ask Shaffer -- if you dare.

When I got home from my first interview, Kristie and the girls grilled me...and my response was that I have no idea how I did. And that's the truth. I could've just as easily imagined never hearing from them as getting a call from them. How they could ever use this process to weed out candidates is beyond me. So I was a little surprised, when a couple of days later, I got a call from the store manager (who was one of the 3 at the first interview) telling me that she'd like me to come in for a second interview. Cool. Then it got weird [again]. She told me that she couldn't find my profile in the computer and couldn't find my piece of "official" piece of paper that I filled out...right at the end of the first interview, an interview with one of the leading leaders in technology, an interview that to get to I had to complete a form on the computer, they had us put our name, phone and email address on a piece of scratch paper.....but I digress. okkkaaaaa...

OK, I promised myself that I wouldn't be writing another of those "man, it's been a long time since I've written, but I've been so busy..." kinds of posts. Man, it's been a long time since I've written...did I mention how busy I've been? I've noticed that when I get remotely busy and have a lot of email writing to do, I blog less. And I also notice that when I blog regularly, I email less frequently. But seriously, is anyone going to believe that I've been so busy and had so many emails to write that I couldn't have done anything since August 28th? So here's what I've been up to: 1. Redesigned and deployed two new web sites: www.frcs.org and www.aspengrovechurch.org . The first is our infamous school. Originally I wasn't going to directly link to it...but I decided we can always use the traffic. There's a whole post coming describing the re-write. It's comical. The second is for our church...and it too turned out ni...

The term "drama queen" gets tossed around a lot..and I've never really given it much thought. In High School, I avoided the dreaded "thespians" like the plague. I was a total anti-social geek, but even they were far too uncool for me. Zooming forward to today, my daughters are smack dab in the middle of the thespian crew at the School and I am (apparently) firmly ensconced as one of the primary patriarchs of the effort. When we found out that Erica was leaving, after the shock had worn off, we spent a lot of time thinking, praying and flat out wondering what was going to happen at this little school in the theater department. Let's face it: she made it all happen. She had the whole vision thing, she had the drive to make the vision happen and the charisma to get others (like me) fall in line and literally walk across flaming shards of glass to make it happen (okay a bit of an exaggeration). Prior to Erica, the program was "run" by Sharon, a nice la...

After we went to Die Hard 4 and totally loved it, I knew it was time to re-view the first three. It had been years since we'd seen any of them and I was afraid that my memory of them was better than they actually were. Rather than renting them, I uncharacteristically decided to buy them. This way, I figured, the girls could become acquainted with the John McClane saga before they saw the 4th one when it becomes available on Netflix. So without further adieu, here are my thoughts: Die Hard I - By movie standards, this movie came out a long time ago. Bruce Willis was "that TV guy", and hardly the Hollywood star. This movie also looks a little dated when compared to today's effects laden, quick edit affairs. But all of those nits not withstanding: this movie rocks. I seem to remember it as kind of a new thing, a totally crazed action movie, with "humor" tossed in...and did I mention action? Sure the bad guys were bad shots and McClane was able to survive ...

Late in the afternoon on Friday, I recieved an email from the Apple Store. I have been wanting to get a part time job there, so I was excited. The email was weird, as it asked me to respond to this email by the end of the day on Friday (about 2 or so hours left in the day) to reserve my spot at the hiring "meeting". Luckily I was on top of my email that day and immediately replied. They also asked for a bunch of information, information that was in my resume. OK, so that's not too odd, but the beginning of the email stated "after reviewing your resume...". OK, it was a little weird... And they wanted me to plan for "about a 3 hour time committment". It was getting weirder. I arrived promptly at 1PM on Saturday where it took a couple of queries as to where this "meeting" was taking place. They had decided to move it to the mall's office/meeting room...something that would've been nice to include in the email that was still not...

I was neither right nor wrong, really. Terry Fator , the ventriloquist extraordinairre "won", but I believe we'll be hearing from all of the 4 finalists sometime in the future. I'm anxious to see what Cas Haley does most of all. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy and I like how he sounds. Julienne and Butterscotch will be fine performers somewhere and likely all of the top 10 acts received more pub than they ever could've imagined. It's been interesting watching this show. They portray it as if these are virtual "nobodies", languishing in their living rooms and entertaining only their mirrors. Terry Fator is an accomplished performer, appearing in state fairs and all sorts of corporate events...he even won some "Male Performer of the Year" in 2006. So while he's definitely deserving, he's hardly the "unknown" that maybe they'd like us to believe. He made it through the gauntlet and came out on top. Props to h...