New Beginning

Well, I started my first day at the new job today. In a nutshell: VAST IMPROVEMENT. Everyone seems really friendly, and they didn't bombard me with stuff to do the very first day; rather, they let me sit in my new office and read up on the stuff I'd be doing. For me, finding that this standard level of professionalism still existed in the working world was akin to rediscovering dinosaurs on a deserted island.
Among the pros: Subject matter that I'm interested in and could conceivably personally benefit me to learn; other people who share workloads and help each other complete all their work; coworkers who have families and don't seem amazed that you'd want to go home after only nine hours; and an 'evacuation' rate of 100% within 10 minutes of 5:30pm.
Of course, there are going to be frustrations, and no job is perfect. For one, we're supposed to give robbers our full cooperation. What's up with that? If you want true deterence, you need to arm all the employees and give them marksmanship training... then perhaps criminals would be less inclined to think of banks as easy targets. But I digress. I can live with that.
Anyway, I have a great feeling about this. We'll have to see but I think I'll be a lot more at home here.

Parental Weekend

Shelly and I played host to my parents this weekend. They arrived late Friday (late for them means 5pm. I was expecting them around 3-4pm, but Mom stopped at Kohl's on the way down. That being the case, it was a miracle they arrived before nine).
The next day, we had a leisurely breakfast, prepared by Shelly and, to a lesser extent, myself, then they got in touch with their real estate agent, Brenda, who promised to meet them at Northgate Mall in Durham at 12:30pm and show them a few more houses. For any who don't know, they are currently considering a move down to North Carolina.Getting in the car just after noon, the four of us made the rendezvous and were quickly whisked away to Roxboro, up north of Durham in Person County.
We checked out a new house, which Shelly quickly pronounced her hatred for, then happened upon an available house in the general vicinity. It was set in a beautiful place, next to a large, scenic lake and a horse pasture. Alas, crossing the threshold involved a time warp into that most abominable decade of the twentieth century, the 70's, complete with yellow accents and vintage appliances. No, my parent's decided, this was not the place to take their retirement.

That led us to the house on Jack Hambrick Rd, which they'd viewed before and against which all others fall short. Brenda took copious pictures, which I have since burned onto a CD for my parents, and which show all bedrooms and angles of the outside. It really is a marvelous house, although it's almost a full hour from where we are in Chapel Hill. I'll do another post and include some pictures from the house on the lake and the Hambrick House, since I seem to have used up my quota for this particular entry.Well, here we are, Sunday morning, with a whole extra hour due to the daylight savings time switch. So, I'd best be getting a shore and getting on with things, and leaving Shelly to critique my blog. Have at it, baby! ;)

Countdown Aborted

Spectacular!
For anyone keeping track, I should be working on the final two days before I depart my former place of employment for good. At the end of the day on Friday, I should go in, take a bow, exit stage right, and drive home in the glorious golden sunshine as I leave Garner for the last time, eager in anticipation of a new career and my parents’ imminent arrival.
Things can certainly change in a day.
It all started when I mentioned to someone at Corporate that Friday was my last day. Immediately she asks if I’m giving an exit interview. I haven’t thought of it, I say, but I might be interested. Later on, I receive in my inbox an exit interview form. Going down the hall to an unoccupied office for privacy, I call the human resources manager, stating I’d rather not fill out a form, but I just have one or two concerns that I’d like to give verbally. I give said concerns. No, go ahead and fill out the form anyway, I hear. Fine, no problem.
Except that my manager gets wind of this and hits the roof, calling me into his office and demanding to know why I’m talking "Behind his back" (as if that’s at all unusual around there, or he doesn’t engage in it with gusto about whoever isn’t in his good graces). This leads to a heated exchange in which I call him out on some of his more egregious BS statements over the last few months, and I’m accused of "breaking a promise, breaking a commitment." Apparently me saying four months ago that I’ll give the company "another chance" is the equivilent of taking an oath on the River Styx. (Sorry, you might need to Google that one). Also, included here for its humorous value alone, is this product of my former manger’s convoluted logic: The more work you’re given, the higher your commitment to the company, because you’re harder to replace (the concept of also being paid more for the additional work somehow isn’t factored into the equation).
Following this, much to my former bosses’ chagrin, I invoke my final two vacation days, thus short-circuiting the countdown just as the "three" ticked over to the "two". Strangely, the topic of me coming back to train my replacement just never came up.
Now, where did I put that exit interview...ah, here it is!

