had a good arm and it bounced off my shoulder.

Next I saw someone climbing the platform carrying a compact car. Yes, a compact car like a Ford Focus or something. Oh crap. The announcer started telling me of my crimes against this person.

Then my wife woke me.

I never got to hear who it was that could carry a car but I’m glad I didn’t have to dodge it.

*sigh*

Looks like I’ve been shot down for the Iraq job. I really really wanted this position. The company was great and did neat stuff that I found extremely interesting. I seemed to get along with everyone and I _know_ I can do the job as it was described to me.

I got an email saying that they ‘…liked the way that you came across as an engineering professional…’ but they ‘…had concerns regarding your strength in certain areas…’. I am still a possible candidate according to them but they say they will continue to look at other candidates. I’ll keep my fingers crossed but I’ve been here before and callbacks are usually unlikely.

I felt I was a perfect fit for the job and don’t know where I was lacking. I believe I could do the job and looked forward to the challenges it would provide and the difference I could make in a growing company. I’d like to find out where they thought I was lacking so I can improve myself for the future.

edit: I even cut my hair for this interview. 🙂 I was growing it out again after stupidly cutting it last year. Now I’ve got to start from scratch again.

Yesterday I went in for a day long round of interviews for the Iraq job. I got to meet everyone from the CEO of the company down to the guys I’d be headed overseas with. I seemed to get along with everyone and did pretty well in all the interviews I believe. There was one interview with one of the founders where I think I tripped up a bit but I know why he was grilling me so much. The company is his baby and he wants the best people they can find. I hope I still made a good impression with him. After hearing exactly what they want me to do over there I know I can do the job and am the best person for it.
As for the details on the job I’m under an NDA but I can say they do this cool thing, that does this other neat thing, which makes something else make really pretty pictures. The stuff they do is so interesting and cool I was flabbergasted. Now, not only do I want the job because it’ll get me off the contractor bandwagon and pay better but also because they just do some cool cutting-edge stuff. My current job is interesting and all but it’s a lot of the same stuff from day-to-day and I never know if they’ll end my contract from week to week. There it would be ever changing, challenging, and a much more secure position. I also like working for small start ups as it’s a constantly evolving workplace. Exactly the kind of job I want.
It looks like I’ll have to do one final round of interviews before it’s over but right now I believe I have a much better than even chance at the job and am confident in my ability to do the work. I anxiously await a call from them.

We had an awesome 4th this year. We invited a bunch of folks over to help us celebrate and shoot off fireworks. Of everyone we know in the Austin area we are the only ones that live where fireworks are still legal. Damn you, Austin, and your anti-fireworks codes.
We made up a batch or 5 of homemade wontons, a favorite with all our friends, and fried them up. We had those along with borrowing our friend John’s industrial margarita machine. 400 wontons and 5 gallons of margaritas can help make for a decent party. After I got done frying up wontons in our nifty frier, that was given to us by a close friend to encourage us to make more wontons, most of us went out back and sat around while a few folks played bocce ball on my lumpy back lawn.
We ended up having 22 people show up before dark. Once it got dark enough we went out in the street out front to start the fun. We had somewhere over $700 in fireworks to shoot off and had a blast doing it. Only one minor injury, one scare, and a small fire in a neighbor’s tree. 🙂 We had everything from sparklers to 2 1/2″ mortars. Something for everyone.
This was the most people we’ve ever had at one of our 4th parties and it grows every year as more people find out there are still places around here that allow Americans to blow shit up to celebrate our Independence. Sadly I have no pics of the fun as I still haven’t replaced my camera that got crushed 2 weeks ago.

Today I was working in the backyard getting ready for our big July 4th bash tomorrow when my wife said there was a confused old man in the front yard. I laughed and said ‘ok’. She then said ‘no, really, there’s an old man out front looking for a street named Mourning Dove. Do you know where that is?’ I said ‘yeah’ and went around to give directions.
Sure enough, there was a very confused old man standing there. He asked me where Mourning Dove was and I started to give directions. I realized that everything I said was just kinda going in one ear and out the other. He obviously had Alzheimer’s and was lost. I decided to walk him home since it was only like 2 blocks. I grabbed a bottle of water for him as he looked a bit dehydrated and we started to walk.
He ended up living nearly 1/2 mile away and would never have found his house without help. If I’d known his house was that far I’d have driven him home or called the sherrif’s dept. Temps topped at nearly 100 degrees today and he went out for a stroll at noon in bluejeans and a t-shirt with no hat. God knows how long he’d been wandering around the neighborhood.
The saving grace was he knew his exact address but was having problems figuring out adressing on the street. I pointed down the street to the address he gave and asked if his house was the one with the pickup truck and the flag. He said ‘Pickup truck and flag? Yeah, that must be me’. His voice wasn’t totally sure though.
We got to the house and I rang the bell. He tried waving me off but I wanted to make sure he was safe. He then pleaded ‘Please don’t tell her I was lost’. His wife answered the door and I asked if this was his house. She asked where he’d been and I said ‘He’s just a bit dehydrated. Make sure he finishes that water.’ She thanked me and I turned to walk home. As she was shutting the door I heard her say to him ‘I think it’s time we found a nursing home for you.’ That made me feel really shitty.
I’ve been around people with Alheimer’s before but this old man really hit home. He was just out for a stroll and got lost only 6 blocks from home. I talked with him a bit about his plans for the 4th and his family. All of that came to him easily but his location awareness was just not there. It was very sad. If I ever get to where I’m a burden on my family I hope I have enough self-awareness to end my and their suffering. I’m sure watching a loved one just slowly fade away has got to be one of the toughest things possible.

