Jan 08
Tuesday night, before going out with Rachael and Matt, I took a shower. Karen saw me as I walked back from the bathroom to my bedroom to get dressed and made a pretty awesome comment to the effect of, “Is Jason getting bigger? He used to be so scrawny.” Despite all the joking amongst the people at work, that was the first legitimate (and unsolicited) comment about my developing HUGEness. And I did it all without that BoFlex I've always wanted. Resistence becomes Strength. Strength becomes Power.
Wednesday night Karen, Carlos, Lukas and I played Guesstures in the apartment. Being a team game we played 2 vs 2 and changed teams after each game. As we were getting started I made a few comments about my mad Guessture skills, and as usual they were met with equal parts reverence and ridicule. I volunteered to pick Karen as my teammate for the first round. She wasn't very receptive. To put it bluntly, she laughed at me. Oh well, at least Carlos can recognize board game talent. We won the first game. I won the next game with Lukas, too. Then I won with Karen. We kept playing, and I kept winning. After winning 9 times in a row, 3 or 4 were total shutouts, there was some animosity in the room. The apartment had resolved to continue playing until I lost, no matter how long it took. In the tenth game, with Lukas as my partner, our teamwork broke down. I got the distinct feeling that Lukas was trying to throw the game. That wasn't totally unexpected. As is often times the case with me as well, Lukas would rather lose than see me win. Despite some excellent descriptions on my part, Lukas wasn't guessing the right answers. He took a lot of time to get simple words. I tried to counter by stalling when it was my time to guess. Finally, both teams were at the finish line. We were one space away. Team Karen/Carlos was just behind us, two spaces away. As the buzzer counted down to the end Lukas wasnt able (or willing) to guess the right answer. I gave a lot of good clues, but he just wasnt getting it. Time ran out. One point for Team KC. They knew exactly what I was describing and proclaimed the right answer immediately. One more point for Team KC. Game Over.
Thursday night I went Cosmic Bowling with Rachael and two of her friends. It would have been better if it weren't set up as a double date. Anyway, long story short, I did pretty awesome. I won the first game and the other guy won the second game. In an effort to stop their losing, the girls made us bowl left handed. In the fifth frame I got a strike. A leftie-strike. It was probably the high point of life thus far. They made out a certificate recrognizing my first ever leftie-strike and everyone signed it. I won the third game. Left handed. Buttercups.
We had some kind of ridiculous snow storm this week. Nature realized we hadn't gotten any snow yet and decided to make up for lost time. I was instructed at work that if the roads were bad or the snow was deep I should work from home rather than brave the outdoors. Despite the heavy snow and dangerous conditions I went into work on Wednesday. The storm continued until Thursday, at which point I decided the 2 hour snowstorm commute wasn't worth it and I worked from the apartment. Brian was cool with it as long as I got my work done and gave hourly status updates. I sent the status reports. I got the work done. This afternoon my dad had lunch with the company owner, Mr Zurek. Over lunch Mr Zurek made a comment about how he was disappointed that I didn't show up at work on Thursday. What. The. Fuck. I hope that you can understand my frustration. I need a new job soon.
I had a job interview today. It was pretty cool, actually. Yesterday I got a phone call from a lady who saw my resume online and wanted me to come in for an interview. Since I am going to Colorado tomorrow and will be gone for a week, we tried to speed things up. I took the train downtown this morning and walked over to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. If you havent been in the building, make a point to stop by next time you are near. It is something quite impressive. Anyway, I met with two people, they seemed to like me and wanted to set up an interview with the company's head guy. Since I'm gone all week, we tried to set it up for this afternoon. Unfortunately he's in Las Vegas for the weekend so the interview will have to wait a week. Hopefully things don't fall through just because I am out of town. They are trying to fill the position quickly and my willingness and ability to perform on short notice gave me an edge. Leaving the state takes away that advantage, but hopefully doesn't cost me too much. As a side note, the lady who found my resume mentioned that she was especially pleased that I went to Northwestern. Whenever possible she tries to hire Northwestern grads. Despite not going to NU herself, when asked why she liked us so much she replied, “Because when I ask a Northwestern student to do something, they get it right the FIRST time.” Name recognition is a factor for every student who attends NU, there's no point denying it. However, this is the first time I have found it to be a serious asset. Go U. NU.
And now I am off to Steamboat and the highly dangerous Project Backflip. It's cool though, chicks dig full-body casts.