Lunch Date

It was a first: Shelly came down to Garner to have lunch with me today. Her mother was in town from Charlotte, and had seen a TV commercial for Captain Stanley's Seafood off of Hwy 70. Only five miles from my place of employment, I leapt at the chance for a long-delayed lunch outing.
The first whiff of trouble came when I arrived at the restaurant, maybe 5 minutes ahead of the girls. All I can say is that Captain Stanley must have forgotten to purge the bilge tanks or something because the stench that assaulted my nostrils made short work of the appetite I'd worked up. Our waitress informed us that they believed a shrimp or oyster had fallen behind one of the booths, but we weren't fooled; there's no mistaking a backed-up toilet when you smell one. But I guess her explanation sounds better than "Oh, that's just ____ you're smelling!"
But a guy's gotta eat. Retreating to the smoking section, ironically the only area free of noisome fume, the three of us managed to scarf down $28.00 worth of food, which wasn't bad considering we each ate a full meal. However, no sooner did we finish then the malignant odor wafted through the barrier, forestalling any attempt at post-consumption pleasantries. We were lucky to escape with our lives.
So maybe it's unfair, but I somehow doubt I'll be going back again; it'd be just as easy to take a picnic at the local sewage treatment plant.

Intervarsity reunion

Last night, Shelly and I hosted her old intervaristy friends, Erika and Martha, along with their husbands, Jason and Matt. Martha and Jason put my hosting skills to the test, but I think they both left pretty happy.
We were quite pleased to have them in, considering we haven't seen Matt and Martha since July. Matt seemed to remember that he'd seen us "at someone's wedding..." Seems like there was a pretty important wedding around that time, but I can't for the life of me think of who got married ;) It was their first return to Farrington Lake (then Summit Hill), since their blissful first year of marriage, which the rest of us had recounted to us in Police Beat detail.

Law school Melissa (Mel-Mel) also came by earlier in the evening, but the predominance of married couples and talk of babies scared her off after a few hours. (It scared me too, but I didn't have the option of leaving).
And now, my nominations:
Funniest story: Matt and Martha's "automated litter box" fight.
Best conversational moment:
Matt: Each vial came with this little spork so you could scoop it in.
Best 'lost and found' moment:
Martha telling us she has the missing card from the Compatibility deck, which went MIA following Erika's hurling of said deck across the room last summer.
Best catch phrase:
Jason: Are you sssserious?
Best unconscious tick:
Martha: And all this was 'hic' while I was at work 'hic' yelling at him with my door 'hic' wide open.
Biggest wasted effort: Me, organizing 600 wedding proofs, shot by 2 photographers in 25 rolls of film, into chronological order and putting them into photo albums, which not one person glanced at!

Friday Morning

One more day, and then the home stretch. Since my two superiors (in position only, I might point out) have abandoned me here for the next two business days, I'm stuck managing the operations of this branch. Lamentably, they seem not to have understood that a) one of my complaints was always getting a bunch of calls on the weekend and b) that the afore-mentioned complaint led to my resignation and c) that the afore-mentioned resignation begins one week from today. A + B + C means that I'll pretty much be making myself unavailable this weekend, so I sure hope that nothing goes wrong. Bad attitude to take, considering that I technically do still work here? Considering both of these absences were announced after my notice was given, I feel it justified.
Just out of morbid, rhetorical curiosity, has anyone out there ever heard of someone being asked to come back (on the weekends, no less) after they leave to train their replacement? Or that the national standard of notice is now three weeks (or "to be discussed") rather than two? Amazingly, both of those propositions were put to me this week. I suspect a crafty, subtle effort is currently underway to remind me of all the good aspects of working here. Somehow, it's having the opposite effect.

Infinite Wisdom

I refer of course to God here. Often in my life, I've been amazed at the plan He has for all of us. There have been points in my life when I just could not understand why I was going through whatever obstacle I was facing, only to have it made clear later. For instance, my dating life (if you were of a generous enough persuasion to call it a life) was haphazard and unsatisfying for so many years, and I never understood why that was until two years ago. I had to go through all that to get in the right frame of mind (talk about a slow learner), and decide certain things about the kind of woman I wanted in my life, before God was ready to put Shelly and I together.
Same thing with Shelly. She absolutely hated the fact that she had to leave the job she loved at Koonz McKenney and go to Skadden for the last six months before law school. Now, though, she is getting interviews at prestigious law firms that might not have been interested in her had she not worked for such a well-known DC firm. It's funny how things work out...
Why do I bring this up? I'm rationalizing, trying to understand why this week at work has driven me within an inch of diving off the Empire State building into a thumb tack. And I think it's because I felt somewhat guilty about leaving here like I am (even though I've been assured by almost everyone that I need not feel so), so I've been given this week to remove any such reservations. And how about that? It's worked! My one regret is that I still have a week left to go!

