Day: November 8, 2002

Small world after all

Random coincidence of the day: fellow 2002 Sloanie Mike Parduhn was born in Newport News, Virginia, my home town. He says he doesn’t remember much since he moved to Chicago in pre-school years. In my cynical days, I think that I don’t remember much about it because I moved out after high school and never looked back. But it’s not true. Comic books, bicycle rides, the drive along Rt. 60 from Denbigh to Colonial Williamsburg, all the good and bad school days, leaves burning in the fall, the Methodist Church’s autumnal brunswick stew sale, listening to …Nothing Like the Sun… through headphones for the first time, bike skidding out in gravel on Sylvia Court, waiting for the bus, learning about Violent Femmes, Ronnie and his mohawk, singing in the church choir next to my dad, learning about music theory from my mom in her basement studio, devouring the library one book at a time, learning about the wonders of college libraries at William and Mary…

Sorry, rainy days do this to me. It’s either nostalgia or look for a small, warm, close pub.
more…

Jumpstarting

I know it’s been quiet here at the JH North for the last week or two. I assure you it’s been in good cause.

As I alluded last night, I’ve been a bit busy with work. The bigger picture is that I’m working on this enormous project in between switching jobs. My first position at the company was a combination of online strategy and media campaign execution. I have no experience at the latter, and learned that I’m not too good at the former when the area in question has no connection to our group’s current business and I’m working on the analysis in a vacuum. So between that, the enormous psychic upheaval of our move and my graduation, and past history, I was about due for a massive attack of the black dog. This one put me in a funk so deep that it was affecting my job performance.

I’m taking steps to correct it. I found a new position in a sister team doing media analysis, which is a combination of hardcore quant, web metrics, and product planning–much more up my alley. And I’m talking about what I’m going through. Esta, Greg, and Anil were right. It doesn’t get any better otherwise.

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Today I stopped at the gas station on my way in to work. The VW Microbus (there are quite a few still on the road around here in Seattle) ahead of me had his rear engine door open and jumper cables strewn about. Ah, I thought, wet weather and old Volkswagens. Sure enough, he asked me for a jump. It took me a few minutes to find the battery under the hood of my car (give me a break, I don’t have 5,000 miles on it yet!), but we hooked it up. On the second turn of the key, his van roared back to life. I drove off to work in search of coffee. It’s not such a bad day.