This and that...

So I got a new job offer which led me to resign last Thursday.
I felt somewhat bad for the new manager in my department. Here's this seemingly nice guy, that moves from Tampa, Florida to manage our team. He starts on Monday, and I guess they told him I can help him get up to speed, because he immediately schedules a meeting with me later on that day, in which he tells me he wants me to train him on some things. At this time, I still had a final interview session on Wednesday with my prospective new employer, so my head isn't quite there. On Tuesday I train him on one of our internal systems, and offer very candid opinions and the lowdown of the obstacles our team faces everyday and what he will face.

Come Thursday, I resign. So here's where I kind of felt bad, because here's the new guy, hasn't done anything wrong, but I'm resigning. I mean, i would have resigned regardless who was my boss, new or old. The only thing that makes me think twice about feeling bad is that he's an Ohio State fan and has already put up several of his buckeye paraphernalia in his cube, which is RIGHT behind mine. (Yes, they kicked my buddy Edwin out of his cube, to give him the window spot. Oh well... Edwin can take mine if he wants.) He even has the Ohio State fight song on his cell phone, so we get to listen to that a few times a day. Let me tell you, their fight song sucks. What kind of fight song is this? Who gets excited listening to: THIS!
But that’s OK, I make sure my phone rings plenty of times too… TEXAS FIGHT!

It’s funny how internal jobs are offered to you as soon as the all mighty catch wind that you’re leaving. My current employer now apparently will be offering me some sort of whiz bang job opportunity. I’m still waiting to see what that’s all about. My question to them was, why didn’t they offer it to me when I was perfectly happy, and wanted a new challenge inside the company? (I guess this is kind of supposed to be a secret until they have their talks with me, but it seems as though more people are talking to me about it than are supposed to know…) If my new employer is reading this, don’t be alarmed, they’ll have to really pull out the red carpet to wow me. If my current employer is reading this, go ahead, pull out the red carpet, lets dance.

It’s incredible how addictive chips and salsa, chips and queso, chips and dip, chips and seasoned ground meat, and chips and beans are. I went to Chuy’s last night for dinner and a few pre dinner drinks. If you’re a loyal reader, you know that I eat Queso and a Cheesesteak every Friday, so I already had my fill of chips and queso. But here’s the thing. If it’s free, you must eat more. Chuy’s has free chips, salsa, ground meat, queso, and beans available to anyone having drinks, so my subconscious made sure I loaded up on a pound of that junk. Then, why not eat the chicka chicka boom boom special too!?! I’ll blame it on Carbo Loading. Actually, I don’t need to blame it on anything, I’m trying to gain weight, remember!

Dogs sleep as much as cats do. Cats just get a bad wrap about it, because when they’re awake, they’re not spastic machines like dogs. You can try and get a cat excited, but it don’t work for more than a few minutes. Even the fun feather toy gets old. I personally think they both sleep because they don’t have opposing thumbs. If they did, they would be able to do so many more things, that they wouldn’t be constrained to just chewing, moving around and sniffing. That would lead me to more sleep too. Here’s to opposing thumbs!

Tomorrow I run a 10 mile race a race pace. I could run 10 miles right now, but racing is a different story. It’s quite violent. Mentally it beats you up, and physically, well, I beats you down. Anyway, we’ll see… The running pace calculator suggests I should run quite a bit faster than I think I’m capable of maintaining for 10 miles, but if I’m going to run 7:27s at the marathon, then 6:58s is what I need to run tomorrow. I need to give it my best, because if I can achieve my goal, then it’ll add a little bit of positivism to my currently low confidence I have in being to run the marathon time I’m working towards.
The mental part is what kills me. I’m honestly already nervous about it. I can’t help it. And then, once I start running, I feel exhausted, then feel good, then exhausted, and then... the demons come visit. That’s where the real fun begins. They screw with you, telling you to slow down, you can’t do it, quit, you’re going to get tired, you’re not good enough, you’re wasting your time.
Oh yeah, all this and more… those race day demons in my head are bastards.
But I have my ways of killing them off. I can’t tell you what I think to make them go away, but I can tell you that I think of things that make me really angry and that’s about the only thing that keeps me going. Anger is good on race day!

Enough thoughts for now...