Well that interview went ridiculously well.....

Just finished up with the interview that I previously posted was to occur. Shockingly, it went off without a hitch. The interviewer briefly discussed the position and what I'd be doing in the job. He then went over my work history and what I did in my previous job positions. Surprisingly, the system setup that they have there is similar to what I worked with at my old job in KC. So that experience seemed to be a benefit.

After the run-through of my work history, he moved on to asking the dreaded technical questions. Shockingly, it also went off without a hitch. I answered every single question correctly without any problem. As most tech workers will tell you, that hardly ever happens. They usually throw in an extremely hard one just to keep you honest.

I spoke with my contracting company after the interview and he said that they had submitted 5 resumes to be considered for the position. Out of those 5 people, I was the only one selected to do an interview. So that means one of two things: either I'm really good or I'm really old. I'm going to go with 'really good' because the alternative is simply unacceptable.

Interview time........

In a couple of hours, I'll be doing a phone interview for a contract job in KC. It's a 6 month position. I actually like the short term jobs on contract. It provides two distinct advantages for a worker.

1) The company that is offering this contract position is known for working their salaried employees a lot with little additional compensation to show for it. So while you're getting paid like you're working 40 hours, you actually end up working 55 hours for the same salary. By taking a contract position, if they do decide to work me additional hours, I don't care because I'm paid an hourly rate so I make money based on how much I work. Often, the company doesn't want to pay extra so they make sure you go home after 40-42 hours. It's a good deal either way.

2) If you like the job and the company is satisfied with your work, they will often extend the contract for additional months. If you don't like it, you can simply say 'thanks, but no thanks' and move on to a new contract.

Now, if I was a single parent with 2 or 3 kids, I would obviously want a bit more security that a salary has to offer. But I'm currently in a dual income with no kids household, so maximizing salary is more important at this stage of the game.

I'm now looking over programs and DB2 queries to refresh my memory on how to program. It's a guarantee that these people will ask me a programming question that I don't know the answer to, but they are trying to see how I will react in that situation more than anything. They know it's a difficult question and are just trying to get a feel for how I handle tough situations. Fortunately, I have a lot of interview practice from our move out to Baltimore, so I should be in pretty good shape as far as that goes.

I'm sure this won't be the last interview. Rarely are you able to get a job on the first crack, but we'll see how it goes. It's live interview practice and that's always a good thing.

Money grows on trees (or poker tables)......

I read Daniel Negraneau's blog on a daily basis. For those that don't know who that is, he is a professional poker player. Mrs. Lime likes to watch him play when he's on TV. He's a generally likeable guy who talks a lot at the table, so he's fun to watch because he provides a lot of action with his cards and his words.

Daniel plays in what is called 'The Big Game'. This is a poker game that is played at the Bellagio poker room. There are a small group of players who play in the game. They play all sorts of versions of poker (Omaha, Hold 'Em, Chinese Poker, Razz, Stud, etc.). They rotate through the various games and play a new version of poker each hand. It requires a lot of focus because you have to constantly make sure that you are playing the right game in each hand or you can lose a lot of money.

They play a limit game when they get together. That means that the amount of money you can bet is limited on each round of betting. Also, you can only raise 3 times in each round of betting. As an example, I usually play a 2/4 limit game when I go to a casino. That means that you can bet in increments of 2 dollars for the first two rounds of betting and 4 dollars for the last two rounds of betting. So an average pot might be 30-50 dollars in a game that regular people play.

So, the guys in the big game play $4,000/$8,000 limit poker. Yes, you heard me right. Huge amounts of money are exchanged in this game, with players often buying into the game for about $1 million apiece. The betting is capped to where a player cannot lose more than $100,000 in any one hand (what a relief!). This is the elite game in Vegas where the best players in the world test their game at an extremely high level.

I read last night that Daniel, after about 70 hours of play in the big game so far this year, has eclipsed the $1,000,000 mark in winnings in the big game. Last night alone, he won nearly $600,000. Also, given that he has gone over $1,000,000, that means that his hourly rate in the big game is roughly $14,300 per hour. So, in 5 hours at the big game, he has made as much as I made this year. Astounding stuff.

As a sidenote, I have had a good May at the online poker tables, making nearly $100 in winnings and bonus money. Well, it's not the Bellagio, but it is $100.

