Answering Phones

In keeping with the phone tales of the past few weeks, I started my first temporary job since graduating college at my dad's office as the fill-in receptionist while the normal receptionist moves this weekend. Boring job, especially on a Friday, because in the construction industry, everyone apparently takes off after 3:30, and I needed to be there until close of business at 5:00. At least I got to read one of my books - Ice Station by Matt Reilly. I should find out all the final details about my job with Summit Consulting Group this week in preparation for my start there on or about July 7th. I'm looking forward to finally getting my foot in the proverbial door. As a final note, I'm watching history in the making right now, as the LA Dodgers are beating the LA Angels without having gotten a single hit.... it'll be cool if the game ends that way!

Well, I know I promised updates on the job hunt last week, but I got "busy" doing other things. However, I'm here now and, well, that's what matters, eh? I had my interview last week Tuesday, and it went very well. There should be some temporary work lasting through the election that I can do - mostly a variety of projects for a variety of people - at least through November. After that, I will probably need to start looking again, but at least I'll have my foot in the proverbial door. I was also recently contacted about another opportunity doing research and networking for someone else, but I need to get more info about it before I commit to anything. Research would be more to my liking than electioneering and grassroots stuff, but I do enjoy staffing a good rally every now and again! Otherwise, the most exciting thing of the past few days is that I finally got Season 6 of The West Wing, so I'm enjoying watching that. Just one more season to go, and I'll have the whole set - not an easy feat by any means, considering the price of each season on DVD. I'm also disappointed in my Diamondbacks, who, except for last night, have been stinking up the diamond defensively and offensively the past month or so. Hopefully they can make a couple trades for some team leaders in the near future and upgrade their hitting coach or something so that they can start producing more. Otherwise, I don't care if they stay in first the whole year in the NL West, they'll never be able to compete in the playoffs against any NL East or AL teams.

Big Block of Cheese Day

"Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of the White House, had a two-ton block of cheese. It was there for any and all who were hungry...." - Leo McGarry of "The West Wing" Well, what can I say? It's another long lazy Sunday night following a long lazy Sunday of helping my parents clean the house, watching Tiger Woods tie Rocco Mediate in the US Open Championship on the 18th hole in typical dramatic Tiger Woods fashion, and watching President Josiah Bartlett battle the press and Congress over his MS scandal. Happy Father's Day to any and all who may read this blog. The past few days, I've been working hard to get job interviews; my newest one is this Tuesday where I will be meeting a guy about a job at the Tempe Marketplace. Kinda cool since I've never been there (it was constructed and opened while I was at NAU). So I might have good news come Wednesday or thereabouts. We shall see. I also (this is how exciting my week has been, that this made it to my blog) got a new set of bookshelves, put them together, and finally got all my books organized on them this weekend. I have a lot of good books that I have yet to read: Dinesh D'Souza's "The Enemy At Home," Todd Buchholz's "New Ideas From Dead CEOs," Nonie Darwish's "Now They Call Me Infidel," and William Clark's "The Judge," among many others. Mostly these are books I got at YAF conferences or were old books thrown out by professors that I was able to obtain, but I am excited to read them nonetheless. I also got five Tom Clancey novels from Half Price Books for only $6 (all hardback, too!), so I'm going to read those just as soon as I am finished with the newest James Rollins book, which is amazing! I didn't even know he had written a new one until I went to Wal-Mart and saw it in paperback. He is my second favorite author behind Matt Reilly, so it turned out to be a fantastic impulse buy for me. Otherwise, I'm disappointed my D-Backs are sucking it up against the Kansas City Royals this weekend, something which shouldn't be happening 'cuz KC sucks. I also finally have wireless internet for my laptop, so I can do a lot more online and hopefully keep up the blog better when I do find a job. Updates to follow later this week on the job hunt and various other activities! Also, a big THANK YOU to Jim Ogsbury and his awesome campaign staff! You guys know what it is for.

I'm Gonna Be On TeeVee!

