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I've started getting calls back from People Who Can Hire Me. That's cool. Two important phone interviews tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Foiled by Technology!

I put together an awesome resume today with the help of the folks at the LDS employment center, Kirsa, and my mom. Unfortunately I can't seem to find a good way to post it here on this blog for all of my devoted readers. If you have a burning need to read it, post a note here saying so and I'll email it to ya. Otherwise I'm going to sleep on it a bit and try to figure out how to get it online.

All Hail Broke Loose

Um. The weather here is getting nasty. Had hail the size of large grapes today. We're calling the insurance company tomorrow to talk about getting the dings on the cars fixed. I'm getting together a nice resume that actually makes me think "cool" when I read it. I just need to finish distilling it down a bit. Should be able to do that tomorrow. Being without a reasonably-modern PC is really chafing. Yikes. I've started pricing out various types of computers and started planning how to budget for one. Of course this is all purely theoretical until I actually have income. I've been watching videos lately. Being John Malkovich, This is Spinal Tap, some Monty Python's Flying Circus, and others. I've been raiding the local library for DVDs. Unfortunately I've not been terribly impressed with any of them. Malkovich was the most interesting of the bunch, but I definitely prefer Adaptation over it. Up next: Spartacus and The Godfather. Supposedly my copy of Resident Evil arrives tomorrow. They said to call if I hadn't heard from them by 3:00.

tripping the light fantastic

Sleeping last night was like a bad acid trip. Not that I've had one, exactly, but from descriptions I've read... I woke up screaming. Multiple times. Not fun whatsoever. I've never *had* such vivid perceptions of reality coming apart at the seams. Are dreams like this for everyone? They're new to me, for the most part. I've not had them before. Not on a nightly basis at least. On the other hand, I got a $25 rebate check from Best Buy in the mail this morning.

In Exile

I went to the ham radio session this morning. It was more impressive than I'd expected. The emphasis is on being prepared to help in the emergency communications net during disasters, rather than on the hobbyist aspects. It should prove to be quite interesting. We're not required to learn Morse code for the Technician license we'll be testing for, but for the General license I'd like to have, I'll need to know the code. I think that learning it would be fun though. It was weird coming back from the ham class though. My driving was... off. It felt uncomfortable, which is very very unusual for me. I love driving. Maybe I need to cool it a little bit when driving the RX-8. But I don't really think that's the answer. My driving was just kind of jerky and strange. Perhaps I should not listen to radiohead while driving. Wasn't that part of the reason I stopped listening to music while driving? To give myself more attention to focus on the road? Maybe I will save listening to music for long freeway drives down the superslab. At dinner my folks want to watch a video or something. So I suggest Last Exile. "I think you might like it," I say. We watch the first disc over pizza. Afterwards my mom asks "Do you have another disc?" "I have six more," I reply. She giggles. Giggles. ... Well, we ended up watching the first half of the series. I expect that we'll finish it in the next day or so. I forget sometimes that my folks can actually be pretty cool. My dad and I both agree that vanships are pretty sweet, and that we want one. Sounds like a fun summer project, eh? The flight and naval aspects of the show really inspire me. They capture a feeling that I've not seen from any other source. Well, except riding motorcycles. Making a simulationistic flight game drawing on the setting of Last Exile is on my list of "projects I'd like to do someday." It will have to wait until I've got a computer on which to develop software, though. It would be in the vein of X-Wing Alliance, the pinnacle of Star Wars flight sims. It's less simulationy and realistic than something like Falcon or the Jane's series of sims. But much more immersive than the atrocious Rogue Squadron arcade-style games. Tomorrow I have two choices. Go to church with my folks and pimp myself out to look for a job, or go to church with the singles ward and see if I can make a few friends. I'm torn as to which I will do. The singles ward meets several hours later... I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I don't know that I really want to sleep in. Hmm. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I'll go with my folks. I hear that I can talk to Rocky Imam (cool name!) who might be able to hook me up with some work at Intellibed. He's the manager of a new franchise that opened, and they might need some custom software to smooth over their processes. Wait. Maybe I could go to both? I don't really want to go to six hours of church though. That's a bit much. I need a job. Morning church it is.

