Mike Needs a Life Blog Reposts – Part 25

August 16, 2009
Hurricane season starts!

Well, I guess we’ll be having some hurricane parties on the porch here pretty soon.. looks like there are a few storms coming our way. Gotta make sure the freezer is stocked with lots of rum!

Connor went back last week on Wednesday after 4 weeks vegging out at Fort Zach beach, snorkeling, and playing video games. Funny story about that. Last Tuesday night Tina called to talk to Connor and said how happy she was that he was “coming home tomorrow”. Huh? No, I said, he’s flying out Saturday!! Um, no.. she said, look at the itinerary.. so I did.. and sure enough.. plane leaves at 2:00 on WEDNESDAY.

From Sanford.

Panic set in… It’s 9:00 at night, and it’s a 7 hour drive to Sanford with no traffic.. ug. Needless to say, we packed and went to bed early so we could get up at 3:30 AM.. Left at 4:30 and hit Downtown O-Town in 6 and a half hours flat.. not bad time at all.. We had some Chik-Fil-A (a necessary stop since they have none of that fancy gourmet food where he lives) and headed out to Sanford. Made it there with plenty of time to spare.. a Sam Adams and a 4 dollar DR. Pepper later (I drank the Sam Adams), he boarded the plane and was off. 3 Hours later he landed in NY and had another hour or so drive to get back home.. talk about a long day of travel. Next time I’m looking for flights into some airport a little closer to the keys!

I spent the remainder of the week visiting some friends and such.. then drove home Sunday.

So it’s Monday, and its now time to seriously start looking for a job. UG! I’m updating my web page, and my linkedin page, and hoping something cool will present itself. I don’t have any experience to speak of in any service or sales-based industry so that pretty much wipes out about 95% of the open positions down here – every ad I’ve seen states very explicitly that you MUST have experience to even get a foot in the door. Right now I’m kind of leaning toward going after some handyman/maintenance positions. That seems like something I’d really enjoy, especially if it’s for some old bed and breakfast kinda thing.. who knows. Graphics jobs are very few and far between, and there is a steep local vs. outsider curve to get over around here before people will even look at you for an open position.. I’m trying to maintain a positive attitude!

A couple of weeks ago I got in touch with Frank Everhart who coordinates the “Haunting of Fort Zach” every year for Fantasy Fest. They basically turn the old fort into a haunted house for the week.. cool stuff! I told him I had had a yearly party and now that I was in KW, I needed an outlet for some halloween creativity, and I’d like to volunteer for the event. He told me to come on down to Schooner Wharf some evening so we could meet. He runs the “Magic Bar” there.. a little bar tucked into the back corner where he entertains folks with some really astoundingly cool sleight of hand card shows. I’ve never been into magic much, but I was very impressed.. he’s definitely an interesting guy, and I look forward to working on the haunted fort and hopefully getting to meet some more cool folks. I only have 9 years and 10 months to go before I can call myself a conch… I need all the local contact I can get. I’ll be updating their web page here pretty soon, it definitely needs the help! No offense Frank, you rule at magic, but web pages…. … Granted it’s done in Word Press which is notoriously difficult to format, so I’ll cut slack for that haha. Check it out here: http://hauntedkeywestfort.com/

I took my first finished steampunk sculpture up to Jeff League when I went up to Orlando to get Connor a month ago. He’s taken some cool photos of it and placed it in the Gallery! He tells me everyone likes it quite a bit, and are wondering when I can send them more.. guess I’d better get busy! I’ll post pix when he sends them to me.

Anyways.. that’s what I got goin’ on..