8/16/2005

I am not George

Moving back home with the rents. I submitted my resume (which after some recent research, needs some majore changes) to serveral of the Fortune 500 companies in Philadelphia: CIGNA, Aramark, Sunoco and Lincoln Financial. Rediculous right...

8/08/2005

Hit the Road

Immediately after signing my contract I quit my internship and hit the road. My first stop was AC; we were going Coast to Coast. We went to see Steel Pulse play at I think the Trump Marina,We had adjoining rooms upstairs and we raged it. I had just recently broken up with girlfriend of 4 years so it was great to get out and meet some new people.

After that was the All Good Festival in West Virginia, or maybe it was vice versa, not sure but that just goes to show what a good time I was having. All Good was great and the Disco Biscuits rocked and then we started to fuckin party. We went back to our friends RV and did rails of molley and coke and stumbled around the next moring drinking bloody maries and making new friends.

All this partying had been with the Milstonian so at the point we pick up the Dembowitz and high tail in down south. First stop, Knoxville Tennessee to see the Sun Sphere, then to Nashville to check out the country and on to Memphis to hear the blues. Had a great night in Memphis cause it happened to be $2 pint night at this cool place called the Flying Saucer. Any place like that around here with that kind of beer selection would never even think of doing a $2 night. so we got shwilled and accidentally went to Arkansas. Never got ribs though so I'll have to go back.

Don't ever need to go to Mississip again except to get to New Orleans. The most shit hole state I've ever been in; Even Jackson was trash. We got off the highway there to get some grub, drove around and opted to get back on the highway and get some fast food instead of hanging around that depressing place any longer.

New Orleans was the shit and I'm sure you can imagine what kind of trouble we got into there. Definitely going back there.

Then is the bear of a drive through Texas which is certainly not my favorite state in the Union although it is barely in the Union is so big and weird. When M fell asleep D and I took a detour to the gulf of Mexico and pulled off, stripped and down and ran in before M even knew what was going on. The other highlight of Texas was the Jerky tasting hut I found, my mouth waters just thinking about it.

Stayed with a friend of D's in the dessert in New Mexico and another Friend of his, who I had gone to Florida for spring break with in Arizona. Pretty uneventful out there.

Made it to Cali and lived it in one of my favorite places, San Diego. Cool downtown, great beaches, babes, weather... Got hooked up with killer cronic too. We stayed with one of M's friends Asian grandma's who was the coolest and would cook us full turkey dinners of hundreds of dumplings in the middle of the night. Needless to say we stayed a little longer there and have an open invitation ot rade this ladies fridge if we are ever on the coast.

Went on up to Visit the Village in LaLa land which wasn't really what I was expecting. Fulfilled a dream of mine though because he lived right around the corner from the Dresden.

Took a weekend detour to Vegas. Pooped my Pants in a Quiznos there

Then on to San Fran, where we stayed at D's girlfiends gay brother's and roommates house in the gayborhood, which was an eye opener, but that town is cool as shit. loved the hills the architecture, the culture...

From there we trucked it, with thousands of bikers to Mount Rushmore (it was the week of the Sturges Biker Rally). Not much to say about Nevada, Utah bugged me out a little, and Wyoming was chill. I dig the plains and the wide open spaces. We got our beer jacked by some Indians in the Bad Lands But we took there land and culture so it still didn't seem like a fair trade.

Coming into the Home stretch, we chilled in Chi town for a bit where D's alma matter is located. He has cool fiends who styled us out pretty nice.

Finally went to D's grand parents house at Tanglewood but couldn't stay long cause PHish was on there last run and playing in nearby MASS. Somehow worked my way in and danced my ass off to Phish with D for the last time. Followed the train back home to good ol Camden where I got shut out but reunited with my bros and kicked it hard in the lot.

Couple days later I was moving in to my $1450 a month place with D in Hoboken and a few days after that I was gainfully employed and shipped back to Chicago for 2 weeks of corporate testing and indoctrination which I of course made it through with flying colors and only managed to piss a few people off. Did the Hoboken to NYC thing for a while which was pretty glamorous in a nouvo riche second class citizen sort of way. But D and I had a great and the Pman was out in Queens so we would all meet to party in The City, sometimes with some of my hip work friends.

