Rocking A Boat And Something About A Still Pond And Trees And a Forest And Stuff.

As you know from my Tuesday post, yesterday was interview day. Lots of pressure. But I can deal with pressure. I arrived early and had a Starbucks Vanilla Latte. It was good once it cooled off. I think the boiling milk actually cooled down the coffee about 50 degrees.

I meditated on a few universal truths before I went into the room.

1. The rocking boat disturbs the stillness of the pond
2. No matter what you do, the sun will rise in the east and set in the west
3. The tree never grows where the forest does not want it to.

So what does all this mean? Whatever you want it to mean.

But first.....speaking of forests - I have my very own personal online forest. You can see it here.

http://iguanaforest.act4trees.com/

Click there and add a leaf to my forest. Oh yea there is something about once all the forests total a certain number of leaves some company will buy up a bunch of rain forest and not cut down any of the trees. Or something like that. I only have a paltry 24 leaves. So visit it daily! Bookmark it! Each click means one more leaf. Of all the forests created I am number 108,000 something. Pretty pathetic.

You can also visit:
http://forestocheez.act4trees.com/
This forest currently has 50 leaves.

And now back to my meandering thoughts.

The rocking boat disturbs the stillness of the pond. A still pond is a peaceful pond. If you get in it and start rocking your boat - all you do is create waves. So do not create waves! Pretty simple. Go with the questions. Give the best, most honest answers you can. Do not get into any arguments with anyone on the panel. Listen to everything everyone says to you. Ask questions as needed, but listen well first. Think for a moment before you speak. Try to keep the pond as still as possible. In doing so, you keep yourself as calm as possible. Speaking for myself, this helps me think clearer.

No matter what you do, the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. Ain't this the truth! There is a lot that a person can do. But in the end, nobody can stop the Earth from rotating. Regardless of what happens in the room the sun will set, and rise the next day. There is no point in getting yourself all worked up and stressed out. A calm demeanor is ALWAYS better than a frantic, nervous demeanor. Kind of ties into the boat on the still water thing.

The tree never grows where the forest does not want it to. Ever see a forest that has a clear border? Like some sort of invisible line where there are trees on one side and no trees on the other?

Kind of like in the above photo. Trees growing in some places, and not others. So why not? Clearly, the forest does not want trees in the empty spaces. So grass grows there instead. Unless you have a better theory. The forest allows trees to grow where the forest wants trees to be. So if the panel (the forest) wants to select me (the tree) it will. The tree does not decide on its own where to grow.

So there. The process is now done. I did what I had to, and the rest is history now.

Of course everyone I know keeps asking the same question.

So, did you get the job?

And to them I say "does the sky have the clouds, or do the clouds have the sky?". Then they look at me like I am smoking the pot.

I do not know who was selected. These things do not work that way. You have to go home and wait for the phone to ring. You almost never know right there that you were selected. People have to confer and discuss things. This takes time. One person on the panel might like one candidate, while another person likes someone else. A consensus must be reached. And so on. These kinds of decisions are made only after careful consideration. So do I know? Nope. I just have to wait for ye old phone to make noise.

All you can do is make your best attempt, and then let the chips fall where they may. But I do feel good about the whole process. Not many people were there. The one guy I noticed the most was on his phone complaining to someone that the process was running late. And he kept moving from one seat to another. And he tried to cut in front of the person ahead of him by asking the person fetcher "am I next or is this guy (someone else not me) ahead of me" and then mentioned something about a dentist appointment, as if that would get him in faster. He was disturbing the stillness of the pond by rocking the boat. I was meditating on the universal truths while reading a two day old newspaper. And not rocking anything.

The Waiting Game Begins

I love job interview day. You get to get up at a normal hour and put on a suit and then drive somewhere and get stuck in the normal morning rush hour traffic with other normal people going to normal jobs. And you fit in with all the normal people. If anyone looks at you they think "hey here is this guy going to work! Just like me! Only his suit is better than mine".

Usually if I am in morning rush hour traffic I do not fit in. Not in the slightest. Because while all the scary normal people are heading off to work, I am going home. So I am driving against the flow of traffic. And while everyone else is in business attire I am wearing whatever I was wearing when I left the house the day before at 9 or 10 PM. Sometimes later. And while everyone else is drinking coffee and eating breakfast, I want a beer and dinner. In no way what so ever is this "fitting in".

So today was cool. I got to fit in. For once. EVERYONE just wants to fit in.

Oh yea! I almost forgot about my favorite way to piss people off in morning rush hour traffic! I loved doing this at the last "normal" job when I worked mostly when the sun was up but had weekdays off.

At least once a month I would use the boat. It was so much fun to hitch the boat up at 7 AM and saunter off into morning work traffic. All the people stressed out because they had to go to work, and here I am, some asshole towing a boat. Clearly NOT going to work. I would even load up fishing poles in the rod holders even if I was not going to go fishing. Just to rub it in. Am I in a hurry? NOPE! Not at all. I have a boat in tow. I know the ramps are not going to have anyone at them. Oh those were the days! Oh how the people hated me.

MENTAL NOTE TO MYSELF! Remember to get a bumper sticker for the boat that says "keep working, people on welfare and unemployment depend on you". That would so rule. I might even get shot at.

What was I saying again? OH YEA! Job interview day. I think I did OK. There were not many people there to be interviewed, so hey at least I made the short list. This is positive. I think I gave good answers - so that is positive. A positive times a positive equals another positive. There are three positives right there!