Yeah, since I'm still in the market for employment, I decided to go help out Jim Ogsbury, the CD-5 candidate for Congress, as an extra in his upcoming TV commercial which I hear will air sometime next month. We went out to a couple places around the district, had some fun in the heat, and I got to chat with some of the other volunteers. All of them were amazing people, active and ready to go to the mat to elect Jim Ogsbury! I hope I'll have the chance to be as useful and helpful to my district's candidates when I finally get my job/car/apartment mess figured out. Perhaps the best part of the day was getting the lunch orders for everyone - the campaign staff, the television director and his hired crew, and all the volunteers. My job was to find out what everyone wanted and then go to Subway with one of the members of the campaign staff and pick it up. We had a grand total of 19 orders, and though the Subway staff looked at me like I was crazy for coming to their shop for lunch, we got it all taken care of professionally and swiftly. Those sandwich-makin' gurus were amazing for putting up with what turned out to be a chaotic order. Especially since we weren't the only ones trying to order. In between making our sandwiches, they were taking other peoples' orders at the same time and getting everything RIGHT! Take THAT, McDonald's drive thru attendents! But even though volunteer stuff is fun for me, it's now back to the money-making job search!

Jim Ogsbury for Congress

Today, after almost a full year of no politics beyond classwork and debates with friends, I got back into it by helping for a few hours at a phone bank for Jim Ogsbury, a candidate for CD-5 in Arizona against Harry Mitchell, a Democrat who hasn't done jack for Tempe, Scottsdale, Phoenix, and Fountain Hills, among others. Jim himself was also there answering constituent questions and helping make calls, and I got to chat with him for a bit. He seems like a very realistic, down-to-earth guy, and I think he would do a wonderful job as a Congressman in the district. Unfortunately, I don't get to vote for him because I reside in CD-6 with Jeff Flake, but I am glad I could help anyway! After making about 200 or so dials, I left and saw "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" with my old friend from Flagstaff, Max. The movie was the classic "I don't need any brain cells to watch this, and in fact, in watching this, I may have killed some off" Adam Sandler flick, but it was mildly amusing nonetheless. And it was good to see Max again. Afterwards, we met another friend of mine, Ryan for dinner and a couple drinks. Possibly the best night I've had back in Phoenix since graduation!

It's Only 10:20!

I was pretty bored tonight so I decided to see a movie. "The Forbidden Kingdom" with Jet Li and Jackie Chan. Not a bad movie, and actually one I'd watch again or even buy. But maybe that's the boredom talking. But let me back up. The past three weeks give or take a few days, I've been officially home from college. I took seven days off to see a couple Diamondbacks games, relax, and ease into summertime a bit. But from then on, I've been doing almost nothing except spending 4-8 hours per day job shopping online and around town. And what has it got me, you ask? Nothing. So in between sending out resumes and creating cover letters (a complete waste of time, if you ask me), I've had nothing to do - especially considering I don't have my own car, a job, or know many people out in East Mesa to hang with. Thus led to my predicament. The past four days have been solely dedicated to job hunting and sleeping, almost nothing else. Then I have a slight lull here and I find myself with nothing to do. The people I normally would hang with are at funerals (sorry, guys!) or working/taking care of their families. This makes me realize with that much more fervor that I need to meet some new (and also single) people here in Mesa, if for no other reason than a necessity for human contact in this dust-infected husk of a state. Those people I used to know through the College Republicans in Arizona are either gone from this sun-baked wasteland like the intelligent people they are or people I no longer wish to associate with. Unfortunately, most of my friends from college are all out-of-state students or former students, and are nowhere near Mesa. Therefore, if anyone knows of any clubs, groups, or the like which might be enjoyable, let me know, and I will check them out. I'm already planning to go to the Young Republicans meeting in Scottsdale later this month, and will attend the LD-19 meeting in a couple weeks. But beyond that, having no job, my schedule is WIDE open at the moment!

Seriously... AIR CONDITIONING!

