Bringing the Drama

(another old story seeing the light of day)

Back in September, I had the great luck of having my friend Ryan call me and invite me to the Saints-Falcons game. I did not hesitate to accept. He even comp’d my ticket when I told him I was unemployed at the time. We left right after I finished up with SS, and went down to the game. We had a parking pass, so we had to wait in a bunch of traffic, but we made it inside in plenty of time. We got to take part in the new WHO DAT chant, which was AWESOME! Then the game started. Ugh.

The Saints did not have one of their best games, but somehow found a way to actually have a chance to win in regulation. After the defense let ATL keep the ball 90% of the game, and Tony Gonzalez to catch 30 passes, the Saints were in a position to steal a win. ATL called timeout to ice the Saints kicker, and over the PA the BEP song “I Gotta Feeling”, or whatever they call it, starts playing. The kicker was warming up on the sideline, they had not kicked yet. When I heard that song, I thought to myself “if he misses, it’s because of this song, it’s a jinx!” I even told my friend Ryan that as we waited for the timeout to conclude. The kick was a short FG, so what could go wrong, right? From where we were sitting, it looked like he made it. Then we realized he missed the kick, and I shook my fist in disgust screaming “it was that song, THAT SONG! I hate the BEP!” The Saints then went on to lose in OT. It wasn’t just that they lost, but how they lost. My buddy Sean called a timeout right before the ball was snapped for the ATL kicker in OT, but the kick went off anyway, and the guy missed. They waved it off for the timeout, and then the guy drilled it on his 2nd try. Of course he did.

Maybe the universe is getting payback for me having gone to the Dome re-opening game.

So while I was on my 6 month vacation, I started to watch Top Gear. I had seen clips of it before, but had never really watched an episode. My fiancée has Netflix, and we have it streamed through my Wii. They have four seasons for streaming, and I am pretty sure I watched each episode. I watched the videos on YouTube and started following them on Twitter. I heard about the American version starting in the fall, and thought “this could be really good!” Then I saw the first trailer. I hated it. I thought it looked stupid and childish. The UK version is so refined and cool, and I thought the American version was trying to be stupid on purpose. Americans can be refined too! Anyway, with much trepidation I watched the first episode. It was awful. I watched the 2nd episode, which was a little better. The third episode was where the trailer was taken from, and I thought it would suck. It was awesome. I quickly realized the trailer clip was completely out of context on its own. Watching the full episode had me laughing several times in a good way. The fifth episode came and had me hysterically laughing at the tests they were putting their out of production GM examples through. The Vacation/Family Truckster jokes did not hurt either.

They still have some kinks to work out like the famous people interviews, and one of the hosts needs to learn to get comfortable in front of the camera, but it has definitely been improving since the first episode. I look forward to the day where they don’t say “on this show you won’t see (fill in objective of lame reality show), but if you like cars this is the place for you” at the beginning of each episode. I guess they have to say that because people are still learning what Top Gear is about, but it seems awkward. I’m just glad the USA version is at least on the right track. (har har)

To my faithful reader(s), in the eternal words of Michael Jordan….I’m back. It’s been a while since I even started to type an entry. I’ve been keeping the good things posts and all, but over the summer was not very interested in blogging. Most of the stuff that would happen was because I was unemployed, and that was not very fun to talk about. It was embarrassing, and I know it should not have been, but I hated talking about it. HATED IT. So I didn’t type posts, because I felt everything that happened was somehow related.

The anger I had towards my old job has mostly subsided. I really hated working there the last few months. Nothing made sense, managers were clueless, and program directors had no idea of what actually went on. I think I was axed because I was truthful about looking for another job rotation because of the grim program outlook. I even buffered what I said with “I’m just trying to find out all my options.” When it came down to it, none of my managers were helpful trying to find me another job. I’ve learned in recent grad school classes how managers should behave, and none of my old managers did any of that. No wonder the program is on shaky footing.

I went on an interview to ATL (with the same company) over the summer and eventually was offered the job. The job seemed interesting enough, and the guys I interviewed with were cool, but the pay increase was peanuts. I had always felt underpaid, so to move to ATL for a 5% pay increase was not worth my time. I was in touch with a recruiter for that job, and when I showed doubt about the offer, he made me feel like the company was doing me a favor because of all the layoffs in NOLA. Thing was, I was the one who found the job and I was the one who applied. No HR person helped me, even though I had heard people were supposedly doing that. When I turned it down, he asked me what I was going to do, as if I did not have any other options. Of course, that’s his job, to get me in that position, but I just felt most of the people I dealt with whether it be the recruiter, or the worthless people who worked in the ‘transition center’, did not know how to deal with an educated person who knew his options. I explained to the guy that I was dating a girl at the time, and engagement was imminent, also that I did not think the salary was worth me moving away from her and all my friends for a job that was not THAT great. I even told him “it’s not like I’m taking a pay cut because I’m signing with the Yankees.”

I eventually found a new job thanks to a friend at a job fair. The interview went well, and I weighed the pros and cons. The only con was the commute. I grew up at my grandparents’ in Metairie during the day while my parents worked downtown until I went to 1st grade. I remember those long drives in the evenings. I never thought I’d be doing that. I needed a job though, and this one seemed to be giving me a good opportunity I had never had before. I had grown tired of sitting at home and reading books. Not that there’s anything wrong with reading books, but I wanted something to do. (Incidentally, I reached my goal of reading every HP book before the first movie) The commute has not been as bad as I thought. I wake up by 4:30 am, leave by 5:30 am and get home around 5:30 pm. I’ve gotten used to the drive, and the times I am traveling on most days it has only added 15 minutes to my commute. The job has been awesome. So far so good.

So during my unemployment, I’ve been reading the books I’ve bought over the past few years that I never have gotten around to reading. I’ve finished off the massive Book of Basketball that I had gotten for Christmas, tore through the first two Hunger Games books, and finally started to read the Harry Potter books, all of which I bought in hardback from Amazon when the 7th book came out. I honestly don’t know how it really ends, I’ve managed to avoid spoilers.

(If you don’t want the 3rd Harry Potter book ruined for you, stop reading right now)

Last week I finished HP3, the Prisoner of Azkaban. I have the DVDs of the first three movies, but haven’t watched them in years. All I could remember was that Sirius Black was not really evil. The book was fantastic, but I did have one problem with it. Maybe it’s from having seen Back to the Future a bunch of times, but how was Harry able to send the Patronus the first time? In PoA, the plot does not play out without the Patronus coming around the lake. In BTTF, that’d be like Marty going back in time, but his parents being successful before he left because everything had been fixed already. Does this make sense? I’d understand it if everything happened, and then Harry and Hermoine went back in time and changed the result, but the result was already happening before they went back in time.

I just wanted to see what the people who may still read my blog thought. I know I’m trying to nitpick about a story that involves dragons and wizards, but I figured someone else out there may have thought the same thing.

BTW, I haven’t really read a lot of books in a long time. I know when I do get a new job, I’m still going to make time to read. I actually suggested dressing up as book characters for Halloween but was shot down mercilessly.