Chaotic at best.......

I did more packing and moving boxes today. I'll be glad when everything is on the truck on Friday and I don't have to worry about packing anymore stuff. Moving twice in one year, even when you put a portion of your stuff in storage, is a brutal thing.

I'm still putting out job applications, hoping something will stick. It's tough to be patient, but it all works out in the end. My qualifications are very good and my recommendations from past bosses are all very good, so I'm not too worried. I need to get back so I can start doing some face to face interviews. I missed out on a possible management position the other day because they wanted to interview quickly, so I want to get back so I don't miss another opportunity like that. 4 more days of work at my current employer and then off to new opportunities.

I was a packing fool today.......

All of my clothes are now packed and ready to load onto the moving truck except for my clothes for work this week. Long morning and afternoon of packing. Ready to take a little easier the rest of this weekend.

I get the moving truck Thursday, so I hope to get everything loaded up on Thursday and Friday and make the trip back to KC on Saturday. It'll be a long trip, but I don't have a job lined up yet, so I won't be going back to work right away. Several leads for jobs, but nothing firm as of yet. It'll come together soon enough. I'm not worried.

Yankees Stadium......

TW and I woke up the next morning and got ready for another day in New York City. We went down to eat breakfast in the small restaurant in the Howard Johnson's that we were staying at for the night. The food was actually pretty good and it was served relatively quickly. We did have a waitress who appeared to not be interested in being there at all. It probably had to do with the fact that we noticed she was there the night before as well.

As we were waiting for our food, we did notice this guy wearing some pretty weird fashions sitting a couple tables from us. His hair looked like he had just rolled out of bed (which may have been true) and he was talking on the phone with someone the whole time we were there. Evidently, he was in a band that had performed the night before. One thing that immediately annoyed me was how ridiculously philosophic he was in everything he talked about. Deep thoughts are one thing. This guy's thoughts were so deep they were at the bottom of a canyon. He went through the full list of things that had gone wrong in his life: he hated being on the road all the time, felt stupid for marrying at 18 and having a kid, never thought he could love more than one women but now he does, thinking of switching bands..........the list went on and on. TW and I were pretty entertained by the whole deal, but I think we can both agree that we were pretty glad we were not him.

We headed out to go to Yankees Stadium. Thankfully, the wrong turn that we had took the previous night was actually the correct turn to get to the Bronx, so we knew roughly where we were going. I will say that the highway system in the Bronx is an absolute catastrophe. It was almost like an amusement park in that ramps to other roads were intertwined with other ramps. We took the George Washington Bridge across to the Bronx. It's a double decker bridge with the top level being an express highway with no off-ramps and the bottom being the local highway with all the exits. We took the local route and quickly got to the 161st Street Exit.



Yankees Stadium is an extremely large place. You see the stadium as soon as you get off the highway. It's very impressive from the outside, despite being a very old stadium (although it has been renovated several times). One of the neat things about the stadium is that there is a large park on the west side of the stadium that has lots of baseball/softball fields, tennis courts and basketball courts. It was kind of neat to walk towards the stadium and get to walk along the sidewalk while kids and adults were playing baseball and softball all around you.

We got very lucky in that we managed to somehow find a parking spot right along the road only a block from the stadium. Already, we were +$15 because we didn't have to park in a stadium parking lot. As soon as I got out of the car, I notice that there was some really neat architecture in the area immediately surrounding the park and the stadium. I took a picture of one of the buildings to give you a feel for some of the art deco in the area.




On the east side of the stadium, the subway trains ran immediately over the street. Lots and lots of souveneir and food shops were all along the streets arounds the stadium. I had tried to figure out a way to take the subway to the game, but it's really hard to get from the Jersey side over to the New York side without taking a lot of time to get there.



Once we got to the entrance, we were patted down to make sure we weren't carrying anything into the game. We quickly figured out that we happened to come to Yankees Stadium on Cap Day. So, against our beliefs but using our better judgement, we put on the Yankees hats and became Yankees fans for the day. We went inside and quickly found the line to see Monument Park. We only had to wait about 20-25 minutes, so it wasn't too bad. One thing that we did notice while waiting in line is that the concourses inside the stadium are extremely small. I understand that they are planning to build a new Yankees Stadium right next door to the current stadium and have it finished by 2009. It was pretty obvious that it is needed.

