So I will start off the blog with some big news that I hinted at last week. On Tuesday, I had not one, but two Zoom interviews. I’d had a phone interview for one of the jobs last week and they had immediately scheduled a follow-up panel interview for this Tuesday at 3 p.m. The second one came out of the blue on Monday and it was scheduled for 1 p.m. Thankfully, I was able to download Zoom (didn’t have it on this laptop) and get all the technical stuff out of the way in the morning and got all my notes and background set-up for the two interviews in the afternoon. I never really feel that I do well on the interviews but both seem to go pretty well. There were definitely some pluses and minuses for the job I had the interview at 1 p.m. for. The 3 p.m. interview I feel even better about, however, as the interview seemed to go even better than the first one, and I really feel that my qualifications and background should make me a strong candidate.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed but I will keep moving forward towards other opportunities. This week I have applied for nine jobs, including five on Monday. I figure if the two jobs I interviewed don’t pan out, I better have some other irons in the fire.
Going into Monday, I thought I was doing a pretty good job compartmentalizing things, and not really focusing on the interviews on Tuesday. I mean, I kinda planned out what I needed to do to get ready on Tuesday to get ready but kept my mind occupied with other things. When I woke up on Tuesday, the stress and uncertainty of what was to come really hit me. In a way I was wishing I’d had the two interviews in the morning (9 a.m. and 11 a.m.) to get them over with. By about 11, I was really getting nervous. However, once I got the first interview out of the way and knew all the Zoom components were going to work the way they should, I wasn’t quite as nervous going into the second one.
My Mom and I had decided beforehand that Wednesday was going to be our day to take a road trip. We headed out in the early morning and hit a few of our usual stops along the way before taking care of business and getting groceries as well. I left my phone at home so that was (a) I wouldn’t be browsing the crap that populates our feeds these days (Remember when social media was supposed to be a way to keep in touch with people? Now it’s just a bunch of people I don’t know talking about how much they hate anyone who expresses a difference of opinion!) and (b) if I got news, good or bad, about my job hunt, I wouldn’t be stressing out over it. It was nice to listen to 60s Gold on the Sirius XM, look for a few treasures here and there and get my mind off everything else.
We’ll be back on the road on Saturday, as another Resuse-A-palooZaha is taking place, and before you know it, Townwide Yard Sale season will be on us as well. I made a deal with my Mom. If there’s any sale within a short drive, she can park somewhere and I’ll go out scouting for treasures and give her a call if I find anything.
As you know, my Mom and I also watch Storage Wars and Cheers after supper. Fans of the former got some bad news this week with the announcement that Darrell “The Gambler” Sheets passed away from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He, along with Dave Hester, Brandi Passante, Jarrod Shulz, and Barry Weiss were the original cast of buyers and continued to pop up on the series as it made its way through 17 seasons. He was a bit of a heel at times but could also make fun of himself and, along with Hester, seemed to be one of those buyers who raised their game above and beyond the newbies.
I’ve heard that Sheets committed suicide after being cyber-bullied. Remember when the internet was supposed to be a good thing where we could share knowledge and ideas and use it for research? Man, that seems like a long time ago.
However, not every interaction on the internet is negative.
I want to give a special shout-out to perhaps the most famous person I know on a personal basis, my friend and former co-worker, Sean. (I won’t say his last name to protect his identity and privacy.) After I hinted that I had some news about my job hunt and said that if anyone wanted to know the “rest of the story” to hit me up on Facebook Messenger. Sean was the only one who followed up with the ask. He was also nice enough to tell me that he regularly reads my blog. Like any type of creative endeavour, it always helps to know that someone out there is reading. It gives me more incentive to come back with another edition, week in and week out.
Okay, if you’re still reading this, you deserve the answer to my trivia question (“A Milner Moment,” as it were). This actually comes from my friend, Jason, who regularly sends me voice messages on Facebook and follows it up with some tunes. He sent me the Frankie Valli song, “Grease,” that served as the theme song to the movie of the same name. I’ve always thought that the writing of the song is criminally underrated. I mean, check out some of these lyrics…
We take the pressure and we throw away
Conventionality belongs to yesterday
There is a chance that we can make it so far
We start believin’ now that we can be who we are
Grease is the word
I don’t know. Maybe it’s just? Anyways, in doing a little research about the song, I found out that the lead guitarist on the track was none other than….(drum roll)…Peter Frampton! Also, Barrie Gibb sang backing vocals on the song. Who knew? Well, now you do.
In addition to Reuse-A-Paloozaha, this will be a big weekend as the ARCA Series, O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and, of course, the Cup Series will be headed to the holy ground of the 2.66 mile superspeedway in Alabama…
TALLA-F&%$*@*- DEGA, BABY!!!!!
Over on my John Milner’s Track Talk Facebook page, I have made my predictions for the weekend. If you have thoughts about my picks, or anything I’ve written here, feel free to hit me up on Facebook Messenger. Hope everyone has a good week until we meet again, and perhaps I will have some more positive news on the job hunt front.
johnmilner.ca 