I know by now I’m probably long overdue for another update.

This isn’t it. Today I just wanted to acknowledge the passing of a real great…Stan Winston. Yesterday I came home from work and that was the first news story I read on the RSS feeds. My favorite movie news site Slashfilm has compiled one helluva roundup of tributes to Winston, including a (I hate to say it) very well-put-together Ain’t It Cool News article.

The worst thing yesterday was coming to two realizations: 1- we’re another step closer to completely losing practical effects as we know them and 2- I’m not even out of my 20s and I’m already starting to feel like I’m running out of people I’d like to meet one day.

In honor of Stan, I’m carving some time out tonight to watch Jurassic Park. If you’d like to join me, hit up his filmography I linked to earlier in the article. Odds are you own at least one movie he’s worked on.

I know creating computer-based effects takes a lot of artistry and I’m not knocking modern-day CGI effects at all, but there’s a different feel when it’s something real, when it’s something the actor can actually interact with on the set. And it feels like we’re getting further and further away from that magic. Watching Jurassic Park again has started my brain working on another movie-based rant and I’ll get to that…eventually.

I have not updated in for. Ev. Er.

…do people still realize this blog exists?

First thing’s first…JAMIE AND I BOOKED THE WEDDNG! The place is awesome, I frickin’ love it. And it’s pretty much an all-inclusive package (case in point: Saturday? Jamie and I get our engagement pictures made). It’s all….just…I’m giddy about all of this (if you can find a better word, please, feel free to inform me ‘cuz I think “giddy” covers it).

Okay, now here’s the deal on why I haven’t been updating… The…excuse, so to speak, is I have an apartment nowadays (going from a 57-mile commute to work to a 1-mile commute to work). And I’ve been workin’ real hard to make the apartment look cool and not look like “Joe went to a garage sale.” And the plan was that when I got the apartment lookin’ perfect, I was gonna take pictures of the place and do a before and after dealey for my next blog entry. And I may eventually get to that, but it’s been halfway to forever since I updated and, really, by this point, I think you’ll just settle for knowing I’m alive and you can wait for the pretty pictures.

(just realized how many sentences I consecutively started with “and.” Sorry ’bout that)

Lemme see…what’ve we missed…ohh, so much. My face is completely fine (in case you’ve been worrying). Yup, Jamie’s people know their stuff. OH! that near-miss disaster at work (I can’t believe I still remember this)… okay, there was this…thing, it was like a brochure for a bank. And we’d been working on it forever because we couldn’t get the colors for the logo just right. So I get everything set up and send it off to this local company that prints business cards for us.

Then the guy with the company calls. It’s not lined up right and, if he printed it out, the fold lines would be right on top of the words.
Well, crap (’cuz I’d been working off what my infamous predecessor had done). So I tweak and send a test copy to one of our printers. Unfortunately, our printer takes forever to print, so I send him the file telling him he’ll receive confirmation on if it’s correct or not later. I get the test copy printed (time was direly of the essence here) and we fold it…still screwy. I make changes and send another copy out, again waiting on the test copy. Test copy finally arrives and, sure enough, it works.

Then I get a call. It’s the company man. He says something along the lines of “what was wrong with the first one? We’ve already started printing it.”
And a wave of panic hits.
Then he explains that he had edited the file on his computer before sending it to print. And that was the near-miss. Next day, the brochures are delivered, BossMan folds them and gets ‘em to the bank. Everyone wins.

Oh, by the way, I suspect that (for some strange reason) they fired Murray Gold from Doctor Who. I haven’t looked into it, but the theme’s been remixed for season 4 (I liked the old one more) and…I’m not sure, but I think they remixed the UNIT theme on last week’s episode (which makes me mad ‘cuz I love the UNIT theme).

Dad is doing very well, by the way. He’d been using a walker for a while and now he’s upgraded to using a cane. When I went down to visit for mother’s day (no, I am not calling it “mom’s day,” despite what the card companies say), I was impressed when I saw him get up off the couch and go outside. He gets up using the cane, then walks off holding the cane at his side and not using it. My dad: badass.
He’s going to the gym now and overachieving. I think it’s something like he’s supposed to use the bike for 10 minutes, but he uses it for 15. And he’s mad he can’t go for 30.

