Minor Updates, Still Moving Forward

Since I last had a chance to sit down with my thoughts, I have purchased a vehicle and been turned down for a job opportunity. I can hardly believe it has been over a month already. Time really flies when you're being productive.

Let's start off with my vehicle. After reinstating my licence, the next logical step was to look for a vehicle. I was in the market for something fairly inexpensive and economical. Inexpensive because, well I've been doing just fine without one for seven years and I had just acquired a small amount of spendable income. Economical because I plan on making frequent 500 mile trips and petrol is becoming quite expensive.

After looking for a handful of weeks, I stumbled across a cragslist post for a 1990 Honda Civic. I was surprised to find this twenty year old hatchback had only 106k miles on it! I promptly scooped it up, got it tagged and registered with the FL DHSMV, and was parking in the lot just outside my office in a matter of days. The thing is cherry with respect to being completely bone stock with no major modifications done to it already. The most that has been done are the 1999 Civic Si wheels it came with and the extremely inexpensive radio I installed.

Well, I had my interview with Coraid last month. I drove up to Athens on Superbowl Sunday and stayed at a reasonably priced hotel. Got up bright and early Monday morning and walked the few blocks to the building and boarded the elevator to the top floor. I walked in and asked to speak with Erik who was quite surprised to see me. It turns out, he had never gotten my response to his email requesting my presence for interviews. I was there so he asked me into a conference room where I waited to be drilled. Brantley started the festivities by giving me a brief background into the Coraid history as well as his own. Then, one by one, I was interviewed by nearly everyone on staff at the time. At some point they treated me to lunch before returning to the interview process. Brantley finished off the day by summing up what everyone had already told me and asking if I had any questions.

Now, from my perspective the interviews went great. In fact, I've never felt so comfortable, let alone confident, in an interview. Everyone had great questions and I felt like I handled them all quite well. At one point, an unnamed interviewer gave what I perceived as a smirk of approval to one of my responses. It is quite possible that I am highly gullible. After interviews were through, I made for some food and then to the local pubs. I spent the remainder of the evening enjoying the presence of good company and great wine. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Athens as I have every visit.

I sent an email the next day, thanking them for the opportunity. By the end of the week, I had received a rejection notice. I am not upset, in fact I am sincerely grateful for the experience. Before the posting to 9fans, I had not even considered pursuing anything. Now, I have found a renewed interest in pushing myself further in my career. I have taken this as a learning experience and used it as the motivation to finish up some lingering projects that have been haunting me for a little while. I think I am now more prepared than ever to take on whatever may stand in my way.