xyt's blog

So my company decided they needed to shuffle some staff around, and predicatably I got shuffled out.  Sometimes it sucks to be the new guy.  This was last Friday (did I tell anyone when I was wasted on saturday?), and I think I'm coping pretty well.  I'm taking the temp-while-you-search approach this time, and thanks to low cost of living I should be fine financially.  We'll see what happens I guess.  I'm writing this here because it's less awkward than having to explain to each person in person and be all Debbie Downer at social events.  

Hello blogosphere!

Just wanted to stop by and tell everyone that I'm doing ok.  My job is good but it's already frustrating that I'm such a peon here.  I find my work interesting but it makes me sad that everything I produce is touched by at least 3 superiors before it reaches the client.  They certainly add value with their ideas and whatnot but I'm wishing I was higher up so I could be more influencial in what makes it to the final product.

Socially I feel like I'm still sorta getting my bearings since the move back.  The groups I regularly hang out with are typically single girls or couples.  Other than Glynn (hi!) my single guy friends both live in Richmond.  The last few from MBA program coupled up... and most of you readers are in long-term relationships.  It affects the dynamics of planning and locations you hang out y'know?  It'll be very interesting to see what happens when my still-in-MBA program friends graduate and move-on with life in May. Visiting Black Cat this weekend reminded me that I'm no longer a regular anywhere, after these months and years of moving around and all the changes in my life.

Two of my coworker-friends have decided that they could find me the perfect girl on eHarmony so maybe I'll be meeting my soulmate soon and the social situation will change again.  Oooh and I'll have a second earner so maybe I can buy a fancy TV and pay my credit card debt!

Last thing:
Please be my Netflix friend!  

Netflix friend Linkie

Instead I'm just writing to ask you guys a favor.  I'm taking a marketing research class and I need people to take a survey for me.  It only takes 3 or 4 minutes and I would really appreciate it!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=z0E_2fuVSWLvtYbAmbX8gnDQ_3d_3d

When I get a job and figure out what I'm doing with my life after graduation (May 11th btw) I'll be sure to let everyone know. 

I hear rumors of a trip to the old ballpark on saturday night, but I'd like to invite everyone over for MORE cheap beer and sports fun at my house afterwards.  UFC 73 starts at 10pm for the non-baseball fans (I'll be there of course), and runs till 1am so why not metro straight over when the game is over to catch the main events and watch that shit that I'm paying for anyway? 

The card features:

- UFC debut of former PrideFC HW Champion Minotauro "Dent in my Back Potatohead" Noguiera

- Tito Ortiz vs Ultimate Fighter season 2 winner (and undefeated) Rashad Evans

- LW Championship bout: stumpy wrestler Sean Sherk vs bjj expert Hermes Franca

- MW Champioinship bout: striker Anderson Silva vs former King of Pancrase Nate "no relation to Bridget" Marquardt

Maybe I'll make snacks and tidy the house beforehand?

 

This is basically just a cut/paste from the email I wrote to my family.  That's why there's no off-color humor and my writing voice is a little different...

I'm back from my trip to Punta Cana and I wasn't surprised to learn that I suck as a world traveler, but hopefully I learned some good lessons and I won't be as retarded next time. I spent lots of time calmly staring at the staff of various institutions as they questioned me as to why I would do something so silly as whatever I had just done.  Thanks for the constructive criticism.  Tell me what I was supposed to do.

Anyway, here's the day-by-day breakdown.

Thurs:
Wake up at 4:15am to get ready and catch the first metro to the airport at 5:09am.  Nobody should be up that early, but there was actually a decent number of passengers with me, most of whom were hispanic.  I move through security OK and grab a quick breakfast at McDonalds before I get on a tiny tiny plane to Philly.  The transfer is mostly painless, and I'm on the way to DR.  We arrive at the Punta Cana airport at 2pm and it looks like one of the paddocks in Jurassic Park.  It's pretty quiet inside, which actually works against me because there isn't anyone for me to follow and imitate.  Most of my plane has all-inclusive trips booked by travel agencies who send them busses to their hotel.  My plan to get a cab quickly became a crappy one when I found out that they cost $33 and I only have $27.  Getting
pesos from the "banque" was a pain and in the meantime creepy cab drivers and airport guys are fighting over my luggage.  Eventually I make it to the hotel.  After some milling around I run into the groom who directs me to the table where wedding guests get their rooms.  I have my own room somehow (shrug) and proceed to start exploring.  The
hotel is just amazing.  it's like a palace... which is why it's called The Palace Punta Cana I suppose (?!)  I meet up with old college friends and new friends from the bachelor party.  We walk down to beautiful beach with the flattest ocean I've ever seen, cocktails, hanging out, buffet dinner, more of that stuff, and we decide to go to a night club.  By this point people are wasted but we're sufficiently introduced that we're sorta watching eachother so nobody gets left
out.  Well, except for one guy who accidentally locked himself in a remote supply room he mistook for a bathroom... and was forced to escape by jumping out a window where the grounds crew discovered him passed out in the bushes.  After putting him to bed, we set off to the weirdest club I've ever visited.  It was well.. ramshackle.  The clientele was an awesome mix of tourists from around the world, off-duty resort staff, and hookers.  I try to talk to one of the
bride's cousins but she's shy/hates me and it's like playing handball with a curtain.  I spend some time shooing hookers away from myself and friends, dance, eat fries, walk home, pass out 3am.

