Last week I got an email from iPay Technologies. They wanted to do a phone screening for their interviewing process. I accepted. I had my phone screening on Thursday, and Friday morning there was another email in my inbox stating they wanted to call me in for an interview. Zach went through the same thing. And now we both have interviews with them. Good thing they have two job positions open , maybe we’ll be the ones filling them. The only thing i’m concerned about right now is the compensation. They never said how much or what range the pay would be. I’m hoping they’re not going to try to hire me for what I’m being paid now.

Depending on how the interview goes, I may or may not be giving my boss a two weeks notice here in the future.

In other news, my dad got his M1 Garand. It’s beautiful! I could only imagine lugging that thing around through a combat environment though. It’s quite heavy. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to go shoot it! I kinda want one now. ^_^

Over the weekend I played lots of Left 4 Dead 2. I’ve finished all the campaigns on normal, and am now working on some of the achievements. The game really takes the feeling you get from when you first played Left 4 Dead and refines it. The chills, the excitement, the freak outs. They’re all there! There were a few times where I actually yelled/screamed like a little girl! The new zombies really do add a whole new dynamic to the game, by not letting you take advantage of the tricks that you could in L4D. The new melee weapons are also awesome, there’s nothing like beating a zombie over the head with a guitar or frying pan. And Realism mode.. oh so awesome.

I also finished reading Helix by Eric Brown. It was a good read. It really sucked me in, which is probably why i finished it in two days (or so). The characters were really believable, and the environments were well detailed. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s into science fiction and likes a story about a mission gone bad, crash landing on a strange alien structure filled with thousands of different alien races.

Work has been pretty stressful these last few weeks. Not so much the workload, more so the constant inability to achieve consistency.  I like being able to have my boss give me a task to complete, which i then complete and return the results. What i don’t like  is being told to do something, spend a week or so on this task, just to have it thrown away because certain people don’t like the results (not because they are wrong, but because they didn’t show the high numbers they were unrealistically expecting).  So basically i’ve been throwing my work down the drain no matter what i do.

whatever though. I’ll just do what they tell me to, collect my paycheck, and not take any initiative on anything since it never pays off anyway.

Last week i was pretty sick, I guess I’d caught the flu sometime the week before and it then went active the night after Halloween, I guess the constant temperature change from going in and out of bars was enough to lower my immune system so it was susceptible to attack. I spent the next week in bed pretty much. Sunday through Tuesday were pretty much a blur of half-consciousness, headache, and sleep. I stayed home on wednesday too just to make sure i didn’t get sick again. Thursday i went to work and wished i’d stayed home. And then there was the weekend again. I took it easy this weekend and stayed home. Friday and Saturday were just filled with chilling on the couch and watching TV shows and Anime. I ended up reading an entire book this weekend too. The Age of Ra by James Lovegrove wasn’t too bad. If you’re into that kind of story. It was a little hard to wrap my head around a world where the ancient Egyptian gods were real and the whole world was ruled by them. Other than that though it was a good read and worth the 7 dollars or whatever i spent on it.

On sunday i went to the range with my dad to shoot stuff down range. It was lots of fun, even though i’m still not a fan of his rifle Kicks like a mule! Instead of going to Knob Creek like usual we went on Post and used French Range. It was a lot nicer than where we’d shot before and fewer rednecks too!  We also shot my dad’s new ERMA, i think it’s a KGP-69. It needs some cleaning, and probably some parts replaced, but it was neat to shoot something different.

In the meantime though, i’ll talk about other things; like the garden. The plants are growing, ever so slowly, and i think there are some blossoms for the corn and peppers; which is very exciting.

I also got some new books; impulse buys really. T-Minus and Hackers. I already finished T-Minus, it wasn’t a very long read. Plus the pictures were nice Hackers on the other hand is a bit longers, and not as exciting (for me anyway), though it is very informative and interesting. I’ll keep plugging away at that one for sure.

blah.. I’d really hoped to be able to talk about my new case.

This is starting to get really annoying.  I’m surprised i haven’t gotten sick from the massive tempurature changes.

In other news the weekend is over and i’m back at work. Nothing much happened over the last three days. I spent time relaxing, playing Eve, and going out to celebrate my brothers’ birthday.

Friday was grocery shopping. The fridge was filled and now there’s plenty to munch on in the house. I also made some pretty good granola bars. They’re awesome with a glass of milk, heh. It’s kind of like eating cereal in a bar We also went to Barnes & Noble, and i got a book on RegEx (Regular Expressions). So far it’s been very helpful in my quest to learn the way of the code ninja.

Saturday evening we went to Buca Di Beppo’s for Nick’s birthday and man it was delicious! It’s an Italian family-style restaurant, where a small portion is enough to feed two people. There were about 10 of us and we all ordered something different. After all the food was out, we were barely able to try a little of everything! So much food!! All i have to say is that i didn’t have to make anything the next day for lunch. Plenty of leftovers

Sunday was hanging out at the house and then going to my parents’ place to do some laundry and eat dinner. I picked up some mail that was still going there and played with the dogs. Man, it’s like i’ve been off on an expedition to the far side of the world when i come over. One more sign that dogs are loyal. Such excitement can rarely be encountered elsewhere.

Well, one more hour to kill at work. Time for more Professional Development

On Saturday I slept in and after waking up started reading a book i’d been meaning to start a long time ago, Ringworld’s Children. I read a few chapters and then was drawn back to my computer to play more Eve. I log in to discover that there are red gangs all over Wicked Creek, instead of risking my ship and implants i jump back to Empire space to help with our newly started war effort against Goodfellas (which as of this writing isn’t going too well, efficiency-wise). So i decided to go and make isk the old fashioned way, by running missions and hitting up complexes. Then company came over, and i had to go prep the grill. We cooked and man was it delicious! I grill some whiting fillets and my dad grilled up a pork tenderloin and some brats. Mom made potato salad and tiramisu. Nick made his famous bruchetta, and Andrew kinda chilled out

mmmm, just thinking about it is making me hungry again.

So, today is monday, the last day of this glorious 4 day weekend. I hopped on eve for about an hour this morning, and then spent the rest of the time browsing the internet looking for neat things to do, or inspriation for what new features i could add to any of the websites i work on.

And here’s to me chillin’ for the rest of the day. Ah relaxation, how i love it