Hmmph...

Well, as many know, I've been looking for a new job and have been in the holding stage for one job in particular for about a month and a half now. It's kind of sucky, but I think it will come through and it'll be a nice raise...to the tune of $10,000 more/year. In the meantime, I found another opportunity that would be awesome in SOOOOOO many ways--especially the $20-30,000/year raise.

Well, anyway, this particular job has so many perks to it, above and beyond the pay. A friend of mine is the recruiter filling the position and she tried to get the hiring manager to bring me in for an interview. Unfortunately, she wouldn't do so. The reason? No, it's not lack of experience...it's that I have too much experience. That's right! At the ripe ol' age of 27, I am overqualified for a job. I couldn't believe it. The pay raise is tremendous and the job is phenomenal...and yet I have done too much marketing to even be able even get an interview. Go figure. Oh, and I should mention here that this position is with one of my current employer's largest clients.

So, today, I ended up at this client's site, attending a meeting to go over some fundraising ideas, as we'll be partnering with them for an event this fall. Who would be sitting right across the table from me? None other than the director of marketing who felt I was overqualified. The meeting went sooooo well that after the meeting, the VP of Global Procurement for this major telecom company came up to thank me and tell me he's so excited I'm on the project. When I introduced myself, he remembered that we'd met a year ago. I was quite impressed.

Anyway, so after that, my co-worker (who was also presenting some great ideas at the meeting) introduced me to the marketing director...and I saw the lightbulb go on in her head once she realized who I am. Well, this was done on purpose by my co-worker (she told me later) and it provided a great opportunity for me to discuss my current marketing projects with the co-worker loud enough for the marketing director to hear as we walked back to the office in front of her. Interestingly enough, this marketing director stopped by the HR dept later (where I was at the time) to visit with the recruiter who filled the position for her and said in a loud enough voice, "the guy you wanted me to inverview had great potential, but just wasn't the right fit for the position." I loved that we both made sure we talked loud enough for the other to hear. So passive agressive...I love it.

The cool thing is that we'll both be working on this project for the next four months and so hopefully she'll see that though I may have more experience than she wants, that's not a bad thing. We're working towards raising $60,000, which is a ton of work, of course, but that's even more opportunity to show her I'm worth consideration for future openings. We'll have to see what happens. In the meantime, I'll continue to be my passive agressive self...and trust me--I'm overqualified at that too.

A Slideshow of Fun

For some reason, the slides won't automatically transition. So, hit the purple play button (a new window will open). The slideshow will start to play and once the title page fades out, hit the pause button twice. Then, the slides will automatically change. Odd, I know. Anyway, enjoy!

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

A Puzzlement

When one clicks on a window (like a Word doc or a new email) and then starts to type while the computer is still processing, the text doesn't appear. Once a person re-selects the window/text box/document and starts to type again, the text appears. What puzzles me is this...where does that first text go? Is there like a magic hidden folder somewhere that contains all of those random letters that never made it on the page? It is indeed a puzzlement.

Open mouth...insert foot.

So, today was the SPCA 3K walk in downtown Raleigh. Over 1,000 people were there with their pooches--it was an insane sight. I dare say it's one of the biggest dog walks ever. The walk went very well and it was quite fun--I even found a company who may be a vendor of my products, which is very cool. And, there were 80-100 of my business cards given out, as everyone loved the t-shirts that I had on Matza and the rest of the team (you can find them here: http://www.secondcoats.com/product_info.php?cPath=35_38&products_id=577

Anyway, after all was said and done, we were sitting around chit chatting, with lots of people stopping by to pet Matza and the other dogs that were on our team. (Incidentally, I dare say my little attention whore was the most photographed dog at the walk--the professional photographers didn't seem to be able to stop taking photos of her.) One little family, which included an adorable little black boy in a stroller, came up to pet her. The little boy was crying and trying to get out of his stroller. So, Jamie said to his mom, "I'm sure he's thinking 'Set me free!!'" Enter awkward moment. Um, the choice of words was a hoot. Here Jamie is saying that a little black boy is screaming, "Set me free!" I couldn't stop laughing internally.

After the family walked off, Jamie said, "I probably shouldn't have said that. It's just like saying, 'Set my people free!'" It was a hoot! If you fail to see the humor in this, you need to a) lighten up and b) get a sense of humor. It seriously was quite the humorous moment. Anyway, the walk was great, the laughs were fun, the dogs were plentiful, and I am glad I was able to do it all! :)

Two in one day?!

Yes--it's true! I am actually writing two blogs in one day. The first blog is something I intended to write yesterday but didn't get around to. Anyway, a friend and I were discussing personalities, astrological profiles, birth order profiles, etc. last night and it reminded me that a neighbor of mine has a great book about birthdays that's totally accurate on me. It's not one of those "it could fit anyone" things either--it's actually pretty descriptive and would not fit the average person. I really don't believe in the whole astrology thing, but I still find it to be fascinating.

I found this on Wikipedia regarding us Sagittarians. For me, it's also pretty accurate actually. See what you think... (Especially in the traits, likes/dislikes, and career sections)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_(astrology)

Awkward

So, the funniest--yet very awkward--moment happened yesterday. My beloved friend, Beth, had to take her car in to the shop. It turned out to be a bit more work (and money, of course) than she'd planned and they weren't able to get her car back to her until today. (Incidentally, they said it was the catallitic (sp?) converter, which is very close to my original diagnosis of it being "dirt in the transmission tube".)

