And Then There Were Two

The Company converted my contract to a full-time position this week. My conversion was made official as of Monday.

In reality, negotiations had been going on for over a month. Their initial offer was, to say the least, insulting to me, and my morale had taken a pretty hard hit over the past month. My résumé had been updated and floating around job search Web sites since then.

Despite the economic climate, I gambled on the job a bit, turning down the conversion offer twice before finally reaching an agreement.

On day one, The Company sent me a brand new laptop, fresh with all the manufacturer stickers and protective transparent film still attached, top of the line specs and configurations -- an expensive machine that I'll probably never use because I'm on client-site all day. It's almost hard to imagine that eight percent of the nation is unemployed and fourteen percent of folks in my age demographic can't find a job right now.

I spent the entire first full-time day on conference calls, being introduced to the who's who of people you need to know when shit hits the fan. Most of the week was spent watching on-boarding training videos and taking relating tests. Apparently, The Company frowns on sexual harrassment in the workplace.

-

I met up with a couple of guys from The Ex-Company after work on Thursday for happy hour at a micro-brewery in The Village. There were four of us that met during our introductory training bootcamp at The Ex-Company, and we regularly come together every couple of months for drinks and shit-shooting despite my departure from the company.

One of the guys, a former University of Texas student, had left the company as well as of last week. He had told us he was game for a drink, but sold out and, instead, packed his stuff and left out of town. He was leaving the job to go to graduate school and was taking an internship before the Fall semester started.

Despite it being a Thursday night on the edge of a college campus on the first weekend back to school, the bars were dead. There were no rowdy crowds or drunk college girls. The three of us shot the shit amongst ourselves and played games of Erotic Photo Hunt.

Somewhere along the way, somehow, the conversation devolved to the subject of armpit fucking. The question was: if you met a smokin' hot girl, but she would not have vaginal or oral sex with you, but she was willing to fuck you with her armpit and it still felt good, would you be okay with it?

I decided that it couldn't be that much different from a handjob or titty-fucking, so why the hell not?

Then we asked: if fucking her armpit turned out to be the best sex ever in the entire universe, better than any blowjob or vaginal sex or anal sex or any other way to skeet in the entire universe, would you take her to be your wife -- with the caveat that her armpit will be the only part of her you ever get to fuck?

I decided that mediocre vaginal sex and blowjobs still had to trump any sort of armpit-fucking on any day of the week, so no.

And finally: if you were Muslim and could marry up to four wives, would you take armpit-fucker as one?

I decided yes.

-

Within my first forty-hour work week with the new position, I showed up to my desk with a hangover.

I, I Bring the Fire

Trinh threw an after-new year's gettogether at his place. Trashcan punch and some traditional Vietnamese finger foods: egg rolls, spring rolls, and some other stuff. And a pitcher of some nasty Mexican shit called Chalada, which is a mixture of Clamato and beer.

We watched Peyton choke and allow the Chargers to edge the Colts out of the playoffs. I quaffed a couple of cups of the trashcan punch, and Don and I bailed to head out to Midtown.

-

We met up with John, who was home from New York for the holidays, and some of his friends at a rooftop bar in Midtown. John hangs out with a lot of guys that went to high school with us, but I sleepwalked through too much of high school to know or remember any of them.

The place filled out, and I bumped into all sorts of familiar faces, both friendly and otherwise. After making a few rounds about the place, visiting with folks and pretending it was good to see them again, I sequestered myself off at a table, hanging out with John.

John had a friend swing by from the north side of town, a girl he went to school with in college. She was an average-to-cute looking Chinese girl, confident and social. She adorned awkward accessories -- a roomy beanie that looked like a wool showercap, colorful scarves, etc. -- the way people who spent four years living in a college town tend to dress.

She scored a seat on the couch next to me and we kicked off. We shared stories about how we knew John. It turns out she met John while they were taking salsa lessons, and I teased John a bit about taking dancing classes.

The girl had a monstrous zit on her forehead that night, which I'm sure she was aware of and self-conscious about, and I spent most of the time averting my eyes, trying not to take notice. She had a cute laughter, but a crooked smile that made creases in her nose. The nose-creasing smile was kind of unattractive, but being that she was the only girl in the place sitting on the couch and talking to me, I convinced myself that it was a nice smile.