So now, I wait. And watch the minute hand on the clock ever so slowly tick by. I marvel at just how long it takes for the hour hand to go around once. And I keep the phone close by, waiting for it to make some manner of noise. Tick....tick....tick.....tick....CHIGGER....tick....mite....bedbug....

It seems I have parasites. 4 ticks, a chigger, another tick, a mite, and a bedbug. How about that? Good thing I have pet flea shampoo handy.

My Schedule

So how bad is my memory? You really want to know? It is so bad that I am posting some upcoming IMPORTANT events here so I might not forget.

1. I have a dentist appointment next Wednesday as 10 or 11 AM. I forgot the exact time. I HAD a dentist appointment on International Talk Like A Pirate Day (September 19) at 2 PM but I forgot about it. They are being nice and not charging me for the missed visit. I think. They do say that they CAN charge for missed appointments. And they do have my credit card info on file. So they could charge it. But of they do then I will pull out my ace and do the whole "remove this charge or you loose a patient" shit. It may work. But I kind of like this dentist. So I do not want to go somewhere else.

2. I got a job interview on October 2, at 10:30 or 10:45 or something. Maybe 10:15. I forgot the exact time. Yea I know - this is BAD. One should never ever forget important things like this. But I did. This is OK, I ALWAYS show up to these things early. I plan to be there before 10 AM. I will probably show up at 9 AM so I can chill out somewhere and have some coffee and relax and meditate and so on. Breathe in.........breath out.........do some shots of Cuban Coffee. It helps me hone my fine powers of concentration and zen. Also if some asshole pissed me off in traffic (HIGHLY probable given this is Miami) I will be able to forget about it as I relax and breathe and stuff for a half hour or so before the big event. Also I will not have to sit in my truck getting more and more and more upset because the traffic is sofa king horrible and I am going to be late and this jerk in front of me better hang up that cell phone before I shove it up his ass so far the doctors have to extract it out of their throat. Being late to an interview is new job suicide. Looks REALLY bad. Awful. Terrible. El stinko.Of all the bad things to do at an interview, being late is the worst. Forgetting to wear pants is second worse. So I always make every effort to be early. And showered. And clean shaven. I done got my hair cut Sunday, so I will not have the "just got a haircut" look. It will be like I am ALWAYS well groomed and never get lazy and put off going to the barber. I keep a spare pair of pants in tje truck in case of emergencies. And so on.

3. On the 25th I have to go out for more boat training - at night. I have not forgotten this yet. But there is always time! Stranger things have happened. Night boat operations are a lot different from daytime operations. You can not really see anything. You just have to use the force and somehow "know" where you are, and that you are not going to hit anything. The crazy thing is that this works.

4. Columbus Day is October 8. So I HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO find the time to finish the boat project. The boat needs the 70 PSI 5.3 gallons per minute wash down pump installed. I might get drunk and puke then have to wash the puke off the deck. Or someone else might get drunk and puke. Hopefully it will be overboard. But the REAL use of the wash down pump is to soak people. Squirt me with a water gun huh? Cute. But I have a HOSE! Hose beats water gun every time. Also I want to re-plumb the floor lockers / fish box to bump overboard as opposed to the bilge. I will take care of the fish boxes this weekend. I need to try to find two fittings, some hose, and some stainless steel ring clamps. I can find all this at the boat store. The people at the boat store know me. I am there twice a week to instruct / assist with a boating safety class. I walk in and they are all like "HEY! Look at this table full of clearance items!". Bastards. They know my one weakness. I think they read this blog.

5. I totally forgot I took a beer out of the fridge. I am just remembering now. I am wondering why I am thirsty, and then I realize that the beer is on the table. I think it is unopened. Yes, it is unopened. I remember now. I got it out of the fridge, then went to look for a bottle opener and forgot I was looking for a bottle opener. I noticed the cats were out of water, and bugging me for food. So I took care of that. And then my fried eggs were done, and the toasted hamburger bun was done. So I make the fried egg sandwich, and eat it. Without the beer. So now the beer is still on the table, unopened (I hope) and warm. Or at least room temperature. I can swap it out for a cold one still in the fridge.

THIS JUST IN FROM CNN! I swear I am not making this up.

OJ flew economy class from LAS to FLL, and slept through the flight. THIS IS NEWS?!?!?!?! Are you people serious or just making a joke? It is national news when someone flies economy class? Do I really care? NO! Not in the slightest. I will never be able to end my news strike.

None of this is news. GOT THAT CNN?!?!?! NONE OF THIS IS NEWS! If you are going to claim to be a news network, you have to learn the difference in bullshit and news. You can hire me for a million or two and give me a tazer and I will be your news editor. Every time someone on the air starts to report on bullshit like it is news, I will run out in my 1970s Spiderman "Electro" costume and zap them. I will even show up to the interview early, and with my own tazer.

I remember "Electro" from the 1970s Spiderman cartoons. I even remember the channel they used to come on, and the time. WCIX channel 6, at 0700. I used to watch this cartoon before school back in the second grade. At 0730 The Great Space Coaster came on. And school started at 0830, so the TV went off at 8 AM and it was time to really get ready for school. I can remember that, but not a dentist appointment. Even AFTER they call me the day before to remind me and I say "oh yea, Ill be there! No problem!".

My brain is broken.