Wax On, Wax Off

So yeah, I’ve gotten lazy with the blog lately. My apologies. However, I don’t think anybody really reads it, so I guess it doesn’t matter.

Anyway, last Saturday I got back from a week vacation in Cancun, probably the most relaxing week I’ve had in recent memory. Our resort was beautiful, and it was an all inclusive trip (the first of those I have taken) so all of the food, drinks, and on-site entertainment was free of charge. Very nice. The only thing we paid to do was rent a car to drive about an hour away to see some Mayan ruins. That was well worth the expense, and resulted in some very cool pictures. Plus, on the way back we got to experience an interesting Mexican traffic jam, which I guess might not sound that cool, but believe me, it was hilarious if you were there.

It involved a pickup truck with laughing workers.

And sideways cars.

And Volkswagens making their own lanes.

Yeah, you had to be there.

Cancun is well on its way to recovery but some of the resorts along the coast where we stayed still looked like they would be just as at home in Baghdad or Beirut. Hurricanes suck. I kind of wished we had gone before the hurricane hit, or after they had a year or so to rebuild, but it was a memorable trip nonetheless.

In other news, this past week has seen some interesting turns on the employment front. First, of all places, Best Buy called me and wants to set up a final interview. Apparently they had to fire some people from the tech department so now there are openings. Not exactly my dream job but at this point I’ll listen to anything. Also I had a phone interview with a software firm based on the south side of Chicago that deals with C++/SQL applications for the insurance industry, which sounds like a great gig should I be able to get it. I have a second interview scheduled for next week, so I guess some self wishing of good luck is in order.

Good luck Shawn.

Otherwise I’ve got nothing too interesting to report. Oh, we did get somebody to come out to get an estimate for the bathroom in the basement, so I may have some more projects down there in the immediate future.

Peace out.

So, if you thought the Orange Bowl was something, I hope everybody managed to see probably the greatest college quarterbacking spectacle of all time in this year’s Rose Bowl. To quote the ESPN headline right after the game: “Vince-sanity!”

I mean really, who goes 30/40 for 267 yards, gains another 200 yards rushing, scores 3 TDs (plus a rushing 2-point conversion), and leads his team to not one, but two scoring drives in the final four minutes.

Vince Young, that’s who.

Needless to say he won the game MVP trophy, but had he done something like this during the regular season, I think he could have given Reggie Bush more of a running for the Heisman.

And that’s another thing, this game had not just one, but three Heisman Trophy candidates playing, and the other two put up some pretty impressive numbers themselves. Reggie Bush got 82 yards on the ground and another 95 receiving, and Matt Leinart went 29/40 for 365 yards with a TD and an interception. Three great players, but damn, that Vince Young is something else. If he decides to declare for the NFL draft (which I think given his previous statements is still not very likely), the number one draft pick isn’t as much of a no brainer as it was last week.

So the past week or so has seen a couple of really awesome sports events. First, I hope everybody managed to catch the end of the Alamo Bowl between Michigan and Nebraska. Hook and ladder craziness I tell you. No less than six laterals. A fumble. Both benches on the field. And yet, no whistle. Not quite as cool as the 1982 Cal – Stanford game (no blocking tuba players for one) but a sight to see nonetheless.

The Illinois Fighting Illini have rolled to a perfect non-conference season record of 14-0, securing them the #6 spot in both the AP and Coaches Polls. Big Ten conference play starts in a few days, and I for one can’t wait.

Everyone’s favorite denied-draft-declaring running back is back in the news, and it’s on the legal front again. Too bad this time Maurice Clarett is wanted for armed robbery. To quote the San Diego Union-Tribune:

“Former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett was accused of robbing two people at gunpoint in an alley behind a bar early yesterday, the latest trouble for the Buckeyes star who left the school in disgrace and failed to gain early entry into the NFL.

Clarett fled the scene and was wanted on two counts of aggravated robbery. According to police, he left in a white sport utility vehicle with two other men and took only a cell phone from his alleged victims, who weren’t injured.

The 22-year-old Clarett fled when the bar owner or manager came into the alley and identified him shortly before 2 a.m. yesterday, detectives said.”

Glad to see Maurice is proving himself to be the mature, NFL caliber player he said he was. Such a waste of talent.

And also in the world of the NFL, New England’s Doug Flutie converted the first successful drop kick for points since the 1941 NFL Championship between the Chicago Bears and New York Giants. To put this in perspective, the last time someone pulled off the drop kick, it had only been two weeks since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Ah Flutie, you’re something else.

And to cap this recap off, the Orange Bowl between Penn State and Florida State went three overtimes, largely because of a bevy of missed field goals and extra points. I don’t care what anybody thinks, you couldn’t pay me enough to be a football kicker in a game of any importance – being the only guy on the field with a clean uniform is bad enough, but the chances of being the world’s biggest goat are just too high.