At the end of the night, she was sober and so we did not exchange spit. The bar closed, and we parted ways. And because one of the first questions she asked me was, "So what do you do for a living?" we did not exchange contact information.

Sleet, Smoke, Snow

A freak ice storm swept through the nation over the past week. Wednesday night, it snowed and blanketed everything in a thin layer of white -- a rare occasion for these parts.

I met up with Don and a friend of his from California, who was visiting for the holidays, at an Irish pub along the side of the highway for a quick drink. While driving there, the snow came down at a rate I'd never seen before. That's not to say there was necessarily a lot of snow; I just don't ever actually see snowfall. Through the windshield, the drive resembled those old Windows space-travel screen savers with the white-dot stars flying toward the screen.

We shot the shit for a few hours, and when we left, the snow had stopped but our cars were covered in it.

-

Today, the city was still below freezing, though the sleet and snow had dissipated overnight. Foo, who was stateside and home for the holidays, joined Don and I at a wine bar near The Strip.

Wrapped in layers of probably all of our winter clothes, we huddled around an outdoors patio heater and enjoyed cigars, a bottle of wine, and couple of Blue Moons.

I'd never smoked cigars before but had always wanted to give it a try, so Foo picked out a couple of sticks and showed me the ropes. The cigars he picked out had a faint muddy flavor to it. It was dry and it felt like I was drawing mostly blank air while puffing, but I suspect that had more to do with how the cigars were stored than anything.

I don't enjoy the taste of cigarettes, and the tobacco served at hookah bars feels too light and tastes too fruity except when the hookahs are filled with alcohol. I think cigars are just the right taste and feel that once I find my right flavor, it could be something I enjoy.

We finished our cigars and a bottle of wine that Don picked out, kicked back for a short while, but ultimately buckled to the cold and went home, hoping that the night brings low enough temperatures to ice down the streets and shut down the workplace.

Turkey at Noon

The Company contracted another new guy about a week ago, a general applications developer to work on my team. He's an eccentric fellow in his early thirties, a college football fanatic, and unlike almost everybody else on the team short of myself, doesn't have a wife or kids.

The new guy and I discovered that he used to work with a guy who was the twin brother of another guy that I used to work with, somehow, and we kicked off a fairly smooth start. The plan, at least from what I've been hearing, is that he'd be taking over the SSIS development and that I would move forward with services-oriented development.

-

The Client sponsored a holiday luncheon for the local IT department at a fancy hotel in Town Center. The new guy and I hitched a ride with the chick consultant from San Francisco, and we convened with the rest of the team in a banquet room, tables draped in cloth with the napkins fanned out on our plates and three forks of varying sizes for each plate.

Lunch was a buffet table with two kinds of poultry, ham, leg of lamb, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, something with spinach in it, varying pastas and vegetable plates, and stromboli, the last of which seemed oddly out of place to me. Dessert was pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and key lime pie.

After the meal, the department bigwigs took over the microphone and went through their hoo-rahs, giving a run-down of status reports, praising some of the progress that had taken place through the year, and eventually trying to reassure everybody that despite the economic downturn, we were good and stable for the year ahead.

Following the speeches, most of the consultants hightailed their way back to the office. These are the folks that, you can tell, are addicted to their work -- the kind of people that have a hard time keeping a good work and life balance. I feel pretty bad for these folks, sometimes. Events like these are sponsored for by the big company dime. Even as a contractor, these hours are billable. I don't care if my work doesn't get finished on time; I like to kick back and enjoy the moments any chance I get.

-

A game of white elephant kicked off at the end of lunch for those who had signed up to participate. I did not, but I stuck around to see the presents.

Our team director, who had been sitting up front and center socializing with the bigwigs, scurried to the back to the table I had been sitting, giggling. He confided that he'd wrapped up the most inane gift for the game: a Chia Pet in the shape of Shrek's head.

Coincidentally, the gift ended up in the hands of one of our business analysts, a very timid girly girl who had not been apart of the conversation when the team director told about his gift. She sat down right next to him with the box and a pout, complaining about how ugly the head was. We laughed while he bit his tongue.

-

The infrastructures lead and I joked about playing hookie at the bar next door, but ultimately returned to the office to finish the workday.

Vroom Vroom!

I made my first big purchase last night: a brand new 2009 Civic EX, complete with leather trim.

