So,
I suppose a lot has happened. At least it surely feels like it.

Ah yes, now it is coming to me.

I have 2nine.us up and running… and as of now this is a public blog (but nobody has the link to it yet). I only have to create one more page and it will be done for a while. I am undecided how I am going to make the “blogs” page as of yet.

The week was pretty uneventful, I had an interview with Aflac on the 15th but it turned out to be a fully commissioned job. No thanks. I checked a little bit more into the “bankers” job and it was the same thing, just selling life insurance instead. I had an interview on Thursday, but I called them and told them thanks- but no thanks…

That brings us to the weekend, or at least Friday. I woke up early. 🙂 I know, crazy right? But I was up at 7am – that is the earliest I had been up and moving in a while. I went to the Ted Haggard Leaders gathering they had at Living Hope. They had invited everyone from the church to go as the event didn’t fill just having invited church leaders/pastors. It was good, it was interesting… and a little awkward.

Why? well .. lets lay the scenario. I sat down at this table with this other guy who was sitting by himself. I asked him how he was, where he was from.. if he was part of the church… you know. General stuff. He was polite. After he told me he wasn’t a part of Living Hope- I asked him if he was a part of a church, or if he went to church. He said he didn’t go to any church. I just nodded and started to change the subject- he seemed uneasy. I think that it’s funny that when people start a sentence with: ‘no offense- but….’ they feel that enables them to say anything. But those were the next words out of this man’s mouth. ‘No offense- but…. I’ve forgotten more of the bible than You’ll ever know.’

Um. Okay. I don’t know where he got that from. I wasn’t going to say anything about him not going to church. Heck – in Arizona I wasn’t going to church. I wasn’t going to pursue the issue and press for answers – and overall I thought it was a very rude thing to say. Heck, I didn’t come to do any harm.

Anyway- I learned a lot about circumstances and viewpoints by hearing Ted and Gayle’s point of view on what went down. The grace and truth collided. It was a great atmosphere. After the event was over- I checked my phone. I had gotten a call from Providence.

Ah yes Providence. I had received an email from this company telling me that they were going with other people. I was aggravated as I felt that there was nothing better I could have done on the interview. I wanted answers. I shot off an email asking for feedback of the whole thing. She called in response to the email. So I sat outside the church, parked in my car talking to the woman from Providence. She told me she was pulling up my file, then after a minute she said “ah ha… mmhmm.. okay then, well..” then she began to tell me how I went wrong. How every indicator that they gave me was way off center. “It says here that.. well….” Yes? What was it exactly..? “…well it says that you were quiet. That you seemed nervous.” I sat in silence, waiting for the punch line. Okay, and? “well that was it, they didn’t feel like this would be a good fit because you were nervous.” Really? So you are telling me that I don’t have to work on my answers or presentation… it was just that I was nervous? “Yes, we suggest that next time- for any future employers that you practice in front of a mirror.” Oh boy, that was a big help. It was my first panel interview. I had the HR lady and 3 corporate managers asking me questions.. I didn’t think being nervous would be a bad thing. At least none of my answers were bad. She continued, “but don’t see this as a disappointment (I am thinking, oh no.. I love not getting a job, it makes me feel successful) but rather look at the numbers – because they were being very very selective. So if someone wasn’t nervous they went with that particular person over you.” Yeah, that makes me feel a ton better. I reaffirmed with her that there was nothing else. She told me nothing else. But she did give me some numbers. “There were 487 people who applied for the job. You were up against a big number, then out of those people we only gave 90 interviews face to face. After all of the interviews, no matter how qualified the candidates were – there were only 20 open spots.” Ah ha. Well I thanked her for her time and ended the call. It was frustrating, because I walked out of the interview thinking I had the job in hand. Ugh…

Okay, moving on. On Saturday morning I left at around 1:30 pm to go visit my brother. I got up around the area around 5.. and wasted an hour just looking around at various things until the visitation time at 6. Once we started our visit things went well. We had things to talk about for 3 hours. Just me and him, talking about all sorts of things. It was a good visit.. we really haven’t had a bad visit with him. Anyway – at 9:10 I left the visitation and started to drive home. I didn’t get back until after 1am. I was pretty tired. I went to bed shortly thereafter.

Sunday, ah yes Sunday. I told you I had a lot to talk about. On Sunday I went to Living Hope – again waking up in the morning (but not as early as the two previous days). I went and Sat in back a little farther than normal. Worship started, then nearing the end of worship two people sat down in front of me. They announced it was visiting time.

Ted Haggard turns around and introduces himself (ha, as if I didn’t know). I shook his hand and did some chit chat with him as he introduced his wife. I was very surprised to have met him. I know we didn’t talk about anything important – but still, it was quite the event of the year – for me at least. I wished him a happy fathers day and shortly after he and his wife took the stage and I listened to the message. Afterwards I went home and hung out with JJ the rest of the evening.

On Monday I printed out passes to go pre screen “My Sisters Keeper” with Cameron Diaz. I checked my email late that afternoon and I had received an email telling me that I won passes to pre screen the Transformers – Revenge of the Fallen movie. Very cool. I was able to bring a guest so I brought along JJ. I got a T-shirt of the movie and a poster too. It was a very good movie. Semi-long, but it kept you entertained the whole way through. And Megan Fox looks good as ever.

So! After that, we went home and just watched TV. Yesterday and today I have just been applying to jobs with almost anywhere that is hiring. I got news from Ellen in an email that she is leaving the company. She said “I announced on Monday I was leaving LifeLock. My last day will be next week. I’ve accepted a management position at a company called Early Warning. I will be starting up a new Investigative Department for them working with the major financial institutions. It was a big decision to leave LifeLock but it’s a great opportunity for me. Continue to provide updates to Chris Ronson and copy Mary Aranki.”

Crazy crazy, things are changing a lot.

I think that is all I have. Tonight I watched the last episode of “I’m a celebrity – get me out of here!” and Lou Diamond Phillips won the event. That was fitting as he was the most level headed on the whole show.

The past two days JJ has kind of been really quiet and tonight he is MIA, dunno where he’s at but I’m sure he is enjoying himself.

Anyway, sorry about not updating last week and for the extra long post this week. I am sure in the upcoming days the Blazers will be making some sort of headlines and when they do I’ll be back to talk about it.

just Pray