Stupid alarm clocks, they’re totally worthless to me. If I put it on radio at a reasonable volume I never hear it. If I put it on buzzer, or radio at a very high volume, I end up turning it off before I’m even conscious I’m doing it. If I’m lucky, I’ll just snooze the stupid thing for like two hours and by that time whatever I was getting up for has long since passed.

Sigh.

Maybe somebody, somewhere, has an alarm clock with electrodes I can hook up to my body. That would work. Or, perhaps, an alarm clock where you can record custom wake-up sounds. I’d use nails on a chalkboard. That might work too.

Perhaps I should look at the Sharper Image. They have all sorts of crazy stuff. After the holidays, of course.

With winter finally upon us, and about six or seven inches of snow on the ground, I decided that I would go sledding this weekend. Unfortunately, after rummaging around in my parents’ basement for about a half hour (and that’s quite a long time because it is actually pretty neat down there) I came to the conclusion that we are no longer in the possession of a sled.

Sled. A key component of sledding, if memory serves.

Undaunted, I ran out to Menards and, much to my delight, they had the cheap, long, non-saucer sleds on sale for the low price of $4.99 – well within my price range. Thus armed, I set out for the Oakhurst Forest Preserve and the large hill contained therein.

I think waiting two or three days since the snowfall wasn’t the greatest idea as some of the snow on the slope had blown away, but there was still a good amount on the hill with only a few patches of grass sticking through. I also wasn’t the only person with the sledding bug as the entire parking lot, and a majority of the entrance-road shoulders, were packed with cars.

Even though I only managed about an hour and a half of sledding before the park closed at sundown and the rangers kicked us out, it was a blast. Well, all except for that one run where I bruised my tailbone. I had convinced Sarah to come out and join me and on our second or third to last run we decided to do a double. I sat in the back and really couldn’t see where we were going, so the inevitable bump caught me off guard, popping me up in the air and landing me pretty hard on my butt. Not very pleasant, I must say.

Regardless, for part of an afternoon it reminded me of being a kid; when the act of sledding on a weekend was a regular winter occurrence. Simpler times, I guess, and good ones.

For some reason sledding also made me think about Calvin And Hobbes:

So, just thought I’d do a general “What’s Up With Shawn” post today. First off, hopefully yours truly will be working again soon, albeit not quite in the area I had been hoping. Yup, you guessed it – I officially reapplied to Best Buy.

Part of me dies a little every time I think about that.

At least this time, should I actually get the job, I’d be working at the tech bench instead of on the sales floor. Yup, Geek Squad here I come.

Hilarious uniform pictures coming later once they become available.

In case Best Buy didn’t work out, I also applied to Circuit City to work at their tech center. They had a post on their company website detailing the position and I assumed it would be similar to the Best Buy gig. Boy was I wrong. First off, their department consists of (if memory serves) two employees plus the supervisor – and one of the employees is part time. This was a red flag right off as either their department is horrifically overworked or they get absolutely no business.

But it gets better.

The guy doing the interview seemed nice enough and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t just some career manager – he had the air about him that he actually knew something about computers by the questions he asked about what I had done in the past. Briefly, I had hope.

But it gets better.

So, after the basic questions along the lines of “Why do you want to work for Circuit City?” and “How could you improve our department?” we get to talking about salary and hours and things. First off, he said they’d have to start me off as seasonal help because of the time of year but that they were looking to expand and so it was a formality and I’d be kept on after the holidays were over. I say that’s fine.

But it gets better.

Then he tells me the starting pay for seasonal help. Maybe you should sit down for this.

Drumroll please …

$7.50 / hour

Yeah, that’s a seven right there.

Needless to say I was taken aback. Perhaps I’m totally out of the loop as far as retail compensation goes, but doesn’t that seem a little low to anybody else? Anyway, I tell him this politely and say that I was hoping for something “a little more competitive” to start with given my credentials (three years at a competitor’s store, a summer gig doing exactly what the job would entail, and, oh yes, a CS degree). He goes to speak to his supervisor, I assume some sort of store manager, and comes back with a counter-offer.

They’d start me off at full time like I would have been after the holidays at an increase to $9.75 / hour. Still a little low, but I said fine and that I would consider it. As an aside, this whole negotiation made me feel like I was in some sort of bazaar in Calcutta or a border town in Mexico. Anyway, then he says that he wants to put me into their computer system right away and that, should I decide to take the Best Buy job (which I had mentioned was a possibility in my “salary negotiations”), they’d drop me from their employment computers. I told him not to put me in yet, that I’d get back to him, and I left the store.