I muled over the car I wanted for the past few months, prioritizing price and gas efficiency, as I think most Americans are doing these days. The plan was to make the purchase at the year-end to catch clearance deals, but small, gas efficient cars are in high demand and nobody's offering any deals worth waiting. And 2008 models are only going for a few hundred bucks cheaper than their 2009 counterparts.

I had my decisions narrowed down to the Honda Accord, Volkswagen Jetta, and the Honda Civic, in order of most to least desired. The Accord and Jetta topped my list really because they were competitively priced for their features and fuel efficiency and because they were sedans (the Civic comes in a sedan flavor too, but they are just really ugly with four doors). Ultimately, the cheaper pricetag on the Civic won over, and, really, nobody ever rides in my backseat anyway.

I went across town to get it because the particular dealer was the one that offered the model and color I wanted at the best price after shopping at half a dozen dealers.

The sales manager that assisted me was a Vietnamese cat seemingly in his mid-thirties that still sported a skin-close fade and spiked top. He spoke to me colloquially with vulgar language and slang, as if I were his friend, but we both knew all I wanted was a cheap car, and all he wanted was my money.

Most of my negotiations had been exchanged via e-mail -- I refused to speak over the phone or visit dealers in person without a solidified pricetag because I hate being placed on the spot by salespeople -- so the visit was pretty bullshit-free. I told him what I wanted and the price that had been presented to me, and we went straight to the paperwork.

Financing the car was a whole different ballpark.

The finance manager that worked with me was a Hispanic cat in a power suit with greased back hair like a modern-day Ricky Ricardo. He tried to sell me an atrocious rate of 9% and slapped all sorts of bullshit insurances and warranties onto the bottom line.

I negotiated with the guy for four hours and walked out of his office three times, ultimately telling him, "Nine percent, really? I'm hemorrhaging money at that rate! I'm sorry, but if this is how you make your money, you're going to have to wait for some shmuck who doesn't understand money to walk through these doors. I have a steady job, a great paycheck, zero debt, and zero obligations. I'm your perfect customer. I could walk into any bank right now and they would throw loans at me at fractions of what you're offering me. If you don't want my money, man, someone else will take it."

In the end, he succumbed to a more reasonable rate. To be honest, the rate almost felt like robbery in my favor, and I'd almost feel bad if these people weren't car dealers -- and if I weren't signing away a huge chunk of money. It was almost midnight by the time I drove off the lot, and that might've had something to do with it. That, or it's really true what they're saying about all these car dealers having trouble unloading inventory.

-

The morning after driving the new car home, my old car, as if in an act of jealousy, crapped out. The rear passenger tire blew out, and one of the spark plugs just suddenly went dud.

Nothing Like Duck Hunt

The Client sponsored a team-building afternoon event of clay pigeon shooting today. We assembled at noon at a shooting range near the mall, a few minutes from the house; I'd driven by the area countless times and never realized there was a shooting range nearby.

I arrived at the range, driving solo, because I'd opted to work remotely from home in the morning since the house was so close. Pulling into the parking lot was like entering a new country; there was an evident change in culture -- a people and a way of life that I knew existed somewhere in the state of Texas but had never actually witnessed firsthand.

There were Hummers and pick-ups adorned with Confederate emblems, scruffy overweight men in trucker hats and sleeveless denim vests. And camo.

There were guys in camo. At a place where you shoot clay discs.

-

The team was split into four groups of four and one group of five.

I was teamed up with the infrastructures lead, the solutions architect, one of the business analysts, and the new SSIS developer. We named our team "The Fraggers" -- because we probably won't hit anything with our guns, but we're sure to get something with errant frag grenades.

-

The sporting clays course consisted of ten stations of alternationg four- and six-count targets, totalling fifty targets.

The first station was a four-count with two clay pigeons being launched from both sides at a distance going toward the shooting stall. Having never held a shotgun before, I stepped into the stall cluelessly and dropped two 12-gauge shells into the chamber.

I mounted the shotgun, hesitated, and then yelled, "Pull!"

The first pigeon launched, and I pointed the barrel in the general direction. Lined up the near and far beads on top of the barrel onto the pigeon, followed it for a second, held my breath, and pulled the trigger.

The shotgun kicked and left a dull pain on my shoulder. The clay pigeon survived my fire.