So...Miss Beth needed to get a rental vehicular module and your's truly took her to get said rental. I asked if she needed me to wait (we were meeting up at a restaurant around the corner once she got her rental) and she told me to go on ahead and get a table while we still could and that she'd call if she needed me. About ten minutes went by, with me snacking away on chips and salsa, when that phone call came. "Um, Sweetie...can you please come back over here? There's an issue with my card." I said, "Can't I just give them my card number over the phone?" She replied, "They said you have to come in and sign." I said, "Hmmm...well, let me figure out a non-tacky way to tell the waiter that I'm not just here for free chips and salsa and that we'll return." The waiter didn't speak English very well, but he got what I was saying and even agreed to hold our table (even though the line to get in was literally running out the door and onto the sidewalk).

I got over to the rental place to find that they ended up not having the car she'd requested, so instead she was stuck with a mini-van. :) That was fun...I chuckled, as Beth is NOT a mini-van person. Well, once the rental agent got done making fun of my signature (a common occurence), we headed off to the restaurant, relieved to find that they had indeed saved our table...my napkin and cup were exactly where I left them. We had a most enjoyable lunch, but Beth did not enjoy her mini-van, not only because it's a mini-van, but it also wreaked of smoke and was filthy--inside and out.

Today, we went back over to return said mini-van and I let the agent know we were less than happy about the rental's condition. He apologized and said he hadn't had a chance to clean it before renting it out again. Unacceptable. So, I said, "What is it that you're going to do to take care of the situation?" He said, "Well, I can give you $10 off the rental cost and I'll make sure I don't ever rent out another vehicle again without cleaning it, even if another customer has to wait a moment." I told him that would work, but then he went even further on the bill and knocked $25 off. It was most kind of him. Beth was obviously very happy, but I dare say I made her a bit embarrassed when I posed my question to him. The thing is, I've learned that it's THE question to ask when something is not right. "What are you going to do to fix this situation?" has gotten hundreds knocked off of vet bills, restaurant tabs, etc. I heart it.

Anyway, the whole thing was a mess, but it worked out. Good times.

Devil Dog

So, I have come to the conclusion that Satan himself possesses my little doggy on occasion. Yesterday would be one of those occasions.

I got home late yesterday (working out some details with the seamstress for the crate cover design) and was on a phone call with one of my graphic designers, only to be interrupted by my roommate (he can be rather rude at times) who stated he had something important to tell me. What, pray tell, did he tell me, you ask?

Well, it turns out that Matza somehow climbed over the barrier he built to keep her out of his bedroom during the day (but which allows his cats to come and go) and not only got into the cat litter, BUT she also found and ate an entire bag of chocolate-covered espresso beans! Now, of course chocolate is never a good thing for dogs, but it does take a very large quantity to kill them. It usually just makes them vomit to get it out of their system. Matza chose not to vomit. Instead, she chose to leave a big ol' pile of nasty on the freshly-cleaned living room carpet. But, that was not the only consequence of her snacking.

Chocolate-covered espresso beans do have chocolate on them, obviously, but they also have the espresso bean...complete with caffeine. My dog is hyper enough without caffeine. I, unfortunately, got to experience Matza on caffeine last night and this morning. It's still not out of her system. At one point, I was begging her to drink a ton of water to help dillute the caffeine in her system. I couldn't handle it. By bed time, she had not only terrorized me relentlessly, but the cats also fell victim to this possessed pooch. She took to biting their tails, in-between running underneath them while they walked. She had seemingly calmed down enough to sleep, so off to bed we went. Note the word "seemingly".

No sooner had I fallen asleep than I was woken by Matza literally running in circles around the perimeter of my bed. She couldn't have cared less that I was there--she just ran over the top of me. I grabbed her and wrestled her to the bed (surprisingly tough when she's on caffeine, even though she's only 7 lbs.) and tried to get her to calm down. That worked for a little bit. An hour or so later, the terror with a tail was at it again, but this time, she added some barking for that extra special effect. I yet again tackled her. After the fourth or fifth time of this, I almost layed on top of her for the rest of the night. At 7:00, she was pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed and then jumping up on top of me after so many paces. I pinned her under my arm and could feel her heart beat going like crazy.

She settled down for a few minutes--pinned to the bed the entire time--but as soon as my alarm clock went off, she was barking and running around the bed and the room. While I got ready for work, she kept coming in and pacing around the bathroom to let me know she was ready to go outside. I made her follow our usual routine, which drove her nuts. Once we were out the door, she nearly choked herself by running to the end of the leash and pulling harder. Repeatedly. I seriously was ready to cut the leash and just let her run to wherever her little caffeinated heart carried her.

We'll see how she is tonight, but for her sake, she'd better be much, much calmer or she's getting the Vodka that Erik suggested I give her in the first place. It's either that or a priest to cast the devil out of her. Either way, the caffeine must go.

Kade's Lush Connections

How fitting--I just learned that Bill W (the one whose friends attend the AA program he started) was born on my birthday--but about 95 years before me. Regardless, Bill W was born on November 26th, which is very fun. So, does this make me a friend of Bill W?