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Sunday, November 1st, 2009
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2:26 am - Halloween
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For Halloween I dressed up as someone who is unliked and unwanted.
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, June 22nd, 2009
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4:44 pm
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Does it make me a horrible person that part of me never wants to interact with my father again?
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
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12:41 am - What would Jehovah do?
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Met someone. Fell for her slowly over time. Listened to everyone say she fell for me. Watched how she avoided bonding and intimacy. Blamed her religion. Blamed fear. I have too many secrets and they are driving me mad. Frustration.
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, March 2nd, 2009
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12:53 pm - laff
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| Sunday, January 18th, 2009
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6:35 pm - Uncle Bud
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My millionaire Uncle Bud has written me. Here's what I'm not sending him in order to not spoil my family's inheritance. Note that he has said many times how he wants to help, and now refuses to give any money to both my parents and my brother, who are in financial hard-times and want only to help themselves outlast them or, in the case of my brother, go to school.
Bud says:
Subject: Jeff
Body: i think he needs some guidance. i have refused to give him any more money. he says he is broke. i recommend you tell him to join one of the armed services immediately. uncle bud
Me:
Hi Uncle Bud
Let me start by saying I appreciate all that you have given us. You have been generous and amicable. That said, I disagree with you on two main points here.
First, my brother may need some guidance. However, you should realize he just turned 21 and is moving in a great direction for his life. He made some mistakes as a teenager but to suggest that he is misguided now is very disrespectful to him. He lost his job. He is in school full time and having trouble finding another job. He wants to get a degree in business and aspires to manage hotels. He is an intelligent, charismatic young man and, quite frankly, way too good for the military. This is my second point.
Several years ago I discussed with my brother to prospect of joining the armed forces. There may be some small advantages, financial or otherwise, but I did not recommend the military to him then nor will I do so now. I love him too much to see him killed or to encourage a situation in which he would be required to directly kill or facilitate the killing of another human being.
Thank you for your suggestion.
-Matt
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
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1:31 am - Boring
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My life is going in a good direction. I'm gainfully employed and financially stable, no stressful segments and no problems in my life.
Why do I feel so boring and unimpressed with myself?
I've done many interesting things with my life and accomplished many of my goals.
Why am I still struggling to be socially successful?
Am I destined to be boring and awkward forever?
I'm picking goals and motivating myself to move forward, but I don't see a way out. I see distractions. Like the middle-aged man who takes cooking classes to 'spice-up' his life, when in fact the problem is a lack of base ingredients. I feel like i"m doing everything wrong and I don't know why.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, November 27th, 2008
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3:25 am
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Fucking awkward. Story of my life.
current mood: ffffffffffffffffffffff
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
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12:40 am
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I think I just met someone wonderful. I think I already screwed it up. I hope I see her again :/
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, September 4th, 2008
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10:30 pm - A Life Hiatus
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I hadn't realized how long it's been since I've posted. Not only has it been a significant amount of time, it has been one of the most significant time periods in my life.
I am having such a good time. The house that I live in is great. My roommates are wonderful and great to spend time with. My job is challenging and lies directly in the industry which I want to work. My coworkers, boss included, are great people and I have a great time with them. I'm very very happy right now. How did it get this way? What path did I turn on? Sit back and enjoy while I chronicle the wonderment that is my latest post.
Wonderfully, as expected, I was offered a job by GMI. I am to be a panel consultant, forever destined to have a difficult-to-describe job. I negotiated the offer, celebrated profusely, and mentally prepared for what was to be the next big step in my life.
Simultaneously I visited California. First I attended a wedding in Los Angeles for my former college roommate Andrew. His long-term girlfriend and him finally tied the knot. It was great to see that he had not actually changed much. The ceremony was great, and I had a lot of fun at the reception. The two underage kids sitting next to me outmaneuvered me soundly. The champagne was not drunk by them --despite my best efforts-- and was instead drunk by me. Good game, underagers. I said goodbye to those friends fairly quickly and moved on to say hello to my mom's sister and her kids.
