Fly Like an Eagle

Back in April when I flew to RI, I gave up my seat on the way back and got a free ticket voucher. I intended to use it on Sept. 5 – Sept. 13. Last month, I went online to see if I could use it on there, but I couldn’t, which was fine. They gave me a number to call and said I could book it through there. I called that number, and after a 20 minute conversation with a very dumb support rep, she told me that I would have to go to the airport to use this voucher. Fast forward to today. I finally got to the airport to try and book this flight. I wasn’t in any kind of rush. If there was a United flight checking in, I fully intended to wait until they were all done with those people. There wasn’t, so I walked right up to try and book this flight. I told the guy the deal, and he said that I could, indeed, book this flight there, but he didn’t know how. He wasn’t a trainee, but I don’t think he’s been working there that long, either. He ended up calling a lead over to assist. After about five minutes, the lead couldn’t really figure out how to book this flight, either. I don’t know how airline software ended up being so complicated to use, nor do I know why it hasn’t been updated. Seems like it takes Shift+F5+A+4+reach-around to get into the main menu. A manager (I guess) came to assist, and he couldn’t seem to remember how to do it, either. Looks like they don’t get too many of these at the Eastern Iowa Airport. They ended up calling some sort of help line to see if they could be of assistance, but they were on hold for a long time. Meanwhile, other people were coming up with questions about flights, baggage claims, etc. I told them I was in no real rush, so in between helping them and trying to navigate their menus, I was kind of spacing out at the check-in counter. After about forty five minutes, the manager finally found the option. Seems as though they were in the wrong fare class (you can only get certain fare class seats with a free ticket voucher. Says so right on there.). I got my reservation and was on my merry way. On a side note, I never once was asked to show my ID while booking this flight. The leader did ask me if I was Thomas Reyes (since that was the name on the voucher) and “not some super-secret spy”. I had one of those angel/devil shoulder moments, kinda like the one from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, where there are two devils. The angel eventually came along and won.

That story, by itself, isn’t very provocative. The only reason I’m telling it is so that I can tell you this next part. While I was spacing out at the counter, I was looking around. There were actually a lot of cute women in fairly cute dresses. There was also this one couple. The guy was late checking in for a flight to Denver. His girlfriend/whatever was…rather large and wearing a fuschia dress that was…rather not. They ended up starting to make out like this was the last time they’d ever see each other. The dude ended up kinda lifting her dress up and grabbing her ass just as I’d glanced over there. Was she wearing underwear? All signs point to no, but they could have been hiding. I really had no desire to inspect any longer. This must be god’s way of ‘making up’ for not letting that girl skinny dip last night. If so, well, I bite my thumb at you, god.

Dance of the Pool Boy

A lot of you guys know that my temporary part time “job” (I say “job” cause I’m not getting paid. I’m getting discounted rent) as the ‘guy who closes the pool at night’. Yes, that’s my official title. The job consists of kicking everyone out, straightening up the chairs, cleaning up any trash, checking the chlorine levels and locking the pool area up. The pool closes at 10:00. No one is allowed in after 10:00. Well, except staff. Staff can swim whenever the hell we want to. Too much liability to have pool parties after 10:00.

Tonight, I checked the water temperature, and it was absolutely perfect to do some forbidden swimming, so I locked up the pool, walked back home to change and went back. The on-call maintenance guy had a service call, so he was at the office. We were talking for awhile when some girl (possibly two. I couldn’t really see at night through the slots in the fence) came up and was all, “Are you guys supposed to be there?” To which we replied, “Yes.” She countered, “Why can you guys be in there and not me?” To that, we reposted, “We’re maintenance.” We got a retort of, “Well, I’m a princess.” Ok, so she may have been a little drunk. And she may have been a princess, but she kinda sounded like…a whore. We maintained that there was too much liability to have anyone in the pool after hours, and she left us with a “Well, it’s your loss” and a few other words. She was a little drunk princess/whore that wanted to do some late night skinny dipping. I had to turn her away, and no one in all the land was sadder than I. I don’t get a whole lot of chances to see naked women IRL. Not for free, anyway. I still think I can get a pool boy role-playing scenario going on one night this summer. You know, if I end up actually speaking to someone of the opposite sex. Got two weeks to get something set up for my birthday. *fingers crossed*

I ended up swimming for a while then came home. The end.

