Abecedarian's Post

My name is Andrew. (Hi Andrew.) And it's been 2 weeks since my last post. (Mild clapping ensues.) Lately I've been really getting the urge to post daily, sometimes more than once a day, but I've stayed strong, held off the hounds of hellish social media and networking. (Oohs and aahs ensue, briefly.) Lately, I've just been doing the job hunt thing again, supplemented nicely by a healthy dose of grocery shopping for 6 on the weekends, meal planning for 6 on Saturdays, a college Bible study group Sunday nights, and some geocaching thrown in for good measure when time and transportation present themselves. Regarding the job search, mostly my efforts have remained fruitless, though I have received some calls from "marketing" companies searching for people to promote who-knows-what for minimum wage through telemarketing. Not my thing. I've never been one for just cold-calling sales. Put me on a floor somewhere, with knowledge of products and specs, and I can sell products just fine, but over the phone, I'm not good. I also got a phone call today from a security guard company needing security staff for some event coming up, but I would have needed a "guard card" which I do not have. Might be something to look into getting, though, if those types of opportunities come up more often. On Monday, I did turn in an application to Mesa Public Schools to be a substitute teacher for the district. That quite literally almost made me want to go postal on quite a few people. Quick rundown of the day: 9am - Andrew calls AZDOE to get info on getting a sub certification license and is told it is obtained at MPS headquarters. 10:30am - Andrew arrives at MPS only to be told he has to go to the AZ Dept. of Education to pick up his license, over 20 miles away. 11:15am - Andrew arrives at AZ DOE offices, is told he needs a $60 personal check, cashier's check, or money order to process his application for the license for the MPS application. (AARGH!) 12:00pm - Andrew arrives at Bank of America, takes $60 out of the ATM after spending 15 minutes trying to find out how to park in downtown Phoenix, and is told that because BOA isn't HIS bank, he can't be helped there. 12:30pm - Andrew arrives at a park in Phoenix somewhere (only God knows where exactly), kicks a few trees in anger, and calls Dad to have him look up where the nearest Compass Bank location is. 1:45pm - Andrew arrives at Compass Bank, gets his cashier's check, and gets back into the car. By this point, having expended so much energy on frustration with the system, Andrew decides to go to nearby IHOP for pancakes. 3:00pm - Andrew arrives BACK at DOE offices, obtains license. 3:30pm - Andrew arrives BACK at MPS offices, turns in completed application. Is told that he cannot be eligible for substitute teaching until taking an orientation class for MPS -- ON MARCH 25th! 4:15pm - Andrew decides to go home and go to bed because the day really, really, really couldn't get any more obtuse. Epic, I know. In lighter news, the whole meal-planning, shopping, cooking trifecta (I just wanted to use "trifecta") is going well. I like most of the things I've tried to make. Earlier in the week it was a sour cream chicken enchilada dish with onions and red bell peppers in a sour cream-jalapeno sauce. Really delicious. Two nights ago I made pork chops with an apple-caramelized onion topping, which was probably me second favorite dish. I also tried a veggie casserole side dish which was so-so, but not everyone enjoyed it. I'm not sure what it was, but the topping didn't set like it was supposed to.... Oy vey. Tonight we're either having a turkey chili or bowtie pasta with bell peppers and sausage in a tomato-garlic sauce. We'll see. The Bible study has also been enlightening. It's a group of college-aged under-30 people on Sunday nights at the church I've begun to attend. Since it's been so long since I was last "attending" church regularly, I wasn't certain of what to expect, but the people are great - there are even a few politically-minded people there who make for great conversationalists, and even one other geocacher, which was slightly surprising. Currently, the group is studying the Book of Revelation, so though it's extremely interesting, I sometimes feel like I'm beginning my own study of the Bible at the end of the book. Tribulation, Death, destruction, God's wrath poured out upon the world. Things you really wouldn't expect from a conventional reading of almost any other part of the Bible; least of all those passages talking about Jesus Christ or God Himself. Frankly, I'm still not entirely sure of what I believe. I'd like to believe in God and put my faith in Him, but it's still a little unsettling to feel like I'm giving up control over a part of myself to a being whom I cannot see, touch, or converse with. My journey has begun though, so I am anxious to see where it leads. Finally, geocaching. I had good luck last weekend, finding 14 caches in or within a mile of Skyline Park out in East Mesa. I intend to go back this weekend to find the 3 I didn't try for on Saturday. One is apparently rather difficult and requires tools to access it. I think I know what I need, now I just need to see the site for myself and have at it. I also found a couple on Monday on my way back from MPS, just as a mechanism to calm me down after the stress of the day. So I'm at a grand total of 40 found thus far, and I might try to hike Usury Mountain to the Wind Cave to find the 5 caches up there this coming Saturday. (Scott, Ryan, Chad, you are welcome to join me if you so choose!) Anyway, that's life up 'til now. Time to go do some more dishes and pretend to not be bored until I go to bed. I look forward to writing more often in the near future!

