Bringing the Drama

on Thursday before i left work, i had a good talk with my home shop manager. a quick rundown, so in the program where i do rotations in different departments, i’m still badged to the department i was hired in, which is called ‘home shop’. anyway, so the manager who’s my home shop manager now is different from the one i originally worked for, and IMO much better. the past month or so, i’ve gone to talk to her a few times about my job and my job prospects. it’s awesome to have someone at work who’s higher up than me to go talk to about some of the frustrations with my current job and have them listen. she’s able to give me some advice, and i feel better about the current state of things….up to a point anyway. i went and talked to her about my current job hunt and filled her in on my meet up with a guy in town from ATL. one of my friends in ATL told me about her old boss coming down to NOLA and arranged me to meet him. i went and talked to him Thursday AM for probably an hour. he gave me some advice on job searching, and about what he was working on. why does almost every other job i hear about seem cooler than mine?

back to the home shop manager, she told me about maybe why one of the jobs i bid for got turned down so quickly (because apparently the people in Denver aren’t very open to hiring non-Denver people). she also told me that i probably wouldn’t hear much until after the new year starts. yuck. this means i will probably have to start up taking grad school classes again. i’m not really excited about that. hopefully i’ll just find one class i can take which won’t cause me to lose my mind. i am DEFINITELY not going to schedule two classes ever again, one is bad enough.

so probably a month or so ago i noticed the Reba McEntire/Kelly Clarkson tour was going to be hitting Biloxi. i didn’t really know who to ask, because all the people who i went with to see KC two summers ago live far away. last Sunday in Sunday School, i brought up the show, and as soon as the words left my lips two girls went “OMG! FOR REAL?” newly listed last week was a 4 pack of tickets that lowered the per ticket price from $47 and $57 to $25, take that TM! (of course after the fees they were $35 each)

i knew the show would not be as cool as the last time i saw KC. that weekend will go down as one of the greatest weekends ever. nothing was going to come close to my friend Mike and i wearing American flag bandanas, nothing was going to be as great as jumping and flailing about during the show. sure, The Reeb would be there but really, would all of the fun?

i met the girls i was going with at the carpool meetup spot and we set off for the coliseum. immediately upon getting there we were stuck in traffic. the people directing traffic were not professionals and that getting out would be a nightmare. i parked on the last row of the parking lot, avoiding being blocked in. i’m not sure who suggested it (not me) that to kill time after, we could go wait by the tour buses. i figured that would be fine, since it would be either that or sit in the car for 30 minutes.

when we got inside we walked up to our seats, and saw it wasn’t really that crowded. we watched the opening act, who was the girl who played Barbara Jean on Reba’s show doing a comedy act. it was alright, but most of what she said was how cool Reba was, which got old after a while. the lights went down and Reba and Kelly took the stage! after the 2nd song (Why Haven’t I Heard From You?) we moved down to seats opposite the stage, so we had a great view of the video screen and everything. after we moved down there, i saw plenty of other people move. why sit in the $25 seats when you could move down to the seats twice as expensive?

the show was a lot of fun, and they both went through their major hits and some covers. KC only did two songs off her newest album, which was kind of surprising. she of course did the big hits off Breakaway, and i noticed Reba learned the words to a few songs this time since i saw her with KC on Crossroads. i only knew 5 or so Reba songs before the show and she did all of those. they also did some older Reba songs which probably made the older people in the crowd happy. you could tell Reba was really good at telling stories between songs, but Kelly wasn’t. there were a lot of old ladies in the crowd, so when Kelly would say something that she probably thought was funny, it would feel awkward because the older people wouldn’t really cheer.

they finished the main set having not sung “Since U Been Gone” or “Fancy”. you knew they HAD to do both of them. so the crowd’s cheering, and the arena is dark, and then the bands come on stage and start playing music that ended up being SUBG. Reba and Kelly emerged back to back from a riser at the top of the stairs. OMG! they sang it and everyone’s going crazy, and then they started Fancy. the entire crowd is up on their feet screaming and yelling and singing. the lights on the stage are at their peak, and then they finished. it was amazing!

