life was lesure, learning french words, we stayed in bright rooms, without any style

so the thing I hate the most about government interviews is the relative lack of passion for the job you get with the interviewers. the one I just had went pretty well, but I don’t know if i got the job because of that lack of passion, and she was the most passionate interviews I’ve had.

but lets hope, its a system analyist job up in portland, systems analyist is supposedly one of the best jobs with the feds. you get to do everything, and once you’ve done it for a while, you can’ quite litteraly do anything, provided you are willing to move, which i’m not so sure of, I like portland and it’s cheap eoung that I could buy a house. it’s also a volvo mecha.  but i think that’s just because of the sort of people who live there, it’s far far more liberal than colorado.

 

NP:rainer maria, life of lesure

I can’t tell you anything, you don’t already know

I don’t know what it was about out there today, It seemed nice enough as I left the house, I was going up to eaton co, a few miles north of greeley, I have an interview on tues for a job in greeley. and I wanted to check it out. 

as I was dirving up there were really violent clouds forming over the mountains. huge black towwering clouds.  and then after bulding up for maybe ten minuetes, they would blow out compleately.  I don’t know what was happpening, I would glance over and see this huge mess of angry air and look back at the road, then glance back, and it would be gone.  it was directly to the west of me, so it wasn’t coming out onto the plains, I don’t know what was going on with them. 

so anyway, I got to the town, if you could call it that.  one strip mall, a huge number of buildings lining main street, but not a single shop in any of them. they weren’t boarded up of anything, just diserited.  they looked like they had been abandoned right about the time I was born,  I found the city hall, that’s where I’m going for my interview.

so I drove around the town some more, it really didn’t take much time.  the town wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen in colorado. it was like a farming town down in texas, short of the assholes in lifted trucks. but everything else was there, the grain silo was just like any other bulding in town. the farm feilds were unfenced, there were green corps growning out in the fields…

then I moved on towards greeley. since that’s the place I would actually be working.  just as I turned down the road towards greeley the wind picked up. it wasn’t much wind by colorado standards, but you have to remeber it hasn’t been windy here in years.  so the ~50mph gusts came as quite a shock,  esp to the old mexican riding his bike along the highway, it knocked him over.  (he was ok though, he had gotten up and was tiring to ride when I went past)

and so greeley. a town I don’t really know much about. it’s got the smell of feed lots.  something tells me I’d be making a lot more vegie stuff if I had to live there (so that’s maybe a plus?) but anyway, I only had to endure the smell for like a mile, cause the plant was on the east side of the highway and the wind was from the west.  but as I’m dirving down this road, I don’t know what road, there weren’t any houses for sale, nothing for rest.  then I came to a bunch of houses for rent. just accross the street from the college. then nothing, the a few started poping up, as I turned onto another road, a highway. and there was a block of houses for sale. an entire block of houses.  a for sale sign in each and everyone.  the next block there were a few less, but from that point on, every block had at least one for sale sign. so I guess it means cheap rent?

anyway, onward past greeley, I don’t know what town was next, I’m thinking maybe loveland? I drove through that town as well.  strip malls galore. I turned down 287 just as one of the storms that had been buliding up accorss the mountains came down off of the mountain. maybe they had just come so fast that they blew themselves out before getting more than a coulpe of miles out? it was pretty damm inpressive.  maybe 5/8 of a inch of water in the time it took to lights to change? and then it was gone. a mile up the road it was dry, and I don’t think it was because the strom missed it up there. but with ~40 mph winds (they had slowed a bit) and an atmosphere as viloently changeing I think it all evaporated.

so anyway, I had my dogs with me, thinking that I could take them out in whatever parks they had in this town, but they didn’t have any, so It was on to the res, boulder res has been a farvoite of my dogs for some reason, they don’t like the park with a pond here in broomfield.  and the res was far more voilent than I’ve ever seen it before, well the res it self I’ve sene that topsy turvy, but not combined with the attmosphere above as well. there was no one out on the res, white caps forming out in the middle wouldn’t let me see if all of the boats were ashore, but as of yesterday they were still mored out in it.I wakled around with my dogs for a while, but there were more people out with there dogs and I was still scared of another t-storm, so we didn’t stay long. 

and that’s it.  I’m not really sure what to think of this job. it’s the same as the on in glennwood springs, which I still don’t know if I’ve gotten. the job itself seems really cool, basically an office manager for a cop shop.  but I don’t know anything about the location.  I really am hopeing to get the job somewhere else, like little rock, or chareston, or some town in tn, I’ve gotten “reffered to the hireing officer” inall of those places as well.   I suppose I could comute, but I don’t want to.  and I don’t realy know anything about greeley.