Chez Geek

It's official: I won the MSNBC Geek Gift contest, put on by Cosmic Log blogger and MSNBC Science Editor Alan Boyle. About an hour ago, Mr. Boyle called to congratulate me and let me know I'd won. I chose to claim the "When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions" DVD box set and "13 Things That Don't Make Sense" book as my prizes. All told, I garnered approximately 25% of the 630 votes cast (158), beating the next closest person (who submitted a suggestion for a Zydeco Musical Tie which even I find geeky..., but would probably find SOME occasion to wear it anyway) by 32 votes, assuming my math is correct. Thanks to all my friends who checked my notes on Facebook and cast a vote in my favor. There are too many of you to name here, but you know who you are! I'll be thanking you again when I start watching the NASA box set! Also thanks to Mr. Boyle for the contest.... it was fun to participate, and hopefully you will have many new readers for the Cosmic Log now that I sent invitations to 300-some-odd people for the contest! For those of you wondering what the heck I'm talking about, please refer to the following sources: 1. My original blog post pleading for votes 2. Cosmic Log's original article announcing the finalists

East Valley Job Fair

Today, I went and checked out the EV Job Fair at the Mesa Convention Center after having lunch with my good buddy Scott, who happens to work very close to there. Unfortunately for Max, it was not quite as epic an adventure as the job fair at UPS Stadium in Glendale (Dale Glen for those of you who know of what I speak), but it was nonetheless a decent time. I spoke with Grand Canyon State University about communications/PR/document control positions, a few staffing agencies about temp-to-hire work, M&I Bank about a teller position near my house, and the City of Mesa about some of their open positions. All-in-all, I got to hand out some resumes, chat it up with some employers, and hopefully something will eventually come of it. After doing the meet-and-greet thing, I went around the corner to where they were doing "resume review" workshops, and had my resume critiqued by a professional resume correcting person, whom I am supposed to remember to thank if I ever become President of the United States. (This brings my number of voters for my campaign in 2012 to 36 now. You never know, a few million more and I could be a threat! :P) She gave me some good tips, so now I need to reorganize my resume again this weekend to see if I can't beef it up some more. After that, I tried to donate my time as a volunteer for the GOP out in East Mesa, but I got chewed out by some old woman who was being pretty offensively sexist and tried to threaten me with her "investigative journalist friend who could crush you like THAT." So I just left instead. Ah, fun times!