A career query

I have a little conundrum. I think it’s a conundrum anyway. It has to do with work. I’m really checking in to Kirkwood to see about their A+, NET+ and Security+ certification prep courses. They have a program for each of those that run one right after the other. They also have a program that does all three that runs from September to May. Saves you about $1100 in tuition costs. Total, that program is $3500. That’s a lot of money. I’m lucky in that AEGON provides tuition assistance as long as you are taking classes that relate to your current position or any position you can get within the company. It’s not always available, and even when it is, it’s a little hard to get since there are a lot of people going for not a lot of money. Should I go this route and have AEGON pay for tuition, books, etc, I could get all three of these certifications within a year. Sounds pretty cool, right?

Here’s the problem. Geonetric has an opening for what seems to be an entry level Helpdesk Tech. Cool in it’s own right, especially if you check out the “10 reasons to work at Geonetric” page on their jobs site. The problem is, I…I really don’t want to be an idiot in a company full of programmers and IT people. I’d like to get my certifications before taking on a job like that (or at least right after I get hired). Geonetric, however, doesn’t have tuition assistance. I’d be on my own for that $3500 plus books, lab fees, etc. The last thing I want is more student loans, even though these may be totally worth it. My question is: do I try for the job at Geonetric, try and hold my own for two to three months before those classes start and go from there or stay at AEGON for another year, take the tuition assistance and maybe hope that a job opens up in our IT department? Even if one doesn’t, it shouldn’t be too hard getting another job once I get those certifications. They are kinda few and far between (I’ve only seen three non-senior positions open in a little over a year and they were all in the middle of January), but it seems like when one opens, a bunch do. My job at AEGON is pretty boring at times, but it’s not unbearable. I tolerate it just fine. I don’t dread going into work every morning, just falling asleep by noon. Any thoughts?

EDIT: Since the vendor certifications are part of Kirkwood’s “Continuing Education” program and not actually college credit classes, they are not covered by AEGON’s tuition assistance.

And now, a post about strippers

After a recent trip to the strip club, I was thinking about the whole psychology of the business. Strippers are quite good at getting money out of people. The good ones are fairly good at reading people and using that knowledge to their advantage. The great ones are even better, but only few of them are great at it. I think that few of them, though, really understand the psychology behind it all. I think if they did, they could really be exceptional and make a lot more money.

This led me to think of a really awesome part time job: strip club profiler. Not profiling the girls, profiling the clientelle. Get a behavioral analyst, some Criminal Minds-type shit, to read the customers. Read their body language, their behavior, their attitude, etc, and build a profile to relay to the girls that will help them really work the guy/girl/whoever. Take me, for example: a large, not terribly attractive guy that wears his self-consciousness on his sleeves (and pant legs. and shoulders. and shoes), and a dancer’s eyes light up like pachinko machines. The difference between me and a lot of other guys that frequent strip clubs that fit that description is that I already know the game they’re playing. Point is, if I already know what I’m dealing with, I can use that to my advantage. Like I said, strippers are already really good at this. I somehow think they could be a lot better, though.

Here is the second set of pictures for those who haven’t seen them yet.

Home again

I’ve been in RI for about three days now and have no desire to go back to Iowa. It’s been a real good time. Been hanging out in downtown Newport and at the beach cause, well, there really isn’t much to do. People say that about Iowa, but I think there’s plenty to do there. The most popular thing to do here is just kinda walk/bum around. Downtown, at the beach, down Ocean Dr at the parks, wherever. I’m not complaining. I actually like the bumming around. Problem is, there aren’t many places to bum around indoors when it’s raining. That’s why I need to get my bowling alley up, cause then I’ll be a MILLIONAIRE!!!!! Of course, I need about $3 million to actually build a bowling alley, but that’s besides the point. I’m bumming around in Panera right now because they have free wifi. If it weren’t raining, I’d probably be outside leeching their wifi instead of stealing a seat from the huge cruise ship crowd they have today. Tomorrow I’m bringing my grandpa to Fall River for his chemo, so I’ll be there pretty much most of the morning/early afternoon. After that, the weather should be clearing up, and I should be hitting Cliff Walk and Ocean Drive. For now, here are some of the pictures I took so far.

