Job Interview

Yesterday morning I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. I let it go to voicemail and assumed it was class being cancelled. I checked the voicemail and it was a lady calling me for a job interview in Kouts. I called her back and after playing phone tag, we discussed setting up an interview for this morning. At the end, she asked me to bring a copy of my license. I said ok and then she said she meant my teaching license. My stomach dropped as I explained I didn't have a teacher's license and to be hired as a teacher, I would have to do as such with an emergency permit sponsored by my counselor (who gave me her full blessing to do such) and the place that wants to hire me. She seemed confused and said she wasn't sure if she was allowed to do that. She then suggested I come in for the interview and then they could take it from there. I was disappointed as, at first, I thought I would have whatever job was offered nailed. I decided to go as it would be good experience for teaching job interviews and you never know what could come of the interview.

 

I went to class at 3 and at 3:15 I got a call saying it was cancelled. I drove home and felt worthless for the rest of the day. I watched the Cubs game and called Rach. I also "thought" I had beaten GTA IV, but I have one more mission that I didn't think I had. I went to be early and woke up at 6:30 and went to the interview. It went well, possibly very well. She asked me to call DOE and see what I have to do to get an emergency permit. I know what I have to do. I have to get CPR training, pass my Praxis, and get the sponsorship of both my school and job. Unfortunately, the soonest I can get my Praxis is June 17^th. That shouldn't be a huge problem as the job is for the fall. The job I am in the running for is very very intensive and is basically a LOT of work. It is from 7-3:30 but probably will take longer than that on a daily basis to do.

 

 

My previous blog entry from today was actually an entry from the weekend I didn't publish, now it is published. More info on the job as it comes along…

Ey!

What a long week. I haven't been able to post all week. More on that in a second. Here is how it broke down.

 

Last Friday-Went to the auction. It was nice. We stayed until 11 and then I went back to Rach's. It was there we ate pizza and then I went home…

Saturday-Went to work and had a night to myself.

Sunday-Skipped the church and went to Rach's at 5…

Monday-Went to work until 5 and then to Rach's graduation from7-8:20. Me and my Mom left early. I went home, changed, and went to her post-ceremony at 9-10:30

Tuesday-Worked 'til 3, had class from 4-7 (I was late and didn't get there till 4:30) and then went to Rach's. I watched the amazing lottery in which the Bulls got the #1 pick and then I went to bed.

Wednesday-World til 8. We went to my house and watched the AI finale. Once that was over, me and Rach went to see Indiana Jones at midnight. It was fantastic.

Thursday-Slept in and went to class at 3. Afterwards I came home and hung out with Bob for a little bit.

Friday-Slept in and hung out with Rach. We unlocked most of Mario Kart's secrets, went to Popolanos, made s'mores and ate ice cream. We tried to watch I'm Not There, but it is weird.

Today-Work til 3, then I am going to hang out with Bob until like 12 or so. I am open to anything.

Tomorrow-Church til 12, Indy 500 til 4, Rachels from 5-12 or so

Monday-cookout and maybe I will beat GTA IV

Tuesday-nothing but class from 4-7

 

 

 

So who do the Bulls take? I say Beasley. He is the full package. Plus, I can't imagine the lineup of…

C-Noah

PF-Beasley

SF-Deng

SG-Hughes

PG-Gordon

1. Heinrich
   
2. Nocioni
   
3. Gray
   
4. Thomas
   
5. Duhon
   
6. Gooden
   

 

I am a little nervous about my Jim Frey autograph. I sent him an 8x10 previously signed by Andre Dawson, Andy Pafko, and Rick Reuschel as well as a limited edition 8x10 of himself and it has almost been two weeks since I sent it off. Actually, it has been longer than two weeks.

 

I got a 5 dollar best buy card and used it to pay part of WWE Raw vs. Smackdown! 2007 for the PSP. It is actually a fantastic game. The graphics are decent but the controls of the wrestlers and their movements leave quite a bit to be desired.

