Things have been better...

Okay, so I know it’s been a while since I chatted with you guys … sorry about that. Although I’m pretty sure that nobody cares too much…

Life’s been beating me up quite a bit lately. The worst part is the lack of employment. I did, however, have three phone interviews a couple of days ago. The first and third were for the same job and the result of the third was a rather kindly written rejection email that I received yesterday. Not that I blame them or anything – I suffered third degree “brain freeze” during the interview and wasn’t even able to remember tool commands that I was using on a daily basis a bit over a year and a half ago. Granted, they all came flooding back to memory somewhere around 15 minutes after the interview was over and there’s nothing like remembering the answers after the test has been taken…

I’m really not that upset about not getting that job as it would have required me to spend what was sounding like a minimum of seven months in Santa Clara, California; and my interpretation from the discussions pretty much lead me to believe that it may have ended up becoming a permanent move over time. No thanks. I’ve spent enough time in the ole Silicon Valley back in my Avant! days to make the thought of moving out there rather gut-wrenching. Besides, I rather enjoy living in my little house here in Colorado.

This, of course, brings me to the second interview. That was for a short (2-3 month) contract job down in the Tempe, Arizona area. Word from my recruiter is that the manager I spoke with was impressed with me however nothing more has come of that yet. I was pretty much expecting a call yesterday to possibly schedule the next interview with an actual engineer but haven’t received said call. Perhaps I’ll send the recruiter an email to inform her that the Santa Clara job is no longer an issue. Yeah, that would probably be a good idea; but 2-3 months is rather short. Oh well, I guess I better do something soon…

I’ve even been thinking about getting back in touch with the recruiters in England that landed me that job in Germany. From what I have been told, they apparently have several positions to fill throughout Europe pretty much at any time. I don’t know … it just seems to me that – being an American citizen and all – I should be able to find decent employment here in the states. It’s a bad sad to me that an experienced engineer can’t find a job that doesn’t require him to live away from his house for extended periods of time, though. Doesn’t that pretty much defeat the purpose of buying a house to begin with? Sure, I can own a house but I can’t live there – something’s a bit mixed-up with that…

Good news is that I do believe that I have successfully paid my German taxes that had been due for the last few months. I “believe” this as I have not received any more letters requesting payment and am going by the “no news is good news” policy. I haven’t received anything verifying that the payment was received; however I most likely wouldn’t be able to read it anyway – all the requests for payment I received were written in German leading me to believe that any correspondence from Germany would be the same. I’ve heard nothing from my German accountant either; although I was informed that her office was closed until August 13th – Europeans make vacations a must – and I suppose she may have just not gotten around to writing me yet… I do believe that the bank routing number issues were resolved correctly and the money was correctly received. I suppose we’ll see how long that belief rings true sometime in the near future, maybe…

Well, that’s pretty much all I have to say for now. Perhaps I’ll write up a little article on my latest poker endeavors sometime soon but there’s really not much to say. I’ve been a regular at the “Wacky Wednesdays” up at the Gilpin Casino in Blackhawk but must admit that my earnings are currently in the red. I’ve even been having discussions with Todd about moving out to Vegas and giving the poker-for-a-living thing a shot; but I seriously doubt that’s going to actually happen. I guess one never really knows until one actually does, though. I’ll let you know if that ever happens…

bis später,

Coriolis