Monday, May 29, 2006
By now I'm sure you've all gotten used to the fact that I can be rather random. I like all sorts of things, be it different foods, movies, music, whatever. Most people would call my tastes eclectic. Well now I have one more to add:
Eclectic GirlYup, when it rains it pours apparently. Not only has
The Cute Paramedic returned, but
Kickball Girl has as well. She was fairly flirty and gave me a "I think we need to go out sometime soon" on Thursday at the game.
Then came this past Friday. A friend of mine,
Bar Fly, invited me out to Stub an herb's with another of her friends, Kolis. We all got together and also met up with Whitey and then one more. It wasn't until we got to the bar that I was able to see our extra passenger to realize she was cute. She was wearing a fun little white dress with a patter of little red flowers and some custom pink converse all-stars with leopard print insides. Although it may be dyed, she had very pretty auburn hair and it's well documented what I think of
red hair...
Anyway, we ended up sitting next to each other on the patio and got chatting more and more as the night went on. Once we got kicked out of the bar I invited people over for a drink, but only got one taker:
Eclectic Girl. So we decided on watching Napoleon Dynamite and chilling. I think we made it to about halfway through the movie...
Even though she was late to meet her dad in the morning it must have gone well. Later Saturday I got a text message from
Bar Fly (prepare to reread this three times): "Anywho I'm suppose to ask you for EG without letting you know that she wants me to ask you if you want to hang out tonight." I believe my response was "Well, even though I don't know EG wants to hang out, I would love to!" And so began night two. EG came equipped with a cut off jean skirt, some cute black nylons with a vine pattern and an aqua kami. Turns out it was a good night all around. G-Spot had come out to and it seems she may have hooked up with Bartender Mike...
Two alarms didn't even help on morning two and she was unfortunately an hour late for work. She did make it in before they opened though so it wasn't too bad. Later in the day, I went out with Puerto Rican Pauly, who's in town from PR for the week. We went over to Gasthof's and within about 20 minutes PRP had met this super cute girl
T not K or C. Eventually we all headed out and I went and picked up Eclectic girl after she had a shower, she was sporting another cute dress, white with small red polka dots and sneakers. Paul and TnKC made it home before we did and were chatting it up. To give them space EG and I retired to the bedroom and cheered him on from afar. The boy need to learn to shut up at some point and make a move. they chatted for hours. At one point EG and I colluded on a text message to him: "Stop talking, gently rub her cheek and kiss her damn it. No talky!!" But that didn't seem to help as it seemed there was much chatting until he saw her out. But he's seems was pretty happy with the night anyway.
You'll be glad to know the use of four alarms and getting a few more hours of sleep than the previous nights did manage to get EG to work on time ;O)
So yeah, there's a new girl in slackerland. For now we're both agreed not to look to far into things and that we enjoy each other's company, which h we most certainly do. I'm not sure if anything could come of it since she's going to be moving to New York in July or august. If any of you New Yorkers know of any spiffy apartments in the Astoria Neighborhood of Queens, she'd definitely be interested in hearing about them. At the very least come July or august I'll have a good reason to make a trip out to NYC!!
Anyway, should get going and get the grill ready. Conservative Girl has her parents in town so they all are going to come over and grill out at my place, then we're all going to head down to Harriet Island and catch some of a Memorial Day freedom festival. That and I have to wake up Paul.. The kid sleeps till like 1, it's insane.
Alright, keep slackin people and I'll keep you posted on the girls and the jobs!! later!
posted by Chief Slacker @ 11:12 AM,
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Thursday, May 25, 2006
The Hunt:So I've had five interviews over the last couple days:
1. Contract House general interview - just going over the basics so they can find me a new job.
2. Small Medical Design Shop - Making prototype designs for doctors and other people. Would have a lot of freedom to design and seemed like a fun bunch of folks.
3. Small Medical device Start-up - hey make a novel new product to help with congestive heart failure. Definitely seemed like a good opportunity, and they really made sure to say they were flexible with times and with me finishing my degree next school year.
4. Machine Design Company - They make lots of different automated machines. Seemed like it would have been an ok job, but not nearly as interesting as the medical device options
5. Large Format Laser Printer Company - Seemed like it would have good design opportunities but there was a scheduling error so I missed the first attempt and an interview there and then he seemed to really not like the idea of having to work around a class schedule.
The Offer:So interview #3 was at all am. I went in and talked with three different people. I talked with their operations director, their VP of R&D and one other person. The interview went quite a while, they showed me the product and stuff. Discussed a LOT of things and called it at 1pm.