Soon they whored my out to GE healthcare in Princeton so had make this hellish commute from Hoboken to Princeton Down the turnpike at rush hour. I ended up getting a speeding ticket for going like 100 and he tacked on some extras for having to chase me and around cars from the left lane to the right lane back to the left lane. Maybe some get used to an environment where everyone says goodmorning with the middle finger but I was just trying to take a half hour each way off that drive. And if there was an cccidnet in the Holland tunnel and you didn't check the traffic report and get off, forget about it. Your not getting home for dinner and you may not even get to watch your show.

Up until this point Adam had been basically unemployed except for this pipe dream idea that he was going to work as a property appraiser for his Company in Chicago from home. Didn't work out and our little scene fell apart when they told him he had to come back if he wanted the gig. Which being smart and responsible and wanting to be near his sophomore in college girlfriend he of course took.

My options were open at this point but I didn't really like most of them. I was on verge of moving to Newark or Trenton or something, When wagar told me I could move in with him above his Dad's Bagel Bakery. The Best part about this place, besides the free bagels was that it was on 3rd St. between Bainbridge and South St. Which puts at at the heart of South St. across from Lorenzo's Pizza

Balls

I'm broke and I mean flat broke. I have some change that I've saved up over the past few months but thats about it. I haven't had much cash for a while but I always had a little or a way to make a little. But now seems different. And it is, but not really. I mean I've been dumpster diving and "getting by" for months.

I also have debt like you wouldn't believe. I have school lones which I could care less about at this point because I got a forbearance for unemployment and. But the probably close to 7gs of credit card debt are killing me . I haven't made a payment in months so besides probably totally fucking my credit and potentially screwing me out of my dream house, car wife etc., the creditors call constantly. Like 5 times before I even get out of bed. IF I didn't have a cell phone that I couldn't put on silent I would have had to get a new number by this point.

But everyone is broke; the reason this is interesting is because I have been given every opportunity a person at my age really needs. Its not like I'm a trust fund kid or something but my parents are intelligent and well educated; they both have post bacs, pops is a doc, a cardiologist , not practicing though(we'll get into that later) and mom is once a again bread winning physical therapist who just got a promotion to director of something something.

They sent me to private elementary schools requiring IQ tests when we lived out in PA where the schools sucked, kind of botched things when we moved to Vineland NJ. But made up for it when we moved to one of the best school districts in the country, CHerry Hill. Which enabled me to go to the College of my fathers choice, even though we went through this whole act of visiting the more expensive schools and then me "deciding" to go to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

I would say I received an excellent education there if you count blunt smoking and fooseball and my major and, minor respectively. Did my share of drinking as well but didn't get nearly as much sex as I would have liked but I'm making up for that now so its all good.

But seriously, After 2 years of floundering I had come full circle and decided once again that I would major in Computer Science. The decision was based on many factors but most of all it seemed to be the path least resistance because I hated writing long papers so most liberal arts majors were out the window and I didn't really like information regurgitation either. The CS stuff was mostly brain teasers and puzzles and shit. It was for the most part theoretical and the hands on technical stuff was minimal and for that reason hard as balls. But even with all the drinking and drugging and "hard" classes I made out in four years by the skin of my teath.

I spent a decent amount of time in the career services office tweaking my resume and honing my interviewing skills, mostly because my counselor was a total milf. But it paid off. I got highly lucrative job offers before I even graduated. And I already had a well paying, do nothing, office internship that was on my street, paid me $10 an hour and I got credits.

Never the less the night before my interview with CSC, the 3rd largest IT Consulting company, they invite all the candidates out for dinner at a local up scale bar/grill called Old Man Rafferties. I show up early dressed to impress and charm the pants off this management dude before we even sit down, I sit down next to him during dinner and chime in with insiteful questions whenever I can during his CSC is greatest company ever speel. But mostly I was calm and just tried to treat him like any other person rather than act all obsequious and kiss ass and it worked. The next day when I went in for the interview it was like we were old palls and he just chatted me up until our time was through and the next candidate came in.

I actually even got an even higher paying offer from EMC but I didn't like there style as much so I took the gig with CSC and the parents and the grandparents and ants and uncles and the friends parents were so pleased.