Final Four

Next week is the last week of my bowling league, and it’s position round. 1st place vs. 2nd, 3rd vs. 4th, etc. The team in 1st has clinched 1st place. Second through fourth place teams are separated by 3.5 games. We are in third right now, 1.5 games out of second. The fourth place team is four games behind us. Now, we need to only win one game to clinch third place (actually, we can tie), which is important, since I heard that only the first three teams cash. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’m pretending it is. If we lose all four games, we end up in fourth. If we lose all four games and the team in fifth wins all four games, there’s a three way tie for third place, and we will drop to fifth in the tiebreaker (total pins from season). It is of the utmost importance that we at least tie one game. We beat the team we play next week 4-0 the last time we played them. This team is also kind of our rival. DRAMA!!

On a related bowling note, the year-end 9-pin Lancer tournament is the weekend of the 18th and 25th, and I’m going to completely miss it because I’m going to be in RI. Kinda sad, but nothing is going to stop me from getting to RI. Summer leagues start next month, and I’m looking to bowl on Monday nights at 6:00PM. I don’t know the current status of my team, but I’m pretty sure we’ll need at least one more.

I haven’t forgotten about this. I just haven’t really done much worth updating about. I doubt anyone wants to hear about how I checked craigslist on Tuesday and didn’t find any good couches. I got a few small things done, such as cleaning the apartment. It’s just about in visitors shape. I mean, if there were anything to eat or drink or do, then it would probably be a little better, but at least it’s clean. I also installed Visual C++ Express and am hunting for some good books/tutorials for that. It looks a lot simpler than when I installed it before. Microsoft has a C++ tutorial when you download the program. I glanced at what that entailed, but you need to download a certain viewer to look at the ebooks. Lame. I hope to start HelloWorld-ing in the next day or two.

I also fixed my car door! It opens now!!! Used this 5-minute epoxy (that actually took fifteen minutes to bond), and it seems to be holding up. It’s supposed to rain kinda hard the next few days, so we’ll see if it’s still holding. I also pried the frame back with a screwdriver so nothing gets bent anymore. This actually makes me a lot happier than it should.

I can’t think of a witty title…

I started getting new things/replacing things in my apartment so hopefully it won’t look like a dorm room so much. I started last week with a toaster oven (or a Toast-R-Oven, as it was referred to on the box). I don’t know how I went so long without one. I’ve used it almost every day, and it works GREAT.

I also hit up Gordmann’s yesterday. I heard they have a lot of decent wall decor, so I checked it out. I plan on taking the framed puzzles on the walls in my living room and moving them to my bedroom and replacing them with…other stuff. I’m not sure yet. I did buy one framed print. It’s this really cool elephant picture. I haven’t put it up yet because 1) I don’t quite know where I want it and 2) I don’t want to put anything up until I can either a) find something that can clean my walls without taking the paint off or b) repaint my apartment. I took a picture of the print, but can’t post it quite yet since I can’t find the cord that connects my camera to my computer. On second thought, I should have something else I can do that with somewhere…

Edit: Here’s the elephant picture.

One man band

In the last post, I mentioned that the things I want to concentrate on most right now are redecorating my apartment and programming. That didn’t stop me from going to Guitar Center yesterday and pricing instruments/getting recommendations. I’ve wanted to learn guitar since I was probably six. I was looking at some acoustic guitars before asking the guitar guy what he would recommend for a beginner. He recommended an Ovation Celebrity. He said that the round backs (they have sort of bowl backs rather than flat ones) gave them a great sound. He also said they sounded a lot like electrics for being acoustic (they were all acoustic/electric, actually). They’re a little more than I wanted to pay for my first guitar. I was actually eyeing an Ibanez. I was always kind of partial to Ibanez guitars. Not sure why, since I don’t really have any experience comparing them. There was something about them that always kinda called to me. Those and Takamine, but Takamine are pretty expensive.

I was also looking at some drums. I asked the drum guy what would help me learn how to play without pissing off my neighbors. He recommended a Go Anywhere Practice Kit. Nice and cheap and it gets the job done. The drawbacks, though, were that it doesn’t come with a bass drum pedal. Those start at about $70. Also, there’s no hi-hat. He said that I could get a high hat and they could be quiet enough or I could just make the motions with my left foot so I could build up that muscle. He said that if I actually wanted to hear the beats, he’d go with an electronic kit, but even the low end models are pretty expensive. Kinda bad ass, though. There was a guy rocking one when I was there. Jordan mentioned that I could also get a regular 5-piece kit and put some mutes (rubber pads that go over the heads and cymbals) on it. If I had to choose between drums and guitar, I’d choose drums, but drumming gets really expensive really quick.