I suppose I’ll take it just the same. anythings better than what I’m doing now. on the subject of the job I interviewed for on last friday, they had already hired someone(s), before I even got the interview.  no real suprise, as it  was with the IRS. 

 

NP, guided by voices, Acorns & Orioles. 

I’d really love to see these guys again. but the pavement reuoin isn’t really appleaing to me. I don’t know why.  I was thinking about my best comcerts again a couple of weeks ago, and GBV was definiatly in my top five. pavement wasn’t even in my top fifty, and I think i saw them three times? oh well.

be still my heart, engine turning over, won’t you start?

I don’t know why I was so  happy over this weekend, but I was, estaticly happy, the weather was good, and though I didn’t actually do anything save for taken my dogs out to the boulder res, I was really happy to be doing it.  The drive over was amazing. I took 287 up to lookout road and lookout road right to the res, drving up lookout road was great, it’s one of those roads that goes up and down as it passes throught the fields of corn and wheat, and at times you can’t see the sprawling mertopilis sounding us, just me and my dogs and a shit load of wheat, off in the distance you could see the foothills rising up over the landscape and rain falling somewhat to the north. it was beatuful. 

and then at the res, the back side where they allow dogs, there weren’t any cops driving around (I’ve seen them before, nothing to ruin a good walk than being run off of the trail by a black police suv) it was nice and friendly, the people actually wanting to know what kind of dogs these are and so on, more friendly than I’ve seen people in the denver area be on a regular basis ever before, and to tell the truth, a tinsy bit annoying as well, I had my headphones on and was trying to listen to music… but not that big of a deal becuase there wasn’t anyone around comparied to usual.   and here is the kicker, when we got back home, the dogs just passed out from exhution i gess. 

but i still haven’t worked on my car, and it’s getting close to the date when I have to, the tags expired last month, so I really need to get a proper exhuast system on there and some how change the idle point of the motor, fix what ever is making it idle at 1500.  and then once It’s passed emissions i need to get a fueul injector set up on it. I don’t want to have to waste entire cans of starting fluid on it again this winter.  not to mention the spring that i’ve spent two days trying to cut off of the car and finally just said screw it and left it three quarters of before driving to grand juction.

and my guess would be that I will need it to start when it gets cold out again this winter, I’ve been interviewed for 5 jobs all in places it’s too cold during the winter. bend or, seattle, medford or, glennwood springs co, and somewhere else.  not a single job where it’s nice year round yet. god I hope one of them calls soon, I don’t know how much more crap I can put up with at work, and it’s getting mighty trieing living here with my fam.

 

NP: mirah, engine heart

we all hide a diary, beneath some mattress

So I called up m. and went to see a movie this weekend.  we saw “my name is bruce” staring bruce campbell, before he got huge in tv as the spy’s best friend on burn notice.

and one of the topics that came up was p., he got married about a year ago, to a girl who is apprently pretty good to him, they are expeceting their first born sometime ~round about now.  and at the wedding we were our usual selfs, k. was drunk off his ass, his girl friend was anoyed with him, s. was also getting trashed, his girl friend was right along behind them.  micah was as queit as a mouse, and I was trying to tag along with k. and s. while staying sober enough to drive home (a delicate balance, I always had to have a drink in my hand, but I couldn’t actually drink from it)

and then there was p., his moment of glory, and to tell the turth he’s the only one who is in anyway normal.  he’s  about to turn 30, he’s getting married, to a beatuiful woman, who’s name escapes me.  she even turned out to be a whole lot more punk than the wedding would have suggested, m. saw then at a moive a couple of weeks later and he didn’t recogize her, she had a noise ring and so on. 

and for the rest of us, life really hasn’t turned out anything like we would have liked it to.  m.’s still living with his parents, and he’s happy about it.  the highlights of his life since we saw each other last, well he went to see a moive with p., and he went to see one with his mom.

k.’s probablly still drunk or high off of whatever.  I still can’t imagne him not getting a job out in hollywood if he’d just go there. I mean after hanging out for one night there at e.”s bachlor party, there are far far more talentless hacks making six figures+ than you could ever imange and k. had some talent.  but all he ever gave it a go off, was going and living in new york for six months and staying in his friends apartment, not going out and trying to get a job.  that may work for woody allen, but name me another film maker from new york, and not like arty film makers, but B moive type stuff, porno and the like. at least he had a real job the last time I talked with him, but it still wasn’t what he wanted to do.

