a : frustrated : artist

Miscellaneous ...

Calixto sent a link to this funny, short survey: Yankee or Dixie? This presents us with a well-selected group of regional sayings, and asks us to pick the ones we're most accustomed to using. My result: "87% (Dixie). Did you have any Confederate ancestors?" As it happens, yes - more than a few, actually.

That's a good intro to my next topic: moving. As I indicated on Wednesday, we may move from Atlanta to some point north. Yesterday I had a job interview in Washington, DC, a town that I know pretty well and like. The job looks like a good one; it'd be a 'promotion' for me in terms of actual position and in the size of the company; and Alex is excited about the kinds of opportunities available in DC that may enable him to break free of being a technological grease monkey. The only drawback is that we had hoped to move somewhere where the cost of living is significantly lower than in Atlanta; however, the advantages of life in the nation's capitol would definitely make up for that drawback.

I think the interview went reasonably well as far as my questions and answers are concerned, but I won't know for sure unless they call me back for the final round. I had a raging cold accompanied by a sore throat which made talking painful, and just before the interview I "dumped," a term used by us gastric bypass vets for the condition that ensues when we eat something too sugary or fatty for our systems to endure. I had to attempt to hide the fact that I was physically terribly uncomfortable during the interview. All I can do is hope that they didn't notice, or if they did, that they understood that I was ill.

I flew up there and back all in one day to do this, and it about killed me. Today I'm exhausted, and my feet have blisters. My hands are trembling from lugging my briefcase and portfolio around all day. If I ever do something like that again, I'll do it differently, that's for sure!

I have another interview for a very different kind of position on Monday in Belgrade, Montana, which is just to the west of Bozeman. Alex and I are going to drive out there, starting very early in the morning tomorrow. It's going to be grueling, but I'm looking forward to driving out west. I've never done it before.

I'll try to blog while we're out there, but as always I can't promise anything. It looks good though. Alex has been experimenting with wi-fi, and we're finding that public wireless networks seem to be springing up all over the place. We're going to be staying in a little motel in Bozeman that has its own wireless network set up, so with any luck at all we'll be able to hop on and I'll do some reporting. And I'm going to try this moblogging thing that TypePad offers, as well. Typing messages on my cell phone isn't fun but I want to at least see how it all works!

I'm Back - Again

My main webhost did a massive restructuring of their system, and once again I got locked out of my blog. I'm really tired of dealing with that - so I'm moving to Typepad where hopefully things will stay stable. Their interface is pretty groovy anyway. All the old posts can be accessed now and forever at this url.

I'm still jobless, and for a while there Alex and I were stressin' hard about what the future was going to be like. We've now got it figured out. I'm tired of being a rank-and-file graphic artist, so any position I take within the creative industry is going to be with an excellent company where I can do something I love and has REAL potential for growth. In fact, I have two interviews coming up in the next week for just those sorts of jobs. If I am not offered either position, I will settle back, get a part-time retail job or something to help cover the rent, focus most strongly on developing as a fine artist, and keep a constant eye out for those rare oppotunities. We will move from Atlanta if it is necessary and in fact, I personally would love to move away from Atlanta.

That's enough about that.

My old logs show that a good many people still check this blog, so hopefully I can win back some readers. I enjoy blogging very much; although in the middle of a job search I don't particularly want to go off on any fiery political rants! So don't expect anything more than diary-type entries for a bit, or at most, talk about more general, less controversial stuff. As the election year moves along I certainly will be writing about that - especially as I am finding the whole thing to be exceptionally entertaining!

It's going to take a while to get my template like I want it, and to get my blogroll back up to scratch. So bear with me.