Yup, so it finally happened, my job laid me off today. I totally expected it to happen after getting an email to meet with management today (yesterday is when I got the email). Things at my job were shaky since I first started last July. Due to deep budget cuts and not really having a use for my skill set right now, it happened.

While I was initially feel very down yesterday with my stomach knotted, I've gotten over it a bit now. While my job gave me some good experience, I was honestly in a difficult position to succeed in. Think of being an entry level Engineer student out of college, then asked to do Senior level work being the only person specialized in your Engineering field. That was the situation I was placed in. Some of my tasks felt like I was asked to throw fine china against a wall w/o breaking it. I also just did not have the resources needed where just for me to do research on the internet, I had to make a 15-20 minute drive just to use the net to do...

Since people have wanted to hear the story, I'll go ahead and post my whole roommate story at an anime con a few weeks ago.

Before the con started, he complained to me that he got screwed out of a hotel room (due to other people changing their minds) and wanted me to get a room, or if he could stay at my place during the con. Originally I was going to either commute 1 hour each day, or stay somewhere w/ a short drive to the con for less. To make it easier on him and others (there's no way I wanted to deal w/ driving two people to/from the con each day either), I decided to stay nearby for $352 (for two nights, includes taxes). He was not happy about the price he'd have to pay for the room (I wanted to split it 4 ways evenly). He thought about staying with another friend leaving the room available (which I paid for, non-refundable for cheaper price). He also tried picking who would all stay in the room, mostly people I did not know when he wasn't setting up the hotel...

Hey CAG, I wonder if people wondered what was going on with me since I use to constantly post blogs, then go MIA for 5 months. It's also funny that whenever I go MIA from posting blogs, the_grimace comes back blogging (and while I post, he's gone). I probably won't write much as for what is going on, but I'll discuss a few things.

First off, I'm the type of person who gets into phases, then moves onto something else. I had phases where I built massive things out of Lego's, then stopped. When I first started college, I had the phase of posting a lot on internet forums. After college, I really cut back on posting and got into blogging a lot. Now that I'm not posting or blogging, just what have I been doing? There's no denying work keeps me busy during the week where I don't have a lot of time to blog these days. I have opted to use my free time differently the past several months. My newest phase is cosplaying/going to cons (mostly anime). I started going to Otakon...

Since 2010, I would get a yearly eye exam ever since I got glasses following my doctor's orders. When I typically schedule my yearly exam, I was leaving my job and moving to another state. I called my eye doctor to cancel because I would not be able to fit in an eye exam before I left. When I moved to VA, I planned to get my eyes checked, but sort of held off on it since I didn't feel like searching for a new eye doctor (I only had one all my life). With me not wanting to search, job keeping me busy, and me being unhappy with my job wanting to move on, I decided not to other with an eye exam. Since I landed a job back in Maryland, I decided I'd see my old eye doctor again once my vision benefits kicked in. Since it was almost two years since my last eye exam, I had quite a vision change. My doctor even showed me my old prescription compared to my new prescription on the eye chart (big difference). It was unfortunate that I could not find a new pair of glasses I liked anywhere near...

Well, I seem to be having a problem with weight gain the past few months, which is starting to drive me crazy. The last time I weighed anywhere near as much was back in high school. I'm sort of trying to find a way to trim some weight.

Back in high school, my weight went as high as 158lbs where I needed to where a size 32 pants. My senior year in high school and my early college years, my weight started to drop significantly. I was down to under 130lbs. After college I gained a little weight up to 140lbs. For a while my weight was around the mid 130's at the most (pants size of 29-30). Ever since I moved back to Maryland and changed jobs, my weight has been going up. I first noticed my weight increase when I jokingly weighed myself on a package scale, where it said I weighed 143lbs. When I got home, I checked the scale and saw I was over 142lbs. Now I'm starting to feel a little down because I liked keeping my weight in the 130lbs range, or maybe a little less...

Well, this is one of the few problems I never openly admitted on the internet.

I had issues with reading ever since I was young. I was ALWAYS put in the lowest level reading group in Elementary school. Whenever we took standardized tests on reading comprehension (such as reading a story and answering questions), I would do VERY poorly on them where it actually took me a few tries to get passed one. I can remember getting a 20% on my Julius Caesar test (part of the blame is that I barely read the book). That is why I took the fewest reading classes I could in high school, taking public speaking and composition classes instead (which I did very well at being one of the top students). Despite having such horrible reading, my math scores would be through the roof. I never cared to be put in the most advanced math classes (I preferred learning everything I could), but I'd have by far the top grades in my classes on anything related to math or logic (like programming). On Chemistry/Physics...

All right, I decided to blog about how big of a nerd people think I am. I had some people tell me I'm very nerd, some say I'm somewhat nerdy, and some say I'm not nerdy at all. I'm very curious as to what CAGs may think based on all the blogs I wrote.