Sacramento California is where she lives. She just started work for Regence Blue Shield as a project manager. I hadn't seen her, John, or her kids for at least eight years. I stayed for the weekend and it was wonderful. Swimming every day, having no responsibilities beyond eating and sleeping, and getting to spend time with my cousins was great. I was also lucky enough to have my former insights reaffirmed: those two kids -- identical in age gap to my brother and I-- are absurdly similar to me and my brother respectively. They have the correct interests, intellect, social dispositions, and even the correctly corresponding haircolor. With Doug have played Halo 3 extensively and with Nick I reminisced on my status as an older brother and tried to give him some good advice.
Then, after arriving in Seattle I got about halfway to Bellingham before my water pump apparently failed in my Nissan. The engine died as I pulled into a parking spot at a rest stop and I was _so_ worried that I had cracked the block. When I put some water into the radiator (after seeing that all of it had trained onto the cement) it immediately boiled and spewed out of the radiator cap for more than 90 seconds; it was very akin to Old Faithful. That car was towed to a repair shop in Arlington and I was lucky enough to have a good friend, Chris, to drive me that remaining 40 minutes back to my home in Bellingham. $500 later my car is running well.
Once I got back to Bellingham I had a little bit over two full weeks to move myself to Bellevue. Let me say this: packing up all of your stuff and moving to an area you have never visited and know very little about takes at least two weeks to do comfortably. That said, I was not very comfortable about moving. I saw several rooms in houses and realized quickly that $500 on a room in Bellevue gets you a large walk-in closet. For a nice apartment that's not a shithole you are looking at $1100 plus per month for a studio apartment or an insane commute on I-405.
I was feeling significant stress and, after much looking on craigslist etc. I visited some rooms one weekend. both were unacceptable, and my plan on that hot, summer day, was to make it to those two appointments and then find a cool place with Internet access can make some more. This, however, was not to be a good weekend. Immediately after seeing the second house my cell phone battery died. Shortly thereafter, my laptop slipped off the seat of my crappy Dodge (no air conditioning because the Nissan was in the shop) and, due to a faulty hard drive, stopped working. Defeated and unable to contact any friends in the area I retreated back to my friend Chris's. There we ghetto-rigged a phone charger using a USB cable and many adapters. My phone was alive! Then I set up a date with a Japanese girl who was rumored to have a boyfriend and set off for Seattle again.
She and I had a good time, given that she is as dumb as a brick. Parked in Pioneer Square, my car waited patiently for our return. However, she failed to protect my assets by simply locking the door. Woe was I to find my duffel bag missing, my dash plastics torn to hell, and my stereo missing. But there, something on the windshield. A business card from a police officer? "Your stereo is in evidence." Yes, you're thinking right, they actually caught the guy. The catch? It will likely be months before I receive my property back. What's worse, that stupid Japanese girl didn't even apologize for egregious error. After a night of sleeping in her host family's spare bedroom alone I left for more fruitless house searching.
Then, some days later when I returned to Bellevue, I saw a few rooms and an apartment. God damned expensive, seriously. But then, serendipitously, a phone call from a landlord not 3 miles away. He and his wife on this house and rent out all six fully-furnished rooms. They are in the process of doing several renovations but the house is great. Fully furnished, with professional cleanings in the communal areas, and style in every room to no end. Nevertheless, I was mostly sold on the room by the wonderful warmth, inherent interesting qualities, and conversation ability of the two landlords. This was a great decision that has already yielded me a $30 "nice guy" discount on rent every month. The room is great and I didn't even have to move my furniture. Oh, and there will soon be a hot tub setup with CD player installed :D.
That is all for today, I think. Time for bed and work tomorrow.
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, August 4th, 2008
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1:42 am
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There is light at the end of this tunnel. Excitement is rising in me and anticipation is great in lieu of what I've felt lately.
Friday morning the recruiter asked me for a list of my references. I'm guessing she'll be in contact with them Monday. If she's doing that she'll probably do a credit/background check soon. And as my great friend Bill mentioned, you know once you get that far you're in, since it costs the employers money :D
It's worth mentioning the job posting had been listed for 2+ weeks before I applied. Everything looks good. Oh and thanks to my friend Alan for actually praying. What a great guy.
current music: unkle - restless
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, July 31st, 2008
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11:37 pm - Unemployment
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Will it ever end?