The company is very small with about 35 employees, but they have a lot of Intellectual property built up and apparently they've already gotten offers from two major medical device companies (one of which is the one I most recently worked for) to invest in them. Definitely promising. I would be doing some of the same work I was at the old company, but would have HUGE opportunity for design and other work so it's really what I'm looking for.
At 2 I had an interview with a different company which went ok. I got done with that one and about 10 minutes later got a call from the contract house who set up the earlier interview that day and they said they wanted to make me an offer. It sounds like it'll be for about $3.50 and hour more than my last job too. That's a 2 hour turn around. Apparently they really liked what they saw!! So that was pretty exciting!
So yeah, YAY! A job offer. I also accepted a one week contract job because I thought it would take longer to find something. The one weeker will pay really well ($7/hr more than my last job) so that'll be spiffy!!
Things are definitely looking up!!
**THIS JUST IN!!!**
Just got called by another staffing agency and the company for the second interview called saying they were interested! Woohoo! Multiple job offers from both of the companies I really liked! This is going to be good!!!
posted by Chief Slacker @ 12:05 PM,
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Monday, May 22, 2006
So yeah, 10,000 finally rolled around! Seems like the venerable Porq was Mr. 10k so congrats to you Porq!
I was thinking a big balloons and confetti party and all that jazz in honor of the big rollover to five digits but instead I got:
"As of right now you employment as been terminated."
Idiot Boss finally won. Hard as I may have tried to work with him, it all came crashing down.
Unfortunately since I forgot to set my alarm the night before, it gave him the perfect opportunity to screw me over. Never mind that the reason I was on final notice was quite possibly illegal, I became unemployed at almost exactly the same time Porq was writing his comment.
So that's why there's been another unfortunate long break in my posting. I am furiously scouring the lands for a new employment opportunity. If any of you have connections in the Medical Device industry, let me know. I'll make someone a great employee.
Sounds like I have two interviews set up for tomorrow. So I'm off to a pretty decent start after taking the advice from friends and now ex-coworkers. I took a few days off to relax and de-stress over the whole thing. Went up north to visit D and did my best to have fun and get my mind off of things.
Anyway, now it's time to start fresh, get a new job, maybe a new girl, and I should be getting into classes this fall to finish my damn degree. A new dawn is truly rising here in slackerland and you all get to come along for the ride ;O)
I'll keep up updated on the interviews and hopefully some dates and look for the new deputies to be posted soon. If you want to be a deputy and haven't already left a comment explaining why, you should!! :O)
Ok back to job hunting, later all!
posted by Chief Slacker @ 2:43 PM,
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Monday, May 15, 2006
So as I mentioned earlier today in the Monday Mish-Mash, The Cute Paramedic has resurfaced again. Now before y'all start muttering "Oh, here he goes again..." shut yer pie holes and read up.
So Friday night I'm sitting around basking in my über-slackerness doing nothing but playing WoW and I get a text message. Of course, it's from TCP. I hadn't heard from her except for one message the day after the St. Patty's day, umm, friskiness. The message ask "What's the probability of a person getting dumped on the second Friday in may two years in a row?" I responded somewhere along the lines of "I don't know, but it's about like my luck" and also that I have a similar problem with the week after valentine's day. She then supposed that I wasn't single now that she is since we "never seem to be single at the same time." At that point I had to remind her that I have basically been single since she met me (which is just about a year ago).
Then it came:
"Maybe I should accept if you ever as me out for dinner again." Reply: "So noted, I might just have to do that"
"Give me some time to get over this, but ask me again and I'll say yes." Reply: "Will do ;-)"
At this point I think is when I started hearing that sucking sound of what I can only explain a the Black Hole of Relationship Doom. My history with this girl is not of the highest caliber. I've always liked her, but she has a real bad habit of showing alot of interest, sticking around for a date or two, the disappearing only to resurface a month or two later with a new relationship.
We texted a little more and then decided to go out for a drink in my words "Not at all as a date, but much more as a supportive friend." So, it was decided we would go out for a beer and a little karaoke at her favorite bar.
We got together and chatted about the whole situation and what had happened. I really won't go into it, but to me, I certainly think she's much much better off being single. She sand songs in the theme of break ups and bad relationships. I sang A perfect Circle's version of Jon Lennon's "Imagine." Man I hate how I sound in karaoke speakers. Especially setups without monitors.