after the show, we sat in our seats as the crowd was leaving. there were so many hair and fashion disasters, it was almost hard to believe. i went past the merch booth on the way out and while there saw a guy with a Reba tour shirt and i think it said either 1991 or 1998 (is either okay?). he was telling the girl he was with, which shirts he saw that he already had. it was kind of scary. he kind of looked like the brother from Napoleon Dynamite. after we walked outside, we saw the insane amount of traffic, so we walked around to find the tour buses. there were probably 30-40 other people back there, including one group of ladies who i think were intentionally trying to channel Reba. they all had sequin type shirts on and that mid to late 90s Reba haircut. i almost asked to get a picture with one of them, but i didn’t. the security guards were kind of jerks and made up stories to get everyone to leave. i felt bad, because most of the people back there seemed to be normal people who just wanted to catch a glimpse of their heroine (Reba). by the time the tour bus drama ended, the traffic had cleared out, so we hopped in the car and headed home.

as if i didn’t need anymore motivation for the football games to watch today, i went to my high school alma mater (Northshore) and watched them take on their main rival (Slidell). my senior year was the FIRST time Northshore ever beat Slidell. beating them was a BIG DEAL. it takes up at least a couple of pages in my senior book (yes, i felt compelled to make one of those, but it’s basically just pictures and newspaper clippings). i was a jerk about the rivalry the rest of the year to people in my youth group. it was kind of awesome.

i haven’t been back to the school for a football game in a long time. i may have gone with my friend Ryan (who’s now in NC) but i don’t think so. for last night’s game, i emailed the young adult group at my church to see if anyone wanted to go. i had a couple of takers, so we were all going to meet at the school. the parking was INSANE! i made it in and walked up to the bleachers just as they kicked off. my friend Ehren was the first one there, and as we walked up to the bleachers, i told her i used to hate walking in front of everyone in the bleachers when i was in HS. i don’t know why, but i was. last night, we walked in front of everyone looking for a seat. we found one about the 35 yard line.

the only bad part of our seats were this lady in front of us who brought confetti to the game. CONFETTI! everytime Northshore did something good, she’d throw it, all over, which meant it got all over the people in front of her, and around her. i’ve heard of air horns at games, and signs, but confetti? i don’t recommend bringing it to a game unless you’re surrounded by a good sized radius of people who are cool with it.

the game was fantastic! of course, it had it’s sloppy moments with a lot of fumbles and penalties, but for a high school game i thought they looked decent. both QBs played really well i thought. apparently the NHS QB went 20-32 for 327 yards! they don’t give you stats during a HS game, and there’s always that announcer who’s RIGHT IN YOUR EAR it seems giving you a sort of play by play using the nicknames of the players. my old AP Am History teacher made an XP at halftime and apparently won a year’s supply of Chick Fil A sandwiches. the 2nd half was a lot more exciting, esp the 4th quarter. Northshore scored with 7 minutes to play, then Slidell scored with 3:27 to play, then Northshore got the winning TD with 46 seconds to play! the D finally rose up and stopped Slidell on the final drive, and then pandemonium ensued. it was great. i don’t know exactly how many times Northshore’s won this game since i graduated, but i felt very proud.

the new Ryan Adams album, Cardinology, came out today. i have been listening to the album via the stream from facebook a lot since it debuted last week. i love these songs. i haven’t really loved an album so fast before. hearing the songs live just flipped my anticipation for the album into overdrive. i emailed friends during the day at work to talk about it or sat listening to the stream and IMing friends about how good the songs were and gushing about the lyrics. it got a bit ridiculous.

finally today, i was able to go buy the cd (the vinyl is on order and won’t be here for a few more days). i didn’t have any issues getting it at best buy this afternoon, which was nice. i’ve had issues before trying to get new releases because most of the time the workers at BB suck at music. i went running tonight, and ate dinner when i got back. now i’m relaxing with some hot chocolate (it’s getting down to 35 tonight!) before bed listening to the album. what a great way to end the day.

so i know i need to type about the Ryan Adams shows from last week, but today i went to the doctor for a followup to the MRI i had done Thursday. he looked through all the pictures and didn’t see a labrum tear, or at least not one bad enough to require full on surgery. he said he saw something that was a little suspect, and told me to keep doing therapy (at home and the gym, not going to PT) and if i still had pain after a month or so, to call him and he could do a quick outpatient scope and fix the damage. my shoulder has felt light years better than it did a month or so ago, so the PT and being smarter about how i move it have definitely worked.