S. was surpizingly not to stoned the last time i saw him, at the wedding, but he was every bit as drunk as k, and it frakly treifyed me to think that i was driving home at the same time, he was a horrid driver sober, and being stoned or drunk didn’t improve his driving. he was well on his way to becomeing a brach manager for a local bank.  he was going to get his mba, at company expsense, proving that once again d’s get degrees (i’m kidding, s., I know you carried a c average) and was well on his way in the corperate world. but he was living with his girlfriend, at his parents house.  i don’t think i have ever seen s sober since back in high school.  I did nearly see him get a dui, but for the fact that we were right behind the cop who was going to pull him over. 

I don’t know what ever happened to big m., I haven’t really seen him since i took him to see herny rollins downtown, he claimed he’d pay me back for the tickets, and I never saw him again. I don’t care about the thirty, or sixty or whatever dollar amount it was.  I wounder what happened to him, he was an enignering student at metro but then he dropped out ever so often, he’d start up with a underaged girl and just quit going to class, and hang out with her all day every day. it’s cool when you are like 19 to hit on 17 year olds, but by the time you hit 24? that’s kind of scary. he was getting pretty good grades till he’d drop out too. of all my high school friends i think i miss him the most. he was the smartest and had the most potential to be wasted. 

then there was c.  I never really knew c that well, but i do know that in those years when I lost all of my friends to Everquest, he got nicked for selling shit on ebay and then not sending it. he paid for a late model 300ZX by doing it.  it wasn’t the turbo model though. he went to japan with like ten grand, and blew it all in less than a week.  I don’t know but I suspect he blew it all on hookers.  cause I mean how else can you go though ten grand that fast? I mean he liked drugs, but not that much and i hear they’re kind of hard to get a hold of for a froinger, and that’s an awfully lot of pocky for a skiny guy.

and there is me.  I have failed to find anyone to fall in love with, through I’ve had a few close calls, and I still live here with my folks.  I don’t really have anything to show for it, a few grand in the bank, a few more saved up for retirement, a old car (by choice), not even a motor cycle any more. sure i’ve got my dogs, but it’s not like i do anything for them but walk them a couple of miles, a few more on the weekends.   

I don’t know why I haven’t found anyone who I’d be willing to marry, hell it’s likly i won’t even ask, for a second date anymore.  I just seem so very different from all of the girls i’ve met lately.   I mean “denver just seems so small” I drove twenty miles to get here, and I only live on the north end of town and you are downtown.  but that’s not what she meant. she meant culturally small. and she was right.  but in so far as the “big city” feel, they are nice to vist, but I’ve been there, I don’t really want to go back.  i’ve sen a play on boradway, seen a off-boradway opera, in itialian. I don’t really want to see another.  I’ve eaten fresh chinese food at five am, it’s nice, but I’ve also sat in traffic for eight hours going through the city, it’s not worth it to me.

I hate the way it takes me longer to get home at rush hour than it normally takes me, cause I know I was going a shit load faster during rush hour, but I was also sitting not moveing for a good ten minuetes of that. and that’s in denver.  i like the fact that in you are traveling during rush hour you can actually be some what close to the time you’d get there in your own car, (vs the bus leaves the station at the same time as i get home with my current hours) but I hate the fact that there is standing room only, and that’s if you are lucky. and though that should be a prefect time to meet someone, I hopelessly fail because i’m already pissed off at the bus and everything in general to make small talk or even pretend to smile. partly it’s that i also hate my job. 

i really need to find something else to do with my time. I’ve got enough money saved up to just take a couple of months off and drive around the country. maybe I will once it cools off a bit. 

I wounder if i’ll every find someone?

 

NP: cursive, making friends and aquantainces

wondering if she’d changed at all, if her hair was still red?