Friday:
Wake up at like 8:15am (?!?!) and waste an hour before I decide it's time for my friends to wake up.  Proceed to go jump on people's beds until they get up for breakfast.  Before I can eat, however, I got to argue with the desk staff until they replaced the "all-inclusive" bracelet I had automatically torn off before going to bed the night before.  Beach, beach volleyball, pool with swim-up bar (one fat guest got super wasted and pukes in the pool), time to get ready for
rehearsal dinner.  The dinner is in a special pavilion.  Awesome buffet spread including giant wok-thingies full of oysters and trays full of steaks.  The music is provided by a drunk keyboard player, drummer, and a cute singer who is doing covers of terrible songs.  Next is a "cabaret" show featuring a Michael Jackson impersonator and a troupe of dancers.  When that is over, we mill around and finally people decide to go to the sports bar instead of the casino (?!).  I'm there trying not to pout and instead find myself talking to the singer girl who is actually really cool and claims she had no choice but to sing "I Will Survive".  Play airhockey with her, eat hotdogs, drink alot, bedtime.

Saturday:
Wake up feeling anxious and my stomach hurts.  I kill a few hours before doing my bed-jumping routine again.  Back to the beach for more volleyball and run into the Wedding Singer girl.  Proceed to spend the rest of the day with her in the pool watching the various events and feeling a little bit queasy.  Time to put on a suit to sit outside in the tropical heat for an hour and a half.  They've sorta roped off a giant chunk of the resort for us.  If I'm a regular resort guest I
would be pissed, but instead they stand around the ropes in their bathing suits observing the proceedings.  Why would you want to do that?  Anyway, everything is running late so my poor Wedding Singer chick gets to fill time.  I get a pistol-wink during a love song.  Nice.  The wedding starts and the ceremony is pretty neat.  Lots of "warding off evil spirits" and "future baby blessing" type stuff that involves incense and flowers and food.  The program explains that
Persians have blah blah customs from Zoraster which briefly got me excited to see some psuedo-spellcasting.  Alas, no wizard hats.  Instead the ceremony ends and we have 2 hours to kill before the cocktail hour.  Nobody wants to stay outside and keep sweating so we agree to meet in a hotel suite.  Now.. each person's room includes a
stocked mini-fridge with beer and mixers, and a rack with 3 bottles of liquor.  As people are gathering I volunteer to run and get ice.  While I'm walking back from the machine I notice an open supply room.  Curious about how my friend got trapped in one the night before, I look inside.  What's this?  An extra bottle of liquor and a rose that is probably supposed to be in a vase somewhere.  I grab my new treasures and head back to the room when I encounter an abandoned maid's cart.  Now completely embracing a life of crime, I steal a rack of beer off the cart and I'm hustling down the hall in a suit with arms full as bikini-clad guests gawk.  I return to the room, a conquering hero.  The singer beams at the rose, everyone else is glad for the beer.  By cocktail hour I've decided that I'm legit sick and not just hungover, so I stop drinking booze and decide to go light on the food.  The dinner was an amazing spread of Persian foods, and after dinner featured shelfy Scotch and cigars.  After dinner a band played on a stage that was erected on the beach and we danced on the pool deck.  Even feeling gross, it was still a great time dancing with the singer.  She eventually got railroaded into singing more (different band this time though, and no crappy requests from the father of the bride).  Her rendition of "Killing Me Softly" was lovely so guests constantly approached her to tell her she was awesome.  I tried to leach a little of her celebrity.  :)  

Sunday morning:
I get up and go to the hotel doctor to get some meds so I'm not feeling so bad on the plane.  Of course he's a guy about my age who just gives me antibiotics and anticramping meds 2 minutes after I walk in.  :)  The trip is a pain in the ass and I nearly missed my transfer when I landed in Philadelphia because I thought my flight was direct and didn't understand how to get off... do customs... and get back on the same plane in 25 minutes.  Other people were in bigger trouble though cuz our plane was delayed coming out of Punta Cana and if they had checked luggage they got to deal with that nightmare too.