Anyway we talked for a while and stayed a little past close (she got off work at like 11:15 so we didn't get together till about 12am). On the way out there were several more hugs and more chatting. I made sure not to mention anything to do with us simply because I did not want to cross the line from supportive friend to potential date. I'm quite sure that line is quite blurred, but it was my attempt. She said she planned on coming out and meeting us kickballers after she got done with work on Thursday and said she would give a call. She also mentioned of some possible party on Friday night and that if she went she was going to drag me along. There was a hug and a little friendly peck goodnight and that was that.
So yeah, she's back.She's back with all her cute, sassy, easily likeable funness. this time, it's on her though, if she's really interested she needs to show it and show some commitment to it. But, we'll see how things go. I might like the girl, but for the time being I'm not putting to much stock in anything happening. The door is open, I guess we'll see what walks in ;O)
posted by Chief Slacker @ 4:22 PM,
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As per usual on Monday I have a bunch to talk about, here's a quick list just so you know whether to be interested or not. Oh come on, you know you'll read it anyway because you're a fellow slacker! :O)
-Kickball Begins
-Work Status
-The Cute Paramedic resurfaces
-Stupid Weather
-Deputies/10k Status
And it Begins Again:
Yes my friends, kickball has officially returned. Ok, well maybe not OFFICIALLY since the first game is this week. We did however have our first gathering. We got together on Thursday for a pick up game (anyone who shows is divided into two teams) and then a handful of us went to the bar per usual.
Judging from the turnout, it's going to be a good season. Right now we have 188 people signed up amongst 10 teams. I ended up changing teams though. I had originally restarted the group "You Team Sucks" from last year with the new name "Your Team Still Sucks," but no one else really liked that name and several people from the team made their won groups with new names in protest. When it came time to consolidate the groups into teams, it turned out that they had too many people. To make the team small enough I moved out and am now a member of the GWs or in the non-WAKA friendly version, the Godless Whores. Yup, this will be a good season. heh.
In reading through the papers I need to sign as president of the division I found out the division is really a not-for-profit corporation. That's right, your Chief Slacker is now going to be the president of ANOTHER not-for-profit corporation. First the Condo Association, now a Kickball Division. Just one more step to world domination. Or something. MWAH-Ha-ha-hA-Ha-ha.
Anyway, there are some incredible cuties returning and I'm quite sure there will be some new ones, so I'm sure there will be some interesting post kickball updates for you all. And that's not even counting the debauchery to be had sans chicas. Stay tuned!!
Work Sucks:
So I successfully completed my first full week at work with the new restrictions. Since the whole sickness and almost being fired because of that I now have to be here at 8am. Hi, I'm a slacker. I HATE mornings. It's way to easy to find things to do and end up staying up till 2am, and that's not even days i end up at the bar, which has been amazingly infrequent lately. I did have to do 95 part of the drive one morning because time got warped one morning and I swear the clock instantly went from 6:50 to 7:23 am. Not cool.
I have put my resume back out there, so we'll see how that goes. I like the place I work at, just hate the boss and the current situation. the bad part is the relationship between him and I is never going to be decent again. I hate him and most certainly will never trust a word he says. After being sick and the way he treated me, it's obvious he really doesn't care about anyone but himself. Any respect I had for him is long, long gone.
So, one week down, about 11 to go... ugh. I hope I find a great job elsewhere, though I will miss this one and the people here.
She's Baaaaaaaaack:
This one's going to get a post to itself, but it's deserving of a quick hit in here. I got a text message form The Cute Paramedic Friday. Turns out she got dumped. She hinted at wanting to go out sometime. Well, more so blatantly said she would say yes if I were ever to ask her out to dinner again. For the time being I told her I would be a supporting friend and we'll see how things go from there. We did end up meeting for a drink and some karaoke on Saturday night. Went fine and yeah, I'll fill ya in with a full post on the subject.
Stupid Weather:
So I had all these productive plans for the weekend, I was going to resurrect the sidewalk project from last year, change my oil, fix the rear motion light and clean around the house.
I did clean around the house, but the ret of the weekend it was rainy and gross so I never got anything outside done.
Saturday turned out to be excessively unproductive in part because I somehow stayed up till like 7am then ended up sleeping till close to 6pm on Saturday. Yeah, not such a good plan. Usually the roomie wakes me up is I'm still sleeping at like 1 or 2, but he left Friday and then never saying he would be back that night, but didn't make it back home until Sunday. Heh.
Oh well. We'll just give that day it's own little page in the book of how to be a Slacker.
