In Hotlanta Once Again

I'm in Atlanta once more for the Oasis of Fun which starts tomorrow night. One thing that is definitely different this time is that I will be seeing 42, whom I haven't seen since we broke up. I am feeling completely fine with it and we've already arranged to play Race for the Galaxy together. I'm curious to see how I'll feel after seeing him. My guess is that I'll feel the same way I'm feeling now... We've communicated a fair amount over the last few weeks and apparently, he's busy with a hoard of women, including his ex-girlfriend (and I think he was including me!). Just a month ago, I was feeling some fairly strong residual feelings for him, but a lot has happened since then and I think they've severely subsided. I guess I'll know exactly how much once I see him this weekend!

I'm really looking forward to seeing my friends, some of whom I haven't seen since the OoF last summer! Also, Dale is unable to make it so I promised that if I could acquire a webcam (I left mine at home), I would stream up some video so he could check in on us every once in a while! So, there may be some streaming video this weekend! He put out the call for the webcam and if anyone has one, I guess I'll find out soon!

I saw my friend MeeMe today who I haven't seen in ages!! I think the last time I saw her was about 14 years ago. Here's a picture of us from lunchtime today!


When I get home, I'll have to dig up the old picture I have from the last time we saw each other. She looks a little more "grown-up" but other than that, exactly the same. She said I look exactly how she remembered me too. I guess it might be time for another hairstyle? I am quite partial to long hair though... Maybe a haircut for the summer is in order.

Race for the Galaxy: Home Decor

My friends know me. They know what I'm enthusiastic about and even though I haven't been posting about it lately, I'm still crazy about Race for the Galaxy (192 plays since Christmas and hoping to greatly add to that this weekend!). My friend Seth sent a gift via Mike for my birthday and when I saw Mike pulling out a rolled up poster, I started screaming with joy and jumping up and down in circles because I knew it had to be a Race for the Galaxy poster! And it was!! So, a very public "THANK YOU SETH!" for my favorite poster in the world (at least for now...)!

So, I took it and got a cool black anodized custom frame made and hung it in my dining room so I can look at it whenever I want while playing games. Here's what it looks like...



And a step back...


Isn't that awesome?!?!
*happy dance*
OK, that's it for now...

Update from Dallas

It's been another week since I've been in Dallas and wow, I'm sore! Why? Because I took my first Krav Maga class. It's a style of fighting that the Israeli army uses. It's for close combat. I enjoyed the class quite a bit, but oh my, I'm so freaking sore!

Monday night I went to see the Sex and the City Movie. I liked it, hardly surprising considering I loved the show. One thing I always love about that show is that there's always some kernel of relationship truth in it. Something that is relate-able. In the movie, Carrie calls herself an "emotional cutter." I started dying laughing because I've been feeling like I've been an emotional cutter lately. Why? (Maybe I should rename this post to "Why?")

I got an email from 42 out of the blue last week and we've exchanged some emails since then. Mainly just catching up, but naturally I've been thinking about him and our relationship more. Sometimes it makes me sad and other times it just gets me thinking about the past. The last few weeks have been busy with dating in between work stuff, but I don't feel like going into all that. Especially since I've hardly written anything about dating stuffs since 42 & I broke up in March. I'll have to write an update on that sometime soon, I haven't quite decided about that just yet.

On Tuesday, I worked and then went to play games with the Dallas Gamers. I ended up playing Kingsburg, Rails of Europe and Race for the Galaxy. Man, I *still* really love that game!

I worked today and then spent the afternoon and evening playing poker! It was pretty fun. My table was good. There were a couple cool guys there and I was Nickname Girl. I nicknamed everyone at the table (whether or not they liked it or not). We had Golf Guy (who was quite the cutie), Fiance Guy (who got later renamed to Tat Guy at his request), New Guy, Quiet Guy, LA Guy, Oil Guy, and Tan Guy (who later was renamed to Raiser Guy because he kept raising all the pre-flops). I think I ended up down a bit for the trip, but I am definitely getting better. I felt like I was betting better and I'm trying to get better at reading people based on their actions. My problem is that I just go with my gut and not really with the logical assumptions. That is an area that I need work on.