Happily, Rana (the wedding singer girl) has family in the area who she is visiting for a few weeks.  We've been hanging out a bit and maybe you guys will meet her.

Why wouldn't we have a BBQ right?  I mean... other than the possibility of thunderstorms (10%) and the rapid destruction of our porch by rabid bamboo...

BBQ our house at 3PM on Saturday May 26

We'll provide booze, some meaty stuff to cook, side dishes, and condiments.  You bring proteins and whatever else you want to cook.  Like old GI Joe figures.  Or secret documents.  Or hated coworkers.

Later that night...

UFC action in the living rooms:  Chuck Liddell vs Quinton "Rampage" Jackson II at 10PM

The undercard also looks decent, and hopefully we'll have leftovers to enjoy.  I even have $75 whole dollars riding on results so you could potentially watch me lose that $75 or turn it into a sweet $100ish (betting on favorites doesn't pay too well).  You may also be able to make proposition bets with drunk Glynn, and Emily might wear her pink gi.

Obviously you can come to one or the other, but we'd love to see you for both.  Friends/family/dates are welcome as usual. 

If this was a horror movie, it would probably be revealed at some point toward the end that I'm the killer.

In this RARE case though, life fails to be a horror movie.  I would claim to be heroic instead... but I've worked few things out in life and I can claim to be crapped-on-despite-my-genius QUITE as much as I historically have.  I successfully finished a year of MBA, I'm avoiding financial ruin despite school and a somewhat extravagent trip to vegas, and I got a decent internship despite waiting longer than I should to start my search.  I'm following a good exec summary format and putting all the info up top for you guys!  

This is the part where you are the "time-starved executive" and stop reading.  I continue writing to support my claims.

Rising 2nd Year
I got my grades back and I maintained my 3.67 despite being the allegedly-toughest semester.  My remaining classes should all be interesting and small.  Next semester I'm taking business law, strategy, and 3 marketing classes.  The last semester I'll be taking basically all finance classes.

Davis in Vegas
The bachelor party of one Chris Davis was conveniently placed the day after I finished my last classwork.  After a 3-hour delay in Dulles, I boarded my JetBlue $99 flight at 11 our time.  They have DirectTV on their planes now.  That's pretty sweet right?  You can event PPV movies using your credit card.  Personally, I watched Mad Money and kickboxing.  I recommend buying Allegheny Tech (ATI) because they are the major producer of a certain kind of steel that is essential in piping ethanol.  I did a project on the Brazilian auto industry and those kids are crazy about flex-fuel cars.  ATI is gonna cash-in as the US moves in that direction.  So anyway, I got to vegas at 1am.  The Brothers Davis and I then got really hot at a craps table in the Monte Carlo and I turned $200 into $730 by bedtime at 5am.  The rest of the weekend I was up-and-down but that extra $500 was really nice. 

The next morning I woke up at 9am because I'm crazy, and spent a few hours at the pool before lunch and the arrival of the other guests.  Davis's Microsoft friends are nerdy but fun and I look forward to seeing them again at the wedding.  That night we had a nice dinner, and proceeded via limo to the Spearmint Rhino where I proceeded to drink bourbon and look at boobs.  I'm too sensitive/ghey to appreciate the lapdance action, but the girls there were very hot and good at making amusing conversation too actually.  I didn't spend too much money, but some of the guys got pretty-well cleaned out due to the considerable feminine wiles brought to bear on their drunken pinnae.

Saturday afternoon we all hit a shooting range and I fired an MP5 at a picture of a dirty guido.  Sadly, I'm not a natural or anything so I'm cancelling my plans to walk-on at DC SWAT team tryouts.  Later that night, we attended the WEC show at The Joint in the Hard Rock.  The WEC is a recent acquisition of the UFC and now works as a feeder league for the UFC.  There, I lost some money (and some of other people's money) by betting on fighters I barely knew about.  The venue is very small and fun, and there were MMA "celebs" everywhere.  I peed between "Stitch" Duran and Steve Mazagatti!!! My life is now complete!  Afterward, we went to In And Out burger for a snack and that shit is admittedly very good.  I actually did a bunch of sports betting with mixed results.  I have some action working on the Bears (everyone should bet on their team to win it all) and 2 UFC fights.  Sunday we basically had breakfast and went home.  Imagine random gambling sprinkled in there too.