10k is Only a Few Deputies Away:
As of this post, there have been 9935 visitors to The Daily Slacker. 10,000 will be happening in the next couple days!! Only a couple of you have commented with your appeals to be Deputies... So far all who have asked will be getting it and I don't see any reason to change that! So comment and let me know why you want to be a deputy! yes, I will send some of you old-time Slackers a copy of the CDs, I made covers for them and will post it over on the AV edition once I can figure out how I'm going to get the pictures on the post.
Anyway, spread the word, 10k will be grand. Ten times even!
So tat should cover the Monday Mish-Mash, check back later for my update on The Cute Paramedic!
posted by Chief Slacker @ 10:02 AM,
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I was going to post about packing due to worries about being fired and then ending up with a super clean desk for the firs time in forever, but I realized there was something MUCH MUCH cooler to blog about:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAILY SLACKER!!!
That's right, the Daily Slacker and the International Bureau of Slacking is one year old. On May 9th, 2005 and idea bloomed to have an outlet for my slacking. I needed somewhere to rant, somewhere to rave, and, you know, promote the Ethos of Slacking! Thus, the IBS was formed and the Daily Slacker was born.
The first post was:
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Up to speed!
So here's my life at present:
I work for a major medical device company, doing all sorts of crazy design type things. I am however at this time very undervalued, but I'm sure there will be posts at length about that later. I just bought a condo in Saint Paul, MN and am doing my best to move out of my current apartment in Minneapolis using only my 95 Nissan Altima (Allie). That car's a trooper. I think she's a little pissed that I scuffed up one of the armrests, but she'll get over it. After those two, lately I haven't had much life. I'm quite glad my condo really doesn't need much work on it at all or I'd have none. Next step is to try and regain a fun and exciting life. Wish me luck! ----------------------------------
Amazing how very little has changed in a year! Same Job, Same Problems, Same Condo, Same Car and I still don't have much of a life. heh. Sure lots of stuff happened, but for everything that changed, it really all ended up the same. Girls have come, girls have gone and I had a few fun adventures as well but I'm still here slacking. I even started an Odyssey ;O) Don't worry, I don't plan on going anywhere for a while either ;O)
So what has a year produced? Some good Slacking tools for you all to use (see the bar on the right) amongst the 253 other posts. It's definitely kept me slacking from work, and it appears that about 26 of you each day took the time to slack as well. 9844 visits. Almost 10,00! that's crazy, way to slack people! Keep it up!
There should be some good stuff for you all in the near future. Kickball season is starting up again so that pretty much guarantees much debauchery, I'm probably going to give match.com a try again and see if I can get back into the whole dating thing, and there's still much more of Slacker's Dating Odyssey still to come!
Birthday Deputizations!!!
In celebration of the Daily Slacker's first birthday, it's time to open up the doors again and increase the ranks of Deputies in the International Bureau of Slacking! I have no limit on the number of new deputies this time. What you need to do is leave a comment describing why you should be a deputy and there's a good chance you'll get it. The guidelines are as follows:
-Must be at least 25 words. (And no cheating by typing the same word or something similar!)
-No more than 100 words.
-You MUST comment.
-You MUST have a blog or other web page you regularly update
-Bonus points if you're from a state/country there is currently no Deputy in.
-Humor is a plus
-If you've commented a bunch before, you'll almost definitely get in.
It's time to get the slacking going here at the IBS. The world is way to boring and productive, time to shake things up a little! :O) We'll call it Project Slacker. It's like Project Mayhem from Fight club, except we won't be blowing anything up. It is time however to start having more fun!
Birthday Prize!!!
Since the visit tracker is inching close to 10 grand, there is a present on the line. I have a two CD Set "Music to Slack To Vols. 1&2" and visitor 10,000 will get them! I will be tracking each visit, so don't try and rig it. All you have to do for confirmation is to take a screen shot, paste it into a picture program, save it and send it to me with your address and you'll get the CDs in the mail! I will let you review the music before hand if you wish, no guarantees Chief Slacker's favs will be yours ;O)
Anyway, good luck to you! and HAPPY BIRTHDAY DS!!!
posted by Chief Slacker @ 4:03 PM,
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Tuesday, May 09, 2006
While I'm sure just about everyone who lives here already knows this, it has been published yet again that the Twin Cities area is one of the best places in the nation to live. Woo Hoo!
We've been #1 several times, but this year we seem to have slipped a little and somehow Nashville snuck in and stole the top spot. Bastards! Obviously the rankings didn't take into account music.
Here's some excerpts from the Star Tribune article about the Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine report:
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"Only Nashville outranks the Twin Cities in affordability and livability, according to "50 Smart Places to Live" in Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine."