Okay. We live in PHOENIX, ARIZONA. We are a close runner up for "Hottest Location on Planet Earth" behind Yuma, AZ and the Sahara Desert. How hard is it really to land a job that doesn't require me to stand outside and do door-to-door marketing of Phoenix businesses? Seriously. I went to my first job interview of post-collegiate life today in Tempe next to Tempe Diablo Stadium, about a mile from my dad's office (great for carpooling!). The place was called Evincex Enterprises, a marketing firm which handles restaurants, professional sports, hotels, and other places in the Phoenix area. Stepping out of the heat and into the low-roofed office lobby about the size of a dorm room at NAU, I immediately was greeted by the blaring of some obsequious and out-of-date music from a punk-rock era gone bad. I told the receptionist I was there for an interview with "Vince" at 3:30 and she gave me an application to fill out. Upon doing so, I started the waiting game. 3:30... 3:40... 3:50, and finally Vince, a short and skinny guy who couldn't have been more than two or three years my elder came out to greet me. We went into the back office, and he gave me the sales pitch for the position. 60 hours-plus per week doing grunt work and cross training as a marketing manager for a contractual period of 6-9 months. Out in the Arizona summer heat. Wearing a suit and tie. I slammed back the interview like a shot of cheap whiskey. Aced it with flying colors and was offered a second round interview on the spot. The problem is, I have no reliable transportation for such a job - one which requires extensive traveling out and about around the city - at this time. Plus I really have one basic rule for finding a job. If it doesn't have A/C, it better pay way better than what they were offering for me to accept it. The training itself was most of the compensation. Not my thing. Anyway, time to wait another four months for someone to call me back for another job interview. Et tempus fugit.

Job-Tastic

I finally have my first job interview scheduled for tomorrow afternoon with Evincex Enterprises. I'll be interviewing to join the "Management Trainee Program" and, if accepted, I'll get hands-on training in a bunch of different fields. The company itself does marketing for big names like the Phoenix Coyotes, Pizza Hut, Papa John's, Crown Plaza Resort, IMAX, Carnival Cruises, and a bunch more cool places! Even, I hear rumors, Spring Training BASEBALL! Updates to follow tomorrow on the status of the interview!

The Final Three

As in credits I need to obtain my actual official degree. Today I start the last NAU class I will ever take (unless I decide to go back for my Master's in the future) - ENG302W, a "Technical Writing" class. The class consists of ten writing assignments, including a professional report, resume, and project analysis. Each one is worth up to a total of ten points, with 100 possible points for the whole class. The first assignment I completed today - an introduction and possible thoughts on how technical writing would be beneficial in my future career choice. Dull. Either way, by August, I'll be completely done.... a great feeling!

Spendin' Saturday with the D-Backs

Yesterday I got to do one of my favorite summertime activities again, namely going to watch the Arizona Diamondbacks take on the Nationals. This time, I went alone save for my scorebook - I do enjoy scoring the games, and I've only missed somewhere around 4 so far this season. The club was also giving away some sweet DBacks duffle bags for the first 25,000 fans in the ballpark, so I got there early and snagged one! The game was GREAT - possibly one of the best I've seen. Brandon Webb pitched a complete game shutout for his tenth win of the season, complete with 8 strikeouts and no walks. Chris Young and Orlando Hudson each hit a homer, and Mark Reynolds blasted two in the game, one a 460-some footer to deep left! In the ninth, Reynolds also showed some major skill with a jumping/diving over the shoulder-behind the back-ish catch out in shallow left field. Possibly the best catch of the season for the team! But not to be outdone, the Nationals' pitcher Bergmann also pitched all 8 innings of his game, and he worked FAST. The game was the quickest in Diamondbacks club history at one hour, 52 minutes, and both teams used a combined (and minimum) 18 players. No pitching changes, no pinch hitters or runners, and no defensive switching. I'm almost glad I only paid $5 for the ticket because the game was shorter than the new "Indiana Jones" movie! Plus, the guy I was sitting next to was pretty cool. We chatted the whole way through the game about baseball. He works now for Boeing, but he used to be a player and scout for some of the minor league teams back in the day. He actually saw the Boston Red Sox go back-to-back-to-back-to-back with homers at Fenway Park last year, and nearly caught a homer by Carl Yastrzemski the year he won the Triple Crown in baseball. Good times, and thanks for bringing some extra fun to the ballpark for me, Boeing Guy!