official business

So I figure this is as good a place as any to confirm the rumors of my demise imminent employment.

Effective this morning I have accepted an offer from ValueCentric, LLC in Orchard Park, NY (a suburb of Buffalo), to take a position as a Quality Assurance Specialist. I am slated to start August 9 pending some formalities and paperwork, drug tests, credit check, that sort of thing.

I figure the intervening time will be spent figuring out how much of the ridiculous crap I have stored up around the house will actually be coming with me to the apartment I've picked out: piles and piles of books, clothes, furniture I didn't know mom and dad had saved for me, etc. The apartment, incidentally, is approximately three feet from the office so I very likely will be walking or biking to work every day, which was one of my stated goals all along.

The work itself seems to be very similar to what I've been doing for the past nine months i.e. manual software testing. ValueCentric is in an entirely different business so the particulars are different, as is the style of testing on the whole, but I should be plenty prepared and have no questions at all about my ability to actually do the job.

Also:

HOLY FRICK I ACTUALLY GOT A JOB

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but she has faith in me
and so i go on trying faithfully
and who knows, maybe on some special night
if my song is right
i will find a way
while she waits

previous: shut up and smile, bowling for soup

update

job hunting continues to suck. i've said it before and i'll say it again -- as often as i hear the phrase, "wait, you actually like testing?" directed my way, i sure am having a hard time finding somebody to pay me to do it.

some college buddies and i are gonna have a writing project sometime in the relatively near future. we're working out the details still, but hopefully it'll be underway soon. essays on technology ,philosophy, politics, who knows what will show up. i'm pretty excited about it.

games i've played in the last two months: disgaea, final fantasy tactics, baseball mogul, king's bounty, deus ex

books i've read in the last two months: robert jordan's wheel of time series books 1-4

jobs i've applied to in the last two months: countless

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throw your arms around someone (throw your arms around someone)
maybe spread a little love
I know it sounds a little dumb (or maybe we're a little drunk)
But all we need is some ice cream and a hug

previous: bright spring morning, suburban legends
^^ new favorite song of all time. yes, it passed deathbed and every new day. ^^

1985, bowling for soup

so. i got a job.

sorta.

it's a contract job in fitchburg (suburb south of madison). i'm doing black-box testing of radiation therapy planning software. it's been good so far, lots of documentation and learning and whatnot.

there are two major upshots of the job:
1) testing experience. HEAVILY DESIRED testing experience. okay, it's black-box only, and nothing's automated, but it's testing and i've thought for a long time that i'd be a lot better at testing than development.
2) money. obviously not great, being a short-term contract, but with loans getting down to the wire i gotta build up at least some reserve.

there are, unfortunately, a couple downsides.
1) as mentioned, short-term. the project i'm working on has a deadline of january 1. meaning that come the new year, i will no longer be employed. and i have to do the job hunt thing. again.
2) this isn't really a good "2", more like a "105" or so because it's so minor. anyway it's the commute -- commuting sucks, and this is a 45-minute-rush-hour-both-ways drive. boo hiss.

so yeah, that's it. i'm pretty excited about it -- good atmosphere, comfortable conditions, good work, good experience. now if only i could be there for more than two months.

name that tune:
And maybe I'm crazy.
Oh it's crazy and it's true.
I know you can save me, no one else can save me now but you.

drunk again, reel big fish

i'm moved home. it's meh. anybody need either a java developer or manual labor? if it pays i'll do it, (almost) no questions asked.

found out today that my best friend in kindergarten is a pretty significant contributor to what i understand to be one of the three big brewers blogs on the netwebs. small world eh? "jim of bernie's crew" could be anybody on earth...turns out i played t-ball in his backyard literally the next house over when i was 4. i'd have to work to do the kind of analysis he's put together, which is alternately really cool and really intimidating. as much as everybody has told me i should write about baseball, my mind is sufficiently blown as to preclude all cognitive processes tonight.

name that tune:
She's got a hold of me
I need the remedy
Just to hold her would, be a cure for me
I can't keep going on this way

what if i stumble, dc talk

I really shouldn't watch movies late at night. You see, movies and I have this weird relationship. Movies I watch regularly fall into really only three categories: movies that are funny, movies where stuff blows up, and movies I think about. The first largely consists of Mel Brooks comedies or absurdist fare -- Ghostbusters and Blazing Saddles come to mind, things that are simply mindless humor. The second category is pretty self-explanatory as well -- The Matrix (I don't go for that new-age hippie crap), Van Helsing (no explosions but does have werewolves!), Equilibrium, Live Free or Die Hard are the ones that come to mind immediately.

You will notice that those groups, while broad, leave room for a ton of movies. Unfortunately for me, this means that many, many movies have at least something for me to chew on afterwards. The Iron Giant? "You are who you choose to be." Moulin Rouge!? "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." Master and Commander? Dedication to individuals or duty. Hercules? Discovering and fulfilling a purpose. Groundhog Day? Discovering truth to oneself. And these are just a smattering of the movies I watch frequently!

I choose the above films as examples because I identify with them. Heck, most movies I like I like for precisely that reason. My life isn't exciting by any stretch of the imagination, try as Ben does to set me on fire or other delights. I get no joy out of who I am or what I do unless the Brewers are involved or I'm playing a videogame, and both of those are quite condemningly desperate attempts to fill...something in my life with other things that are just as clearly not of my own creation. But I'll get into that more later on.

I bring all this up because over the last few months I've taken to watching movies as I fall asleep (thanks to the unique construction of college life, TV and bed not necessarily both required). Of late especially has been a selection of films I had yet to see. Bolt was last week, which was surprisingly good -- my penchant for the music of one Miley Cyrus by no means extends to her acting career, but I liked it quite a bit -- and tonight's selection was Ratatouille.

Honestly? It was good but not great. However, there was something bugging me during the whole movie that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It was only after the fact when I was reading about the film on Wikipedia (specifically, reviews of it linked to from there) that I figured it out.

Remy spends much of the movie torn between his upbringing -- let's face it, he's a rat -- and what he truly desires to be -- a cook -- and it is this that I identify with. Anyone who will read will know that it's no secret that I have no love for what I have spent five years training to become. You will also know that what I do love doesn't translate into a paycheck very well. The surprise here is that I'm not talking about baseball or even sports in general, but rather literature. Books are fun. I can go back to a good story countless times, and there's such a rich history of them I could start reading now and my grandchildren would never dream of reaching the end of it.

I guess what I realized it comes down to is one of two options: can I man up and just stick with the books thing (which sounds a lot like getting a job at a library somewhere for not much money), or can I stay with my major enough to "learn" to like it. The ideal scenario from my point of view is to work for long enough to pay off school, then get a job I like. Is that likely? Almost certainly not.

The bigger short-term concern is the interview process. Every interviewer doing due diligence will at some point ask a variant of, "why should we hire you?" and it is this question I dread. I know and you know the honest answer is, "No reason, really," for the simple reason that I offer no skills that many other qualified candidates do, and for darn sure a bunch of those actually want to do that job. There's no evading that answer to that question that doesn't sound like an evasion.

I'm still looking for real jobs, but I'm starting to really consider the fun job route. Am I crazy, or finally getting sane?

I shouldn't watch movies at night.
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name that tune:
Show me how to lie
You're getting better all the time
And turning all against the one
Is an art that's hard to teach