In the home stretch

I've been working for this major automobile manufacturer these days... (see Oompa Loompa.)

Three weeks ago, my boss's boss comes in and says, "Poobis, I hear good things about what you're doing here. I wanted to let you know that I have an opening in my area, and if it's something that you're at all interested in, I would encourage you to apply."

So I figured, what the hell...

In the last three weeks I've met and interviewed with 4 echelons of managers over me. I've had an hour and fifteen minute phone screen, a two hour panel interview, and a coffee meeting with the Big Cheese. Something tells me they're working up an offer. It's a good company. If there were an automobile manufacturer to work for in times like these, it's this one.

Just after my two hour panel interview, I got a call from a government entity that I applied to way back in December. They've received my application apparently and are interested in interviewing me. Nice timing.

It is now 109 hours until I no longer own Beigeburbia.

This has been the strangest move. I've done 98% of it myself. Last Saturday I had my brother in law and another friend stop by and we loaded the heavy stuff in the truck. Two trips with a pickup truck and I sent them on their way. I only have a few boxes left and some cleaning to do and it's done.

I made more trips to the dumpster than I did to the new place... It felt good.

Aside from finally extinguishing the huge cash pyre that was Beigeburbia, it also feels good to have a home again. I haven't been staying at Beigeburbia.

For the last year all of my stuff has been scattered between two places over a half hour apart. For those who haven't experienced this, it's an incredibly draining experience. 109 more hours... and I'll never have to drive 30+ minutes to get my junk mail again.

oompa loompa

So I'm keeping a month between posts... better than nothing I suppose.

I have a good excuse this time. I swear!

To explain, perhaps I should do a run-through of a typical day since I've started my new job.

So I get up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 5:15AM, meet my friend at the gym and work out. I shower with the ancient men that, as near as I can tell, just sit in the locker room all day long just being naked. (that topic deserves a whole post.) I dress up in my little white oompa loompa outfit, steel toe boots, and safety glasses, and head off for the half hour drive out to the manufacturing plant.



I clock in at 7:30 AM and start coding.

While I'm at the plant I'm almost completely incommunicado. No blogs, no hotmail, no IM, and since there's a mile of concrete and metal between me and the nearest cell tower, no phone service either.

The whistle blows at 9:00, (no shit, there's a whistle) and head out to the break room for my ten minute coffee break. Then back across the plant for more coding.

The same whistle blows at 11:30 for my half-hour lunch break and then on to more coding.

Another whistle and another break at 2:00. More coding.

I clock out at 4:00 and drive for an hour to one of my two other jobs for a few hours.

I grab shit food on the way and fall into bed.

----

I landed two pretty big independent contracts and this new position nearly simultaneously. The bad news is, I'm working like crazy, the good news is...

I'll be nearly into five digits for April!

So, yeah... the preceding message might sound a bit like bitching, but in light of that, I *really* can't complain.

----

So I've been working out four days a week since January. I've only lost 10 lbs or so, but I'm back up to benching around 200. The guns came back even quicker. I was working out with 50's per arm when I was a senior and I'm pulling that off at 33 with almost three months of work.

RAWR!

I'm amazed I've been keeping to that schedule in light of all the work I've been doing lately. I have to say it really helps to have someone to keep you on track.

I'll try to post some more before the week is out.

The weekend

I had an interesting weekend. On Friday I was asked to run sound for a band that the president of my former company plays in. This meant that I would be running into a ton of folks from my former company which could have been rather awkward.

It wasn't. I don't think I've been hugged by as many different people as I was that night. The first words out of the CEO/President’s mouth were "It's really good to see you Poobis."

Drinks and dinner were free, and the times were good.

Then my former supervisor decides to show up. I caught him walking through the door, and he bee-lined to the other side of the bar. This was fine by me. I resumed my evening.

For some strange reason when a band comes back from break to start the second set, they always sing and play louder. It's a trick to pump up the vocals a bit in the monitors so that the performers think they're singing louder, but the sound hitting the audience is still properly mixed. I was in the midst of trying to pull this off when my former supervisor decides to sit down next to me.

He stuck out his hand, and I reflexively shook it. He asked if he could buy me a drink, I just showed him my full beer. He asked how I was doing. I responded, "great."

I was making it pretty obvious that I didn't want to talk to him.

So he cuts right to the chase. "I thought I'd come over here to see if you'd like to catch lunch or a beer some time."

"Why would you want to do that?" I asked.

"I miss you. We were good friends. We had some really good times together."

"Then you shouldn't have lied about me."

"We can talk about that over lunch if you like." He responded.

"Unless you've come to offer a very heartfelt and very public apology for how you misrepresented me to everyone who'd listen to you at [the company] then I can't imagine what the hell we'd have to talk about." My barely contained anger is not so contained at this point.

"I know it didn't happen that way." He says.

I half cut him off. "No matter how many times you tell yourself that over and over again it still won't be how it really happened."

He said, "ok" and went back to the bar for ten minutes and left.

What's really funny about all of this: At the former company, just about everyone there has figured him out. He's become a running joke in the entire department. I've been hearing varying reports about what he's been telling people that I said to him. Quite a few of them have already compared notes, and it's not been the same story twice.

After that the night only got better. I'm not generally a mean person, but I really questioned that after deriving satisfation from the dejected look on his face... but then again, I don't think I've ever been flat-out lied about like that by anyone.

So then it was on to Detroit for the Dirtbombs show at the Magic Stick.

The Magic Stick has to be the best smaller venue I've ever been to. It's what the Newport should be.

On the first floor: Bowling alley, bar, and a hole cut in the wall to allow access to the pizza by the slice joint next door.

On the second floor: a full high-school gym sized room with two bars, eight to ten pool tables, and a nice sized stage.

The fact that it's the Dirtbombs home turf makes it just that much better.

Been a long while...

I killed the Ego Center nearly two years ago.

The old Ego Center computer has been reallocated to the recording studio and all the archives are backed up in triplicate for posterity. I decided that despite the reduced control and functionality, blogspot was a whole lot more reliable than my old AMD machine/Road Runner combo.

Many have asked why I killed the old blog. I blame the abandonment of Keynesan economics for the rediculous Supply-side economic theory... or maybe I was just busy as hell and couldn't be bothered with telling the whole world about it.

Well at that particular time, work became a nightmare. As the number of hours that I spent working rose, the amount of recognition for the work dropped considerably. I had recieved a barely inflationary raise for an average of 55 hours a week. I hadn't realized that when my coworker and I were working 36 hour weekends, he was getting most of the credit.

When that co-worker became my boss about eight months later it all became a little clearer.

Almost as soon as he accomplished this, he went on a long, drawn out disinformation and out-and-out slander campaign against me. He played it off by being visibly worried and concerned about "what to do about Poobis." He'd pull anyone who'd listen to him aside and make up something that I did wrong and ask advice. He pulled people in by feigning trust, and spread a feedback-loop set of lies around to key powers in the office.

In the end when he went to HR, the only version of the truth that was told was his. I wasn't even offered a rebuttal.

What was this guy's motivation you ask? I threatened him.

Not physically, or violently of course. He knew I was the only one who wasn't intimidated by him. Even his boss is bullied by him. Which I find sadly humorous.

So my meeting with HR was four months ago and i still haven't been able to retrieve all of my personal property from this guy.

I'm not bitter.

Acutally this little vacation has been quite nice. I haven't had this much time off since I was four years old.