In Retrospect....

Now that I am in Austin and getting settled, I can begin to look back on that weird transition time in Baton Rouge. There remains too little temporal distance to really reflect on what was going for those months while I lived with my in-laws. But at least now I can allow myself to post some of the pictures from that month-long period when I was a laborer on a construction site.

For the first week, we had to get there at 6am. With the 45 minute commute factored in, I had to get up at 4:30 am to get there on time. I would drive in darkness across the Mississippi River into Port Allen and then proceed along the highway-lined river south to Plaquemine. On the way, I would pass casino truck stops and these chemical plants that looked like little cities:
One of those plants is Dow Chemical. According to the billboards, Dow is doing wonderful things for Louisiana. I suppose that the Nicaraguans were not so lucky.

Anyway, I'd get to the work site and the superintendent(boss) would begin promptly at 6am. One day after we had begun the set-up, the asshole left to go run some errands or something. As you can imagine, that meant we didn't do dick. It was at times that these that I was instructed by J(remember J from an earlier post) to do nothing because that was the only rest you was gonna get.

Here are 'work' pictures that I snapped:




It was obvious that I was extremely well respected at the site:

Strangely enough, my body did adjust to the physical strain and I'm sure that it helped build up enough muscles to where the furniture moving last weekend really didn't kick my ass too bad. However, my mind never really adjusted to the labor. I hated every minute of the work and dreaded it most of the time that I wasn't there. Holy fuck do I have a new-found respect for people who do that for a living. It takes some grit that apparently I do not have, or more likely, grit that I do not have to have. If that makes sense.


Or, fuck, maybe I just can't use a hammer worth a shit.



Nevertheless, I did get a chance to wear work boots and almost hoot from a construction site at women.
The end.

New Apartment

No more fucking hotel room. Although, I will miss the ice machine.



Today is day 2 of the new apartment. The cable guy came by. Hello high-speed cable internet. Yes.


Updates to follow.

Live Blogging from Bed, II

The last post was more of a warm-up for this one. In fact, some may wonder why I am in bed to begin with and why I am in a semi-crappy hotel with a name like America's Best Value Inn? Shouldn't I be working or something, or looking for a job or something?

Well, a strange thing happened. Last week was temp hunting week. I expected to stroll into a temporary staffing service, whip out out my Masters Degree, flop it on the placement manager's desk and immediately receive a job at a decent post with a respectable hourly rate. Much to my surprise, that did not happen and I was forced to slum around Austin, jumping from wi-fi hotspot to hotspot. Most bars and coffee shops offer free service, some even offer a free secure server to log into. Pretty nice of them.

I sent out a shitload of applications and resumes last Thursday, even applying to stuff on Craigslist. I had begun to use an Austin address and felt that perhaps it was the missing component to my job searching. I was wringing hope out of whatever I could find, basically. Drinking with friends later that night, I was informed that I had an inside connection to get hired at Starbucks.

Yes, things were looking pretty grim overall. My hope, however, enabled me to concentrate on other more important things like a 3-d Imax movie on Friday and LSU football(link not SFW) on Saturday. It was an un-fucking-believable football game. We had found a bar in Austin that has a special LSU room in the back that hosts LSU football every Saturday. Pretty neat. It was quite a raucous event. Lots of hooting and hollering and drinking. I drank a shitload of beer. It was enough booze and excitement to distract me from what was becoming an uncomfortable overall situation.

It's not that we were on the verge of starvation, but goddamn, I'm in a fucking hotel room and I've been looking for a job in my field since JULY. Fucking JULY! So, for 4 fucking months, nothing. Only one crummy interview to show for the whole thing. Mentally, I was beginning to re-experience the job hunting days when all I had was my bachelor's degree and restaurant experience. Sure with a degree, I could have gotten on some manger-track at any number of retail and food outlets like Fred's, Dollar General, Starbucks, Taco Bell, Blockbuster, etc. And not to knock anyone who chooses one of those paths. Livable wages, benefits, free movie rentals or coffee, retirement packages etc. It ain't the end of the world. I'm just saying that I'd probably jump off a tall building if that was my fate.