There are some things that keep me away from being a big nerd, such as I'm not a massive Star Wars fan, not into Star Trek, not into comic books (I despise them), I do not go to certain movie showings dressing up as a character, etc. I also look normal in public (although I'll wear video game/anime t-shirts a lot). One of my favorite activities is snowboarding, and I also go out and mountain bike every once in a while. I am a sports fan (Baltimore and Chicago teams) and love attending sports games. I listen to Rap/Hip-Hop on the radio station or on disc while driving around in my car (I'm familiar with rappers like Trey Songz, L'll Wayne, NeYo, Kanye West, Young Jeezy, etc.).

But what could make me nerdy?...

For some reason, I pay way close attention to plastic bag colors of stores. Whenever I see a plastic bag with someone carrying their lunch (at work), I can instantly identify what store that bag came from. For a while, it would go (in the state of MD)...

Blue bag = Food Lion

White bag = Safeway

Tan color bag = Giant

Yellow bag = Shop Rite

Kroger for years has used tan colored bags, when I use to shop there in the Midwest and VA.

I also notice when stores change their bags because it will completely throw me off. Wal-Mart right now is using gray bags, but I remember when they were white before, blue before, clear before, etc. While Best Buy Buy bags are currently blue, I remember when they were yellow, white, and clear before. Mars Supermarket used blue bags and now changed to tan. Giant really throws me off because they used tan bags forever, now their bags are white where I can get them mixed...

Gheesh, I've been having these blogs way too frequently because I keep on moving. Well, hopefully I settle into this location for a bit. Anyway, I ended up moving to another state again getting a new place. Personally, I feel I'm paying more for it than I should, but I just had to have Verizon FiOS and live in an all right area. The size of the place seems to be good enough for me, although I wish I had two bathrooms. Anyway, this is how it looks.

...

People may remember how I blogged about getting a job offer back in January early this year. As I pointed out in blog entry, the job did not work out for me continuing to get worse. Come to find out, the majority of my other co-workers have been on the job search and some people even left. Things just got really bad at my job/apartment where many people were angry and not pleased.

I started off applying to jobs in May, since things started going downhill at work. I received 4 phone calls/emails (I did not apply to much). I had a phone interview with a company in San Diego, CA, and another in the Baltimore, MD area. The job in San Diego was interviewing tons of people, so I did not expect to hear back for a while. The job in Baltimore called me back just before Anime Mid-Atlantic 12 wanting to bring me in for an in-person interview. Initially I was a bit hesitant since I had the day taken off for the anime convention, but I decided to drive 4 hours to the interview...

This will likely be the most boring blog I have ever written on CAG. However, this is a topic I feel I desperately need assistance with and figure some people here might know of some answers.

Many of you may remember I left my last job, and my current job isn't fully what I want either. Some may wonder how could my jobs possibly be so bad or not a fit? It never fully has to do with management or co-workers, it's always the environment. My first job was in manufacturing, where you could get dirty touching tools, hardware, going inside a thermal chamber, etc. Wearing nice business casual clothes to work would be a bad idea. The next job was more in a construction environment, hearing lots of loud noises, along with walking along dust/dirt/oil/paint all day. I pretty much have to wear old clothes to work because all my jeans get dirty, and I already damaged a ton of t-shirts after getting paint and other things on them that won't come off. Overall, I absolutely HATE...

Some CAGs may remember how I wrote a blog back in early Jan. about getting a job offer. Originally I thought I was making possibly one of the best decisions in my life because my career would finally move forward. Unfortunately, part of me thinks I’m moving backwards and not liking my new job much. I’ve been there almost four months now, but I’m already starting to quickly feel that I can no longer take it.

My first month on the job, I was actually pretty happy. I had many new things to learn, got along with co-workers right away much better than my last co-workers, manager seemed all right, working from 6am to 2:30 (and sometimes up to 3pm) was great, etc. Everything seemed to be going the right way early on. I finally got my own desk (even if it was only in a trailer due to limited space), own phone line, and initially felt I was being treated good for working hard to get my degree (unlike my last job). I was also trying to fit in as quickly as possible where I...

Despite the many times I said I'm probably better off staying single and never having a girlfriend, there's no denying I feel VERY jealous of some people having a girlfriend and I don't. The biggest one that comes to my mind is when I see an Otaku guy hanging out with his Otaku girl. I'll discuss the situations I've seen in my blog.

Last Saturday, I drove back to Maryland (I miss that state and where I use to live more than anything right now). I went to Books A Million at the mall and noticed a bunch of people in the aisle. Two of them were guys who had a girl with them (both didn't exactly look horrible). In one case, both had on a video game/anime type t-shirt on. Both were checking out manga together having lots of laughs. I could tell they were Otaku based on how they were dressed, what they had with them (like anime/gaming stuff all over), both wore glasses, and other stuff. I was just in the aisle alone. Another couple (while they were not wearing gaming...

I'm very surprised I never blogged about this topic, but it came to my mind after I saw people do it last Saturday. When I'm talking about sharing, I'm not talking about sharing a bag of chips with people. I'm talking about two people eating the same ice cream, sharing the same fork, or even sharing a drink together.

