Sooooooo behind

I'm SOOOOOO behind on blogging. The last few months have been really, really busy and it looks like it's not letting up until January. So, I'll have to post snippets when I can.

Major stuff that's been going on over the last few months:

• Went to San Francisco for Oracle Open World in October,
• Went to Belgium, Amsterdam & Essen, Germany with Chris & Jeremiah,
• Went to BGG.CON in Dallas,
• Went to the Bohemian Grove with Dave for Thanksgiving,
• Baked lots and lots of cookies, and finally...
• Have gone on lots and lots of dates, especially over the last month!

In between all that, I've been working, gaming, cooking, eating and trying to sleep! I'll have to post little tidbits about those adventures (plus any other little ones)!

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 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!