Hello from Dallas

I've been in Dallas since Monday night. My first official day at work was Tuesday. I'm going to be here training until next Friday. This week I'm training with Robin, the current controller and next week, I'm in the office working with the manager of the consultants and various others I'm sure.

One thing I've been really excited about is the program that our consultants consult on. It's really freakin' cool. It's hard to describe how it works, mainly because I'm not really sure, but the power it holds is amazing. I can't wait to learn more about that!

Other than that, I went out for gaming last night and managed to squeeze in a game of Agricola, Race for the Galaxy and Jetzt Schlagt 13. One of the beautiful side effects of BGG.CON... When I showed up at the cafe where I knew there'd be gaming going on, I ran into Jeff, a fellow BGGer and someone that I met at my first BGG.CON. So, it was nice to see a familiar face and even nicer to see he had a copy of Agricola underneath his Louis XIV (not my favorite game at all).

He invited me over for games on Saturday, so my plan is to game. So much more fun than sitting in the hotel watching "Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead" for the umpteenth time. Although total side note: I forgot Josh Charles is in that movie and damn, he is quite fetching in it!

And another side note: BGG is down for maintenance or something or the other. Boo. I wanted to finally log in all my game plays from Gamex and last night. Oh well. Tomorrow I guess...

I'm officially done...

Friday was insanely busy. It started off with showing up to work to no internet, no printing, and basically no network because the corporate office decided that Friday was going to be the day they decided to change the router to a more "robust" router. The first thing the auditors said was "We can't print..." I was like, "Oh yeah? Me EITHER..." Luckily, it was resolved fairly quickly. While they worked on resolving that I started packing up my office.

The day wore on and it became clear there was NO way I was going to be able to finish everything up and clean up everything. I'm a stacker. I stack paper everywhere, so I had several stacks that needed to be sifted through, but I had to just deal with the auditors and closing the month because those were the priorities.

I went in to work today to finish up everything and finished everything up as much as I could! My desk is completely cleaned out, cleared off, and Marilyn now has a stack of papers to file.

I went out to lunch Friday with the president of the company and my old boss (the former president). It was really fun. They get together for lunch every Friday. I think I might start dropping in on their lunches every month or so just to say "hi"! I went out last night with Marilyn, the new girl and a couple other co-workers for drinks and that was fun.

This past week has been so busy that I haven't really thought about the fact that I will no longer work there. I think next week is gonna be rough. Although, I'm super busy this coming week too! So we'll see. I'm planning on keeping in touch with all my favorites, so I'll get all the good social stuff without any of the stress!!

And maybe I'll finally get to catch up on blogging about everything else!

One more day

I can't believe that tomorrow is my last day! This week has been a blur of auditing goodness... I have barely had time to do anything around the office. So much so that I'm seriously considering going in on Saturday to try to finish some stuff up. What is wrong with me?

I've been too busy to even feel sad about it being my last day. On top of that, I think I'm just so relieved that I won't have to deal with the stress anymore that it's hard to feel sad about leaving. I'm going out for drinks with Marilyn after work tomorrow, so that should be fun.

All I keep thinking is "I'm never going to get everything done!" I just don't think I'm going to be able to. Oh my. Tomorrow is going to be busy. Ugh!

Starting my last week of work

I'm about to start my last week of work. Let's see what do I need to get done this week?

• Close the month (ended 5/4)
• Deal with the four auditors who will be here all week to go over our year-end numbers
• Continue training my replacement
• Deal with my corporate boss who will be here Wednesday
  
• Clean out my office
• Make sure loose ends/projects are handed over to someone or taken care of

This is going to be the longest week. EVER.

I got the job!

I'm back from Dallas and... I got the job! I interviewed with three people at the company and they all went very well. I received my offer letter on Saturday and I signed and faxed it back today. Everyone at the company seems incredibly smart, happy to be there and just plain cool. I feel like I fit right in with everyone and just had a ball. I'm really looking forward to working with them. I think this is going to be a fabulous opportunity. I am really excited about all the possibilities! And apparently, I really need to practice my Call of Duty 4 skills. I really suck at that game!

