I have some weird cold/hay fever combination toying with me. I got to bed around 2am last night, but barely slept all night, because I was coughing and just not feeling too good. So I got up, at some breakfast around 10am, and then went back to bed. I just re-awakened, and I feel a little better, but not that much. I mean, I don't feel all that bad, but it's just enough to pester me. And here on such a nice, nice day too.

Ah well...whatever works.

I swear to God, I've found my 2004 summer anthem-type song already. OK, first of all, I still am not a country-music fan, but there's an occasional song or two that's good.

One of them is "Watch the Wind Blow By" by Tim McGraw. Man, I just want to be out on Troy's parents' porch sippin' lemonade or tea or, hell, Coke or something, with that song playing. It's soooooo relaxing and so cool. And it makes me want a house of my own with a big front porch and a view of fields and forests and trees. It's a great song...find it and listen to it sometime. I promise it'll make you relax and relax. :)

OK, enough for now. And, with the weekend fast approaching, maybe later too. I did no cleaning of the apartment, but I did do an hour's worth of editing. Another $10! Woo! I'm probably heading to Cafe Iberico for dinner with Gina and her roommate, and then, eventually, it's off to John Barleycorn for Billy's sister's going-away (from Express to Armani) party. Should be fun...I still feel a bit funny, but I haven't gotten full-on sick yet. So we'll see.

I woke up with a headache today and my throat is a little scratchy. I hope I'm not getting sick. I took two Advils, so hopefully that will fend off the sickness. Even a little cold I don't want, because I'm feeling pretty lazy as is on some days, and having a cold won't help at all.

That means it's time to wash my comforter. It's weird, because I just washed it recently, but I almost have an automatic knee-jerk reaction to getting sick as being time to wash things I come in contact with daily. I'll probably also clean the bathroom, even though it also was cleaned recently. It's strange, I guess.

I transplanted the mums I was growing roots for to pots with potting soil. Here's hoping they continue to grow roots and develop into nice plants I can put on my deck or in the garden out in The Brook. Meanwhile, the seeds I started are having mixed results. The alyssum has been sprouting for days now, but the peppers and verbena have yet to sprout. This is not good, because once the plants sprout, you're supposed to remove the cover, or fungus sets in because it stays too moist. But I have tons of alyssum seed that hasn't been planted, so I suppose if the first wave dies, I'll just plant more. We'll see. I just hope the peppers grow. At least a couple plants--that's all I really need.

I also need to do some work for PFW so I can earn money. "Hey, Dirty...baby I got your money..." (Sorry, that song is actually playing here on the CPU right now--on shuffle no less) I worked an hour last night--that equates to $10. Woo-freakin'-hoo! :) Actually, if I bust my ass today (a little late for that) and tomorrow, I could make a decent amount for this week. Lord knows they gave me plenty to edit.

So I'll probably do some work and then clean, or vice versa. Or maybe I'll just procrastinate or something. :)

I get to actually do something productive today, thankfully. I'm going to PFW to get some freelance work to tide me over financially until the ballpark job starts. I'm meeting the guys for lunch, picking up a bunch of stuff to edit and coming back home.

That's nice, because yesterday I was kind of going nuts after sitting in the house all day doing little to nothing. Ah well...unemployment does have it's boredom moments I guess.

Hopefully my first unemployment check comes today. My bank account has dipped to a dangerous level. I may have to go to my parents' house, actually, and borrow some money. I should call unemployment first though and see what's up. But I'll probably still have to borrow money, since I mailed out two bills yesterday.

Yay for financial torture.

Ah, the interview.

Went pretty well, as far as I can tell. The company seems quite, quite solid. The two people I talked to (it was a group interview, so I had to talk to two people at once) seemed convinced that I was a good editor, although I did not have to take any editing tests of any kind, which I found to be a little strange. But hey, less thinking along those lines in an interview is fine with me.

