Welp, did helped run my last conference with my current employer. This is my 18th annual event and like…Idk, 25th altogether? It was successful enough with no major issues. Nothing that attendees saw, anyway.

I’ll probably never go back to Miami. At least not in the summer. Summers in the Midwest are already hot and humid and disgusting, yet somehow Florida in the summer is like 10x worse. Though I will say the food in Miami is to die for.

Either way, that was my very last one, hopefully forever. Though I said the same in 2019 and then ended up going back to the that company in 2021, so…never say never?

Relatedly, finally gave my new employer a start date. Hopefully they agree, as it’s a couple month out still. But I need the time. I also gave my apartment property manager my move out notice.

Now to find a new apartment in the new city. Hopefully I can get that squared away this week.

So yeah, things are happening. itshappening.jpg

And you know we’ll bitch and moan the whole way “Don’t you know what I am? I’m a goddamn American! I have rights!” a la Randy Marsh.

I just don’t go outside. AC running throughout the day, though I do set max temps at different levels throughout the day to take advantage of lower electricity rates or avoid higher rates.

This past week I did have to do some rare outdoors work for work over a few days. My team elected to do it in the evenings and early in the mornings. Was still quite warm, but not sun glaring down on us, we’re gonna get heat stroke from this, afternoon sun.

Wow, I feel dumb. I’ve been here for a year and never looked closely at the bee (old or new). Never noticed the cowboy hat!

So I thought I was good to start a new job (though I’ve yet to set a start date), as the HR person assigned me said it was all good about a month ago, but then today he me tells me there was “a problem” with my drug test. A drug test I took 3 months ago. So I need to take another.

While I’ve only taken a few drug tests for employment during my career, they’ve never taken 3 months to get results. Like 2 weeks at most. Something tells me my HR person screwed up (which isn’t surprising), got this notice a couple month ago, yet just now noticed this. Hate to say it, but typical government. The irony is that I’ll soon be a govt worker. If we can get this straightened out.

On a more positive note, I just paid off one more student loan! After 19yrs of paying and thousands of dollars in interest on this one – more than the principle at this point – it’s finally done. I had to get a hefty loan from my parents, but their terms are much better: 0% APR at the Bank of Mom & Dad versus the current variable 10.02% APR with the bank. Though I still have lots more students loans to go. Such a shitty, shitty system. At least I’m lucky enough my parents can help in this manner.

Stay in school, kids. But only if you don’t fuck it all up like I did. I may be paying student loans til I die.

Maybe it’s my doomerism at play, but even one year house arrest I’d be OK with. Keep him in NY in his Trump Tower penthouse. Don’t let him go out to campaign.

Obviously jail would be better. I just don’t think fines alone are going to cut it. He’s not going to pay them.

You could also add toxic glue. It’s edible! Probably only once though.

This is now going to be added to some LLM-generated answer in the probably near future.

Congratulations to you and your spouse! If you’re doing a honeymoon after (or even if you’re not), I hope you both get some quality R&R!

I finally passed the checks for the job that I got offered 11mo ago. So now they’re asking when I can start!

Which, right now, is like the worst time for me to leave my company. We have our big all-hands-on-deck event in like 5 weeks. I have a massive project I’m leading up that’s supposed to be finished by end of July. And there’s another project I’m assisting with heavily that’s supposed to be finished by July/August. Even a couple months ago would’ve been better, to an extent.

While I’m usually one who’s like “Welp, gotta go peace, here’s my two weeks!”, the organization I work for has treated me excellently over the years; about 17 of them. And the big project I’m working on is something that I specifically got invited back to the company to work on a few years ago. So I want to see it to completion (or as far as I can take it within reason). As far as the event, we are literally in the thick of it with preparation, so I don’t want to unload all my tasks, last minute, on my team either. Lastly, my boss knows I’ve had this offer on deck for awhile now and he’s been very cool with it. I don’t want to burn this bridge (I’ve burned others elsewhere before). Because if this new job doesn’t work out, there’d be a very, very high chance that all I’d have to do is ask and my boss would say, “OK, when do you want to start?”

So I’m thinking I don’t start til late August, which my boss is very appreciative of. Plus that gives me time to find an apartment and move. I’m hoping my new soon-to-be employer will agree to that, especially given my circumstances, and that they’ve had me waiting for this long. I feel like that’s only fair. I also have a friend who works closely with the team I’ll be on; he says the team is probably not even ready for me anyway.

Either way, it’s exciting. But also a bit scary, as I’ve never moved for a job, and I’ll leaving a city I’ve spent practically my entire life at. I’ll also be even further from my family than I already am. But I’m ready to go. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, and it’s finally happening.