Jamie and I popped down and visited the parents on Monday and, like I said, they’re doing well. Guess what? Dad actually got to his 30 minute goal on the bike! He has no plans to push beyond that (for the time being, anyway), but…damn I’m proud of him.

Work has been…well…there’re the occasional (metaphorical [so far (fortunately)]) fires that crop up, but overall I still like it.

Oh…I also got Mark Kart Wii (woo-hoo!)…I think that may have been a factor in my lack of updates. I also think we’re teetering on 800 words (if not a squidge beyond that by now), so I’ll wrap this up and hope that you’re all doing awesome in your lives.

…an update is coming.

Eventually.

I’ve got a draft sitting on my computer. It’s covering a lot and I want to make sure it’s ready before it’s unleashed upon the blogosphere.

Your patience in this sad, sad little matter is appreciated.

First off was the near-miss averting printing disaster at work (I promise I’ll post the full story…Sunday or Monday). Then, once that was settled, I got to go to Jamie’s work to get lunch (awesome food) and also to fulfill my appointment to get cut on* (the white circle is the one the dermatologist circled first…it was not where he was supposed to be cutting. I called him on it and the area in the red circle got circled).

…yeah. Real update’s coming again soon. Honest.

* - Kinda graphic….just a precautionary warning (for the record, Neil Gaiman gets away with this kind of stuff on his blog…but then he is famous ‘n stuff).

I start a job and the entries dry up.

Bad, bad Joe.

Anyway…where to begin? The job’s going really good. There’s only three of us there: Bossman, PrinterLady, and me. I basically design/typeset (fancy word for putting words on stuff [so basically exactly what it sounds like]) everything that gets printed, provided it’s not on file. Cara, the woman I’m replacing, left Bossman and PrinterLady high ‘n dry and I still have yet to hear a single kind word about her. Work’s going good…Bossman and PrinterLady keep saying business is slow, but I like it because I think it’s the best way to ease into the job.
Don’t worry, though…I get at least one “this needs to be done and it needs to be done now” job a day.

Oh, and I’m also so close to convincing Bossman to buy a Mac for my office (I say office, but I share it with several filing cabinets. Still, office is the most practical term for it).

Jamie and I celebrated our two-year anniversary a few weeks back. I’d gotten Jamie a lovely black pearl (no, not that Black Pearl) bracelet that has a really purple sheen to it. Jamie got me the freaking awesome Christopher Reeve Foundation Superman dogtags, which I highly recommend for…everybody. She also got me the awesomely amazing Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
No, we had not watched the show beforehand (save some youtube clips). All we knew was it’s wacky comedy/action/sci-fi/western and Bruce Campbell was in it. And that was all I needed to know…it’s a mighty fine show.

We’ve also taken the next step in our relationship by picking a wedding date…after consulting everyone’s calendars, we’re going with April 4, 2009 (our three-year anniversary). I can’t quite describe the feeling…it’s like…the closest I can think of is when you’re a kid and Christmas is coming. Jamie showed me the really pretty wedding dresses she’d picked out on a few web sites and I told her that I would be of absolutely no help to her because it felt like walking into a candy store and being told you can only buy one thing. Also, Jamie had shown me an invitation she’d found and liked on the interhighway and that Sunday night, I had trouble falling asleep so I…basically re-created the invitation on my computer (to be printed out at work). I’m really proud of it, even if it’s not the right size (it’s effing huge) or probably color (both problems are easy enough to fix). Jamie hasn’t seen it yet, so I get to unveil it to her over the weekend. Ooh, we also looked at the Walt Disney World book to gear up for the honeymoon (I’d like to see Disney World without the cynical viewpoint of my family) and…I’ll admit, I geeked out more than a little bit. Sidebar annoyance: still can’t believe Universal Studios closed the Back to the Future ride. I don’t care that it was old, that ride was a classic.