 

I had to get a new laptop cable. It costs a lot of money but hopefully it lasts a lot longer than the last one. I would like to be able to find a hi-cap battery.

 

Me and Rach got Cubs vs. Sox tix from ebay. We are excited. So far, here looks the rest of my summer…

 

Class from 4-7 until early June then 4-6 through the end of June.

Cubs tour on June 8^th

Cubs/Sox game on June 22^nd

Tom Petty on July 3^rd

John Mayer on July 5^th

Cubs game on July 10^th

 

 

I am going to definitely schedule my Praxis on Tuesday….

Yesterday’s Game

Yesterday, Rach and I went to a Cubs Game in Chicago. It was nice. Two out of the last three we have gone to have sucked outside though. The Cubs swept the Diamondbacks. Would have been nice to do that in October. I got to meet Ronnie Woo Woo also. It was nice to finally see him at a game.

 

I think I have gotten to a point in GTA where it is getting nearly impossible. I still have about half of the mission portion of the game to go but it appears to be getting very hard. I had to do a mission retrieving drugs from an old hospital filled with gangsters. When you finally get the stash and kill the gangsters, you get a star rating of 3 out of 5 and have to ditch the cops in Manhattan with that star rating. It is impossible and the time to do the mission is about 40 minutes a try. The other mission I am on is killing a lawyer. This one is also very hard as, as soon as you kill him, the place fills up with cops also.

 

Jake's NBA Awards

MVP-Kobe Bryant-Los Angeles Lakers. This one was tough. Chris Paul had one of the best seasons of anyone who has never won the award. His season, in comparison to Steve Nash's two MVP seasons, was actually better. He got comparable numbers in assists as well as better defense and more points scored. Considering he had less talent on his squad than Nash when he won his two MVP's only makes his season that much more remarkable.

 

The simple fact is that Kobe's season was too incredible to ignore. He took a team that was supposed to finish in the bottom third of the league and led them to the best record in the best conference the NBA has ever seen. Not to mention the fact that they have missed their All-Star level center Bynum for the whole second half of the season. Also, not to mention that Kobe needs surgery on this pinky finger that he has been playing with for months. Kobe's season, his first as a full fledged team leader, has been incredibly successful.

 

Coach of the Year-Byron Scott-New Orleans. It was hard to not give this award to Phil Jackson. What he did in LA is some of his best work ever, title or no title. A lot of people like Doc Rivers, but I think he is nothing more than an average coach with a winning program. He was running in don't mess it up mode all year. Stan Van Gundy, at some point in his career, has to be recognized as a top tier coach in the league. He gets no respect despite the fact he does more with less than anyone else.

 

Rookie of the Year-Al Horford-Atlanta. This was semi-tough. Durant scored bushels of points and did very well on a very bad team in Seattle. I hate to give the Sonics any credit for anything as how they are doing business is nothing short of criminal, literally. The team is dumping salary and talent in an attempt to drive out the fan base for their soon move to Oklahoma City. Al Horford of Atlanta had a brilliant season. Although he may never be an All-Star and may only enjoy a ten year "good" career, he helped to lead Atlanta to their first playoff appearance in nine years. He was probably the more solid player. It was close, but the fact Horford is the rookie I will remember most from this season.

 

Most Improved Player-Hedo Turkaglu-Orlando. What happened? I cant even name where Hedo has been the last five years or so, so it is hard to figure out how he had such a brilliant season. He scored in bushels and gave Lewis and Howard the perimeter shooter that JJ Reddick was too incompetent to become. This was such a tough decision as players such as Korver, Ellis, Calderon, Pargo, Dunleavy, and others had made huge jumps in their ability.

 

6^th Man of the Year-Manu Ginobili-San Antonio. I will go out on a limb and says Manu had the best season of a 6^th man since the days of Havlicek. He averaged 25 points and was a sparkplug for the Spurs. If the Spurs win the title, he wll be the Finals MVP.

