"We look ahead for half our lives, then spend the other half looking back. And when the view ahead is bleak, the look back is vivid."
-Kevin Smith

So, I don't know what to think. I felt like I did good at the interview. I answered all their questions, which were all subjective questions about me & my experiences, no technical questions at all. It lasted about 30 minutes, which was way longer than my interview in Fresno. I actually felt pretty good coming out of that interview. But as I said in my last post, that may not be a good thing. But the kicker here, is that they said they're only interviewing 3 people for the position, myself included. So those are pretty good odds. They said they'll let me know by next week. Hope it's me!!

(twss)

Last Monday (the 20th), Caltrans posted a vacancy for a Associate Programmer Analyst position (what I am currently working as) at their headquarters in Sacramento. I happen to run across it on the state’s job vacancy website on Thursday, mailed out my application on Friday, and today, Tuesday the 28th, I received an email from them requesting to schedule an interview. My interview is on Thursday at 1045am. Yeah buddy!

Even before my 6 month probationary period was up, I was constantly looking at the state’s job vacancy website for any openings around the state for my position. There were several up in Sacramento, but not within Caltrans. Due to the current hiring freeze, I can only stay within my current department and at my current position, so no promotions and no switching departments.  But after almost 11 months, there was finally an opening within Caltrans. So of course I jumped all over it.

This is my chance to get out of Fresno & Merced. Who knows when another position will open up again, or if or when governor-elect Brown will lift the hiring freeze. This may be my only chance in a long while (really hope it’s not). The thing is, I don’t have some of the “desired qualifications” that they listed (php, mysql, cots cms). I guess I’ll have to make up for it by being a good interviewee. We’ll see.

If I am to believe my previous interview history is any indication of if I’ll get hired or not, I may have to (purposely or not) completely bomb this interview, or despite my best efforts, have absolutely zero confidence that they’ll offer me the job after the interview. My past 3 jobs (current one included), I did not feel like the interview went even remotely well enough to warrant a job offer. I left like I didn’t answer anything right and that I wasted everyone’s time. Yet, I must've done something right, as I was offered the job every time. Every. Time.

It’s the same logic with the interviews were I felt great afterwards. The interviews where I answered all or most of their questions correctly and with confidence, where I felt like I had a good rapport with the interviewers, where I walk out of it thinking “Nailed It!!!”, they never offered me the job. Never.

But who goes into an interview trying to purposely bomb it? It’s not like I’m Brennan and Dale from Step Brothers. So I’m just gonna go into this interview like every other interview I’ve gone on before, and just be me. I’ll try to honestly answer all their questions and not bs anything. I’ll try to make a good impression and try to sell me as good as I can. I’ll give it my all and hope for the best.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but just the thought of being out of Fresno & Mercced.....man, I just can't help it!

So I didn't get the "no presents for anyone above 15 years old" memo. That's what I get for being in Merced/Fresno. If I would've gotten it, it would have saved me some money, but more importantly, A LOT of time. Cause check out what I made:

For the kids, I wrapped their gifts in plain brown wrapping paper, then cut out each letter of their name out of a newspaper.

Then for the cousins, I made an origami box out of thick construction paper, out of two of their favorite colors. I cut out their initials from the color of the bottom box and placed it on the top of the top box.

Inside, I put a layer of white fluffy snow stuff (?) and put a gift card, a card for a free dessert shooter at Applebees, and 4-6 misc. pieces of Hershey's Kisses.
 
And then I wrapped them with a ribbon.

Then you multiply that by 18 and this is what you get:

All of them on the piano next to the tree.

The tree, with all the gifts.

So yeah. It was still totally worth it. It was actually kinda fun making all of them. But next year, I think we're just going to do Secret Santa and White Elephant. That's cool & all, but it won't be the same. I like coming up with nifty ways to wrap everyone's gifts. Some previous ideas that I used: usps priority mail boxes/envelopes, chinese takout boxes w/ their pictures on them, & "The Good Guys" gift boxes.

Mikey & I were at Applebees, sitting in a booth in the dining area cause the bar area was hella full. To my right, there was a guy sitting alone at a table. He seemed to be chillin, minding his own business & eating his dinner, when this one girl approaches him, says something to him that we couldn’t hear, shows him some papers she was holding, then walks away. As she’s walking away, he says aloud, “You can’t accuse me of stalking you, I didn’t even know you were here!!” or something to that effect. Then he pulls out his cell phone and calls someone up and tells them what just happened. He was clearly upset/mad and was talking hella loud, as all the surrounding tables could hear him, so we couldn’t help but eavesdrop. Apparently those papers she showed him was a restraining order, and he accused him and/or his friends of luring her to Applebees or something like that. The guy seemed to genuinely not know that she was going to be there, but I guess that’s besides the point.

When the whole thing started, Mike & I looked at each with the “wtf, are you serious?!?!” looks. The people in the table in front of me (in my line of view) seemed to have the same look too. And we couldn’t talk about it out loud cause the guy would’ve heard us, so we had like an awkward moment of silence while the guy was basically putting his life on blast.