I had two interviews today. One really, since the other was with a amazingly ridiculously unprofessional and unintelligent placement agency. The posting was not for "office assistant" lady, and people aren't going to hire me to do it for $45,000-$55,000/year.
The second interview is more promising. It's with a marketing firm called GMI. The position is quite obscure and, if I get it, I'm sure I'll spent a lot of time practicing the explanation of what I do. That said, it's a technically demanding position involving lots of teamwork in a digital market research environment. One of their questions was, "Why should we hire you?" Which is a open-ended interview question I've heard before. "I don't know if you get many people extremely interested in working with computers, databases, digital market research, independent work-requirements and teamwork involvement, but I am." All the interviewers were good people FWIW, with charismatic attitudes and outgoing personalities. It was good times. That means I like the people and the environment. My answers seemed to be off-base from what they were looking for at times. I had a hard time answering questions like, "Tell me about a time when you were invested in a project and told by a superior that it was [total crap]." (because I don't get told that hardly ever). I also felt a little under dressed considering I didn't wear a tie per the recruiters suggestion, and the fact that most people wear nice clothes in any marketing firm. By the way, did you know that sweater vests were back in style? 2 out of 3 of my interviewers wear them when interviewing candidates as per my poor statistics :D
I am concerned about the amount of keyboarding and computing it will require. The email load will reach into the hundreds per day and I will be responsible for evaluating the feasibility of--from what I can tell-- dozens of market research studies per day based on the company's database of available interviewees. It's a risk I'm more than willing to take at this point with the job market and my relative good health.
Man do I want this job. Pay shouldn't be too shabby as well. I want so badly not to be unemployed anymore. Not to mention that I want this job very much. SO BAD.
This trip didn't turn out as awesome as it could have been. I wasn't offered a job immediately; wasn't able to take out that Rumiko girl; didn't see Maki; and aren't feeling the apartment search tomorrow. I'll stick around for a while, though. If they call with an offer I want to be in town to sign paperwork and apartment search immediately. That would be a definite turn for the better in my life.
Here's to hoping and praying for a good call tomorrow in what could be an awesome day.
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
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12:32 pm
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| Saturday, July 5th, 2008
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11:02 pm - Projects
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It always seems like I find more things to do even though there is very little going on in my life. Selling laptops on eBay, fixing my car, and finding work take up so much of my time. Yesterday and today I accomplished a lot, and somehow it makes me really happy.
Yesterday I tackled the rear breaks on my Nissan. One of the calipers had locked up and needed replacing, something I'd never done. After cursing Schucks for giving me the wrong copper spacers, nearly stripping old bolts (new 'kit' was $40 at Schucks), and having to bleed the rear breaks myself (OMG it takes FOREVER) I have a fully functional car again. This is partially due to my zombie injector coming back to life for no reason, but I take some credit for the car's health. Then I drove to Chaney's and got tossed in front of his new girlfriend who said next to nothing the whole time (zzz much?).
Today Chaney was nice enough to give me a government 'surplus' LCD stand. With a standard mounting setup, I thought, of course it would work on my LCD. Apparently the 'standard' has 4 variants. Crap. Relentless, I cut, drilled, trimmed, and hacked the crap out of this thing and now I have a fully-functional multi-directional LCD stand. I'm very proud of myself.
These projects are fun, but the move is on the horizon. It's going to be extra stressful moving to a place I'm unframiliar with AND not having an anchor (i.e., job) to guide me to a particular location. I am not looking forward to it, but it's something that needs to happen sooner than later.
In the meantime, there are laptops and car parts that won't process themselves.
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, June 26th, 2008
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5:51 pm - Stagnation
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I'm not sure why but suddenly I've been hit with this sense that my life is standing still.
Realistically I've been having a good time with this unemployment thing. Doing what interests me and not having responsibilities has a short period of interest, it seems. More than anything I'm tired of not meeting new people and seeing new things. I don't have much of an interest in getting out and doing solo activities, but at the same time I have a limited friends base here and not many hobbies that get me out and about with people.
