Big Ten Tournament Champions!!

After an up and down season (looking pretty good on occasion and down right terrible on others) the Purdue Boilermakers won the Big10 tournament today. They played three very good games and even though they fell behind in the second half today they came back and won. WooHoo!!

Of course, the NCAA tournament committee didn't exactly reward them. They must have watched the games last week. Purdue pretty well stunk up the last week of the season. So they have no one to blame but themselves. They ended up as a fifth seed (the tournament has a record of 5 seeds losing to 12 seeds in their first games). And if they win their first game they will likely have to play the Univ. of Washington in Portland Oregon. That's only about a three hour drive from the UW campus. And a plane flight from W. Lafayette. Ah well. If you are going to do anything in the tournament you have to beat good teams. They did at least get Thurs/Sat games so I don't have to worry about missing the game to go to the airport :-)

And now a couple of GIANT steps....

and then maybe we'll see how long it is until we can take the next one.

Last Friday I called and accepted a "tentative job offer" to be a Department of Defense (usually called DoD) employee working at Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center. It is a HUGE facility located about 25 miles southwest of Bloomington, Indiana. Step one...

And, last night I finished filling out a huge form of background info for the first part of the process to get my security clearance. Step two.....

I am not sure after talking to the nice lady in the security office this morning when they will actually start the process of doing the background checks. I thought before that they had to complete at least the first round before I could start working but she implied that they would only look at the paperwork itself but that I had to physically present myself (and get fingerprinted - I've never done that before) before they could actually start the background check. They stressed over and over again that I should present myself for that on the first day of work. So, anyway, at some point several folks are probably going to be getting phone calls.

So, as I understand it, the security folks will now give the HR folks a green light and then the HR folks have to send the paperwork back to the regional office (in Philly I think) and they have to do what ever it is they do and THEN we have to mutually agree on a start date. Which means in the meantime that I get to march in place for a while. Hurry up and wait.

Back to baby steps...

So being the pushy kind of guy that I am I invited myself down to visit them. Yesterday I drove down to get a tour and an hour or so of the guy who would be my branch manager's time. He would be my boss's boss. We discussed the workings of the federal pay system and a tour of the facility (including the cubicle that my future boss has already claimed for me). They have lots of expensive toys that our tax dollars have paid for. But not enough parking.

So now it is back to waiting for the machinery of government to get around to the next step(s). Sigh. I sure wish I was more patient.....but I am not.

...and if we aren't careful we will take a full step!!

I had my phone interview today. Of course, being the government they can't officially offer me the job, only HR can offer me the job. But, we spent nearly 45 minutes talking with him doing most of the talking explaining what they do and a little bit about how they are organised and asked if I had any questions. I asked a couple that I had written down ahead of time and got pretty much the answers that I had expected. Though the salary that he "proposed" isn't quite what I was hoping for it is sufficient. It said right in the job description that they would not pay any moving or relocation costs however we did discuss the possibility of a "signing bonus" that we could apply to the moving costs. It seems that moving costs come out of the HR budget while he thought that he might be able to get them to figure out how to get the signing bonus out of his department's budget. It is strange to contemplate taking a job when I have never seen the place....maybe I should have broached a "tour" as a possibility...

So now the ball is in HR's court and we wait until we hear from them. No rush, of course......arrgh.

...and another tiny step....

Well, I got confirmation today that I am having an official phone interview on Friday morning. Not the first (I have had a several others with recruiters and one for the contract position in Longmont that "went away") but this is the first with a hiring manager of permanent position.

I also learned that only one other person applied. Here is hoping that one other person isn't a disabled veteran :-)

Think positive thoughts for me on Friday!

A tiny baby step...

Well, it is said that a journey begins with a single step. So on Thursday (delayed from Wednesday because they hadn't plowed the street yet on Wednesday) I mailed off the application "package" for the job that was posted last week. I am expecting a call some time this next week to talk about the next step.

Meanwhile, I am trying to fan a flame out of another tiny spark that occurred about a week ago. This would be for another job here in Indiana but I suspect that the company is balking at how much they feel they would have to pay me (based upon what I was making at Thomson). Of course, they haven't asked me yet. In fact, I am not even sure that the recruiter who I talked to has even presented my resume to them yet. And when I tried to call him I got a call back from another recruiter in his office with the lame "well, he's been out sick". And, she didn't even know what job he and I had been talking about. Hopefully, I can fan that one into some sort of flame so that I can have an "option" to consider.

Bottom line is that things are looking up but there is still a loooooonnnnnnggggggg way to go to get to that first paycheck. But ya gotta start somewhere.

And now, it is back to work...

Well, the travelling was a pain in the rearend but the time spent with my girls (and their hubbies) and especially with Miss Raley was WELL worth it. There are some who say little Miss Raley has her Grandpa wrapped around her little finger. Not quite. But almost :-)

And now it is back to the "grind" of trying to find a job. Sure hope that more pops up now that the first of the year has arrived. Only time will tell.