For the uninitiated, Monument Park is a place where the Yankees honor their all-time great players. It's actually a really neat place and has a lot of plaques and monuments honoring all sorts of things. Here's a taste of what you can see in Monument Park.....










The most recent addition to Monument Park is a memorial to the WTC attacks on 9/11....



After the trip through Monument Park, we went to our seats. I had managed to get lower deck tickets off eBay the previous week, so we were sitting on the third base side of the stands in the lower deck. I started to talk with a guy that was sitting next to us. I asked him if he was a season ticket holder and he said he was. I mentioned that I had got the tickets off eBay and he said that he had just sold those seats on eBay! He had 4 seats and wasn't going to use all of them so he sold the other two on eBay. Really nice guy and his wife who lived a little over an hour outside of NYC. They lived in a smaller town and he mentioned how they really liked living outside the city in a smaller community while being close enough that they could come to the city when they felt like it. They evidently bought a 'Saturday' season ticket where they have 4 tickets for every Saturday home game throughout the season. Pretty nice deal.




My new-found friend helped point out some of the stadium traditions which was really nice of him. The first thing we were introduced to was 'Roll Call'. Right after the first pitch of the game, the fans in the right field bleachers start chanting the name of a player on the field. That player had to tip his hat or waive to the bleachers and acknowledge their chants. They'd cheer the player after that. Then, after the next pitch, they'd move to the next player and do the same thing. They'd do it over and over until they covered all 9 players in the field.



Also, the box seats in the second level behind home plate all had fish nets in the box. Whenever a foul ball rolled up the net behind home plate, the people in the box seats would get out the fish nets and try to pick the ball off the net. If they missed it, the entire stadium would boo the guy who failed to get the ball. A couple of people were booed over the course of the game for their misses. Another neat feature was that you could see the subway pass by the stadium just behind the right field bleachers. You can actually see a subway train passing by if you look closely in the opening between the stands in the picture below.



In the end, the Yankees hit two homeruns and managed a win by the score of 4-2. It started really slowly, with the first inning and a half taking over an hour, but somehow, the game sped up and we managed to get the whole game done in just a shade over 3 hours. We had a really good time and headed out for the quick ride back down the NJ Turnpike back to Baltimore.

Success on the picture posting!!!!!

I have figured out a way to post my pictures to the blog! Very excited. The saga of my blog will continue with color pictures included. I thought I would go ahead and post these pictures that didn't make it into the original NBA playoffs blog entry I posted last night.

This is the spotlights shining on the Nets as the starting lineups are introduced before the game.....



This is a picture of some guys running around with 4 flags that spelled out 'NETS'.......



A picture of the players getting ready for the start of the game.......



This is a picture of the arena during a pause in the action on the court......



A picture of some actual action on the court during the game......



A picture of Jason Kidd attempting a free throw. Love the look of him with his arms extended and the guys down low just beginning to block out.........



And my personal favorite.....a picture of Shaq at the free throw line. I absolutely loved that I got to saw him play in person. Words can't describe how large this guy is and how agile he is for a man of his size. Seeing him nearly tear down the goal support not once, but twice is something that I'll never forget. He is unbelievable.

NBA Playoffs

My good friend TW decided to take advantage of the free room and board while it was still available in Baltimore. He originally was just coming out to see Camden Yards while the Royals were in town. Then, as the weekend that he was coming out drew closer, it became apparent that the NBA playoffs were going to be in New Jersey that weekend. I jumped online the day the tickets became available and got some tickets to go see my first ever NBA game.



After TW arrived at the airport in Baltimore, we immediately headed out of Baltimore to avoid any traffic backups. We got into the Newark, NJ area around 4 PM and checked into the hotel. We hung out in the hotel room for about an hour and watched People's Court. As is always the case, a couple of sisters were fighting over unpaid debts. The plaintiff was suing her sister for an unpaid debt. In return, the defendant was counter-suing for 'distress'. In the end, both sisters got sent on their way without either one getting a dime.



We headed down the turnpike and, of course, we took the wrong fork in the turnpike and ended up north of the stadium complex. Thankfully, I had a decent feel for where we were and we took a couple turns in the right direction and finished off the redirection by asking for help along the way. We finally got to the stadiums and headed over for the game.