Anyway, to fill my time before I take up either job (as of this writing I’m on my last interview with Best Buy but according to Joel, my friend and a fellow Geek Squad employee, it’s mostly a formality) I’ve been putting a good amount of time into my dad’s basement. Right now the entire place is framed with wall studs (except a small portion around the furnace because the furnace company has to come and move a gas line), all the electrical outlets are in, the light switch has been tied to all of the ceiling lights (which were on pull cords before), and the cable and telephone jacks are in. As soon as the furnace guy does his thing it’ll be time to drywall and then do the ceiling and carpet. We’re also planning on a half bathroom but that is a longer term project as neither myself nor my father know how to run sewer lines for a toilet, and frankly I’m a bit nervous about breaking up the foundation to do it. Still, I find working with my hands very relaxing and in hindsight I should have taken a construction job at least one of my college summers – I think it would have been a blast (albeit a workout).

On a different topic, I think I’ve been out of college too long as this weekend I got dominated in beer pong. We’re talking like 10-4 domination here folks. The second game was a much closer 10-9 at least, but still, my beer muscles are way out of shape.

Guess I’ll have to go visit the sister up at NIU after the winter break to get back into form. She’s always telling me to make a road trip up there anyway.

Otherwise I think that’s it for this installment of Shawn’s semi-regular musings and boring life-journal-experience.

I think there’s a band name in there somewhere. Or at least there should be.

So, yesterday I got to see something I have never seen before. My father’s 1993 Ford Taurus GL, the car in which I have taken countless vacations as well as trips to the store, rolled over its odometer for a second time. Yup, you heard me, it is displaying 00000.0 for the third time.

200,000 miles and still going strong.

No major engine work, and the automatic transmission works like a charm.

It just goes to show that a car will last a great long time if you just take care of it. As proof, here are some before and after shots:

Oh, and to prove that it isn’t just this one car that has freakishly lasted so long, my mom’s 1997 Ford Taurus Station Wagon has over 115,000 miles and my 1993 Ford SHO has just under 100,000. So yeah, we’re good to our cars.

First off, go Bears! This weekend they extended their winning streak to seven games and currently sit in first of the NFC North. I love their defense so much - such a joy to watch. I look forward to a game where it will be truly challenged, with a team like say the Colts. That’d be sweet.

In more serious news, this week marks the second time this season that a fan has run onto the field during a game involving the Green Bay Packers. However, unlike the first incident where the fan was just some drunken idiot, this one had some meaning. From the wire report:

“A man arrested for running onto the field during the Philadelphia Eagles’ game against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday told police he was spreading his late mother’s ashes.

Christopher Noteboom, of Tempe, Ariz., ran onto the field holding a plastic bag, leaving a cloud of fine powder behind.

As he reached the 30-yard line, he dropped to his knees, made the sign of the cross and laid down on his stomach. Security personnel reached him moments later and he offered no resistance as he was escorted from the field.

The 33-year-old Noteboom, a native of Doylestown, said his mother died of emphysema in January 2005, shortly before the Eagles’ Super Bowl appearance.

“She never cared for any other team except the Eagles,” Noteboom told WPVI-TV after he was released from custody Monday. “I know that the last handful of ashes I had are laying on the field, and will never be taken away. She’ll always be part of Lincoln Financial Field and of the Eagles.”

Noteboom, a bar owner in Arizona, was charged with defiant trespass. He has a hearing scheduled for Dec. 27.”

I understand the need for security at professional football games. And I understand that the security personnel had no way of knowing if he had the ashes of a person or anthrax. He broke a law and should be punished. Still, I hope given the nature of the case the judge takes some leniency on him and issues a light sentence. His mother loved the game, and he was trying to honor that love and her. And for that, I can find no fault.

So I was watching TV today and an episode of Futurama came on. First off I’d like to say that I think this show did not get the respect it deserved simply because it held some similarities to The Simpsons, or some other such nonsense. Regardless, it produced one of the best “modern” cartoon characters, Dr. Zoidberg. He doesn’t get as much screen time as say a Dale Gribble or a Glen Quagmire, but he really has some hilarious gems. Case and point, from tonight’s episode:

“As the candy hearts poured into the fiery quasar, a wonderous thing happened, why not? They vaporized into a mystical love radiation that spread across the universe, destroying many, many planets - including two gangster planets and a cowboy world. But one planet was exactly the right distance to see the romantic rays, but not be destroyed by them - Earth. So all over the world, couples stood together in joy. And me, Zoidberg! And no one could’ve been happier, unless it would’ve also been Valentine’s Day. What? It was? Hooray!”

It’s even funnier if you can hear his voice.

“Actor Pat Morita, whose portrayal of the wise and dry-witted Mr. Miyagi in “The Karate Kid” earned him an Oscar nomination, has died. He was 73.”

He will be missed.