btw, the MRI on Thursday was actually an arthrogram. because labrum tears are hard to see in a regular MRI, they injected a dye into my shoulder so any tears would show up better. i had to go an hour early for them to inject the dye. the radiologist deadened the area then put some blanket type things up over my face so i couldn’t see the needle (which was probably a good thing, because i think it was probably pretty big). it didn’t really hurt, giving blood probably hurts worse, and i don’t think it’s that big of a deal. i had to wait an hour after they injected the dye before the MRI could be done. after the hour passed, they walked me back to the truck where the machine was. they laid me down on the bed thing and put my shoulder in some kind of contraption to keep it still. one of the nurses gave me earplugs because she said the machine was loud (and it was, so i was really glad for the earplugs). they moved me back into the tube and started the test. i was supposed to keep as still as possible which wasn’t too hard, although i was keeping my eyes closed because there was about an inch or two from my face to the wall of the tube. i think i may have dozed off, i have no idea. i think it lasted about 30 minutes before they moved me out of it. the nurse said a couple of the pictures came out blurry, but she said everything else went fine, and the number of blurry ones was no big deal. she said she took about 120 images. after it was over, my shoulder felt pretty stiff and sore, but nothing too bad. i went home and packed, then headed up to Tuscaloosa. more on that tomorrow.

also, today at work i saw an article on a plugin Mini. kind of expensive at $850 a month now, but hopefully soon i can get a car that requires no gas and i can plug it in overnight to use in the morning. combine that with eventually having solar power to produce electricity, which would also charge the car, and you have a completely self sufficient system going. the road trip aspect of plugin cars needs some work though. a range of 150 miles wouldn’t have done me any good this past weekend. if they can get the range up to 500 or 600 miles, they’ll have something.

i went yesterday to the gym. i saw CGG. i avoided making eye contact with him walking over to where the locker room is. he was talking with some guy amongst the machines. i get into the locker room and am facing the lockers and i get a pat on the shoulder “Hey Scott, working out again?” he went to the back of the locker room to get something, and then on his way back, stops and goes “you still rehabbing that shoulder?” “yeah” “cool, i rehabbed mine earlier”. that was it, he was gone. the awkward conversation was shorter than last time, but no less creepy. i went and worked out, and noticed he had left, so i’m thinking he gets done with work about 5:30, so i guess the key is to go after that time. i don’t plan on changing my schedule or anything, but i will remember for next time.

today was supposed to be a day i go running. i ended up not going, so i feel a little lazy, but i want to get to bed early tonight (BEFORE 10 pm!), so i figured it best not to go running 4 miles at 8:30. however, i did get some great deals on stuff on my way home. i went shopping for a new set of headphones to use when i go run, because the $8 pair i bought at Walmart have been falling out of my ears. apparently if i go on a long enough run, my ear sweats a certain way that makes the right headphone fall out. i googled some better headphones and found people recommending these funky green ones. i stopped by Target on the way home (i had stayed late at work, so it was like 6:30 when i got there). they didn’t have the green ones, and the ones they did have i wasn’t really into. i decided to take a walk over to Circuit City. before i left Target, i noticed the Lego Star Wars game for Wii was on clearance for $20. i was tempted, but i was on a mission. at CC i saw one of my friends from work so i talked to her about property taxes (we live in the same neighborhood) and work issues. after talking with her, i found my way to the headphones. they were a bit hard to find, and of course when you actually need an employee in this case, they are all somewhere else. anyway, i found the ones i saw at Target that i wasn’t too jazzed about, and they were $4 cheaper. nice! as i’m walking away, i look for any alternatives, and i saw the green ones! they were on clearance for $22! SCORE! i bought them. then i went back over to Target and bought the Star Wars game. i got home about 8:00 thus not going to go run. i’ll be back at it Thursday morning though (no work Thursday because of MRI and then RA ROAD TRIP 2008! [more on that later])

the three teams i care most about in football are the Saints, Clemson, and LSU. before Sunday, i had to endure all three losing in excruciating fashion, especially the first two. the Saints game last Monday night was at the time one of the worst games i’ve seen in a long time. they made SO MANY mistakes, and then still, in spite of the mistakes and the bad calls from the officials, had a chance to win at the end. unfortunately they did not. i still had hope, because Clemson was playing on Thursday and they had beaten Wake Forest two years in a row. however, they came out and looked AWFUL. the entire game was a train wreck. neither team could do anything. then Clemson scored a TD to take a 7-3 lead, but ultimately fell 12-7. awful. and now they are pretty much out of the ACC title hunt. also, now the fans are in turmoil with all the controversy surrounding the coaching staff. okay, that’s fine, because LSU still had to play. LSU looked the worst of the three teams and lost by 30. THIRTY! ugh.