Once we got inside, one thing became quite obvious. This wasn't that nice of an arena. In KC, we have an old arena called Kemper Arena that is now being replaced. I can tell you for a fact that Kemper Arena is nicer than the Meadowlands Arena. Not too impressed at all.

We had really good seats. Along the sideline about 10 rows up in the upper deck. It was a great view and we could see all the players quite easily.

The national anthem was sung by the actor that plays 'Uncle Junior' on 'The Sopranos'. He's a New Jersey native. His version of the national anthem was not the most musically sound versions you'll ever hear, but he sung the song with a lot of passion including occasional fist pumps to emphasize his words. The crowd just loved it and spend the last 3 lines of the national anthem going crazy. One thing I have noticed while traveling on the east coast is that they take the singing of the national anthem quite seriously since 9/11. It's nice to see.

Next were the starting lineups. The announcer went through the entire lineup of the Miami Heat very quickly, almost acting like he was in a hurry to announce the New Jersey Nets lineup. The entire announcement of the Miami starting lineup took about 25 seconds at the most. Then the lights dropped, they turned up the music and started showing Nets' highlights on the scoreboard. The place went nuts. They had handed out 'thunder sticks' (blow-up sticks that you smack together to make noise) and everyone was using them. The announcer was loud and holding out all the vowels in the name (i.e. Jason Kidd was "JAAAAAAAAASOOOOOOOOOONNN KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDD!")

The first half was well played. Lots of action and the game was relatively close at halftime. I hear from some NBA fans that Shaq has lost some of his game. While he may not be as good as he used to be, I saw a couple of thunderous dunks from Shaq that quickly reminded everyone that he was still a factor. The pace of the game was amazingly quick. You never realize just how fast those guys are moving until you see it in person. Halftime entertainment was Juelz Vasquez. He's the guy that sings "The Whistle Song". I honestly didn't have much of a clue who he was, but the place went crazy for him and everyone seemed to know the song.

The second half was a pretty sloppy half. There were a lot of turnovers and not a lot of scoring. New Jersey made some key turnovers down the stretch and Dwayne Wade made them pay for it by hitting some free throws to close the game. It was a disappointing end in that it didn't come down to the last shot, but overall, I'd probably go to another NBA game, especially a playoff game, if I had the chance.

Minor blogging crisis here.......

It appears that the blogging site limits the amount of pictures you can upload to the blogging site at 300 megabites. So, I've been working on finding alternative plaes to host my pictures. I found a site called Photobucket that allows pictures to be uploaded up to 1 gigabite, so it should allow me to continue my posts. Hopefully, I'll have some pictures and a post ready to go by tomorrow.

Blogger.com is giving me some problems.....

I've got some issues with my posts. I was all ready to post about my weekend in NYC and for some reason, blogger isn't allowing me to post pictures. I've got a post written up, but I need to figure out how to add my pictures. As soon as I get help from the website, more blogs will be incoming.

Reality recap.....

Since I'm one of those reality TV freaks, a brief opinion post from the shows this past week.....

1) The Amazing Race - I was very glad to see the hippie team win the race. They carried themselves well throughout the race and were the most deserving. I would say that they were very lucky to finish last twice and have both those legs end up being non-elimination legs.

2) Survivor - I wanted Terry to win, as did the rest of the world, but Aras certainly did well down the stretch using his alliances and some good immunity wins to get to the final two and win the final vote. I don't think the questions affected much of anything in the end. Danielle had made too many enemies over the course of the game to have a chance at winning.

3) American Idol - It's down to Taylor and Catherine as the final two. I've always said that Taylor is a performer that I would actually consider buying one of his albums. I hope he ends up winning because he provides a new type of singer that is not a pop star. It's also obvious that he just loves to perform and loves music. He would have a much longer career IMO than Catherine could ever hope for.

4) Surreal Life - By far one of the best Surreal Life seasons I've seen. The characters in the house were CC Deville (lead guitarist of Poison), Sherman Helmsley (know to most as 'Mr. Jefferson'), Tawny Kitaen (model known for her 'performance' in the 'Cherry Pie' video and her rocky marriage to Steve Finley of baseball fame), a 20 year old Playboy model who liked to get naked (can't remember her name), Alexis Arquette (sibling of the Arquette family who is a transgender female and is best known for playing 'George' in 'The Wedding Singer'), Maven (wrestler in the WWE), Steve (lead singer of 'Smashmouth') and Florence Henderson (known for being the mom in 'The Brady Bunch').

