A New Job

Friday, June 9, 1995

Well, it’s not really the ninth. It’s nearing nine o’clock on Sunday the eleventh. And this can mean only one thing: My Mac is alive. IT’S ALIVE (again, with appropriate Dr. Frankenstein howl)!!! and I am back in business (sorta). I am (kinda) exhausted. Today was Kyle’s first birthday party, complete with little guests and big ones (Lisa’s family attended). Hectic and Hot. But fun.

I would be out, dozing by now, only Lisa let me nap on the couch for nearly an hour and a half after the party. Now I’m pseudo-energized. Especially now that HAL, my internal hard drive is up and running, and Lil’Elvis, the external is no longer having bizarre problems. Of course, I lost some data (remember, Ladies and Gentlemen, o you Gentle Readers, ALWAYS back up your stuff, or it will become only shit)... but I was able to recover the Journal files (I think. I haven’t had the guts to actually try to open those files...

(Well, it’s now closer to ten. And I did work up the guts. And now I feel gutted. Two-thirds of the files, though they were there, were UNRETRIEVABLE. Dead. It looks like much of the opening weeks of summer are going to be spent putting together new files of nearly two-hundred pages.

(And, of course, that’s only of the journal. God knows how much of my school stuff is fucked up for next year.

(Fuck.)

So, where were we?

Ah, yes. The weekend. Let’s take it backwards, shall we?

Today’s party. Among others, Diana and her husband Joe and daughter Melanie attended. I spent some of the afternoon talking to Joe about his upcoming job interview. He’s an engineer working for the government at the local naval base. But he’s sick of it and he’s looking for new employment. A pretty important interview is coming up in a week and a half. He’s sounding pretty cautious, as if not to jinx it, but I can tell that he wants it to go well, he wants a good offer, because he wants to take it. I know from whence he comes.

Last night was a late one. I took advantage of the resurrection of HAL to put together the video open letter. Now I can present it to the Leadership Team at their meeting tomorrow before I send it off to Joan, and a copy off to GoD and Kurtzmann at the D.O..

Yesterday, Lisa and I attended the art show opening of David Jones, art teacher extraordinaire. Fun. Great art (if I had a couple hundred to drop on art, I just might... naw... I’d put something down on another computer--fuckin’ piece of shit--but ANYway...). Pretty good conversation, since among the multitudes of the C.H.S. crowd there was Lori and Bruce (though, it seemed, not together). Jack Harrelson was there with wife Julee and daughter Anna. He, too, talked of new jobs. He’s burned out something fierce... makes me still look like a young idealist. He’s looking into stock brokerage; he’s just interested in the money; thank you very much. Can’t really blame him.

Much of the morning yesterday was spent breathing life into the computer. Getting both drives up and running, then dragging one or two files at a time from HAL to Lil’Elvis (any more would crash the system again). The files moved, I initialized HAL, move the files back, initialized Lil’Elvis, and began reinstalling the system and the software.

And since I can remember little of Friday night, this would take us back to the luncheon on Friday (and that should tell you how many times I tea-ed at the Island of Long). A good time, great company (at my table were Aimee, Nicole [taking the afternoon off from AcadHigh], Hector, Howard Smith, Mary, Mira, and my partner in TopTen-crime, Harold Laws). The liquor was flowing nicely, loosening many tongues. It was sad hearing Jack’s good-bye speech. It was interesting hearing that Bob’s rumored impending marriage to Jane’s best friend (confirmed by Jane Wednesday night) is a rather pressurized affair; it seems, like Harrelson (a year before), Bob needs to practice safe sex a little more (the pregnancy was left out of the discussion by Jane). But the best and most exciting news was the announcement that Aimee had won Teacher of the Year.

She deserved it. She’s a great teacher. I’m looking forward to her taking over the 2H’s. The fact that she went through hell this year over WASC, notwithstanding, she really is the Teacher of the Year. The applause was loud and exuberant, though her speech (by her own account) was lame... she was caught completely off-guard.

Hamm, dumbstruck. What a concept.