Things have been fairly quiet up until February, job-wise. I mean really quiet. If you listen very closely to the software job market you can actually hear crickets chirping in the background. There's also the occasional headhunter who flies by on their motorcycle, usually making a lot of noise, but never amounting to anything substantial.

A few months ago, I firmly believed I could survive off of doing small-time software and website jobs for the local shops that performed architecture/drafting, real estate, and warehousing. I used my cousin's client list as a start - he does IT work in the same area, but it's mostly networking (non-website, non-programming). What I found was that these companies did indeed need some form of customized software for data entry, database, or data conversion or even a website, but their budgets just weren't feeling it, no matter how small the amount of work was. They were looking at 2003 as being a better year, but well, no matter how well-intentioned a promise, I'm still left with an empty plate.

So, at the beginning of February, it seems that those wonderful folks in Human Resources have finally come out of hibernation.

Sunday, 2/2/2003

3:00pm – Drive down to Fort Walton Beach, Florida for a Monday morning interview.

7:20pm – Arrive in Fort Walton. Proceed to night club with local friends to enjoy “comedy night”. Avoid drinking any alcohol and caffeine – I have enough trouble getting to sleep these days.

11:00pm – Comedy ends – go back to friend’s house to chill out.

Monday, 2/3/2003

12:00am – To bed.

~3:00am – Finally sleeping.

5:45am – Friend’s cat, "Gecko", jumps on me and wakes me up.

5:46am – Tempted to throw cat across room, but decide to nudge it off couch instead. Even though I'm still allergic to cats, I still like (most) of the little furballs.

7:00am – “Officially” wake up and get ready (shower, etc).

8:30am – Arrive for interview at “Defense Company”. Slightly early, chit chat with receptionist.

8:33am – Meet with software manager – fairly laid back individual.

9:30am – Meet with two software engineers on the team, one old school, one new school (they are converting software from one real-time platform to another)

10:30am – Meet with VP of Engineering. "Kewl" (to quote Zorro's spelling).

11:00am – Lunch with software manager at local seafood place. Whatever nervousness remained was slowly drained by the crabcake sandwich and a decent conversation about everything technology.

12:30pm – Visit to “Defense Company” officially over. The actual office environment was a bit reminiscent of the last defense company I worked for, but still it had good people and a fun product to work on (weapons simulators, sort of). I did well on the interview, very well, I think.

2:00pm – Bid local friends goodbye and drive back to Baton Rouge (mom’s place).

6:30pm – Arrive in Baton Rouge.

6:31pm – Sack out.

Tuesday, 2/4/2003

....ZZZZZZ...

All day – Continue to sack out. Original plan was to drive to Dallas for a Thursday interview on and old workmates yearly reunion on Wednesday. Nope. Too tired. Must…sleep. I will do the drive tomorrow.

Wednesday, 2/5/2003

11:40am – Leave for Dallas from Red Stick.

12:01pm – Begins to rain. Continues to rain. Doesn’t stop raining for anything. But it’s not harsh rain, just a constant drizzle and an occasional wash. Just – annoying. Which is kinda strange since I used to love driving in the rain.

6:20pm – Arrive in Dallas Metroplex, eastern boundary. Need to get to Lewisville where the Blue Wave reunion is. Traffic getting worse, rain not letting up.

6:21pm – Realized why I was such a fan of Rain-X: darkness, rain, traffic, and headlights.

6:50pm – There's an accident on I-635 (north beltway) – memories of Dallas traffic flooding mind. Traffic here used to feel like a video game, like Galaga '88. At the moment, it was more like Frogger, and I was trying to change lanes without getting creamed. I bid thanks to my 194 horsepower Toyota V6.

7:12pm – Arrive at Lewisville Razzoo’s for the reunion. I’m wet, I’m tired, but I’m glad to see my friends.

9:30pm – My former teammate and I go to pick up another friend and we all go to Denton’s downtown square. (Denton is a small hip college(UNT) town north of Dallas. If Dallas is the "Big D", then Denton is the "Little D") Enter the BrickHouse café. The haven of academic minds (and other poor college students) looking for good grub. Fun talking about everything under the moon ensues.

12:30am – Arrive back at friend’s house – crash.

Thursday, 2/6/2003

8:00am – Wake up when friend wakes (he starts work at 10am).

11:00am – Call my other friend who’s supervisor we are having lunch with today. Everything is set.

11:30am – Lunch in Carrollton with my friend Ginger and her supervisor. Super tells a lot about the company, a good salesman it seems. We discuss my experience to an extent and what type of work I would be doing. Lunch is like an unofficial interview without the suit.

12:30am – Lunch over, invited back to the office to see their operations. Extremely cool place/setup. Very interesting work. A bit quiet around the office despite the large number of people there (200 to 250?). It’s cubeville, but the aesthetics are comfortable despite that fact.

1:00pm - Back on the road, back to Baton Rouge. I need to return in order to help my mom move to another apartment over the next couple of days.

4:30pm – Receive call from Ginger. She says I did well.

8:00pm – Arrive in Baton Rouge. At this point, I have driven about 24 hours over the past five days.

8:30pm – Eat.

10:30pm – Sleep.

Friday, 2/7/2003

Sometime in the morning wake up…

11:00am – Begin packing up mom’s stuff.

2:00pm – Go to new apartment – wait for cable guy to arrive.

4:00pm – Still waiting – call cable company, they claim he is on his way. Thankful for random issue of Wired magazine found in the back of my car.

7:00pm – Still waiting, but cable company maintains he is still coming. I probably wouldn't be here this long if it wasn't for the guarantee of high speed cable internet access.

7:01pm – Cable dude arrives. Everything kosher. Both boxes and modem tested.

7:30pm – Back to mom’s old apartment to help her pack.

~11:00pm - Sack out.

Saturday, 2/8/2003

7:30am – Wake up…pack more.

8:30am – Go to get moving truck. I love Budget/Ryder's online reservation system. :)

9:00am – Back with 15 foot truck. 9:01am – Half of the local population arrives to help my mom move (actually, more like 10 people from her workplace – she has some really great friends there).

12:30pm – Everything moved, except for a few small things that we are taking care of later. I am in total amazement that it went so quick.

1:30pm – Lunch with mom at Quizno's. Food good. Fatigue sets in.

7:00pm – Pretty much done moving the small stuff via two car loads.

7:30pm – Week officially over as far as I’m concerned.

7:31pm – Hibernation until able to type this up.

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So, that’s about it.