I know of a few professional get-togethers I could get in on, but nothing social (and I'm not much for bar hopping solo). This is putting a real cramp on my social life here and I don't see a way out other than to leave the area. Moving to Seattle isn't a bad idea at this point, since the things holding me back could be taken care of in about a week. I'm worried about getting to an apartment and having to move again when I find employment, but I suppose that's much ado about nothing.
I'm going to Seattle and Vancouver, WA for a weekend which should alleviate this feeling. The real goal here is to destroy it by moving on and achieving the next step in my life, whatever that is. Realistically I'm not at a place to do it up here in Bellingham and I don't see that changing unless I want to pursue a career in retail.
So I'm going to have to consider moving sooner than later; before new employment is secured. Even then, how will I branch out and build a good social network around Seattle?
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, June 6th, 2008
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2:07 am - Unemployment
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Only 2 more (long) days of employment at the Disney Store. We're doing packup and generally being overworked in preparation for the store's moving to another state. I am thoroughly surprised how little I dislike working there. Even my brain doesn't seem to hate it --One day I had "A Whole New World" stuck in my head... okay... 3 days-- as much as I think it should.
Management, it seems, isn't so bad when you're the manager. It's particularly nice that I'm an hourly manager, not one of those poor salaried sops. This means when business hits the fan I can't be worked an extra 10 hours just cause they want me to. And it means overtime pay :D. At the core though, is the ability to make decisions and affect outcomes through a portion of my abilities that exceeds 'basic high school training'. This is in direct contrast to other hourly positions I've held that ask me to be a highly-trained button pusher or the like. In fact, what I dislike most about my current job is that I don't have more power and responsibilities. There's so much junk in that company's setup --so much time-wasting and poor quality implementations-- that I want to fix. Once I find a spot to improve I do, and my supervisor has noticed. This is probably why she wants to take me with her to Idaho to be the manager there. Too bad she can't pay me enough.
The end of this week marks my last paid hourly wage at the Disney Character Warehouse. What'll I do next? I'm still applying for positions doing some sort of analysis or research; I'd like to parlay my skills into a job doing statistical research and reporting my findings to businesses and individuals. This might take me into market research or even consulting in the near future. For now, it seems, the job market may not suffer my presence. While the coming-summer promises many more jobs for recent grads like myself there is still not a great surplus of jobs, to say the least.
Additionally, after working for three months I can say so much more about why I am awesome as an employee. While in school it was always the case that most of the other students I met were less awesome than me. Some weren't, but the majority were ninny-hammers and tom-foolery-filled disappointments all. "The working world will be different, more professional," I thought. Alas, I am sorely disappointed with the quality of workers to be found. It really is hard to find good help, but now I know just how good I am. So who's going to be paying me next?
I have a two-pronged plan. First, I have applied for unemployment benefits. That said, I wholeheartedly expect to be denied due to the requirements of unemployment insurance in WA. It is the only state to require a minimum of hours worked in order to qualify. Most other states have a monetary amount for qualification. The highest amount on this 2004 study is $3400, which I have nearly doubled in wages. However, WA state requires 680 hours of work according to the website. LAME. One of my associates at work (part-time) has said she called and asked and was told that she qualified. Thus I still have hope. Moreover, it's not unlikely that I will find work in the following months.
Second, I am gonna flip some laptops. Much like my former eBaying of Japanese video games, various personal items, and the like I will take my other skills and combine them to know what it means to being strong make some cash. This time I've found a new market in the purchasing of laptops to be resold for parts. I had this idea first when I sold my 3 year-old HP lappy for $350+ in part-form... even though it had NO MONITOR. There are nearly-working units on eBay for $250 total. So here's my thrifty shopper and computer know-how combining. We'll see how the two I just bought today turn out. I'm going to see how much I can automate the process with Excel so that my purchasing decisions are based on mathematical functions and past sales; not my whim. Realistically, it should sound boring, but as I was doing the preliminary work in Excel yesterday I realized that I seriously enjoy geeking out in Excel. Embedding IF functions within themselves to simulate eBay's fee scale has never been so much fun!