Internship at Nextlink (probably)
It isn't what I wanted, but it'll do.  Pig.  The company is a recently-created subsidiary of XO communications.  XO owns some chunk of wireless broadband um... signal... and they created a subsidary to sell it.  My job will be with the finance department, where I will do research and analysis of XO's customer databases so we can direct the salesforce to focus effort on appropriate potential customers.  The team will be small, and I will be the only youngin'.  The advantage is that I'll be working directly with these manager-types and hopefully learn alot.  The disadvantage is that I don't get the sweet internship events at Dave & Busters like you get when you work for a big firm or date Hugh Hefner.  The hiring manager and HR lady have chosen me, so they're waiting now for their bosses to do some paperwork so they can make me an actual offer.

The internship starts June 4th, so I'll have lots of free time in the next few weeks.  I'm going to do my best to catch up with everyone and see everyone and do everything.  Every.  Please inform and invite me to everything now.  I'm prepared to be a good friend again!

Nav systems are sufficiently cheap nowadays that I feel stupid for not having one.  Please post any comments you have about brands or features I might need.  Remember that I don't care about gadgets for gadget's sake.  :)

I haven't been blogging worth shit lately and I apologize.

Y'know I was predicting a huge change in my life and I got one.  I'm working a few days here at the company I had worked for before school, and while the time seems to have passed routinely for these people... it feels like a lifetime ago that I last sat at this desk.  My outlook on the future has dramatically changed, and the effects seem to bleed into memories of the recent past in addition to the obvious change in my perspective on the present.

If I ever decide to write a crappy paperback about shallow psychology I'm unqualified to examine, I will be sure to include a chapter about the benefit of viewing yourself in different contexts.  It's easy enough I think to create a life where you're surrounded by only like-minded people.  However, if you mismanage your career badly and end up in an above-average MBA program at a private school full of international students... you don't have a choice but to re-examine.

I'll report the results of the experiment now:  My classmates think I'm smart, nice, and laid back.

Now I am smart, but I'm not sure I would put "nice" and "laid back" too high on the list of my personal attributes.  I guess I've learned that I can behave myself if I want to?  The classmates are friendly and normal, and because I want to maintain cordial relations with all of them... I hold back criticism and don't involve myself in the drama.  It might just be that I don't care enough to get involved.  I don't really need these people as close close friends so unless they really piss me off I just leave it be. 

I guess that does demonstrate real change and ...progress?  I'm focused on getting my life moving forward, and nothing else seems to matter very much.  Previously people were a much bigger priority.  Nowadays, it's almost like I have so many different people in my life I just don't have the energy to invest in everyone and their bullshit.

I was just talking to Novak about this:  Doctors too often seem to discount non-dangerous ailments.  I listen to Lovelines like a madman and if you call and get upset about Herpes you'll either be reassured or bitter that Drew seems so nonchalant.  Yes it's just a rash... but it's on my dick man!  Not really *I* but y'know what I mean.  <adjusts boxers a bit>  Metaphorically speaking...

All these people around me have stuff going on in their lives but unless I think it's seriously unhealthy, I basically don't care.  I declare you all "Fine."  I feel sorta bad about it actually.  You guys are all out there worrying about your lives and I'm not worried about them really.  I'm not sure if that's what laid back people think.

If it is, then laid back people are jerks.  I can say that from my high horse because I'm confident that I'll go back to worrying about various people not getting the video game parts they want, worry about your office dramas with you, worry about decisions you make in your lovelives, etc. 

Or maybe I won't.  That'll be really interesting.  To me at least.  You may still be worrying about the stuff I listed above.  ;) 

Nothing fancy because I'm too busy to plan much, but I hope you can stop by and visit for some portion.

Cafe Asia - 6PM-8PM to take advantage of happy hour specials ($1 sushi, $2 drafts).

In between, I imagine people may want to gather/seperate and are welcome to go to my house for highballs and beer.

Black Cat - Red Room 10PM to take advantage of the scuzzy, smokey, unfriendly atmosphere.