yesterday’s Saints game made up for a lot, because they looked great, offensively and defensively. it didn’t exactly make me feel like a couple of weeks ago, but it makes me think they are geniunely one of the better 3-3 teams. look out Carolina!

today Clemson’s head coach stepped down. i was a little distraught after the Alabama game, but got over it. after the Maryland game, i really was upset with the offensive coordinator, but also the QB. after Wake though, i wanted someone fired. esp after Auburn fired their OC. why couldn’t Clemson do the same? the timing of today’s announcement surprised me, but not the result. if it turns out that they can get the new coach they want, then that’s cool. the most upsetting thing is the whiny comments from the former starting QB who was benched the other day, but with the head coaching change, may be restored to being starter. i would hope not, because a leader who’s into kicking someone when they’re down and not taking responsibility is not someone i want leading my team.

so long Coach Bowden. i’ll always remember the first game against Marshall in 1999. the 62-9 win over Missouri. the heartbreak i felt after GT in 2000. the euphoria after “the catch” in 2000. the OT win over GT in 2001. (MCKELVEY……TOUCHDOWN!) the miraculous win over FSU in 2003. 63-17. the 2004 Peach Bowl. 1st and 35. the incredible games in 2006. 7-2 against the gamecocks. thanks for all you’ve done for my school.

[shoulder update: i went for my 2nd appointment at the orthopedist on Wednesday and he recommended another month of PT. i had talked it over with the PT i had been seeing, and decided i would ask for an MRI if he did not recommend it first. i asked him about getting an MRI done now, because of the job possibilities (nothing yet, but i don't want the shoulder thing hanging out there if i don't have to) and a limit on PT visits in a year. he understood, and i have an MRI scheduled for next week.]

ever since i started going to PT for my shoulder, i’ve been going to the gym three times a week to lift weights and stuff. the PT place is at the gym, so i figured i had no excuse to not go lift weights afterward because IT IS RIGHT THERE! anyway, i am able to do everything that doesn’t involve lifting something over my head or machines where my arm is lifted. one of the first times i started going, this gym employee kind of startled me because i was reading something on a bulletin board, and this guy walks right by me and goes “hey” as i’m turning around. he kind of sideled up to me because i had no idea he was going to be right there. we had this awkward “i didn’t mean to scare you/oh don’t worry, it’s okay” conversation. now though, every time since that i’ve seen him, he makes sure to say hey. it’s kind of creepy. when i go to the gym, i just want to work out, i don’t want to have awkward head nods or conversations.

fast forward to today…..i walk up to get my keychain scanned by one of the people at the desk and there’s the guy! and as the girl behind the desk starts to walk over, he goes “no, i got this one” (creepy). apparently he thinks he’s my friend. so he scans my keychain which pulls up my info and he says “have a good workout scott”. i hate that! they used to have the scanner where you could scan the keychain yourself, but they changed it a few months ago, and now you have to have one of the employees scan it. so sometimes they use your name which bugs me because i don’t know their name, but they are telling me to have a good workout. anyway, so i go change clothes and start doing PT on my shoulder (i’ve stopped going to actual PT until i get MRI results) and Creepy Gym Guy comes up to me. he says “looks like you’re rehabbing your shoulder, what’d you do to it?” so i had to tell him how i didn’t know, and it might be a torn labrum or an impinged muscle, they don’t know, i won’t know until i get an MRI, etc. nothing i wanted to talk about with someone i didn’t know, i just wanted to pull the handle on this machine down 25 times and move on. so then he starts saying how he messed up his shoulder and he had to do rehab and how he missed playing golf, then he asked me if i played golf. i was wishing the guy would leave me alone. i get it, i get that he wants to be friendly, but i don’t want to talk to him. he asked me where i played golf, and i told him the course out by my house, but only cause it’s the cheapest. he said he knows a guy that lives out there, and if i know him. (there’s like 500 people in that neighborhood, i don’t know anyone) i told him i didn’t, so he says “oh, he’s probably 10 years older than you, what are you like 28?” i answered “yeah, something like that.” after that exchange i guess he had to go wash some towels or something.