I’m so depressed just sitting here.  I quite litteraly spend five hours yesterday looking at houses in gerogia.  I could afford on there now.  no mortgauge or anything, I could pay cash.  It’s wouldn’t be a nice one, but what the hell am I doing here?

today wasn’t much better, I started off good, I rode my bike over to checker to get some new plugs for my car the up on the jack stands it whent for me to try yet again to get the springs off the rear of the car.   three, four? hours later  i had broken all of the hacksaw blades in the house, (three) and had succeeded in making the car unsafe.  I got half of the nut off.  that’s it, half, the other half is still on there. so I looped some zip ties on and said forget about it. I the proceeded to change the oil, spilling enough that i had to soak the engne in water before I stated it, even then it’s still someking for around about ten more miles.

I hate my job, I’m not happy living here, i can’t get up off of my ass to go to the gym or to walk my dogs (other than the 2-3 miles i usually take them)  i bought new headphones and computer speakers, i haven’t really used them yet. they came in on friday. at this rate i’ll be fourty before there even broken in.

but as one guy who called in stated, how can you ate so cheery? your job sucks, “well, a, i’m not on the other end of this line, and b, I have hope for the furture, I had an interview with the taxpayer adovicte, I had another with homeland securetiy last week, I’ve got an in person interview, also for homeland secureity, next week, this isn’t the end of the line for me”

but god if it doesn’t feel like it some days. 

i really hope they call me on the job in ga.  i’ll have to get a gun and everything.  and I’ll be in a area of the country were the meadian income is 27k, for a family. I’ll start out making 50k, with the possiblity for much more.  and i get to go back to school to learn spainsh

NP: tangled up in blue, bob dyaln

lord I was born a rambling man

so i’ve failed at the atempts to go to the gym everyday, failed pretty much every thing i was attempting.  but yet my spirts are high, before even hearing the resuslts of my test I was asked to provide proof of my eldgibltiy,  I have been a GS-05 for more than a year and i have good grades.  so I’m eligble on to fronts

I’d be so stoked if I actucally get the job, It’s down in lumpkin ga, as an imigration enfocrment agaent.  I really hope I get the job.

but otherwise, I’m thinking of giving my notice at work. I haven’t given it yet,  but it’s so tempting,  someone calls it on friday, my lead is being an asshole and takeing advatange of ihs temporary promotion to manager, and he says to his boss,  “hey matt didn’t do what i told him to! punish him” so I go and talk to the manager, and tell him myside of the story, and he states ok, I believe you. i don’t get punished, but on the same side, nor does my “manager”  i don’t know how long I can take this shit anymore.  I’ve applied for more than three hundred jobs, pretty much each one of which I was quiaifyed for, and so far nothing.

God I hope I get a job soon!

NP: allman brothers, ramblin’ man

“and I was born in the back seat of a greyhound bus, rolling down highway 41″

over and out now, over and out now, that’s what you said

So I don’t really know what’s up with my job search, i had an interview with the social security administration today, and it was depressing.  I hope it didn’t show that much, but I know it did. it would be a grade five step two, which would be a bit of a demotion from my current job, but I would have the pleasure of telling maybe 10% of the calleds that we had aproved them for benfifits, vs now maybe 98% of the calls are can you full pay today?  but then again we are talking about a roughly 2K pay cut from what i make as of today.

but that other 90% are much much worse,  I mean for the really desitute, all we can take from them is 15% of their social secuitry benifts.  for the really destitute amoung the SSA recipients all we can take from them would be their only bennifit they have comeing to them. 

I don’t know that even if I offered the job, if i’ll take it. 

but i might, just so as I can get out of here.  It’s not so depressing now, the rain comes nearly every day, so pretty much everything stays green. but in a normal year, everthing would already be dead. and we’d have to wait for aonter 9-11 months till it grew back. 

and te job is in new mexico so that’s definaily a huge plus. down in ablreuue or how every the hell you spell it, 8K form the government would be a huge bonus on buying a house (as reenforced by the reaction of the people i was interviewing with today)

but i’ve got high hopes for the test I’m signed up to take on thurs. It’s the imigartion and enforcement agent test, which should be the same as the boradder partol, test I took earily, I got a 95, and the IEA doesn’t have the math secsions which I blew, cuase I don’t know my math mathichs times tables.