 

Executive of the Year-Mitch Kupchak-Lakers. I refuse to give this award to Danny Ainge. Why? Because the way he has led this team prior to about 10 months ago was borderline lunacy. Kevin McHale did more for the Celtics as GM of the Wolves than Ainge did. It is time to get rid of the personality tests when you evaluate talent. Kupchak pulled off a miracle in LA. He didn't trade Bryant and when he finally did make a trade, it was a brilliant pull off of Gasol from Memphis. Gasol has fit in perfectly with LA and has turned this team into a realistic title contender. Also, he didn't panic when Bynum went down injured. The final point is that Kupchak has done his mentor Jerry West proud.

 

Defensive Player of the Year-Tyson Chandler-New Orleans. This one was tough. Camby deserves the award but won last year. Plus his Nuggets give up like 120 points a game so nobody should get the award even if they have played well enough to deserve it on that team. Garnett is a logical choice but I don't agree with the whole we cant give him the MVP so lets give him this argument. Chandler has been an incredible spark plug and has helped to shut down such big men as Duncan, Boozer, and Stoudimire for the Hornets this season. He has an incredible amount of energy, like Eric Byrnes in baseball. He makes the Hornets as good as they can be.

 

Other less official awards

 

Worst Trade-Every trade the Sonics made to make their team worst

 

Worst Executive-The Sonics ownership team

 

Biggest Idiot-Isaiah Thomas (Good riddance)

 

 

Jake and Tyler

GTA IV Thoughts…

 

I am currently a little less than 20% done with GTA IV. Overall, I would give it a 98% out of 100. I have a few gripes with it, but I will get to those in a second. The missions are way better than any of the previous games. This is a major upgrade from GTA: San Andreas. The missions in that game were really my only gripe. A lot were stupid like the Area 51 one. The missions are very realistic as is the whole game. The graphics are fantastic as well. Every street looks alive and lived in. The characters interact with each other and their environment realistically. Also, the interactions between Nico (your character) and his environment are flawless. When he commits a crime, it is reported on the radio and when he acts out, people recognize this in other ways than simply running and screaming. Stealing an occupied car results in several different outcomes, all realistic. Stealing an unoccupied car results in more than simply opening the door and driving off. While this game has employed an incredible level of realism, it has done something else I was sure that it would fail at and that is maintaining a high level of societal parody. Through billboards, radio commercials, comments heard on the street etc. the game continues a lot of the dry humor previous games made successful. The car damage in he game is incredible and has been looked over in other interviews. It is beyond impressive. It is yet another realistic touch to the game.

 

 

 

A lot of people have had complaints about the character's eastern European accents in the game. I don't. I do have some gripes with the characters. While some characters like Roman and Nico, you become close to, others are simply exceptionally annoying. The Jamaican Little Jake is impossible to understand and not even a funny parody of the "stoned Jamaican dude". The guy is simply annoying and you don't even know what to do on the mission until the game tells you at the bottom of the screen. Roman, your cousin in the game, has a friend named Brucie. He is a douchebag and has douchebag missions. Every time I am forced to do one of his or Little Jake's missions to advance to new characters, I cringe in disgust. Also, the game seems to follow the pattern of doing missions for someone and then deciding to kill them to move on to someone else's missions.

 

 

Another gripe is that the game's radio stations have taken several large steps back. The rock radio station is decent and a little repetitive and a lot of the others contain no name artists or obnoxious type of music. So far, I have found no way to change the stations to turn them off. Also, the little quips Iggy Pop makes as DJ suck as well.

 

Another thing I do not get is having a girlfriend and friends who you do activities with, but it doesn't seem to make a major difference. I can turn Roman or Little Jacob down for fun times and it seems to make little difference in the long run. Why would I waste gaming time in the long run playing darts of pool with them if it isn't in any way share or form pertinent to the plot at hand.

 

I hope I am not nitpicking too much but the game overall is the best I have ever played and I love it. Like I said 98% out of 100%.