…just highly improbable

I took Elvis to the off leash park today. Damn that place was packed. Plenty of friendly dogs all romping and playing. One little Pekingese was running roughshod over a giant 3 month old Husky. Kept growling at him then fucking his leg. It was hilarious to watch. One young lady had a 7 month old Great Dane pup. It was soooo full of energy, and just a loving and friendly animal. Kept coming over to me to drink water and get petted. A little while later someone else came to the park with a year and a half old Great Dane. It;s head was at my armpit. Again, such a loving and friendly beast. I ended up talking to this guy for 30 minutes. This is his third Great Dane and he answered all of my questions. I am now settled that I want either a purebred Great Dane, or a Dane and something mix. I am now busy scouring Petfinder to see what kind of Great Danes are in the area to get an idea of what different mixed breeds look like, then it;s off to research temperaments of the mixes. I will eventually have to get a sidecar for my motorcycle too. I’m actually kind of excited about the prospect of getting a dog now 🙂

Federal extensions for unemployment got extended so I’m not totally fucked when my main claim ends in two weeks. It’s a minor relief, but considering that I have had very little go my way in the past year, I will take what I can get.

I started to feel really lonely last night. I don’t get any kind of human contact any more other than seeing the room mate when he is home. It’s really starting to drive me buggy. I have tossed out ideas to friends but they all get shot down pretty quickly and to be honest, I am starting to get the feeling that I should stop bothering. I know everyone has there own life going on, but I feel really isolated these days. The combination of no job and no social life is hitting an untenable point. At least when I was in West Seattle, I could go hit The Shipwreck once a week to get some level of socialization with friends. Don’t even really have that right now. As soon as I get this job at Zhurosoft (positive thinking and all that) things will start to even out. Until then I just need to suck it up some more I guess.

I have an interview for a job I am perfect for tomorrow. It’s a QA position with a small game company that also has some community liaison work as far as setting up open betas and what not. I interview with the community manager for the position. I think I am actually uniquely perfect for this job. I have plenty of QA experience in games and I also ran the Penny Arcade forums for over a year with little problems, and that can be a psychotic crowd of folks.

It’s been almost 4 months since my last interview and that one was a fucking disaster (the one where the interviewer got aggressive with me when I said I was having a hard time finding work) so I am a little concerned about not hitting my stride. I am 90% confident though that I will get this job. I did some research on the company and they seem pretty solid. Some quick research on the person I am interviewing with shows that he is a musician, so we will have some nice non work related stuff to chat about, and it sounds like it will be a casual interview in a coffee shop. The location is pretty perfect too as far as commuting from West Seattle goes. It’s in Pioneer Square, so only a 3 block walk from the pedestrian ferries.

I *really* need this win. It’s been almost a year since I worked last and I am really starting to go crazy. I think I could be a really good asset for this place, and I already have some ideas to suggest as far as directions to go for future projects. So, wish me luck. I’ll post an update when I get back from the interview.

Bacterial infection of the lungs! YAY!

Roomie went to the doctor tonight to get checked out since he isn’t getting better as quickly as he had hoped. Doctor told him that he has a bacterial infection of the lungs and that it most likely got passed to me and our house guest. Thankfully we are both already on the mend so there is no need for anti-biotics, we just need to take Mucinex D until everything is good again. I suspect I should be 100% within another week at the latest. I slept about 10 hours solid last night which is a first during this illness and I can feel myself getting really tired now even with the psudoephidrine coursing through my system. I suspect I will be getting another 10 – 12 hours of sleep over the next couple of nights now that the coughing has subsided and my feet aren’t in pain. I am going to be desperate for socialization when this is all done.

I have three weeks of unemployment left. I have no idea if I qualify for any kind of extension or not, but I am assuming not. I have had no job leads in ages and no one is responding to my resume. I need to find *something* that I can do before my benefits run out so I can buy food and pay bills. It’s not helping that I am a 41 year old, massively out of shape guy or I wouldn’t be too concerned. I could just get a dish washing job or some kind of manual labor but I have already proven to myself that that isn’t going to happen any time soon. I’m so tired of my life being a struggle. I really need to re-evaluate my existence and figure out which direction I should go with  my life. It seems obvious to me that something I have been doing for the past 20 years is wrong. I need to kill the fear and accept the idea that I may need to walk away from everything and everyone I know to find a life I can be happy with. A human can’t live with this amount of stress for this long without having something break, and I don’t want to break.

Thankfully I have Tool for moments like this. At least I can pretend everything will be ok for 9 minutes and 24 seconds.