For those of you wondering about dad…he hadn’t been doing very well and, long story short, he’s in a hospital in midtown where they ran him through a gauntlet of tests to make sure we know precisely what’s wrong with him (which I’ve been saying should’ve been done for a while now). They’ve got it narrowed down and they say he should be feeling better by Friday.

So…that’s…more or less it. If I left anything out, feel free to call me on it on the comments. Until then, feel free to enjoy this freaking awesome Iron Man clip…

I’M FINALLY EMPLOYED!

Yup. Lessee if I can Cliff’s Notes all of this for you, dear readers:

Last time I was up at Jamie’s, her mom had found a job for me in the classifieds. It was a graphic artist job in Gainesville. All right, I take the paper home and I give them a call and leave a message. The next day, I get a phone call from them, saying I just need to come by and fill out an application. All right, so I tell him I’ll come by on Wednesday.
Wednesday comes and I head up and fill out the application. As I’m filling it out, the woman who works there (the guy wasn’t around because he was still at his Rotary meeting) is telling me helpful stuff like “so far it’s between you and this little girl and I think you’re more qualified.” And then, when I’m done with the application…the lady shows me the girl’s resume.

No, I am not kidding.

Now, I didn’t read it, but there was this birdhouse on the resume (I’m not sure if it was stationary or she designed it) and the birdhouse was bigger than the paragraph she had for her graphic design experience. Then the guy came back and we talked and I did some spec work for him (which probably helped because their previous designer left with a lot of stuff unfinished/unstarted).

Before I left, the guy said I’d know if I got the job by Friday at 12.
So Friday rolls around. Then 12 rolls around.
Then 1, etc, to about 3:30. I call the place (by now thinking either that girl must’ve really rocked or someone else who was superamazing had applied on Thursday) and leave a message assuming I didn’t get the job and asking if they could call back and give me some tips on what to work on (secretly I wanted them to call back and say I had the job). I call Jamie kinda freaking out a little bit (as I’m prone to do) and then I go off to find brave, new jobs to apply to.

Then the phone rings.

It’s the guy. Know what he said about the job? “It’s yours if you want it.”

I start on Tuesday.

B)

…I had other stuff I swear I was going to bring up, but I kinda forgot it all. Maybe later.

…but for now, check this out.

…and the job went to someone else.

Fortunately for me, I’d already worked through being depressed and everything yesterday. Now all that’s left to do is apply to the six jobs I have lined up on my computer before I roll out to Jamie’s later today.

I believe I was told I’d get a call either Monday or Tuesday about the job.

Tuesday I got a call from the guy (note: “the guy” in this entry is in reference to the man who I interviewed with twice) saying a third party was supposed to have called me. Tuesday night I get…confused. Leave a voicemail message on the guy’s cell.

Wednesday morning, he calls first thing. I get clarification on the third party’s call, that it’s part of the interview process. Okay.
Wednesday afternoon, the third party calls me.

Then nothing. No follow-up call from the guy, no nothing. And not knowing is a whole lot worse than not even getting the job. So at this point I just feel…really panicky and on edge and…bad. Like it says in the subject, I think depression’s setting in.

This is what happens when I believe my own hype.

On the bright side, I applied to five or so more jobs today.

Today’s update was going to be about how well the second interview went and then talk about the wonderful weekend I spent with Jamie. It was going to be all sunshine and happiness, with copious dollops of awesome.

Instead, it’s about how dad had to go to the emergency room. Now, don’t panic. I mean, I know you hear/read “emergency room” and think…well, emergency. The truth is he’s weak and barely able to move, which, while it’s far from great, it’s also pretty far from how horrible it could be. Mom called 911 (since the slapstick comedy of her and I [literally] dragging dad into the emergency room probably wouldn’t be too effective) and I went with mom to the ER. Called Jamie, called my sister. Sister got to the ER once she got off work (the hospital’s about half a mile from her work).

The parents basically ordered us home once they started running tests on dad because it’s a long, boring process.

I’ll be getting a call when mom knows anything. Or I’ll be getting a call to let me know if I have a job or not, whichever comes first.