Three months at Disney has taught me four things: Disney fans are mostly stupid and the biggest purchasers are sometimes the dumbest; I am awesome; let's just relish in that revelation for a few more seconds.... ahh; and that I like working in environments where I have control over the quality of the work and the decisions to be made. Even at this mediocre stage in my life I'm very happy with how things are going. There may be clouds on the horizon, but I'm looking forward to meeting them.
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(comment on this)
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| Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
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9:26 pm - Totally Awesome Summer
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my dork is starting to show again... I spent all day overclocking my computer and fixing my car :D
Now my AMD 64 X2 5000+ is running at 6000+ at a much lower temperature, and the power door locks on my NEW used 1993 NISSAN MAXIMA work again.
I'm totally gonna love the hell out of this car, I think. I paid $1100 for what should have been a $2800 (blue book) car because I bought it from a guy who didn't know much and didn't want to 1) replace the disc brakes (easy as pie and $120), and have a timing belt replaced (more expensive than pie). He doesn't know what he's missing. What is it that he is missing? Well, it's basically a luxury sedan form of my old 1988 200sx. It even has the same engine, plus about 40 horses and foot pounds.
120,000 miles
190BHP (it's fast, I'm gonna get in trouble)
Leather seats
Power everything
Sunroof
It does have a nasty dent in the rear right quarter that I'm gonna try to tackle, and I found today that after taking the RL door innards off that there was a piece of plywood stuck in there to push out a dent (which is why the window isn't coming down, imagine that). Regardless, I'm very happy with my purchase and the steal of a deal that this is.
Oh, and my life is pretty happy go lucky right now. With only spending this $1000 on a car, even with $1000 in repairs on it I'd have $6000+ to play with (half of it's going straight to emergency fundings for me). = Totally Awesome Summer
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, April 28th, 2008
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3:52 pm
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| Thursday, April 17th, 2008
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5:39 pm
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I'll tell you the story now because I'm sure you'll hear it eventually. My brother called me at work yesterday and was very excited. We have a great-uncle who is very old (we've never met him) and is from what I hear very rich. Anyway, my brother says, "THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE".
I say, "wha..?"
He says, "I JUST GOT A CHECK FOR $10,000 DOLLARS FROM OUR GREAT UNCLE! THERE'S AN ENVELOPE FOR YOU TOO!"
"OPEN IT!"
"YOU'VE GOT A CHECK FOR $10,000!"
So now you know, as of yesterday I'm $10,000 richer. Thanks to my millionaire uncle whom I've never met (He said he'd like to meet us). _Totally_ _fucking_ _awesome_.
This is like a lottery that I didn't even enter. I'm not super happy, per say, but this does take a lot of those worries I had and flushes them right the fuck down the toilet. :)
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, February 28th, 2008
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3:21 pm - Job Interview
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I have another set of job interviews coming up! It's about time. This last few weeks has been pretty unfulfilling as far as job searching goes.
There is a catch. The position I'm actually interested in, the position which puts me into digial marketing doing computer-type work in an interpersonal area (perfect), is only part-time. 24 hours/week at $17/hour = $20,000/year + Benefits. Not so bad. More than anything it'll get my foot in the door to that industry. I wonder what I'll do with all my free time...
I have a few crap jobs that want me to work for them too now. Not so great, except that I can play them off this other job and maybe bump up my hourly wage/benefits. Who knows someone in Seattle who needs a roommate?
I'm excited to go to work. How weird is that?
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(comment on this)
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3:11 pm - Condoms
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This is unbelievable... I ordered 100 condoms from a site the other day since they were cheap. A variety of 100 Durex condoms for $25 shipped. What a deal, I thought.
Yesterday my package came. It was generous, with 200 condoms instead of 100 (many of them are not as nice as the Durex brands I ordered in a variety pack). Very nice, I thought.
Today, the mailman comes to my door. He hands me another box of 200 condoms. Holy christ what am I going to do with these? 400 condoms for $25 shipped.
Anybody wanna buy some condoms?
current mood: confused
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