"The Minneapolis-St. Paul area also rates highly for its range of leisure activities -- from stellar and plentiful live theater, to a hometown team for every flavor of sports fan. The area is lauded for its highly educated population and diverse economy.
The one area where Minneapolis-St. Paul was a clear loser? The weather. Even so, '[Minneapolis-St. Paul] blew away the competition.'"
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Yeah yeah, so we spend a large chunk of the year with water in various forms for frozenness all over, but it's worth it ya sissies!
So, when y'all gonna come visit? :O)
posted by Chief Slacker @ 10:54 AM,
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Friday, May 05, 2006
So I had my little meeting this morning with Idiot Boss and Boss' Boss. It did turn out to be the "best case" scenario" where I ended up with the written final notice. Basically they used the days that I was sick against me because I didn't always call in by 9am. Sorry, next time I'm be sure to call and let them listen to me vomit. They also use the fact that I waited till this week to file anything for the FMLA. Again, sorry, not a pessimist, when I got sick I wasn't expecting it to be a week long thing.
Anyway, so the notice is for 90 days and basically it states I have to be to work by 8am now instead of 9. If I'm late for any reason or get sick and haven't contacted them by 8am it will be grounds for termination. So basically that's going to mean leaving the house by about 6am in case there's nasty traffic. And since there's really only one decent route to work, if there's an accident, especially in the tunnel area, I'm screwed. Even though there are 113 traffic cameras around the twin cities that you can view online, they say they'll never look at them to verify there's a problem. They claim if I'm late due to traffic it's my own poor planning and that I should move closer to work. Screw. That.
This is Minnesota, we have two season, Winter and Road Construction. It's a relative guarantee that there's going to be at least one major traffic jam at some point in the next 90 days. So, basically it's only a matter of time until I am "terminated." I sent around a few apps today, next week I'll start looking much more hardcore. If any of you slackers out there have any good connections... wanna hook a good slacker up? After all, can't be a slacker if you have nothing to slack off from!
Well it's now the weekend, so there will be a good deal of slacking. Saturday I'll be going out for a friend Seppie's graduation party, then that night a friend's group belly dance thing where it has been promised she'll "introduce me to some gals!" So yeah, wish me luck! Sunday I think I'm going to try and go golfing for the first time this season, that should be interesting.
Anyway keep slacking, and stop on over to the AV Edition, I decided to to a quick-fire Friday Musical 8ball post!!
posted by Chief Slacker @ 4:02 PM,
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Thursday, May 04, 2006
It's amazing how much can change, and how much can still stay the same all at once.
For the last week I've been pretty sick. All of the health problems I've had for the last month came to a head and are finally resolved. I did luck out and it ended up being one of the better prognoses I could hope for. I did have to live through one day of really nasty pain, but came out good to go on the other side.
When they did some of the stuff it came back and there was a decent chance I could have had something really nasty wrong with me. For a good chunk of this last weekend I had to consider the fact that I may have had cancer or something equally scary, but it turns out it was just an infection. The antibiotics have kicked in and now I feel tip friggin top!
So tippity top that when I got to work today and was told it very well could be my last day by Idiot Boss and Boss' Boss, that it really didn't phase me. yeah, IB is back to he same stupid tricks. Because I was completely out of commission on Monday and was not able to call in, he used that as a violation of my improvement plan, and for one day had revoked my building and network access. After explaining what had happened he did reinstate access, but when I got to work today I had a little "discussion" with IB and BB wherein they told me the best case scenario for the day was that I would end up with a written final notice. they went back and looked at my record this year and are using the few times I was late and the time calling in sick after 9am as violations of my plan. I was told I would be hearing back from them when they made a decision about what was going to happen. I never did hear anything until I asked IB at the end of the day what was decided and I was told there would be a written notice in my mailbox in the morning and they scheduled a meeting for 8:30am. Obviously in talking with HR they found out they most likely couldn't fire me due to the protection of the Family Medical Leave Act and also that they wouldn't be able to prove when there were phone calls made.
Anyway, yeah, it's time for some renewed vigor and a fresh start if I ever could think of a better time. That job search is going to kick back into High Gear and I'm going to take advantage of feeling better right now than I have in a long time.
Time to start getting you all some fun posts again!
Amazing how sometimes the best news can simply be not hearing the worst news even if the news still isn't good.
So yeah, Keep slackin', and be happy that ya can!
posted by Chief Slacker @ 4:16 PM,
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