I spent a lot of time playing 3 events at the Gatecrash pre-release at Pat's Games. The weather was great as it was in the mid to high 70's all weekend. Thanks to my buddy Chris Stanush for teaming up in the 2 Headed Giant event as we went 2-1. There were a lot of really close matches. In short, I ended up 5-4 and was the victim of some really weak card pulls. There were a few cards that ended up making the difference in my wins.
I manged to wipe the board of my opponent after a mis-timed filer drop with Gruul Charm. This opened the gates for a lethal swing and a victory.
In the Sunday event, I was playing against a guy with some pro tour points. I had Gruul again and had to splash blue thanks to pulling a Master Biomancer. I then swung in with the biomancer and he double blocked. My response was an incredibly lethal Rubblehulk bloodrush giving my Biomancer +7/7. 2nd main phase saw me drop a Skinbrand Goblin with +9/9 counters thanks to my biomancer's sexy temporary power boost. Next turn was game over for him.
After today's event, I met up with a senior co-worker at an outside cafe in the triangle and discussed philosophy for 2 hours. I appreciate his conversational skills and we sometimes meet up for the sake of trying to figure out how the world functions and to share ideas. Any topic is relevant and healthy arguments are naturally presented and dissected.
On another gear, I'm quite proud of my cousin Jolene back in Arcadia, Wisconsin. I found out she got perfect grades and is taking 2 advanced courses. It was a great weekend that flew by too quickly. There is a lot on the slate for the upcoming week.
So I'm back. I feel like blogging once again. The concept of a forum for my thoughts and ideas is refreshing. Think of it as a public diary. I'm rather turned off by facebook these days. Rants about politics, gun control, and pictures of people's dogs don't particularly interest me.
So I solved a lingering problem at work today that took me the better part of 6 or 7 hours, so I feel accomplished. That being said, it's time to buckle down and nerd out with a game I've been anticipating for a few months, Ni No Kuni: The Wrath of the White Witch!
Feel free to kick back with this ocremix of an original super metroid track I discovered yesterday.
2 weeks ago, I got laid of from my job at ISON. http://ison.com/ This turned out to be possibly one of the best events in quite a while. It put me back on the job market, and I am glad to say that starting Monday, I will start my first day as the Operations Development Engineer at Mattersight here in Austin.
http://www.mattersight.com/
Salaried with benefits/paid vacation, I finally have my foot in the door.
I have way too many crazy and weird stories to get caught up on in the future on this blog, so I'll leave it to this announcement for the time being.
This will simply be a rundown on who I'm with at the hostel tonight:
1.) 6 Pack of miller lite 2.) A russian computer science graduate from the Bronx who is looking for work and is the spitting image of Liev Schriber 3.) The russian's girlfriend of whom I know nothing about except she is also from NYC 4.) Fiona the darling from SW england whom I went to the Cubs game with 5.) Kate, Fiona's childhood friend also from england with a film degree who has a job lined up in England to scout out movie shooting locations 6.) An argentenian brazillian gal who's name escapes me at the moment who works for Lexmark printers and lives in Buenos Aries. Went to lexington KY to learn some of the new corporate structure. A real talker. 7.) Man, yes I explicitly asked if his actual name is Man and it is. He's from Hong Kong and I'm not sure what kind of work he's in. He told me he wanted to come to Texas to find out about Cowboys and has had trouble finding them. Yeah, good luck with that. He's about 40 so kinda funny. He wears a modern fanny pack complete with water bottle holder. 8.) Some guy I don't know anything about. 9.) A gal from Vegas who is into the club scene and it out hitting up the town right now. She's around 30, likes to cook, and has a somewhat brazen personality. 10.) A French gal that I will surely find more out about 11.) Did I mention 6 pack of miller lite?
Goin out with my amigo Beau (yes that's his name) to get a couple drinks and some BBQ at a local joint he claims is the best in Austin. Beau's wife is back in India with his daughter so he's pretty stoked to have some time for himself. Tomorrow morning I'm gonna hit the road up to Dallas and bunk up at the hostel for the weekend to catch the weekend Cubs Rangers series! I plan on going to Billy Bob's up in Fort Worth since I didn't check it out when I was up there last. Then on Monday I'm going to trek over to Arkansas and show up at the door of a few companies that ought to hire me. We'll see how it all pans out!