Here I Go Again.

Just ignore this if you're cruising my blog to check up on what I'm doing. I just love stuff like this and can't resist commenting on it when I see it.

"Should the Democrats be in a position to appoint enough Justices to create a
"perfectionist" majority on the Court, why should these Justices not abolish
capital punishment once and for all, as courts in other countries have done? Why
should they not provide gays and lesbians with the same degree of protection
available to other minorities with a long history of discrimination? Overturn
the ludicrous 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, which equates speech with money
and frustrates any hope of meaningful campaign finance reform? Authorize
physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients who are in terrible pain?
Restore the protections for the right to an abortion that Casey undid? All these
changes can be made within the limits of judicial prudence and principled
adjudication. Right-wing judges have never worried about being wrong. Why should
liberals?"

If anyone actually read my blog, I'd probably draw an elitist sneer for pointing out that all of the above, with the single exception of overturning a case, involve passing or enacting legislation, which isn't the Supreme Court's job! Look at the verbage: "Abolish", "provide", "authorize", "restore". These are words that make you think of decrees or pronouncements, which is fine when you're talking about judges handing down sentences, but very troubling when considering justices "interpreting laws" (which, recalling American Government from 9th grade, is what the Supreme Court nominally does).
The author does not even consider the fact that, under his view of a "perfectionist" Supreme Court, you have 9 people deciding what's best for the country, torturing the Constitution to make it agree with them, and proclaiming to the other 300 million of us what the law should be. Why even have any other branches of government? Why even go through the pretext of needing agreement from the Founding Document?

Bombs Away!

I say that in the hopes that my blog doesn't get flagged by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyway, just delivered my notice to Jon, who took it exceptionally well, I think. He surprised me by mentioning that a counter offer was a definite possibility, but I told him I didn't think he could realistically offer me enough to stay (my position isn't a high-paying one).
Anyway, I let the rest of the office know. Heather was kind of upset, but she understood. Pete just continues on, absorbing the news.
More to come...

Random Reflections

Watched Deliverance for the first time last night. I didn't know Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds were ever that young. I'm not exactly sure why this film is a classic, if 'classic' is defined as 'a movie I'd be interested in seeing again.'
Shelly's been working on yet another lengthy project almost all weekend. What kind of sadist assigns multiple 60-page papers in the same semester? She's about halfway through, though she fortunately has all day tomorrow.
During a break earlier, we watched Wimbleton, which was great, I must admit. I'm not usually a big fan of romantic comedies but that one was definitely worth watching. I sense torches being lighted and pitchforks brandished as I diss the classic Deliverance for the widely-panned Wimbleton, but what can I say? I have weird tastes!
I've worked on my story some this weekend. I'm about 75 pages into it now. Shelly's very encouraging, yet sometimes I can't help but wonder what else I could be doing with my time beyond writing a glorified piece of fan fiction for a 20 year old game that barely anyone's going to read, and fewer yet understand. Oh well, I do enjoy it. I guess I'm free to waste my free time in whatever form I desire. As Dad always says to Mom when she gets on him about being out in the garage working on classic cars, "At least I'm not out at a bar every night!"
Well, I need to empty the dishwasher, fold the laundry, and clean up a little. The Hawkins' will be here soon for...ahem...Desperate Housewives.

Celebration at Bandidos

Following my successful interview, Shelly and I decided to go out to dinner at Bandido's Mexican Café. There we met some of the Chapel Hill locals who decided to join our party.

After a wait that lived up to its promised 20 to 25 minutes, we were seated. Jason kept up his usual practice of asking multiple waiters/waitresses for salsa bowls, as one bowl matched against the four of us is woefully inadequate. Jason grimaced as I selected my usual, the shrimp enchiladas (see left); Erika scowled at the poignant reminder that, with child, she is forbidden from partaking of seafood. Ok, those two things didn't actually happen.


Fast-forward now to today. Erika, reliving her former position as a nanny, has agreed to babysit the children of an acquaintance of hers. Lamentably, that leaves her firstborn unsupervised today and tomorrow. Long story short, Sonny's stuck with us for the weekend. At least he's had a dental checkup recently!

Interview Update

Just got back from my interview. It went well considering they offered me the position!
I'm expecting a call from them in the next few days to determine my salary, and I'll probably give my notice on Monday (which I'm not looking forward to).
It's going to be a big adjustment, but I took a packet of information home with me, and I'll read it over the next two weeks to get a jump on things my first day.
But for now, Thank you, God!