But I’ve still got hope for the futrue so there is that…

 

NP: 764-hero – sick of appogizinging

“I’m sick of appogizing when I don’t know what I said, whne I don’t know what I did”

i don’t smile, cause I wear a frown

I’m not really sure why I’m up.  but I’m pretty damm stoked. I was refered to the hireing officer for a job in pinvillie orgeon. a job that pays roughly twenty grand more than I make now. and i get a gun.  a blm police officer.  a ranger. 

I know I probably won’t get it, but it’s about as close as I’ve gotten (that they’ve let me know about) to getting another federal job.  so i’m pretty stoked about that.

so anyway, once I actually get up, I have to go rent a tux, and i have to decide how i’m going to so cal for erics wedding, i have been thinking i might as well fly and rent a car once i get there, just to save the wear and tear on me, not having to ride throught the night, twice over the course of a long weekend might make it worth it.

NP: I’m not like everybody else, camper van beethoven

my mind is the place, where i make my plans, the world is the place, where i take my stand

I’m not sure of it, mostly because the guy was calling at 7:30 am, but i think he was offering to put my name in for a job as a customs/boarder patrol agent (with gun!) in lumpkin GA.

now i have no idea what the hell they would need a armed customs agent in a town of 1200 peole, a town with .66% latino population (as of the 2000 census)  but what the hell.

in my reseach i found that the town is in the montains, it’s green, the avergae income is $20K, and i can buy a house with a pool and a diving board for <74k, and if i’m feeling ambishous, I can buy a whinnery, fourteen acres, a huge house, (with indoor basketball court)  for $300K. 

and oh, the pay, If i get hierd on as a grade five, i’ll get ~5k more than i get now, if i get hired on as a grade 7, it will be ~10k more.  (i’m quafiyed at the grade seven, but i haven’t any idea if they’ll take that info consideration)

but anyway, i really really hope i get the job.  even if it is a sort of dangerouse job, it’s got to be better than talking to taxpayers.   I fcking hate talking on the phone.  i wonder if i moved there if they’d require me to have a phone? cause it’s certainly something i could do without.

NP dead prez,  Psychology

High green chilly winds and windy vines in loops around the twining shafts of lavender, they’re crawling to the sun

I know what’s wrong with me, it’s not lack of sunlight that’s doing me in, instead it’s a lack of green stuff around,

I’m faily certain that’s the problem, I mean how else could i be nearly as depressed this winter as i was last winter? last winter was all snow, we had something like 3 months of snow:( this winter, it’s been above 50 degrees pretty much every fucking day (if you avegage out all the 0 degree days with the 70 degree days, ~50+) though even with a week of 45+ degree days there is still ice on the local cess pool.  i wasn’t strong enough to stand on today, but it was yesterday.

but never mind that, i’m thinking it’s the fact that inspite of some 340+ days of sunlight, nothing ever grows in colorado that’s doing me in.

here’s what i mean, i mentioned to my doctor that i might be moving to somewhere it rains, either north caloina or oregon, as potenial locations. and he starts talking about his sister up in oregon, she had to cut down some trees in her yard, these trees where normal size for oregon, but in colorado terms, well these trees were bigger than anything we had ever had in the state. hundered plus foot tall trees.  and bigger around than you could put you arms around.  and these where nomal sized trees. 

so anyway, i’ve been latey thinking it’s not a lack of sunlight that bothers me, it’s a lack of greenery.  the fact that in colorado we might get 2 weeks of spring, we might get 2 months, but never more than that, we still get between 12 and 10 months of everythings dead. 

even freshly painted houses start looking grey and washed out after a couple of months. there is this one house that was painted lime green a couple of years ago,  and now it’s even washed out under the overhangs, but it was almost painful to watch, day one bright shiny house, day two,  it seemed duller than it did before, and that was yesterday, a month later it was visibly duller than it was under the overhangs, two months in it already looked like someone had painted the house different colours, one where it was exposed to sunlight, a different colour where it wasn’t. a couple of years in, it looks like differnt colours entierly, but it’s not for naught, they are both flaking off. 

and the federal gov. is hireing, yep, for 3K jobs with the TSA they whent through 90K applicants.  

but i suppose in this ecconomy that’s pretty good. to bad they were mostly part time jobs:(

NP:

St. Stephen, by the grateful dead