Thanksgiving Weekend

I'm minutes away from heading up to Portland with my CCTX to have Thanksgiving dinner with my family. It will be a good time and a great chance to get away from Eugene for a couple of days. Unfortunately, CCTX has quite a load of work to finish over the weekend so, instead of joining me up in Seattle for a day or so, she'll have to come back early to get a jump-start on her Architecture project. It's not fun, but at least she's committed to her studies, and is learning a lot of interesting stuff. I wish I could draw even half as well as she. Whew! Anyways, I'll head up north for a day or so and head back early Sunday morning to finish up some school-work of my own. The real break will come in early December, after final exams. After that, CCTX and DWTX will be able to take a nice road trip somewhere yet undecided. Some friends of mine are heading to Las Vegas in mid-December, but we're not sure if we'll join up.

So, with the road ahead and dinner waiting for me, I'll keep this one short and just say:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Crazy Rain and the Dangerous Drive

Yesterday, Friday, November 11th:

I left home around 9am for the Intel site in Hillsboro to meet my classmates at a 'site-visit' sponsored by the U of O Career Svcs Center. Events like these are just opportunities to get in front of company execs and/or middle managers to help determine our respective desired career paths. So, even though I had a successful internship there this past summer I decided to join the crew pretty much just-in-case of whatever. Also, a friend from Seattle was in town on business. We'd planned on meeting up and either getting dinner or hitting a couple of bars -both of which we did.

So, as I said, the day began fairly early with a drive up the I-5 corridor to Hillsboro. I am recovering from a head-cold and so was just dreading the length of day ahead. The site-visit went well enough, though it was long and fairly boring. I mean, its not like they were handing out jobs or anything. The best I got was some lunch, a cookie and a cup of coffee.

And then the fun really began. I left the campus at 4:30-ish and steered towards my mother's place in West Linn. Normally, it would take about 30 min to get there but this was no normal time: it was the start of rush hour on a rainy Friday evening. An hour rolled by and I realized that the growing discomfort in my gut was an overwhelming need to (how shall I put it?) unload my bladder. And that thought stayed with me for the next half hour as freeway traffic crawled, inch by inch, to my exit. So, when I arrived at the McDonalds to meet my mom, five minutes must have passed while I stood planted in front of the urinal. But it was five minutes of pure bliss.

From there, I saw my mom off back home. Then, through the rain and blazing headlights I drove into downtown Portland to meet up with my friend and his co-worker. Parking went reasonably well, for trying to find a spot downtown on Friday night, and I ended up only a block away from their hotel.

We headed to the Pearl district and had some Japanese food, then to a club called MeFadden's and then to Kells Irish Pub. The scene was laid-back, as is the style in Portland overall, and I had a good time hanging and not concerning with school work for a while. Only one quick story: At Kells, my friend's co-worker decided to arm wrestle me, my friend and a couple of other guys at the bar. I lost one, won one and ended up with a really sore arm this morning, while my friend lost one, tied one and then refereed the other matches. It was a fun, but exhausting day and night.

1:30am rolled around and I headed back for Eugene, dog tired. Got home, crashed and slept well. Now, here I am, getting stuff in order and relaxing on this fine, but rainy, Saturday afternoon.

And the end of the term is only a few short weeks away!!! Yeah!

Random Bloggings

It's been far too long since I worte a blog purely for fun. Yeah, I know that blogs are meant for just that but Ive been using it as more of a sounding board instead. A place to just vent my feelings or thoughts on whatever topic. During the summer, I usually blogged about fun stuff I did over the weekend or even some random occurrence at work. Recently, though, its been about school or job hunting and most recently my reflectionson getting older but feeling the same/younger. And while there have been some fun times putting these together, its taken more effort to find that sensation and get myself up and writing.

School is school, the job hunt goes the same, and Savvy is tired from working out in between. The days roll by and I am getting more nervous about finding a job. I know I shouldn't, in fact I recently got a reply from an HR rep at the company for which I interned this summer stating as much. So I go back to my computer, check my email, register for next term's classes and fret over my score on the latest Finance 671 quiz (which was ABYSMAL, by the way). Though the professor said, "You'd actually have to try to fail this class. Most of you will get between a 3.00 and 4.00." Does the term "an A for effort" come to mind? Well, whatever. I'll just need to kick butt next time. Anyway, I know what you're thinking, if you even bothered to read this far, that is. "But, Savvy... I thought you said this would be a 'fun' blog entry?" True dat, my friend. Time to get on with the show.

Next up: My upcoming trip to Portland. This friday I and about 25 classmates will visit the Intel site to meet with leaders (project managers?, not sure) from a few different business groups. It should be interesting. I've made a few contacts there, but it never hurts to keep going after it. So, yeah, I'm still concerned about the post-graduate job picture but I'm just going to use that "nervous-energy", as my undergrad Theater Arts Acting professor termed it, to keep myself focused, relaxed and ready. Like a jungle cat ready to pounce! Hah!!! Now the fun begins.
Cool thing is, I'll meet a friend of mine who will be in Portland on business that day. He's coming down from Seattle and so he, his co-worker and I will hook it up for drinks out that night. Then I'll cruise back to Eugene and crash. Should be a fun time.

Beyond that, I'm looking forward to a road trip up to Seattle and then Vancouver BC over the thanksgiving weekend. I'll meet friends, see cool places and generally chill out enough to come back and prepare for final exams soon after. Then the winter break will come and before you know it the year is gone. Getting ready for the big 0-6.

I'll end with one of my favorite quotes. This is from Earl "Bud" Powell, Jazz pianist, at a live show. He was responding to an audience member who was trying to sing scat
through their entire set. When the show was over, he looked out at the crowd and replied to the club regular,
"That what'chu wanted, Alfred?"