this was not the only awkward conversation i had of the day….when i got to work this morning, i noticed BO Guy was already there. he usually gets there about 8:00 am with his rolling briefcase. i acknowledged him by saying “hey, you’re here early”. uh oh. then i had to have a 10 minute conversation where i learned when he lived in California, he would wake up at 4 am, start the broiler (not sure what was on the broiler), go run 2 and a quarter miles, then come home, flip the broiler, then take a shower. he would leave his house by 6:30 to get to work by 6:50. the whole time i was going “dude, i didn’t want to get into all of this.” so weird.

with the main project where i work eventually ending, the mother company set up an internal job fair to place people so they wouldn’t have to get laid off. i’m not technically on that project anymore, but i am looking for a new job, so i printed off some resumes and went after work yesterday. i was kind of nervous before, because i wasn’t really sure what i wanted to do or where i wanted to go. the job fair had EVERY unit of the company and every location, which made it about 15 or 20 different sets of people to talk to. i ended up talking to the people closely related to the 3 jobs i’ve already applied to, as well as people involved in the jobs i’d like to do. i’m not really sure straight engineering is my bag anymore, so i’m looking for a change in location and job function. the people last night sounded like they could help me accomplish both. i was very encouraged leaving to go home, because the people sounded legit in their “send me your resume and we’ll get this ball rolling” thing. it’s not something i have not heard before, but last night they sounded like they meant it. one guy was even ready to give me his cell phone number if he had any questions, but i declined. work numbers are fine with me unless you’re the CEO of the company. i’m going to email my resume off to the people i met last night today and we’ll see what happens. it sounded like i’ll have options, so i hope they all come through.

speaking of my resume, i was a little self conscious about it because it’s been the same basic format for years. i have my jobs listed then bullet points listing highlights. i saw one guy’s resume on one of the tables while i was talking to someone and it had his name and address at the top, then his job listing was like one big long paragraph! seeing that made me feel a little better about my resume.

i got home about 7:40 and decided not to go to small group that started at 7:30. instead, i kept on my pace towards the half marathon and ran 4 miles. it’s been getting cooler here, so running last night was fantastic. i even felt good after the first mile….(it’s always the hardest i think). i have to run 6 miles on Saturday which i’m not looking forward to, but i’m going to try.

today there was no carpool, so it was just me in the car on the way to work. i FINALLY broke out my FM transmitter for my Nano to use in the car. i’ve been struggling with the radio lately, even the classic rock radio, because it seems they play the same 50 or so songs. (a lot of AC/DC for some reason). yesterday i uploaded a lot of songs to my iPod and almost filled it, so i have about 600 songs. anyway, on the way to work this morning, i had the songs on shuffle and Yellow came on. in the serene morning on the bridge, it felt like the perfect song for that moment. i remembered the show i went to in Houston hearing Yellow and how everyone collectively smiled, how Yellow was the first Coldplay song i had ever heard, how at that concert i felt a part of something bigger than just me, blah blah blah.

(why oh why was Viva La Vida so bad?!? i really wanted to like it!)

after this past weekend’s college football games i don’t know what to believe anymore. i remember back in my Catechism days, we had a retreat and we played this game called Backpack Mess Up. it was something where everyone would be categorized as something normally found in a backpack. then the person leading the game would call out items and those people would have to move around. then if the person said backpack mess up, everyone had to move around. come to think of it the game wasn’t that much fun, and it doesn’t really make any sense as i described it. so this weekend in college football felt like backpack mess up. four top 10 teams lost, including UF on a blocked XP (wtf?). Clemson blew an easily winnable game that defies logic. everything i thought i knew was turned upside down. except LSU won, and that was the one thing all weekend that made sense.

the Saints game on Sunday made me feel great. it felt like 2006 again. hopefully it’s a sign of things to come for the season and not an aberration. welcome back Deuce!