By far, CC Deville and Sherman came out as the most likeable of the group. Both are very good guys and really were fun to watch. Of course, there were plenty of antics by the other players in the show that kept it more than interesting. I can't go through most of them because this is a family blog, but it's safe to say that every episode was very entertaining.

Couple of new reality shows coming up in June. CBS will have a new season of Big Brother (I believe it's an all-star edition, so all the crazy characters from past seasons will be back now that their 15 minutes of fame from their previous stay in the house has expired). Also, NBC has a new show called 'Treasure Hunters' coming in June that looks to be somewhat like the Amazing Race. 10 teams will start at the same time on a race to follow clues all around the world that will eventually lead them to a 'treasure worth millions' according to the press release. Looks like it should be fun to watch.

Antietam Battlefield

We headed out first to see the Antietam battlefield. Antietam was the bloodiest single day in the Civil War. There were over 21,000 casualties on that day. The battle was fought over cornfields, homesteads, hills, and rivers. I'm not going to detail the entire battle sequence. There are plenty of sites like the Antietam battle site where you can read about the battle specifics.

I'll put up some pictures in the blog that I took and try to briefly explain the significance of each site.

Some cannons in the cornfield on the battlefield......



This road is a sunken farm road in the middle of the battlefield. It was used as a natural fortification for the Southern soldiers in the middle portion of the day-long fight. There were a few thousand soldiers who lost their life along the mile or so stretch of this lane in less than 3 hours. The road is now known as 'Bloody Lane'.



Another view of Bloody Lane. Note that many Southern soldier remains are believed to still be in the vicinity of Bloody Lane.....



A view of Bloody Lane from the top of an observation tower on the battlefield. The sunken road is located between the two fence rows......



In the foreground of this picture, there are small holes in the hill overlooking the bridge now called Burnside's Bridge. A few hundred Georgian sharpshooters laid in these holes in the hill and fired across Antietam Creek at the Federal troops on the other side. Burnside tried for a few hours to take this bridge to allow the federal troops to easily cross to the other side of the creek. While the Federal troops did eventually get across the bridge, the Southern sharpshooters managed to pin heavy casualties on the Federal troops. In addition, by holding up the Federal troops, the Southern sharpshooters allowed time for the reinforcements that were headed up from Harper's Ferry to arrive in time to eventually carve out a win for the South. Without the sharpshooters, the Federal side probably would have won the battle.



A soldier's cap and some swords used during the battle.....



A saddle used during the battle.....



A drum used during the battle.....



The chapel at the Antietam National Cemetery....



The gateway into Antietam National Cemetery......



The marker for the Irish Brigade remains that were found recently on the battlefield and buried in the Antietam National Cemetery.....



The statue of a federal soldier located in the middle of the cemetery. The graves are in a circular form around the cemetery. Around 4,500 Federal and U.S. soldiers are buried in the cemetery. The vast majority of the graves are from the Antietam battle, but there are also graves from wars from 1860-1945.



Some additional views of the cemetery......





A view of the Blue Ridge mountain countryside from the back wall of Antietam National Cemetery. Many of the men buried in the cemetery died on this land you see in the picture.



A couple of views of the sunset from the mountain top bed and breakfast we stayed in.....




We stayed at the bed and breakfast on Saturday night as well and got up to enjoy another great breakfast in the morning. First course was poached apples in cinnamon sugar. Main course was a breakfast burrito and potatoes. Dessert was Bananas Foster. We finished off breakfast and headed back home to take care of some things before the weekend was over.

Bed and breakfast in Western Maryland.....

We stayed at a great bed and breakfast just outside of Sharpsburg, MD called the Antietam Overlook Farm. It was a large home that had a two story addition on the side with multiple rooms. Everything had a rustic feel to it. The owners of the B&B were very nice people who had just purchased the property in the past couple of years. They evidently came out to the area simply looking for a home and, in his words, "ended up making a $1 million investment in the area". They have a large area of property around the home. Deer and turkey were plentiful. Below is a picture of the long driveway that leads to the bed and breakfast.