Amazing Race Reactions

For any Amazing Race watchers out there (this would mean you, Shelly and Jen), here's a worthy article about the last episode. There were quite a few things that made me raise an eyebrow, and she manages to hit most of them.
Astonishingly, she doesn't mention the beauty queens and the gay couple that both made the same idiotic mistake (taking a rowboat for a ten mile trip, rather than the large yacht like they were instructed), which resulted in the latter's elimination. I think that right there might take the cake for "Stupidest Amazing Race Moment Ever". I guess the adjective "amazing" applies to the participants as much as the race, and not in a necessarily positive way!

Interview!

Happy days and jubilation! Guess who has a job interview!
Last month I interviewed at my local credit union (which I happened to notice had a job opening when I went in to sign up for Shelly and I's joint account), made a good impression, but unfortunately was passed over for the job. Well, something else has come available, and my interviewer called me yesterday to come in for a second interview. I'll probably do that Friday, under the pretense of a dental appointment.
This would be great, for a number of reasons. And here they are:

1. Driving distance: 6 miles round trip (versus 66 currently)
2. Regular hours (busy season here can be 12+, virtually uncompensated)
3. Possible upward movement (nowhere to go currently)
4. No weekends
5. No endless after-hours calls about flat tires, malfunctioning equipment, wayward souls who need hotel rooms paid for, etc

Wish me luck! I could really use this break!

More Foley

I'm not really keeping this blog to comment on political stuff. I really want it to primarily be for keeping in touch with family and friends (though, as of yet, I've released the address to very few of them. I just want there to be more than a few posts to read when people finally make there way over here). But I can never resist commenting on pure vitriolic bunk when I see it.
I guess my first mistake was actually believing something written on the Op-Ed page of the Washington Post was worth reading, but any who wish to repeat my mistake can read Eugene Robinson's anti-GOP and anti-Christian screed here. Go ahead, I'll be here when you get back.
Here's a few excerpts for anyone who didn't want to put themselves through that particular torture:

"Let's deal with the circumstance that dares not speak its name:
How much of the Mark Foley scandal's impact is due to the fact that he's a gay
man who preyed on young boys?"

"There would still be a scandal, but I think Foley's now-acknowledged
homosexuality was crucial in turning a crisis for the party into a potential
catastrophe."

"The Republican Party has gone to such lengths to demonize homosexuality that it must pain the
leadership to reveal that such a thing as a gay Republican congressman could
even exist."

That's really interesting. According to this guy, Republicans are so anti-gay that they'll jump on any chance they can get to persecute them. Yet somehow, this bigoted and homophobic party ignored warning signs for years that one of their own was gay, and preying on teenage pages.
My, you'd think such a party would have happily exposed Foley as gay and drummed him out of Congress at the first opportunity. That'll learn 'em to stay out of our Party!
Unfortunately for their reelection chances this Fall, Republicans didn't do that. Since that doesn't fit his view of the GOP, Robinson rationalizes that either a) they were too cynically ashamed he was gay to make it public or b) they were so incompetent that they didn't know (you almost get the feeling that he dislikes Republicans for other reasons). Conveniently, he leaves out a totally plausible and increasingly likely third option: GOP leaders knew he was inappropriately friendly, maybe even that he was gay, but didn't have any solid evidence to do anything further with it. Since that's not a course of action fitting with Robinson's view of the evil, homophobic GOP, he doesn't consider it.
Then, of course, there's this gem:

"For some people who have no base of knowledge about gayness --
and, often, whose pastors routinely denounce homosexuality from the pulpit as a
sin -- the basic idea of recruitment, without all the paranoid conspiracy
trappings, seems to explain the inexplicable."

In case you missed it, the point here is that Republicans like to ginn up ignorant, easily-led Christian voters by beating up on the gays. These Christians, in turn, have no first hand knowledge of gays, but hate them because they swallow whatever their pastor feeds them from the pulpit every Sunday. Makes sense to Robinson, anyway. True Christians obviously know enough to handpick from the Bible which sins to take seriously and which are just God spouting off without knowing what He's talking about. (It's always great when a person whose party includes voters from the poorest, most uneducated demographics in the country starts talking about how dimwitted Christian voters are.)
Not to point out the obvious, but the sole 'anti-gay' policy of the Republican Party is preserving the institution of marriage for male/female relationships only, which is what it's been since the beginning of time. My little American Heritage dictionary, published back in the antiquated days of 1994, defines marriage as "the legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife." It was only in the last ten years, when homosexuals began demanding that all 'lifelong relationships' be defined the same way, that Republicans (and President Clinton, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act), simply said 'no' to this, and thus have been forever branded 'anti-gay'.
But oh well. What can you expect from a guy who somehow turns a story about a gay Congressman who preys on underage pages into an indictment of a party he sees as anti-gay?