Food is the main thing I cannot believe some people will share together. When taking ice cream for an example, someone will lick some of the ice cream, then let another person lick the same ice cream. I've seen family members do it, couples, and even just friends. When I went out to eat with a girl (and her friend) the first time, she was curious about the food her friend was eating. Her friend let my ex use her fork to try the food. It wasn't a clean fork since she already ate food with it. That's basically her germs on the fork then touching her friend's food. I've seen people take a bite of something, then let the other person finish the rest....

I have another major rant. I sort of regret taking an offer to a job I got earlier this year. The latest news is worse than anything else I had to go through.

Basically, because my job is having a hard time finding people to cover the 2nd shift (partially because they decided to re-organize our department, putting most of our experienced people on other tasks which don’t make sense to a lot of us IMO), they decided to just make 1st shift and 3rd shift 12 hours each, working from either 6am to 6pm or 6pm to 6am. It's not like I or anyone else new can cover those shifts because we still barely understand the stuff we need to test as a Test Engineer (my job has a crazy steep learning curve where even I’m struggling to understand my tasks). While one of the new people volunteered to do the backshift at least, I can work during days again not doing anymore rotation at least. Part of me rather rotate between three shifts at 8 hours than have to work long days.

...

First off, I wanted to thank everyone on CAG who voted me for blog of the year in 2011. It makes me feel happy to hear that there are people who like my blogs.

I know, my blogging has been very slim lately. I have a few blog ideas, but I've been needing time for relaxing. I'll try posting a blog Saturday and Sunday too since I'm off work.

Back in March, I got an email from my old supervisor that he wanted the three most recent hires to rotate the backshift, where one works 1st shift, another works 2nd, and another works 3rd. He felt it would fill up the backshift, give us training on other shifts getting to know others, and felt it would be a good experience for us. While I may not have been too happy about this, I could understand the idea of us getting training on other shifts and learning how they are. He wanted us to do this for a month. We ended up agreeing on 2 weeks on each shift, then we'll see what will go on after the rotation. Between...

One of my biggest pet peeves at the moment is people trying to hook me up with a girl. I keep telling people MANY times I want to STAY single (for two reasons I can't disclose to people, one being a medical issue while another being a massive OCD issue I have which is why I don't live with anyone) for now. Despite what I try to say, people ALWAYS try hooking me up with a girl.

If people remembered how I discussed stories my old co-workers did to me (like making me drink, getting me drunk, tricking me into a strip club), my new co-workers are almost as bad putting me through other things.

While I barely said a word about it, pretty much everyone at work could tell I was single and automatically assumed I haven't been in a relationship. I wrote the blog about the house parties because some wanted me to go out to them meeting girls and stuff. There are two Navy girls at work (we have a bunch of them around my work) people had me do work around. They basically...

I bet people just LOVE going to the DMV and look forward to it. I wish I felt that way, but I don't. The place can be more painful than going to the Dentist, which is why I'll be blogging my terrible experiences at those places. Keep in mind I'm not just talking about the Virginia DMV (I was there earlier this week since I had to change my residency), Indiana BMV and Maryland MVA gave me tons of problems in the past.

So Thursday I go to the DMV since I'm trying to switch my Driver's License and license plate from Maryland to Virginia. Going through this process was probably one of the most nerve racking things I had to do when relocating, mostly because you never know what documents the DMV will accept. I took off work early (working extra hours other days) just so I could have plenty of time at the DMV. I expected to wait in line twice (once for the Driver's License, and once for the titling my vehicle). I brought in thick folder FILLED w/ documents just in case...

If someone I know (whether it be online or offline) has the choice of when to come into work, I typically hear around 8 to 10am. For me, I'm totally different where I prefer to be at work early. Many people think I'm weird, crazy, etc. for the time I want to be at work by.

At my last job, I initially had to be at work at 7am (could not come any later or over 15 minutes earlier). I had no issues getting up that early where I was never late to work. Once I went to a different schedule (taking off work every other Friday), I had to be there at 6am. Whenever I worked a weekend and had a choice when to come in, I would come in as early as 5am sometimes. At my new job, they just don't want us to be any later than 7am (for turnover). Most typically come in around 6:30am-7am, while I come in around 6am. If my commute wasn't 23 minutes, I'd arrive earlier.

There are a few reasons as to why I like being at work early. For my last job, the advantage of working...

A very random topic for me to blog about. I have been very busy with my new job, so blog entries are far between each other. Today at work, I was asked if I go to house parties on weekends. I figured I knew what the definition was, but after thinking about it, I don't think I ever have unless I forgot something.

By house party, I'm discussing a party someone holds inside their house where there's a DJ, lots of dancing, people of the opposite sex, drinks, and so on. When looking back at my high school years, the only parties I attended were a few birthday parties (no drinking because we were just Freshman, and many of them happened in the early evening or day time), outside parties where we are going on a boat (water skiing, tubing, etc.), and that's about it. When looking at my college years (I went away to Purdue University), the only parties I attended were DDR/anime parties w/ a few friends, more so in the afternoon time frame. Maybe just a little alcohol around,...