The job seems challenging, no doubt, but, it seems like, at WORST, a great resume builder. I'd be part of a two-person team that basically puts together the WHOLE magazine. I edit everything that goes into the magazine and write a couple of things. I coordinate all of the content and everything. It's a smaller magazine (number of pages) than PFW, but there's plenty of info in there. I'd have to travel during the year -- 3-4 industry expos, and that's kind of cool. I like to travel. They are VERY generous in their benefits...19 v/s/p days to use HOWEVER I want, and they accrue in the first year of employment, so I'd get v/s/p days the minute I was hired, prorated for the year. They said they have a whole bunch of paid holidays too, so that's nice. Their health insurance apparently pays *90* percent in-network, which is cool, and they're working on getting vision insurance. Also, it's still day hours, though earlier than PFW--8:30a-5p, with NO WEEKENDS. And, they're flexible about the part-time work and whatnot...the attitude of, as long as you put in 40 hours a week and get your work done, then you can come in a little earlier and leave a little earlier. That's great, given the part-time work and the softball leagues I'm in. :)

And although the topic is not football or sports, ya know what? So what? I mean, of course, salary is going to play into my "so what about the topic" attitude, but as long as they treat me right and pay me appropriately, then I'll become the expert on that field. That's fine with me. Sure, my friends won't ask me about the latest news in w a t e r q u a l i t y, but so what? Honestly, that's almost even better...I can leave work AT WORK even more. Sometimes I got bored of talking football at bars and things like that--mostly it was cool, but sometimes it was just like, "Ugh, I do this all day, can we talk baseball or life or something else?" :)

I told them also about my flunking out, because the dude was like, "So, you graduated from Northwestern..." I cut him off, and said, "Actually, no," and explained it. They had questions about it--what classes did I fail, did I try to transfer anywhere, etc., etc. The woman (who was really nice and was taking notes the entire interview) walked me out and when we got to the lobby, she turned and offered her "condolences" on it, saying, unwarranted, mind you, "Oh, and don't worry about the flunking out. It's not the worst thing in the world." and then proceeded to tell me how she fell a credit short in school and had to retake classes, etc., etc. She also thanked me for being up front and honest about it and complimented me by saying it took a lot of guts to admit that and talk about it. And I said, well, I don't want to hide anything or lie or anything like that. It happened, it's behind me, and I just wanted to let you guys not assume that I graduated, because that would be wrong. So, at least SHE doesn't have a problem with it, and she's the human resources director. So that's good.

The bad side: There would be more pressure, being one of two in charge of the mag. I'm pretty sure I can handle it, without a problem. There is the whole lack of knowledge on the topic, and I'll have to get up to speed kinda quickly, without the benefit of fellow staff members to help me with the whole knowledge thing.

Also, I don't know what they're going to offer me in terms of money. Given the actual job description and the magazine's topic, I have an opinion that they'd better pay me handsomely. But, my skepticism is keeping that hope in check.

Basically, if they make (an offer, period, and) the right monetary offer, I'm taking the job and not looking back. What's the right offer? Don't know...we'll see when they make it. :)

I've gotten positive responses (though no jobs) from Chicago Magazine though (offering the possibility of freelance even) and Chicago Wilderness Magazine, both of which I sent a blind resume and cover letter to. We'll see what happens with that. And tomorrow, PFW gives me some freelance editing to do, which will be nice bonus money, that's for sure.

Luis brought me, upon request, his last year's worth of Chicago Mag, so I can better understand the magazine before I try to pitch freelance story ideas to them. In fact, the other day, I thought of a spectacular story/book idea the other day, but it wouldn't be the safest thing in the world, and I'm not risking my life/sanity for FREELANCE work...and I'm not ready to write a book. :) Plus, I don't know if that magazine would even want it, if it were story-sized. In actuality, the story would take a TON of legwork and hours and hours and hours of talking and interviewing and weeding things out and whatnot, and probably wouldn't be the safest thing in the world (at least not the way *I'd* want to do it)...and, a lot of complete strangers would have to be amenable to talking to me, which I don't know if that would happen. But who knows? Maybe someday...that's one of those things I'll just have to file away and hope no one else thinks of.

Otherwise, "24" was indeed cool last night. Though I was a bit rusty on catching and predicting the cheesiness of some stuff (such as the chemical accelerant--how could the symptoms still have a 14-hour incubation period, since there's only nine hours left!?!?!?). And Laz, I think UberBitch is gonna die by the end of this season. I really do. She's screwed President Cerrano over every which way she could by now...there isn't much else she can do. She'll get the illness and die...and Cerrano will cry over her, after his now-ex-girlfriend doctor can't save her... :) I bet.

Today I just messed around watching TV and surfing the Net. No biggie.

I'll catch ya guys more later on.

