Dial-up weekend

This was a very unique last few days. My last post was at 12:01am on Friday, so although by the calendar it looks like I’ve only missed one day, in actuality I haven’t posted since late Thursday night, so late it was really Friday morning.

One thing I didn’t mention in any of my posts on Thursday was an interesting e-mail I got earlier that evening. I was contacted by a gentleman who said he was the Systems Administrator for the Math department over at UNM. He said that he was curious if I was looking for a job. For those who know me, you know that I’ve been desperately seeking employment for about the past two months or so. Now that I look at the calendar, it was actually two months to the day since my last day of employment over at CIRT.

I got excited, but he said he wanted to meet with me – I shot him back a fast e-mail with phone numbers, and he called me back pretty quickly, and we set an appointment up for Friday morning at 9:00am. Not too early, not too late – it worked well.

I got up on Friday morning, and weighed myself – I’ve lost four pounds in the last two weeks. That was a great start to the day. I’m still fairly overweight, but at least I’m working it off. I take my daily shower and tear out of the house, fearing that I’m going to be late for my appointment.

I get to the guy’s office at about 8:50 that morning – it was great, I was actually early. I sat down, told him a bit about myself, and then he asked me about a lot of little things that, unfortunately, I knew little about. He asked things like, “How much experience do you have with security, firewalls in particular?” or “What do you know about Network Address Translation or Windows 2000 Active Directory?” I felt awful, simply because I apparently didn’t have the experience he was seeking. After this series of questions, he got up and said, “Well, let me show you around.”

I have to say, I was in shock. After my rather pitiful interview, it seemed like I was still going to be hired! He showed me the machine room, and while it could use some cleaning up, it was really interesting to look around. We then went to see the HR-type people, and they asked him if I was the one he was going to hire. He nodded his head and smiled.

I about died of excitement and joy all at once. Considering the places I had applied to work, like 7-11 even, simply out of desperation, not only was I getting a job I’m going to enjoy greatly, but it even exploits my talents. That truly made my day.

I went to my classes, came back to work, helped out a bit, then I had to go and house-sit at my sister-in-law’s house to watch her dogs. I don’t mind, they’re cute dogs and it’s nice to be around them for awhile. The only really bad part of the entire weekend was having to use the dial-up, and even that wasn’t so bad. 45333 is a pretty admirable connection rate when using dial-up there, and I got it when I’d sign on.

On Saturday, my wife and I took a practice GRE, and although I don’t think I did so well in the verbal area (I really need to work on my vocabulary), I only missed two questions on the math section and it was careless mistakes. I’ll take a few more practice tests, and then I’m sure I’ll blow it away.

Then, when we got home today and I checked the mail, I had received a letter from the School of Engineering at UNM. It turns out that I made the Fall 2002 Honor Roll for the School of Engineering due to my excellent performance in the fall. That really was a wonderful way to end a great weekend. There was one real rough spot, and it’s that my stepdad is in the hospital again, and it seems like it’s pneumonia. My mom sounds in great spirits about it all though. Last time he was in the hospital like this was Christmas time. If you’re a praying sort, say a prayer for my stepdad, he could really use it now.

I hadn’t really thought about the hospital much, simply because everything else was going well for me this weekend – and I still feel good about those other things, but in writing out that last paragraph, I was struck with a little sadness and concern. I’m sure things will be okay.

I hope you had a great weekend too, and that your week goes well.