Welcome to The Archives.

Yeah, it’s kinda official. Harrisonburg is home now. I mean, not really, but I’m here for 3/4ths of the year and at this point, going ‘home’ to Ashburn feels like visiting. Same routine each time – drive home, unpack, work at Apple, eat a lot, laughs with friends and family, drive back to JMU. I enjoy it, but it feels so great to get back here and do my thing.

We (meaning old-skool HS friends) had a pretty intense conversation at lunch over break. Whoever “they” are, they have decreed that thou shalt avoideth sex, politics and religion in conversation with …

…and here we are, another year of me not shopping on Black Friday. I did that once and it was for an exceptional deal on a 22″ LCD. I won’t do it again unless those sort of deals come around. This year I’m working Black Friday at Apple. Some people have been there since 5 or 6 AM (we opened at 6) but I’m in from 1 PM to 10 PM. Not sure how we’re gonna do for crowds – wait, we’re Apple, there will always be a crowd – but the deals are kind of blah. 

The biggest deal is …

It appears I have met someone who shares my sarcastic, never-ending style of humor. Next year is gonna be wild.

  Back at Apple as of yesterday… it was fun as always. I had a sweet Asian woman tell Kyle that I was the “best speciarrist ever” and that I sold her on the iPod Touch. Cool

Apparently I’m now a Specialist, because I’m wearing the blue shirts and scheduled as such. I’m down with that. I miss the concierge-y stuff, but at the same time, customers who talk to specialists are usually not ranting about a problem. I had my fill of that this summer – especially with the …

I’m officially going!! Dad called me today and said that he’s going to book the hotel tomorrow

Pretty sweet early Christmas present for me… 318 curves in 11 miles. Oh, and the 400+ Miatas that will be there, too. Gah, I’m excited!

They keep getting more amazing-er.

Soooo, I hung out at the ECL on Friday (with the cool kids, no doubt) and wrote four of my six pages for stupid Kevin Harter’s next paper. That was mildly amusing. That night I went out and saw the new 007 – Quantum of Solace. Pretty good movie, although I have a really hard time picturing someone other than Pierce Brosnan as 007. Daniel Craig did a great job, but to me (because I grew up with Brosnan), he isn’t James Bond.

We ended up at Purcell Park after the movie and played on the (wooden!!) …

From Gizmodo:

…and from Jalopnik. This one refers to an upcoming host of Top Gear America. Apparently he was hit from behind while driving his Camry Hybrid (omg boring lolz) and managed to flip it on it’s side.

I replied to an email that Dad sent me from some off-beat political “news” site and mentioned that it was a welcome distraction from my paper for stupid Kevin Harter’s class. His reply:

So good

On a happy note, I did manage to get 4 of 6 pages written. And I happen to think the content within said pages is pretty worthwhile. Hopefully I can finish up sometime soon – it’s due by Thursday and I have a busy week coming up, so I don’t want to be stuck finishing things …

I got an email last night from “CR Recruitment” at apple dot com. It said that they received my app and wanted to schedule a “brief informational screening” via phone. So I did, and I had the interview today around 2:15, while standing in front of Carrier Library in the kind of cold. The guy on the phone was great and definitely impressed that I work/have worked for Apple Retail. Every answer that I gave somehow hearkened back to  Retail but I think that’s a good thing in the end. Anyway, I think things went well and he said …

So what have I done so far? Summit Point and some kinda partying. Today? Studying, Reddish Knob, and more studying.

Summit Point.
Five of us left JMU at 11, with Goodspeed’s GPS set to “no highway” mode and him in the lead. Turns out that really did mean NO highway-like driving. We went 100% cross-country to Summit Point, which was a very pretty drive. However, it did turn our 1.5 hour drive into about 2.5 hours.

We turned back on to 11 at one point, and I looked and went, and this white Miata screams up behind me with people waving at us. …