Ottertoberfest my ass

Ok the ST. Louis Zoo has this big festival every year called Ottertoberfest. That's funny as hell. What's not so fun about it is....there are no Otters at the ST. Louis Zoo. Not one. So if one were to say go to the festival to enjoy and celebrate the fabulous North American River Otter one would be, in point of fact, screwed.

How great is this logo?

Friday, January 25, 2047

According to the insurance actuarial chart I have that’s the day I’m gonna die. How’s that for a kick in the ass. As of this writing I would have 14364 days left to live. That doesn’t seem like a lot to me. Hell it took me 13578 just to get here. What the fuck does one do with this kind of information? Do I get philosophical and ponder my place in the universe? Do I resolve myself to “live each day!”? Perhaps I should find religion to ease my soul as I am faced with my mortality. Or maybe I should just say fuck it all and break whatever rules I want in a non-stop festival of debauchery?

We all know I’m not doing anything like that crap. All of those pre-supposes that I haven’t faced my own mortality or that my death is something that scares me. What horseshit. I have bumped inot death so many times that we are practically drinking buddies. This belief that death is something outside of life, an “uncharted country”, is just nonsense. Life is death in slow motion. It’s the quality of life that should always be the issue not when it will end. Don’t get me wrong I’m in no hurry to end it all, quite the opposite actually. Now that life is so good I would like to enjoy it for a bit but having a number placed on it, a due date, is a bit strange. It makes me want to prove the chart wrong. To live longer that the 76 years it gives me. I could also get hit by a bus and screw the chart up for everybody. Wouldn’t that suck?

What to do with this info? I’m gonna do what I always do only now I have a better idea of when the last act should start.

ON a similar note dig the picture below.

There and back again, again.

In February I got a consulting check that had been outstanding for over a year for a stupid amount of money. That was very good as I quit my job and was suddenly broke and on the east coast. Oh and it was fucking cold. The dogs and I packed all of our stuff into Eloise (the wonder wagon) and headed out ASAP. We had to get home to our little farm. Twelve hours later and tada, Home. God it was good to be at home. Who cared if my buddy who was supposed to watch the place hadn’t shown up? Who cared that my mail wasn’t getting delivered anymore (they figured I had moved)? Who cared that my heat was out (no one reminded them to refill it)? Not me buddy. I was home. And I had a date the next day.

Yes boys and girls I had a date. That meant I had to clean up. Lose the beard and make myself pretty. Not the easiest of tasks in a freezing house with no hot water. I did the mountain man thing and boiled some water to bath/shave with and after some careful temperature checking I was once again clean. The dogs, being furrier than I, did not seem to care much about the weather and figured it was all another part of the great adventure. It was really. Well the next day came and I went out for my date. When I got there she was walking her roommate’s dog past the car and we just said “hey”. That was that. We haven’t been apart since. We are now engaged. It’s an incredible ring from the 20’s that had a diamond. I had it removed and a sapphire (the shiny blue rock) placed instead.

The romance side of life was definitely on the upswing. Hell I KNEW two weeks into it that I was going to marry her. I just had to be “cool” about it so she wouldn’t freak out. HA! Seems she had come to the same conclusion. It seems funny that two people like us who have both had “serious relationships" in the past wich never felt “right” could so easily fall into step with each other. It’s very cool. When you know you just know. (yes, yes it’s a little trite but fuck all it’s true)

Ok well while I played at winning the heart of the magnificent Patience I decided to not take the vacation I had planned…well not in the way I had planned. The thought of going out west for a few weeks and being away from this relationship just didn’t sit well. So I didn’t. Instead I just worked on the house and hung out with friends. I put myself on a monster budget and planned to take three months off to just be Sam for a while. That was both really nice and incredibly boring. I can’t begin to tell you how sick I got of my own company. Anyway I was sort of looking for work. Sort of. I just didn’t feel the need to get back to it. I knew I was going to end up back at a corporate gig doing the same old network shuffle and I just didn’t wanna go. So I slacked….alot. Then I started to run out of money. That was a wake up. I looked for work and on the way stopped at an Italian motorcycle shop to play. They started up a conversation with me and by the end of it they offered me a job. Wait a minute. A job playing with exotic bikes all day…and you pay me. Shit yeah!

Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? Well it was. Six weeks after I started there the boss called me into the office and told me how great I was. Good start. Then he told me how much I meant to the “company”. Still good. Then he told me he couldn’t meet payroll and I wasn’t gonna get paid. Ouch. Not so good. After some serious back and forth I got him to at least pay me for the time worked. He did and I was on my way…back to the couch. Fuck!

Well now I was officially broke and unemployed. That sucked. I made some emergency money by selling one of my race bicycles and calling my mom. That’s fun to do at 36. Anyway it took a month to find the right headhunter. The first ones were so fucking useless that they should be flogged. Do NOT bring a man with 12+ years of IT experience entry level jobs for $8 and hour. Ok so I’ve been looking for work for a month and all I am getting are these awful positions. I started to believe the headhunter (Shawn from Tecksystems in STL sucks) that I wasn’t going to be getting any better offers. Then I got a call from Janice Haupt of NetEffects in Stl. It was like being released from prison, like taking the first breath of air after diving too deep. Two days after our first meeting and she had 3 THREE killer offers for me. Then on the fourth day while I was trying to decide which corporation I was going to lease my soul to. She came to me with a fourth offer. This one was for a small company that was very leading edge with their tech issues. I had experience in their field so I figured what the hell and set up and interview.

I figured it would be a place to park myself for a few years and bump up my certifications. Then I got in the interview and talked to the people I would be working for. They were giving the security speech that I usually give to clients. They hit all the buttons and we had what may be the best interview I’ve ever had (and that’s not a small list). They told me that they had already interviewed some candidates and that there were more interviews scheduled for the rest of the week, it was Tuesday AM. They would have a decision on Friday afternoon. Wednesday around lunch I got a call from the Partner I had interviewed with. I figured he was delivering bad news so I braced myself for more poverty. Then he said “Well we talked with some more people and then we talked amongst ourselves and we all decided we wanted Sam. So why keep looking? Let’s make him an offer.” HOLY CRAP! They had cancelled the rest of the interviews and sent me an offer letter that was EVERYTHING I asked about in the interview.

I’ve been here two weeks now and it’s a really great place. They work hard and all treat each other like professionals. It’s a very tight knit unit. I like it. Oh and man do I get to play with some cool shit. Oh yeah! happy dance, oh yeah!

That news couldn’t have come at a better time as on Saturday Patience and I had to head out to Michigan so I could meet ALL of the in-laws-to-be. I won’t get into the hitting a deer on the interstate or the having to sleep in separate bedrooms while there. No I’ll just leave it that they are very sweet, if different, people and they all made an effort to include me in their family. It was a good trip.

So let’s sum up shall we? I met the woman of my dreams and got engaged. I got what may be the single most perfect job for me + ($$$). My friends are all well and I am not headed off to the hospital for anything. Life she is good no?