I mounted the shotgun again, pressing the stock snug against my shoulder this time. I used to go to the batting cages when I worked farther north and needed to burn time to avoid rush-hour traffic. I learned to snug the butt of the bat against the hand to keep the vibration from bruising and blistering my hands and arms. I figured the same would probably be true for a gun.

"Pull!" I yelled again.

The pigeon launched from the opposite side of the field this time, and I lined the beads up on the disc. Exhaled. And squeezed.

This time, the pigeon shattered, and my shoulder absorbed the recoil. I beamed a little, and ejected the shells. The odor of gun powder was inexplicably refreshing.

I proceeded to hit my next two targets at that station, and with a bit of swagger, I balked, "Just like Rainbow Six, baby!"

-

The first station was the only station in which the pigeons launched toward the shooting stall. Every other station launched the pigeons toward the field.

Out of the remaining forty-six targets in the course, I managed to hit only one. And I kind of cheated a little, because both pigeons were pulled simultaneously, and I squeezed both rounds at only one pigeon instead of trying to chase the second.

The solutions architect and SSIS developer both had around eighteen hits apiece. The business analyst had four hits. And the infrastructures lead, at the end of the day, was awarded a certificate for personal worst performance of zero hits.

My team, despite having a one-man advantage, had the least total number of hits. By double digits.

Age is a Status

My birthday weekend started with dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Midtown that's famous for its blue margaritas. Had a small dinner with Don, Kenneth, Slim, Claudia, and Brad. Bingo was my volunteer designated driver.

The margaritas are well-known because the tequila and the blue liqueur mask a douse of Everclear. First-time patrons are often oblivious to the potency of the drink, and will consume several glasses before the demon creeps out.

I had three margaritas.

-

With my face nice and warm rouge, but before the full extent of the alcohol had taken effect, we met up with Nick, a buddy of mine from back in high school who now contracts for the same client as I do. We walked a few blocks out to a dueling piano bar, also in Midtown, the locale that I'd publicly let all my friends know that I would be at.

Nick came through with a mission, and we champed drinks all night at the bar.

The margaritas were more than enough to put me in the gutter for the night, but its effects hadn't done its job yet, and in the meantime, I'd left inhibition at home -- something I've lately found myself doing too often -- and I wasn't saying no to anyone.

-

As the night wore on, more folks showed up. Trinh and Julian made their appearances. Krys and Gene showed up as they got out of work. Richard, Anton, and Binh came through. Brandon and Fletcher made their arrival. Even some chicks that I'd met only few days prior at a sushi bar came through.

And with each group that showed up, everybody went through the same lines about how I had to take shots with them. I willed through the night and refused to decline a drink from anybody. I was intent on drying out that bar if it took the life from me.

-

Chilling by the bar with Nick, late in the night, drunk out or our minds, we had an incoherent rambling session.

NICK: Dude, I have to tell you man ... I have to tell you. Dude...

ME: Yeah, man, yeah. Thanks for comin' out, man!

NICK: Yeah, man, life is good, man. Work is good, life is good. Shit's good, man.

ME: Naw, man, Lemme tell ya. You're a fuckin' champ, man, you're the fuckin' man.

NICK: Dude, I have to tell you. Dude, you're the only Web geek like me that I know that can throw down with me.

We exchanged rants for maybe a good ten minutes before we realized that neither of us were really making any sense, and we decided to roam the floor. We wandered around from group to group, table to table, casually using my birthday as an excuse to engage in conversation and dance with random chicks.

We danced and made incoherent babblings with random drunk chicks, waitresses, the girls that walk around with glowing test tube shots, anything that moved, we pimped it. I even danced with this on behemoth of a girl; she was the size of a house.

When asked why I was dancing with such a big girl, I responded, "Why do men climb mountains? 'Cause they're there, motherfuckers, I wanna know what's at the fuckin' top."

-

When the lights flickered on, we were herded out the door. The boys went their separate ways, and Bingo and I made our walk across Midtown back to his car.

A homeless guy stopped me at a street corner, asking for change. When I refused, he asked me for directions. I started to map out some of the streets for him, but he interrupted to correct me. We got into a little debate about where certain streets were, and he was probably right because I was sloshed out of my fucking mind. But then I got impatient with him and told him to fuck off because -- really, what the hell does he need directions for; it's not as if he has a home he's trying to get back to, right?