Three Hundred Sixty Five

Days.

You Can't Be Serious.

City of Houston, please put a sign up in the future if you don't want me to park between a certain location and the stop sign. Thanks.

Day in the Life

"So what are you doing with your time? You can't look for a job all day long every day."

November 21, 2008

7:20: Up and out of bed. Some times the day starts at 7:00 or earlier depending on the density of my morning schedule. Pull myself together and get out the door.

8:00 or so: Walking in Coffee Groundz, the neighborhood coffee bar for my morning. The coffee is no where as good as Catalina Coffee (which makes a super expresso grind Americano), but it's a tiny bit closer to home so that works. Grind into my spreadsheet holding my search to sweep through everything I am working (spreadsheet is currently 326 rows deep). This results in about 16 emails that need to be drafted and a half dozen calls that need to be made this morning while I am at Coffee Groundz. Next week will be dead Wed. through Fri. so I am thinking ahead to that now. (standing outside making a call my new neighbors across from me stop and introduce themselves. Previous neighbors told them about me - I am the guy they "always see cooking in the kitchen window." Very nice people)

11:45: Head home to push out my emails and download any others that I missed that morning since I am off line to send email at the Coffee Groundz.

12:15 Out to meet John for quick lunch.

1:30: Back at home. Check responses to emails that were sent in the morning and also review any new ones.

2:00: Spent about 40 minutes on the phone with an HR rep. from a boutique management consulting firm that I found on the Kellogg Alumni Site. Very productive introduction and could possibly need to a meeting early Dec.

3:00: Phone call with a new recruiter is a no show. The time and day were his suggestion but this happens al the time. Since being at home from lunch I have also begun to archive 14 new contacts in the E&P sector that were given to me by somebody in the industry. Contacts are exported from my spreadsheet and added to my address book in Entourage - draft an introductory email for each of the new contacts and prep those to be sent out today. Also I am drafting a letter to a previous employer that needs to go out with a resume priority mail today.

4:00: E&P emails are sent and out the door to go to the post office to send the priority letter.

4:45: Stop by 13 Celsius in the neighborhood - one of the better wine bars around town. Open the laptop to find two responses to the 14 new contact emails that I sent out earlier. Not bad 2/14 on a Friday afternoon. One email is to schedule a conference call for Monday afternoon, cool! Let's hope for more over the weekend or on Monday before the holiday.

Day in the life.

Now At Bat.....

I hope that the world outside that I know reading my blog does not think that the only time that I interview is when I mention it. I came to do this post with the intent of mentioning an interview that I have tomorrow but would imagine that the "normal" person thinks that this is unique.

Normal people don't do this every week if not multiple times a week.

But yes, there is an interview tomorrow and I should be up for it. At any given moment I am probably working a couple dozen legitimate opportunities and tomorrow's is a rather unique one for me that will be good if I can close it down. The indicators are positive at this point so let's see where it goes.

What's for lunch? Soup! Sorry no pics this time but it was my first time making soup from my own stock and it worked out really well.

He Said, She Said: Is this weird?

She Said: Is this weird?

He Said: What do you mean? What's weird?

She Said: The whole conversation, don't you think this is weird?


(pssst here is a hint, if you have to ask if it's weird, trust me, you just made the whole thing "weird")

Nobody's Right If Everybody's Wrong

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop..............

When I heard that today, it just somehow seemed to ring true. I do hope that one day we can see that everybody simply can't be wrong. Looking back on this election I saw a lot of communication, but not a lot of listening which is why as usual, I divorced myself from the subject with friends and family. My views and opinions have always been controversial, but they are always grounded in Socratic discourse and an open heart and mind. Fact is, we all can't be right. This is a simple and elusive truth, but we can only see that when we open our hearts to love, compassion and tolerance with those we know and more importantly don't know.

You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people if you don't serve the people. - Cornell West

He always concisely states observations that cut to the heart of the issues in America. We can all lead. We can all serve.