May 29, 2009

• debrief

  We're back. I'm so glad I like my job and my coworkers, or I'd be totally bummed to no longer be on vacation.

  
  

  New York was great. Z-town was great. We saw lots of people, which was the main point of the trip. It was hectic but fun. I think Superman must have met about two dozen of my friends, in total, and he did well. 

  
  

  A few pictures from the New York and Z-town parts of the trip (in case you're wondering why I still say Z-town and fake names, it's one of the most easily identifiable and searchable things in my blog, and my stalker is still out there...). We met up with a lot of people, and not everyone's in these, but you get the idea...

  
  

  

  My friend N, who got married (obviously)
  

  
  

  

  Me and Superman at the reception

   

      

  FX came by the hotel for a drink

   

  

  My good friend ALE was up from DC, and we had brunch

   

  

  Drinks with some of my crew in Z-town

  Superman, me, Kanga, and Roo are on the right

   

  

  Open mike night -- Roo tried the accordion

   

  

  My favorite gummy candy in the world -- we bought 17kg (37lbs)

   

   

  Sunny day by the lake after brunch

   

  

  One of my former officemates, who also went to Kenya and Bonaire with Kanga and me

   

  ***

   

  Spain was fantastic. We went there mostly for the food. The ham, the tapas, and two Michelin 3-starred restaurants. Oh, and the wine. Kanga and Roo met us for the second half of our time there, and we ate too much food (for future reference, it's a delicious but bad idea to have a ten-course meal and a fifteen-course meal -- I'm including amuse-bouches in these counts -- on consecutive nights), went winetasting, stayed in old castles and monasteries, and visited a cathedral that had two live chickens in a special chicken altar, honoring a 14th century miracle involving chickens. In case you were curious as to how the food stacked up overall, the two 3-starred meals in Spain were two of the three best meals I've had in my life. The third one was at this restaurant in Brussels.

  
  

  I haven't sorted through those pictures or boiled that part of the trip down to a few paragraphs yet, so that will have to wait for now.

  
  

  ***

  
  

  You know what drives me crazy? People who believe that "God will provide," but who don't think that they need to do anything on their end. I'm an atheist, so I don't think that God will provide anything, but if I were a believer, I think I would subscribe more to the "God wants to see how you're able to provide for yourself" school of thought. One of the religious fanatics that I know is moving across the country. His wife was laid off from a law firm, and he left his job running the IT and facilities for their church. They've known for months that they would both be jobless. They have two young children. It's not the best economy for jobhunting, much less jobhunting for two jobs. But have they started jobhunting in earnest? No. No applications, no interviews. They don't even have their CVs updated. But God will provide.

  
  

  Seriously? How is anyone going to provide you with a job if you don't even send out CVs and cover letters? Are two jobs going to just magically appear when they show up, with a little gift tag that says, "Hope you like these!! Love, God"??

   

  Good luck with that. I still stand by the "cover letter and CV" approach.

  • 9:12 pm
  • 4 Comments