I’d sorta expect this kinda thing in Merced. But I wasn’t surprised. Only in Vallejo.......or as Mikey would say, FWP.......

Yeah, it wasn’t the type of action I was expecting from Jay & Owen’s wedding in Vegas weekend. So I’m standing in line at the TSA checkpoint, emptying pockets, taking off my shoes, etc., etc., like everyone else. They have the big, sorta futuristic-looking, human x-ray scanner, and the good ol’ fashion door-frame metal detector. I was sorta excited to go through the x-ray and strike the “bout to give a big-ass double high-five to someone” pose. But when I get to the head of the line, the person ahead of me was setting up to strike the pose in the soul scanner x-ray machine. There was no one at the metal detector, so the TSA girl working that (who was pretty cute) waved for me to come through. I was like “aww, man”, but whatever. I wanted to get my belt & my shoes back on asap. So I walk through, and I set off the alarm. I was like “WTF?!?! That’s never happened before (twss)”. They ask me if I emptied all my pockets, so I feel around my front & back pockets and they were all flat, I had nothing on me. So I walked through again, and the alarm goes off again. I walk through a third time, same result, so they have me stand to the side and wait for the “enhanced screening” person. I had to wait a lil bit because the guy was currently feeling up screening someone else. While I was waiting, I ask the girl if I could just go through the x-ray, and she said no. I then ask if she could do the “enhanced screening”, and she said no, she’s not trained for that (doh! had to try).

So the guy finally comes. He was a big, burly, bearded white guy. He asked me if I wanted a more private screening, in a closed room. I declined. I didn’t mind getting felt up out in the open for everyone to see, just in case he actually tried to do anything weird, I’d have witnesses. And in my head I thought, “I’m not going anywhere alone with you to get felt up privately. F THAT.” But he was actually quite polite throughout the whole process. Before he did anything, he told me exactly what he was going to do. And it was very clear to me that he did not want to be doing this (would you?). To try to lighten up the situation, I try talking to the guy. Didn’t really work, as it was still awkward as hell. Well, I passed the screening and they let me go.

So I get to my gate, and while I’m waiting to board, I want to listen to music on my iPod nano. So I go to my bag to get it, and it’s not there. I look all around for it, and I can’t find it. I’m like “WTF?!?!” I was charging it at work, and I remember putting it in my bag before I left. But it was nowhere in my bag. So I check my front pockets. iPhone. I check my back left pocket. Wallet. Back right pocket. IPOD NANO.

Nice job, TSA. That could’ve been a bomb or something. And as closely as I was felt up, it’s surprising that you didn’t feel it (hey oh!!). I know it’s a nano, and it’s sorta skinny, but still. It was in a hard plastic case, definitely big enough & hard enough to feel (not gonna say it.....)

And that’s how Jay & Owen’s Wedding in Vegas weekend started for me.

sorta pissed at myself right now. I just killed 2 iPhone's (1st gen) tonight. Technically, one powers on but nothing shows on the screen, and the other one turns on & screen works, but I freakin punctured the battery (heard a pop/fizz, followed by smoke and weird smell) so I don't trust it. Sorry Shann & baby Jas. Freakin A, man.......

2nd year in a row where American Express screwed up the shipment of personalized gift cards that I intended to use as Christmas gifts. Last year, they lost the entire shipment (either they never shipped it or someone stole it). This year, out of 18, only 3 will arrive in time. The rest will arrive after Christmas, which does me no good. I ordered them almost 2 weeks ago, and didn't even imagine they'd take soo long to process & ship. So now I'm scrambling around town looking for replacement/alternative gift cards. At least I get a full refund of the cards that aren't coming in on time, but I have to wait till I receive them before I can get the refund. Oh well. I guess it's good that I called them today for an eta and caught this early.

Well, at least I didn't lose it this time. My shiny brand new green Sony camera is broke-did. And I wasn't even the one who broke it. In Vegas, we wanted to take a big group picture, so a bunch of us gave our camera to some random guy. Right after he took a picture with my camera, he was trying to switch to another camera, and he drops my camera. It worked for a lil bit afterwards, but eventually the lens got stuck in the full zoom position. Oh well, whatcha gonna do, right? At least I had just bought it, and I could just easily return it at Costco, which I did yesterday.

Now I'm looking for another camera. I wasn't really that much in love with that last one, as green as it is. So now, I'm sorta looking into those rugged waterproof/shockproof-type of cameras. And Sony happens to make one, the DSC-TX5. And in green, too.

Not as green as I'd like, but it's green enough. I'm almost certain this will be my next camera, unless someone else makes a cheaper version exactly like this one.

edit:
GOT IT!! Thanks, Amazon! Free 1-day shipping is awesome!

3 down, 17 to go. Man, making these Christmas gift boxes manually (by hand) takes forever. And there's only 10 days till Christmas Eve. And the gifts to fill the boxes haven't come in yet either. I know it'll all work out, but I can't help but stress out a lil bit. I just hope it'll be worth it.....