America: Land of Opportunity

Having spent countless hours rehabilitating a second-hand Lexmark all-in-one printer, I now have the ability to scan pictures that I didn't take! Ok, in reality, someone left a Lexmark X83 out by the dumpster of our apartment complex, and as nothing was obviously wrong with it, I appropriated it during one of my thrice-daily dump runs. It's amazing what people will throw away. All that was missing was the power cord, which I promptly bought myself, and lo and behold, the thing works like a champ! So someone threw away a printer worth $200 new because it didn't have a power cord. People of other persuasions would take that as evidence that America is an evil land of opulent waste, but I just see it as one more opportunity this great place provides!
I've already used it to scan in a few of the more memorable pictures from our wedding, which I'll be forwarding to the concerned parties. Take that, bridesmaids! That's what you get for trying to force me to dance!

MD TRIP!

Great! Just got back word that my vacation has been approved for Thanksgiving! I'll be off starting Wednesday November 22nd and back at work on the 26th. Shelly and I will be coming up to Maryland, braving nightmare traffic jams, insane holiday motorists, and the greatest bottleneck of all the Eastern Seaboard, the Woodrow Wilson bridge! Say a prayer for our souls!
I'm also thinking something different for Thanksgiving Dinner this year... maybe, a Turducken?? I guess that depends on whether the Sudnick boys will be joining us this year... Turduckens feed 15-20, unless two of them are Steve and Scott!

Foley Scandal

Interesting article this morning by Dick Morris about the scandal involving Rep. Mark Foley.
I think he probably has a point about this being the final straw breaking the back of Republican's chances of keeping the House and Senate. Given how far we've fallen since the 1994 election, I'm not entirely sure it's a horrible turn of events, as a few years out of power might get the Party back to its values.
On the other hand, entrusting the Democrats with the War on Terror scares me, but at least we'll still have Bush in White House, and the executive is more involved with foreign policy aspects anyway.
I take issue with Morris in what he says this will mean to Republicans. Foley isn't going to be the face of the Republican Congress. To say that he'll be to Republicans what Clinton is to Democrats is ludicrous. Until last week, Foley was an obscure representative that most of America had never heard of, and he's very short on friends these days. Clinton was President, and virtually every Democrat came to his defense! Slightly different context there, isn't it?
But Morris is right about one other thing. This will be the Monica Lewinski for Republicans, but not the way he thinks. After Lewinski, Republicans overplayed their hand when they went to impeach Clinton. If Democrats get Congress, they'll do the exact same thing. Democrats are exceptionally skilled at misreading the electorate; if they win in November, it'll be largely because Republicans didn't clean house and strayed from their core values. Democrats, however, will see it as a total rejection of the Iraq War, aggressive anti-terrorism policies, and pro-growth economics, and once they get in, they won't be able to resist passing legislation reflecting that.
So if we lose control of Congress this election, so be it. Let America see what Dems do with power once they're unleashed. America will come back, probably running.

Just as a way of thanking Miss Glass for her kind comment (and plugging me on her blog), here is a pic of her and Shelly at one of Shelly's many bridal showers. What a winsome smile, ain't it, folks?

As indicated in my profile, and first post, I'm relatively new to the Chapel Hill area. Having met Shelly in July of '04, we decided to move down to NC the following spring. Here we are at one of the local landmarks, The Old Well, on the UNC campus. Shelly went to undergrad there.

Perhaps it's a testament to my habit of procrastination that only now, deep into the internet age, when blogs have already totally changed the way we process news (and every other aspect of life, were some prominent bloggers to be believed), that I am finally starting one of my own. Pretty much the only one I pay much attention to is RealClearPolitics.com, but what finally prompted me to do this was a friend of mine (my wife's, technically, I guess) who moved to California and now uses hers to great effect to communicate with her friends around the country ( www.jenglass.blogspot.com if you'd like to go visit, as you should). Since I'm currently transplanted far from most of my family and friends in Maryland, and often go weeks and weeks without talking to some of them, I thought I'd try something similar.
Hopefully it will work out well and not go down that lonely, deserted road like so many of my other hobbies.
More later, hopefully. I'd really love for this not to be my only post ever!