I finally talked to the HR lady about the Iraq position today. We had been playing phone tag for the last few days. I’ve got a day and time for my all-day interview next week. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.
I also talked to a girl here at work whose husband has been in Iraq as part of the military for the past couple of years. She said that yesterday a mortar hit within about 10 feet of where he sleeps. Luckilly, he wasn’t there when it landed. She also said that it’s not totally safe over there and to not get the urge to ‘explore’. ‘Stay hiding in your compound and you should be fine.’ Trust me, that’s not going to be a problem. I like my head right where it is, TYVM.

Yesterday I went to a offroad park about 2 hours from here, Katemcy Rocks. I was goin to meet a couple of people from the San Antonio chapter of the Texas Rovers. My father and son also came along. I showed up about 1/2 hour before the others so I got the truck aired down and ready to head out. I did get to play on the ramp a bit before they showed up as seen in the pic.

Joe and Ed showed up and we got ready to head out. I hopped in the Defender and turned the ignition. The key turned to ‘on’ then just started spinning in circles. The truck wouldn’t turn over. Shit. Ed, who has done a lot of work on Rovers, helped me remove the ignition and we played with it for a bit to no avail. The truck wasn’t gonna start. I sent Joe and Ed on their way, I didn’t want to ruin their day too. My father and I stayed behind and played with it and discovered a way of reassembling the ignition to cause the starter to turn over the engine. The only problem was that after the engine started the starter was still engaged. We solved that by pulling the starter relay. The rest of my day went like this. To start the car, insert the starter relay. Once the truck turns over pull that and it stays running. To stop, leave in gear, step on brakes and relase clutch to stall it. At the end of the day I just had to disconnect the battery.
I also had to put up with the persistant overheating problems. It now looks like a blown head gasket. Oh boy.

When out on the trail we were navigating a particularly hairy section where you have to put your left tires over a rocks while your right tires are inches from a 30′ drop-off. Fun. After negotiating that Joe made the turn away from the edge and when climbing away from the drop-off he put a rear tire into a hole which caused the whole Disco to lean back lifting a wheel 3′ off the ground. He was teetering near going over backwards and off the cliff. My father who was taking pics with my camera jumped to the rescue and in doing so smashed my Sony digicam. Oops. There went $350. He keeps saying he’ll replace it and I insist it’s not a big deal. ‘It’s only a camera, I’m just glad you could throw weight onto Joe’s truck to keep him from falling off a cliff.’ Sadly I only got 6 pics of the day before the camera met its untimely demise. This pic is of Joe’s Disco about 30 seconds before trying to throw himself off that cliff. Ed’s RRC is right behind him and I’m behind Ed.

The damage:

• Blown head gasket
• broken speedo cable from removing dashboard
• trashed ignition
• crushed digicam

I’m going to be spending some quality time in the garage with my truck over the next couple weeks.

Talked to the recruiter about the Iraq job at lunch today. Looks like I’ll be going in for the 4th and final interview next week. It sounds like it’ll be a whole day affair. Kind of a ‘see how I fit’ thing I suppose. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

We went to the preview of Serenity last night. If you haven’t seen the TV show it’s based on, Firefly, go see it today. As for the movie, it rocked. It was unfinished and if you paid attention you could see where it still needed polishing of SFX and editing. I won’t go into spoilers but it was a well done finale to the series that we didn’t get the first go around.
Afterwards one of the studio execs took comments and suggestions from the audience and gave everyone fancy keychains and little posters to take home. A nice added touch for fans willing to pay money to see an unfinished film.
I can’t wait until September to see the finished product.

I finally got my results back from my tests from last week. Everything was totally normal. It was either stress or possibly just a pulled chest muscle or something. As far as my ticker, it’s in perfect health. Yeah, I could lose a few pounds to be healthier and I have lost 10-12 over the last few weeks to that end. The docs now at least have a baseline on me for later in life. I’ll still have to watch out for problems later in life but right now, no worries. 🙂
I’ve felt fine since then and feel even better now that I’ve done my 3rd interview for the Iraq job. I think I’ve had a decent showing in them. I really want the job as I feel it’s the best thing for my family and they do things that are cool as hell that I also am interested in. The waiting to hear about the job is the hardest part. Not knowing if/when my contract where I am now will end does put stress on things. If I can find the right position with the right company everything would be much nicer.