Tidbits

I've come down with a sore throat. I hope it doesn't get any worse. I went to Slacker's CD + GAME exchange to trade in some DVDs and games I had no more use for. I got $43 in trade-in credit, which was about 50% more than I'd expected. My copy of Resident Evil 4 for the GameCube should be here on Tuesday. They'll call me. While I was there, I noticed that you can get a used GBA for $15. I may pick up a few for the purposes of playing Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. The album Homeworld by Yes is also quite good. It escapes the mediocrity of some of their other recent work. Tomorrow I'm going down to the LDS chapel in Frontenac to attend the introductory session of a five-week long HAM radio training course. We'll be learning how to build antennaes, and, um... other stuff. I'm not too clear on the details, but it sounds like fun. At the end of the course we'll take the certification test. Apparently this is the test that doesn't require morse code, but I may try to learn morse anyway. Kind of a badge of honor. The guy who teaches the course works in LDS emergency services. Apparently the HAM guys do a lot of emergency message routing. Pretty cool. Just got my airship in FFIV. Now I'm running around exploring the map and getting beat up by nasty monsters that I'm not high-level enough to beat. I'm working on a midnight-eight sleeping schedule. It's working some. The midnight part is getting more comfortable, and I'm falling asleep more easily. Moving my clock somwhere that I can't see it was a good idea that I got from an insomnia pamphlet, and it has helped a lot. I think that stopping drinking caffeine after noon helps too. I'm still not rested, ever, but at least I'm not tossing and turning all night. I woke up at 12:30 today. Bah. Still need a job. Biggest progress on that front was some brainstorming I did with my mom about some unique talents and skills. Me: You mean not everyone can learn a new language in a week? Mom: Write that one down, too. I'm going to approach some small-business owners in the ward and see if they need any programming work done for them.

Feeling Moved

I hate worrying about money. I am currently entirely broke, and more in debt than I've ever been. (It's not a huge debt, but I detest debt.) I need work. Fortunately my (ex)boss Brent knows a guy who needs some programming done for him. It's a project similar to what I was working on in OIT. Brent said he'd hook the two of us up. It'd be a contracting position, so I could work from home. That would at least give me some wiggle room until I find a full-time position. I went to the local library the other day and checked out some CDs. My favorite of the bunch has been Radiohead's amnesiac. It's been nice to be able to listen to music on the stereo system. Tight bass that's not overpowering, surround sound interpolation, and a comfortable couch on which to lean back and just focus on the music. It's also nice that it's in the basement, where I can turn it up without fear of bothering others. I'm slowly beginging to adjust to the schedule here. Getting up at 8:00AM sucks. I'm doing it, but it sucks. I'm not human before 11:00. I'm signed up to go to the sleep center the first week in March. That's where they tape a bunch of electrodes to your skull and limbs and take an EEG of you while you sleep in a provided hotel room. Then a few weeks later they send you back the results. I hope there are lots of charts and graphs. I also hope that it shows that my sleep really is really poor. If it doesn't, it means that I've got more months of radical behavioral modification. Blech. It shouldn't have to be this hard to get a decent night's rest. I've been enjoying the non-stress of classes and homework not looming over my head. It gives life a very different rhythm. Now I just need to get some work so that I can have reason to get out of the house. I'm going a bit nuts. One of the tires blew out on the RX-8 yesterday. It somehow got two punctures right next to each other. Fortunately it was under warranty from Dobb's Tires, so they replaced it free of charge. Well, there was a 50 cent tax from the wonderful state of Missouri, but they covered that, even. Took about an hour from the time I dropped it off. Not bad, not bad at all. I've also been playing some FFIV on the GBA. I know I've mentioned this, but it bears repeating. I've never played it before, so it's a bit of an experience. I'm curious about one thing though. When I really look at it, there's very little dialogue or exposition in the game. At the same time, I feel connected with the characters and the events in the game. It's very archetypal, but somehow seems to avoid being cliched. Why is that? I suspect that the combat portions of the game somehow cause you to feel empathy with the characters beyond what the script would signify. I wonder why. The family PC here sucks. There, I said it. I added a bunch of RAM from the sticks I brought home with me, but it only does so much. I hate the feeling of being tethered to a desk, too. It feels very confining. Last year was the first in which laptops outsold desktops. I'm beginning to see the advantages laptops really have. My last week in Provo was a very good thing. I got a lot of things wrapped up, settled and decided. I came back feeling significantly more comfortable with my state of affairs. It was good to see everyone in person. Online communication complements face-to-face contact, but can never supplant it. I need a computer on which I can play FFXI. I'm seriously jonesin' here.

St. Louis

I'm here, made it just fine, despite some aggravating last-minute details. Keeping busy, also playing lots of FFIV for the GBA. More as it comes.