Didn't do all that much today. Pretty boring stuff, I know. I simply got up around 9:30am and went to my parents' house to do laundry and eat a Market Day personal pizza for lunch. I was done with laundry by 3:30 and on my way home.

Then we had swing class--our fourth class began today. It's called Tuck Turns. I learned a few pointers on some of the things I was doing ever so slightly wrong, and that's good. I danced with the lead instructor on a couple occasions, and she was able to point out some really tiny things that were throwing me off just a bit, and that's good. It's pretty intimidating to dance with her though, even though she's a really nice person. But whatever. I got today's stuff down, more or less, it's just a little modification to my stepping that I have to work on.

I did get a letter from the b a l l p a r k though, and I'll be working Thursday nights and Sunday nights. That ain't bad at all. They also modified my pay so as to not interfere with my unemployment benefits, but I'll get the full amount in the form of a per-hour bonus at the end of the year. It should be cool. I also found out that our meeting on the Wednesday after Easter is in the evening, and that's great, simply because it allows Gina and I to take a mini-vacation (basically a day trip with a one-night stay) somewhere on the Tuesday/Wednesday after Easter. We had hoped to go on a several-day vacation prior to me getting laid off, but alas. We'll have to settle for this. And that's fine. Now, where to go is the big question...we probably won't go far at all. We thought about St. Louis, but that's almost too far to go to spend one day--thus ruling out Minneapolis as well. Probably we're looking at (of all places) Milwaukee. Simply because it's cheap, I know a few things we can do there that will be fun and it's really, really close by. We almost don't even care exactly where, so long as we can relax for a day and get away from it all, basically.

Tomorrow is my first full-time job interview. Should be interesting to see what this employer has to offer. I'm not gonna be all THAT picky, I will say. But I'm not gonna sell myself short either. We shall see what happens. That, of course, will affect if we're going on vacation or not too, I suppose...but we can kind of plan, ya know? :)

I'm gonna do some job-search research now though, and then probably go to bed, maybe a little earlier than normal. Yeah, right. :)

Update...jerkwad upstairs currently is not playing music. But he did just start vaccuuming the floor, here near midnight now. This really doesn't surprise me.

Oh, and hey, finally more search engine queries...I don't know whether to be happy or sad that no one is "finding" my blog. :)

Well, for all intents and purposes, I've locked up winning my NCAA Pool that I entered. I have three of the Final Four, missing only on Kentucky. I also have my championship pairing intact and my champion still on the board. There is a chance I COULD lose still, I think, mathematically. But we shall see. This will be a good bonus.

So the nice thing is that, I'm actually pretty good at this March Madness Pool stuff. This would be the second time in five(?) years I've won it all (when UConn won it all a few years back, I was the only one to pick them and won that year), and I've placed quite nicely in other years. So maybe this gambling stuff, if I'm smart about it, isn't so bad. I actually do have a psuedo-system when picking the tourney, but I'd have to kill you if I shared it. :)

Recap of a busy, busy weekend:
Lunch with Donna on Friday at The Emerald City was good...great turkey sandwich--and in a pita at that! Wow. :)

Brian Regan, as I said, was fantastic. Once again, a show well worth it.

Party yesterday at Hopper's house was also fantastic. So many people were there...so many getting drunk. Even Husband of Barb got in on the drinkin' action. :) But all was good, of course.

Today, church, as usual, followed by dinner at Gina's parents. We've now switched more or less to alternating between parents' houses on Sundays for dinner. It's free and good to hang with the families. And I wasn't paid to say that. Plus, I get to steal coupons from either household, since I don't get a Sunday paper. :)

After dinner, Gina and I walked to the nearby park and played some catch with the softball. Softball is, after all, right around the corner at the end of April/beginning of May. It was such a beautiful day until the evening.

By then, we were heading out to the SuperNovas' house for a psuedo-impromptu grilling session with a handful of folks. Gina had half a burger, and I didn't eat anything, really, because I was still full from dinner earlier. We did talk of the possibility of them hosting a "White Trash Party" in order to rile up the subdivision group or whatever that she speaks highly of occasionally in her blog. So we shall see how that goes. Many await, SuperNovas, with bated breath.

Otherwise, the excitement of grocery shopping awaited us after that, and then I just got home. I'll probably surf the Web a bit, type out a few emails and head to bed. I'm kinda tired, for whatever reason.