The Rough Draft

So the NSA has been taking a lot of heat these past few months courtesy of George Junior, who feels like he should be able to listen to everybodies conversations if it so pleases him. I mean why can’t he just visit online porn sites to get his cheap voyeuristic thrills like the rest of us? Sure, it’s no real stretch for the NSA to do this but I’ve got to tell you, even with all of that super high end technology, they’ve got nothing on God.

God is tapping my Blackberry.

I’m sure of it and no, I don’t wear a tinfoil helmet, though I think they can be stylish if done right.

Why would God tap my Crackberry? Not to sure, perhaps he has a running filter for human displeasure or maybe he has a celestial supercomputer running a true frustration of the soul filter. All I know is that I was talking to my wife about how much I truly hated my job when not five minutes after I hung up, my little blue devil on my hip rang with a call from a staffing agency which had seen my online resume on Monster.ca

A resume I had posted almost two years ago when my last day job had folded (disappeared up its own ass along with the rest of the company in a downsizing frenzy) and I wasn’t too sure that my previous employer would take me back. They did end up taking me back and like most who post on Monster, I had promptly forgotten about it, after the only company that contacted me wanted me to sell insurance for them.

But here it was, out of the blue, a call about a job that could actually be something really cool, was I interested? I was and made arrangements to do the initial meeting.

Now I’ve never been good at the interview process. I lack the ability to hide my true feelings. If I have a major flaw in my personality, it is that I do not suffer fools gladly. My wife tells me that sometime I weild my intelect like a club. Perhaps she’s right. During the question process of this pre interview I corrected the interviewer on a number of key technical questions. I’d love to assume that he was testing my knowledge base but I’m pretty sure he was just reading stuff off of a sheet that he himself had no idea about.

Of course telling him to wait until I was done reading the company information might have been a bit much but then I hate to be interupted when I’m reading something interesting.

Which lends itself to the question, why have a non technical person interview somebody for a job that is extremely technical? You wouldn’t ask me to interview a brain surgeon for a position would you? I mean I could read his CV and resume but it wouldn’t mean a whole hell of a lot to me.

Now this is most likely a prescreening process. Hopefully the next stage will have a person in the interviewing position who is more knowledgeable in the prcess, who will ask more pertinent questions.

I guess we’ll see. The money looks good but it would have to be. I don’t think there will be any more second chances if I leave my current company again.

I’ll keep you posted.

Just thought I’d run a short paintball thread right now. We’ve got a new indoor paintball field just opened up about fifteen minutes from my house. It’s nice and clean, large enough to be fun and if you don’t mind playing monday nights, not too expensive. Which, considering how much paint I throw is a good thing. They’re also talking about having a, “Masters Night.” No I’m not that good… It would be open only to players over 30. Shooting twelve year olds is fun but they’ve definately got the drop on us older guys as far as sight pictures go.

Anyway… I was there for opening day of the new field and as I was the only one there for a while, the owners and I and the more experienced players who worked there got to talking. What did we talk about? Paintball of course. Best hits, worst hits and dumbest things we’ve seen on the field and off of it. Yep sad to say it but sometimes, the safe area isn’t. I once saw a real doofus shoot his 12 year old daughter in the leg from four feet because he was jiggering around with his trigger in the safe zone. He didn’t have his barrel bag set properly so the first shot lifted it off the barrel and the next three went into his daughter’s leg. After that he was only allowed his marker in his hands on the field.

The first thing I taught my daughter when we started to play is that a paintball marker is not a toy, it’s a gun and should be treated with the respect you’d give any such device. So when we walk off of the field, we clean up our markers, reload and set them down, untouched until the next game. Seeing how I’ve set her up with a mad trigger on her marker, it’s a good rule.

So we’re talking paintball and one of the employees relates a story to me about what happened to one player the day before during a test run of the facility. He apparently thought his gun was jammed, turned the barrel towards his face and said…

“Hey ref, I think my gun is jammed.” Pulled the trigger and shot himself square in the face from point blank range. Luckily the mask took the brunt of the shot and stayed squarely on his head. I’d advise this indivual to not own any real guns later in life. I’m also not so sure he should drive a car or operate anything more taxing than a rubber band. Not because I’m worried about his safety, I’m worried about everybody else close to him. Idiots are seldom considerate enough to take out only themselves.

In a similar vein, I was talking to the owner of one of our local paintball shops about how much the game has changed in the last few years. We both agree, uncapped guns are bullshit and are no substitute for gun skills. 15 bps is stupid and anything higher is simply ridiculous. Players begin to rely more on the gun than themselves. Last time I played, some lippy little kid with a DM5 ($1300.00) tried rushing my corner in a attack and defend game, thinking his super marker would take me down hard. He took eight rounds in the chest from my WGP Trilogy Pro ($360.00) mechanical marker, without getting a shot off. Next game I rushed his friend from the flank and took him down hard too. He simply didn’t see me. The kid with his DM5 didn’t know that how he had tweaked his marker had made it ineffective on the field of play. That and the fact he couldn’t shoot for shit. But back to the store conversation. It is not unusual for parent to drop off their kids and their credit card and tell them to go wild. He told me of kids who walk out of his store with $8G worth of equipment.

$8G.

My daughter got an A on her English test, I got her a $50.00 jersey. She was very happy with it. I’m willing to bet, the kid with eight grand worth of paintball gear in his closet is an ungratefull little shit, who feels he’s entitled to whatever he wants in life. Personally I don’t think this type of parental affection breeds responsible citizens. Of course this does not apply to parents with kids who are gifted in sports or careers that require a sizable investment in equipment. If your kids good enought o need that much expensive paintball gear, they’re good enough to be sponsored on a team that provides the same.

My first marker was an F1. I think all told, I spent about $550.00 on gear. Eventually I moved up to a Custom Automag and now I play with my Trilogy Pro. My daughter’s gear is let’s see…

1 JT Protium (refurbed) … $189.00
1 Smart Parts Progressive Barrel … $60.00
1 JT Mask … $ 40.00
1 Viewloader Tripod Hopper … $40.00
1 Crossfire HPA 47/3000psi Tank …

$90.00

Total … $419.00

And I’m willing to bet (in fact I’ve seen her do it) she’d wax the kid with the more expensive gun’s ass but then so would I. We’ve both got good aim.