They had some open land near the road on the front of the property and some land behind the home. He had mentioned to us that they were considering planting grapes on those two pieces of land and hoping to have a winery and wine-tasting available. He said they planned on buying grapes from other wineries until their vines were mature enough to harvest (most grape vines aren't ready to produce wine until they've grown without harvest for 3 years). We mentioned that Mrs. Lime's father is currently growing and harvesting grapes back in Missouri. He had a lot of questions about the setup there, how many acres were planted, how he acquired equipment, etc. Below is a picture of the area where they will be planting their grapes.



I'm not sure why it is, but it's amazing how excited people get when they talk about growing their own grapes or when they meet someone who has similar interests in growing grapes. I suppose it's a labor of love that results in a lot of excitement when the final product is finally available. The discussion of the actual process to reach that final product just seems to send grape lovers into a frenzy of excitement.

After our conversation, he showed us around the B&B. They had everything you would ever want. Brandy set out to drink. 3 kinds of wine in the fridge. They had 4 brands of beer in the fridge. They also had lots of pop to drink. There were popsicles in the freezer and popcorn to eat. On the counter, they had 8 brands of coffee, several types of tea and hot cider mix. You could honestly just sit around and drink all day at the place. They had everything covered.

There was a large living room for socializing. They had a Civil War chess set out on the table. They had even put out a directions sheet for chess so that anyone could sit down to play it. They had lots of board games to play as well. There was also a large fireplace where the owners would start a fire at night for anyone who was interested. Below are pictures of the fireplace and the sitting areas.





In our room, we had a nice set up. There was a private fireplace in our bedroom. They also had a soaking tub in the bedroom where you could sit and watch the sunsets if you wanted. Nice bed with a ceiling fan to cool down if needed.

After a good night's sleep, we woke up in the morning to find out how good the breakfast end of our stay would be. It was a three course breakfast. We started out with some granola and fresh berries. Second course was French Toast, scrambled eggs and a thick cut piece of ham. Mrs. Lime said the ham was very lean and some of the best ham she had ever eaten. To top it all off, our final course was ice cream with lemon syrup. Really good stuff.

We got to sit and eat with two other couples at our table. One was a younger couple from Virginia who had only been married 6 months. They were very nice people and very social. At one point in the conversation, the discussion turned to the fact that they were Catholic. Not surprisingly, the husband came from a family of 9 children. Honestly, I think the Pope puts a ban on birth control just to keep the Catholic Church full of members. Amazing stuff. He said that they were constantly going different places to see his siblings. His wife agreed with a somewhat wry smile that seemed to indicate that it was a bit much at times. She went out of her way to repeat 'constantly going'. Both of them were avid bike riders and planned to tour the Antietam battlefield on bikes later in the day.

Our other new-found friends at the table were a British couple in their 50's. They were from a town called Hythe, England. The husband mentioned that they lived a few hundred yards from the English Channel. He worked as an immigration agent for England. Every day for work, he commutes 4 miles to the entrance of the Chunnel. For those who don't know what that is, it is the tunnel that goes underneath the English Channel and connects England to France. His job is to do the checks on the people entering the Chunnel on the French side that are headed over to England.

He said that England does a very poor job of monitoring illegal immigrants. He said that documenting who comes into the country is a major problem. Often, people sneak into England by hanging under vehicles that go through the Chunnel (buses, trucks, etc.). The problem is that when they get over to England, they can prove that they are not English residents, but without proof that they came from France, it's impossible to figure out where to send them back. Often, they end up in a court case that takes months and by the time the case reaches some form of conclusion, the illegal immigrant has often run off somewhere and is not even around to face the court's findings. France, for its part, does nothing to try to stop the immigrants from moving through to England. France knows that people sneak into France from other countries with the intention of sneaking across to England. France doesn't concern itself with the situation because they know that most of the people are headed to England anyway.

He also mentioned that Americans should be very proud of the security measures that are used at airports to monitor people coming in and out of the United States. He said our customs officers do a fingerprint and picture of every single non-resident leaving and entering the country. He said that if England implemented a similar system, they wouldn't have nearly the number of problems that they have now in regards to illegal aliens.

We finished up breakfast and headed out to take in some historic sites in the area.