I'll basically be doing the same type of work I'm doing now, but not for a manufacturing company. The company I'll be working for is a consulting company. I'll be the CFO/HR/recruiter. I'm especially intrigued by the recruiting because I've never actually done that before. The CFO/HR duties are very similar to what I've already been doing, so that should be no problem!

The best parts about the job:

• The new company is awesome and fun. We went bowling for two hours in the middle of the day on Friday. Somebody lost a bet and had to do a can-can up and down the bowling alley and let's just say it wasn't me! :-)
  
• I'll be working from home (or wherever I am at the moment) and the schedule is extremely flexible. As in, there is no schedule. So long as I'm getting my work done, they don't care if I work during the day, at night, four days so I can take three days off, whatever. They just care about the results. (Yay! More cons?)
  
• There is no vacation/sick pay/holiday policy. See Extremely Flexible Schedule above. If I'm getting my work done, that's what matters.
  
• I will have much more control over the direction of the company instead of just taking orders from the corporate office!
• Traveling to meet with potential recruits will allow me to explore other parts of the country!
• Less stress than my current job!

Overall, this is going to be WAY better than my current job. My last day there is next Friday, May 9th and I am counting down the days!!

And how can you pass up this view? Two of my interviews were held out on the balcony that goes along the whole office where this is the view:



The rest of the weekend was totally fun too. The Mavericks won the play-off game we went to Friday night, we played poker for 13 hours on Saturday and we saw the most amazing sudden death outcome at the Byron Nelson PGA tour! The winner, a hottie named Adam Scott, (and yes, I just called a golfer a "hottie"... if you don't trust me, OMG just check out that link!!!) sunk a 48-foot putt for the win. You should've heard the crowd, it was amazing!!!

I was exhausted by the time I got home, but it was worth every second! Oh, and I got that chicken biscuit on Saturday!

Upcoming Interview

I am very excited about my upcoming interview on Friday in Dallas. I fly out Thursday night, right after work. The schedule after that is complete and utter madness!

Friday: Interviewing with the three partners of the firm & probably meeting many other employees as they'll all be in the office for a training day. They have a PS3 and xBox 360 in the office, so I'm hoping to squeeze in some Rock Band and/or Guitar Hero too, although I'm SO out of practice that putting "Guitar Hero shredder, proficient at Rock Band" on my resume under "Special Talents" may be an overstatement at the moment!

We'll hopefully wrap up training early that day and go bowling for a couple hours. Then we'll be going to the Mavericks playoff game that night. We turned down invitations to two home poker games and being able to watch the baseball game from the office.

Saturday: We had several options, but decided on going to Oklahoma to play some poker! Yay! I'm happy with that. I believe I'm also getting a personalized driving tour of Dallas to check out all the areas with the really cool, older homes. I love those! Oh, and I think a chicken biscuit for Chick-Fil-A will be in order Saturday morning.

Sunday: I think we have a PGA 18th hole tent party to go to, but I'll have to check. I come home Sunday night and it sounds like I will be downright tired after running around all weekend.

But, hopefully - keep your fingers crossed for me! - I'll have a new job by the end of it!

Recharging my batteries

I've been home alone the last couple days, recharging the batteries. Last night, I chatted with a couple friends, watched some TiVoed programs (yay!!) and went to bed before midnight. That pretty much qualifies as early for me!

Today, I went into the office from 6 AM - 9 AM, then had an eyebrow waxing appointment. Then I went to Costco!! I haven't been there in ages! I also did six loads of laundry, re-read the book that I'm leading a book group for tomorrow and have been catching up on my Food Network programs. I also did something I haven't done in months! I swept my balcony! It looks so much better.

I watched an episode of Barefoot Contessa today that really made me want to make her Coq au Vin recipe! Oh my, it looked so delicious! After making her Beef Bourguinon a couple months ago, I'm itching to use my Dutch oven again. Oh, I wish I had taken pictures of that stew. It was delicious!!

Tonight, I'm going to just clean up around the apartment (and maybe play some video games) and go to bed early. Tomorrow is my first Ultimate experience and then a couple MyPC meetings, so I have a pretty busy day tomorrow. I'm glad I've been able to relax some today. It's been sooooo nice!