My First Day of School

Today has been one hell of a day. It was good, it was bad, it was funny, it made me want to cry, I loved aspects of it, and I loathed others. All in all, it was a day. At least I didn't die (though, it was pretty iffy there for a few minutes)! Today was "Mr. Meeusen's" first day of substitute teaching for my mom's 5th grade class. She had a doctor's appointment, and her charter school was willing to accept me as a sub without the teaching certificate so long as I had fingerprint clearance. Without boring you all on the details, it was kind of fun. I got to teach math, introduced a new class book for reading, helped with spelling/vocabulary practice, screened a "Goosebumps" movie during "game time," held a Writer's Club meeting at lunch, and discussed voting and basic election facts for social studies. The kids were great, very quiet when they needed to be, and respectful all day. No major or minor problems among any of them. That was a big plus on my day. At the end of the day, my mom picked me up on her way home, and we got a phone call that my aunt's car was out of gas, and could we drive a few miles out of our way and bring some to her? Yeah, sure, why not? Easy enough. Go buy a red gas container, a gallon of fuel, put it in, send her back on her way to north Scottsdale, right? WRONG! You know how every family has that one crazy relative? The wacky one who wears the Hawaiian shirt and socks and sandals to Thanksgiving dinner? The one who cracks the WORST possible joke at the worst possible time? The one who thinks "pull my finger" is still funny? Um, yeah. So we put the gas in the car, and then she decides to tell us that the car won't start, too, and could we jump it? Ugh, slightly more hassle, working out in the sun in a parking lot, yadda yadda, but what the hell, I've got nothing better to do for an hour, right? So she gets out her jumper cables, and proceeds to hook them up to her car. I'm not watching this, getting my end ready. I hook the red cable to the positive side and hook the black cable to the... ZAAAPPP! And the cable starts to smoke and the rubber wire coating starts to MELT off the cables! My aunt had hooked the + wire to the - port and vice versa, shorting out the battery, and just about electrocuting me with a nasty voltage! So while mom and my aunt are freaking out about the Incredible Melting Jumper Cables, I ignore the fact that I could be dead right now, grab a cardboard box quickly from the car, and proceed to very quickly smack the cables off the battery terminals, thus cutting off the electricity. But, of course I'm not finished yet. I get "volunteered" to run to Wal-Mart a few blocks away (still nervously making sure the second-degree electrical burns on my hands are imaginary) and buy some NEW jumper cables so we could try this again. Upon returning, you better believe that my mom and aunt were not allowed within 20 feet of the batteries! However, the jump didn't work (possibly because my aunt's mistake fried the car), and we drop my aunt off with my grandmother and go home to see if my dad can help fix anything. At this point, I started to relax, getting into the groove of "House, MD" and watching the DBacks beat up the St. Louis Cardinals. Around about the 6th inning, I get a phone call from mom. "Your dad and I have to come home, will you come and watch your aunt here until the tow truck comes?" It's 7:30 at this point, and if you have been paying attention to entertainment news lately, you'll recognize that the "Heroes" season 3 2-hour much-anticipated-for-6-months premiere is TONIGHT at 7:00! VERY reluctantly, I agreed to help out, and I finally got back home at about 8:15, over halfway through the show. There was just no point in picking it up from there, so I have missed it. I know blood is supposed to be thicker than water, but come on.... it's not like I was really looking forward to this for a few months or anything (please note the inherent sarcasm in this remark). I can't wait to get my own place....

Stymied By Bureaucracy

I had every intention of going and getting all my substitute teaching paperwork turned in today, getting registered, and just having to wait on the fingerprint clearance from the Department of Public Safety, but alas, I was stymied this afternoon when I was told that in order to turn in all the paperwork, I first needed a substitute teaching certificate from the Arizona Department of Education. However, in order to get the substitute teaching certificate, I must first have the fingerprint clearance card from the Department of Public Safety/Federal Bureau of Investigation. And in order to receive the fingerprint clearance card, I first had to drive all over downtown Mesa this afternoon to find the fingerprinting place, get my fingerprints taken, and then wait 15-180 days to have the background checks completed and receive my clearance card in the mail. It was a rather epic journey, beginning with waking up at 8 am this morning only to find out that my little brother had, in an epic display of FAIL, forgotten again to leave me the only key to my morning mode of travel. This effectively stranded me at home until he got out of school at noon. When he got home, I took the car to downtown Mesa and spent 20 minutes trying to find the Department of Public Safety, which Mesa had, in its infinite wisdom, decided to tuck behind the storefronts and the Department of Information Technology. But I found it - only to be told that my fingerprints couldn't be taken at the central station (as DPS had told me). I needed to go out to the fingerprint clearance card Information Processing Center to which Mesa Police Department had outsourced all non-court mandated fingerprinting. After another 20 minutes of wandering the streets of downtown, I finally found the podunk hole-in-the-wall place, staffed by two women who definitely looked like they could kick my ass (and I'm no little guy). I filled out some paperwork and was ushered into a back room where they inked me up until my fingers were sooty black, fingerprinted me, and let me wash up with some Uber-industrial superdetergent hand cleaner. Upon leaving, I inquired as to where Mesa Public Schools was headquartered, and was told "somewhere up around the corner." Easy enough. Except for the fact that no one told me there were no signs for MPS, which happens to be in the same building as Mesa Bank, a nine-story behemoth of a building in which MPS occupies the second through fourth floors. It took another 20 minutes of circling around before I figured this out. So finally, my hard work paying off, I entered the Substitute Services Department of MPS, paperwork in hand, official transcripts, immunization records, W-2's all filled out properly, and - BOOM! Stymied by the fact that I couldn't get registered as a sub because I didn't have the certificate, which I didn't have because I didn't have the fingerprint clearance card, which I didn't have because it takes 15-180 days to get that in the mail from the time the fingerprinting is done. So, long story short, in between two weeks and six months, I could be a substitute teacher for the Mesa Public School District. Not that they need teachers desperately or anything (note: sarcasm). Ah, bureaucracy, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...!