Bowling league started yesterday and let's just say that was an experience. Since I don't have a team I got tossed on Debi and Matthew's team. Matthew is a scrawny 19 year old true southern boy with lots of tats, a welder and a rodeo jockey. He rides bulls and has scars to prove it, he even comes with his authentic junior rodeo championship belt buckle. Debi....yeah. She's Matthew's aunt and it's obvious to anyone with any common sense that she does way too many drugs. She's middle aged and looks like someone you'd see at any of America's finest shopping establishments, WalMart, at about 2:30 in the morning. Just picture it, yeah that's her. Her daughter was there sittin around and told me she had just got married that day to some guy and that she just got out of jail for assaulting a police officer. So the team is a top-notch crew of committed US citizens. Recap of people:
1.) Unemployed college graduate 2.) Rodeo welder 3.) Trashy former drug dealer lady 4.) Jailbird newlywed
Ahhh America, the formerly greatest country in the world.
I can't make this stuff up, I wish my mind was that creative but here you have it folks, the most rag tag bowling team in the greater Austin area. I could go into more detail about how insane this experience was but I'll keep the "R" rated stuff out of the blog. I'm so grateful I get to be on their team, and by grateful I mean not grateful at all. And by the way, the rest of the bowlers in the league are great. Met some very cool people.
Anyways, this time tomorrow I'll be watching Derrek Lee taking batting practice with a cold one in hand. I'll see if I can't drag some noobs from the hostel to a game or two with me. Show the Dutch or French or whoever is there how we do it in the states.
keep it 1337
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Money time again, been having trouble sleeping figuring out what the hell it is exactly that I'm doing. After I got a raise, I get fired because they can't afford to pay me so go figure that one. Again here without a job and I can't help but begin to question what the hell I'm doing, how do people decide what to do? Everyone has their own story and I hope one day when my last chapter is written that it's worthy of reading.
Time to get a passport and consider overseas endeavors. I found a place today that sells Leines honey weiss so I picked up a 6 pack and enjoyed some brewskis for the first time in a couple of weeks on a hot day. Yesterday someone cranked up the heat and we reached 94, today was 89 but it's a "dry" heat. Really I think it's pretty badass because it feels good as I hear it didn't reach 50 in MPLS today so you make the call.
At 9 tonight I walked down to the intramural fields 2 blocks from my place to see what was going on, and it turns out the UT (University of Texas) IM softball championship was on the docket so I picked a side sat down in the bleachers and talked to everyone I could for the whole game. A beautiful blonde UT gal wrote me a list of places to see and things to do for me titled "Morgan's to do list" which includes some places I haven't heard of so I will check them out. They made fun of me for being from Wisco/MN which was pretty funny to me because I told them it doesn't make a lick of difference where you're from, only thing that matters is who you are. I've been told at least a dozen times since I got here that I have a midwest or chicago accent, and everytime I say "thank you!", the midwest and chicago are great places!
Before that I went bowling and there's a summer league starting up next week and another great looking gal that works at the bowling alley so you can guarantee I will be there on Wed. If I keep at it I will bowl a sanctioned 300 game and get my 300 ring. A couple days ago I went hiking up to mount bonnell to enjoy a gorgeous sunny afternoon overlooking the city and river from the northwest.
I'd love an engineering job. A job that is amazing and when I go in to work I can say to myself "Morgan, this is really amazing what you get to do". A job that makes a difference in improving the world around me, and a job that I get to use my knowledge talents and intelligence to make things better. After all, that in essence is what engineering is all about. After consideration apparently I'm going about landing one from the wrong perspective. I have some ideas that I'm not afraid to try. I'm not afraid of failure - I'm like a kid. Ask a kid to do something interesting or out of the ordinary and they are always up for it, they are not afraid that they might not be the best at it nor are they afraid to give it a shot. Being afraid of failure is something that we learn to do - "don't do that, you're no good", "if you do that, then XXXXXX will happen" and we learn to not take chances and not try things that might be amazing. I'm not going to lose my house because of a mortgage, I'm not going to endanger myself or my kids, and I'm certainly not risking my career. I love kids and family, having a house is good and all but I prefer not to be locked down because it limits opportunities. Point is to not ever give up. No point in being afraid and no point in not giving it your best effort every single time.
I think there is a place locked away in everyone's mind that every now and then wonders what things might have been like if they made a different decision at critical points in their life. And that, Paul W is why you need to take the job in Taiwan.
I'm trying to figure out a way to go to Dallas in 2 weeks to get a chance to see my cubbies play the Rangers. I plan on staying at the hostel up there again as I'm familiar with the area.
Tomorrow is a big day, a list of important things is begging to get completed. Make it a day that counts. Make every day a day that counts.