These ideas were circling in my head on Sunday. Plus, I was feeling the aftereffects of all the beer. After casually checking my email I noticed that one of my craigslist postings had written back. So I called the lady and she told me to come out to Driftwood, TX for an interview.

This was pretty good news, but I was not going to let myself get too excited over just my second interview. Still, I was optimistic. It was way the fuck in Driftwood, which is about 20 miles southwest of Austin. The commute, though, was an estimated 30 minutes. With the way traffic is around Austin, if I had gotten a job 5 miles north of our apartment, it would have taken 30 minute to get to it. So, the distance wasn't going to be a deal breaker.

I drove out for the Monday morning interview. The major highway slimmed down to a 2-lane road with traffic lights here and there and began to notice some spectacular views off to the sides as I drove into the official Hill Country of Texas. I started to think that this wouldn't be so bad a place to work. I meandered around a little po dunk highway and turned off and found the interview site which was a converted ranch. I drove up and parked. I was early so I sat and soaked in sights of the surrounding beautiful land.

I'll spare you the details and the negotiations and what not, and just say that they offered me the job on the spot. I talked it over with the wife and called them back and accepted it. The money is right and the job itself, while slightly removed from what I was doing in Baltimore, is in my field and will teach me about counseling a population I am unfamiliar with. So CHEERS, YIPPIE YAY, YES YES YES, and HALLEFUCKINGLUJAH!!!!!!!THANK THE LARD, the job hunt is finally OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!AND THE JOB ISN'T SHITTY!!!!(except for the manure)!!!!!!

To get to my office, I have to drive on a dirt road past horses and a pasture. My window is facing a field with trees in the distance and 90% of the time I will have the office all to myself. Before I accepted the offer I was thinking that it was just too fucking cool, that there has to be a catch, that maybe I was just a little manic now thinking that things might work out. But even after accepting, I'm still thinking that working out in the Texas Hill Country is going to be really fucking cool.


I'm so happy that I've dedicated today Total Laziness in Bed Day, hence the"Live Blogging from Bed." I'll go in tomorrow for a meeting, but won't start until Monday. We start moving into the apartment on Thursday. So, today is the last real fuck-off day for me until I don't know when. So I am doing nothing to the extent of my do-nothing powers. My ass has left this hotel room twice today: to get ice and to get a Texas-shaped belgian waffle.

Fuck Yeah!

Live Blogging from Bed

This is my eagerly anticipated first dispatch from Austin. I am writing to you now from the comforts of the America's Best Value Inn, a dingy place that has wi-fi and excellent ice. They also have belgian waffles in the shape of Texas. You can't beat that.

This whole TEXAS thing is still going to take some getting used to. The country music redneck on the tv commerical said that Texans are tough just like Ford trucks. Also, we have this lovely fast-food place, the Dairy Queen, that serves chicken fried steak fingers because Texans deserves the best. And on and on.

Last week when we arrived, my goal was to find some kind of temporary office job. I looked up a few staffing places and had some interviews. The tempjob interviews are where I think I perform my best. No stress/pressure and nothing really to loose. At one place I had this smoking hot, "placement manager' chick interviewing me. She was maybe 25, dark hair, maybe some native american mixed in there, petite with a little cleavage poking up out of the business suit. It was utterly distracting. She had an expensive haircut. But one strand kept falling out of place onto her face. She kept fixing her hair the whole time, like after every sentence or two. So then I started fidgeting with my hair just out of reflex. I kept her talking by way of nodding and smiling at appropriate places, and looking intense and inquisitive at others. At no other time can I remember having been so consumed with lust while carrying on an interview. She gave me her card and told me to call in to check for an opening or to call the receptionist(who was hot, too). I couldn't turn away from the flash of sexual imagery involving those two, so I blushed a little and said thank you to them and went on my way.

They obviously picked up on something. Maybe it was the tent I was pitching in my pants or the eye-contact that ventured into creepy land. Who knows, but I have yet to hear from them. It's apparently a woman-owned company, so maybe they screen out buffoons like me and assist others who don't ogle their staff so. A female friend of mine says they send her email about jobs all of the time.

Well, shit on them I say. I don't need your stinking temp job anyway.




Stay tuned for more ABVI dispatches!