The Jobing Career Expo Pt. II

So, Druw and Bryan had arrived at the Faire for Jobs in Dale Glen in the Queendom of Anozira! Upon parking their Cobalt carriage, the duo walked the half-mile to the Fairegrounds, held at the home of the local sports team, the Anozira Cardinales in the excruciating heat, made all the worse by the heavy woolen jackets and ties the friends wore. Seeking a brief respite in the shade of the nearby buildings, Druw wondered why they hadn't parked closer. Eventually, they made it to the grounds. Upon entering, they were directed down a series of ramps and through several lines used to check in the participants of the Faire. Entering the massive stadium, Druw and Bryan realized that they were actually on the concrete floor of the sports field; they had assumed that the Faire would be held on the concourses of the building. The throngs of roving people, all pressing for the attention of the boothmasters for each company, roiled around the floor like tuna on the deck of a fishing trawler. People in suits and ties and carrying briefcases and bags and in t-shirts and jeans and carrying copies of resumes and application forms crawled everywhere, no more or less interesting than ants from their hill. Druw and Bryan pushed their way through the crowds trying to see which companies were represented, but found nothing better than a lot of "call centers" and collections agencies. A disappointing sight. After spending an hour trying to get around single mothers with their children in strollers, and important-looking businessmen, and teenagers with sideways caps, they decided to give up, more because neither of them saw anything that piqued their interest than from a lack of ambition. So they left. On the ride back, all they could think was how disappointing the state of the world was, that even at a highly publicized Faire for Jobs, there would be nothing there worth applying to. The friends went and got a drink at a local place, and then drove for home. THE END --------------------------------------------------- I hope and trust you have enjoyed this epic tale, and even if not, that you enjoyed my prose. I leave you with this: "What is it that you like doing? If you don’t like it, get out of it, because you’ll be lousy at it. You don’t have to stay with a job for the rest of your life, because if you don’t like it you’ll never be successful in it." - Lee Iacocca

The Jobing Career Expo

Yesterday, I went out to the Jobing.com career expo to see if I couldn't find someone to actually take a look at my resume. Here's the story (it's an epic adventure): Once upon a time, in a land that most people call Anozira, an unemployed former student of the court named Druw, decided that the time had come to make something of himself. Druw had long dreamed of visiting the thriving metropolis of Columbia District, in order to fulfil his desire of becoming a Law Maker - a prestigious position that would enable him to help other people and make the quality of his country's life better. To do this, thought Druw, I need to work to make a few thousand Quats (the money of the realm) to be able to get the Columbia District. Unfortunately, the Land of Anozira was afflicted by a three-decade-long drought, which made his father's background in farming unlikely to produce dividends. Anozira's population of teachers were paid next to nothing, so his mother's background in education was also out. And to make matters worse, the Government of Anozira - headed by the cruel Queen Janet - had spent too much money on a new palace for herself and thrown Anozira into a massive deficit, meaning that the local jobs at the Bank of Anozira, the General Store, and in the office of the ambassador Jeff Lake to the government of Acirema were not able to afford to take on a new employee such as Druw. Druw was not the only one afflicted - the unemployment rate in the Realm was at the highest level it had been since the Large Crash of '39. Drew's friend Bryan was also having trouble realizing his dream of becoming a Consulatant. Druw and Bryan each applied for many, many jobs around the Realm, but their efforts had been fruitless and frustrating. One day, Druw saw a posting on the General Store's wall advertising admission to a Faire for Jobs in the nearby city of Dale Glen. The Faire was free-of-charge to all those who wished to find a new career, so Druw decided to send word to Bryan, and they made plans to attend. On the day of the Faire, Druw left his house early dressed in his best attire and carrying several copies of his Personal Employment and Career History (known more commonly as a PEACH) handwritten on thick, golden parchment paper. He saddled up his beat-up Cobalt carriage, and left to go to Bryan's house to pick him up, and the two set off for Dale Glen to hopefully start on a new path that would lead them to Columbia District! It was a hot day, over the century mark on the glass temperature gauge hanging on the wall of the Bank of Anozira, and the sun was shining brightly in the sky as steam rose from the cobblestoned street, and the other townspeople stayed glued to the minute slivers of shade from the awnings of the buildings. (Come on, a little poetry is awesome!) Druw and Bryan took the most direct route to the Faire so as to get there as quickly as possible, but in the busy center of Dale Glen, they ended up getting lost anyway. Finally, they arrived at the Faire! Part two to come!