Today is my last day at Tommy Bahama. I’ve been training my replacement this weekend for Glen, he’s a pretty capable guy. I showed him how to work everything, where all the shares were, and all that Jazz. He’s a net admin during the week, from the sound of things he’s just looking to save up.

I’m glad to finally be done with this place, My life has pretty much been at a stand still since I haven’t been able to really do anything with Helen since I started working here, during the week she is in class, on the weekend I’ve been at work. Next weekend we’re going to go to a Drive-in theatre to watch Ironman, which is going to be tons of fun for us! I’ll at long last be able to sleep in, and have a day off (haven’t had one at all this month).

I’m currently sitting at the desk behind the new guy with my laptop, apparently he didn’t quite comprehend what I meant be 15-20 calls max over the weekend :p

Oh, and we had an ice cream social on Friday at Alaska Air, was awesome.

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

Things got a wee bit busier then I would have liked. I’ve been working at Tommy Bahama on the weekends, so my personal life has been practically non-existent outside of Helen and a couple other people. My work with the Ubuntu US Teams has been put on hold too because I can’t attend any GSLUG meetings to stay on top of things.
I’ve finally finished my on-campus classes. I’m currently taking CCNA classes online, so it’s a bit easier. I’m taking a quarter off while I finish up some stuff from last quarter.
To add on to that, I’ve finally handed off Circle K to some pretty capable people, I’m still there though, just serving in advisor capacity, but they’ve got a good handle on things.



That’s a really brief overview of how things have been. For some more up to date stuff, I’m leaving Tommy Bahama, I want my life back, and I don’t want to end up working in retail support for the next few years. A good chunk of the experience I have gained from there is in retail systems, and I want to be working in technology systems, or at least something that’s a bit more widespread or has more security.

I enjoyed working with the people there, I just didn’t see them, if ever. I only saw them when I came in on my own time, so that doesn’t even count. All my communication was through phone and I’ve seen less then 30 people on the weekends since I started.
So a few weeks ago I decided to start job hunting. It started out as just looking around to see what was out there, but when I realized that for only a slight variation in job duties, I could make significantly more. Plus I was really not challenged at all by the job, everything I did was incredibly mundane and basic, the tickets I got that were more interesting, I couldn’t complete due to lack of resources. And to add onto it, I’ve slowly been going into debt since I have been making barely over rent+bills.


Anyways, after interviewing for a few weeks with little results (was even interviewing with Google at one point, but the interview process was 3 months), I got a call from a staffing agency I had interviewed with a couple years ago. I chatted with them on the phone a little then came in for a quick update on things then I had an interview on Monday with Alaska Airlines, and I got the job!
I’m really excited to be working there, today was my first day and everyone I’m working with is really awesome. Everyone I work with really knows what they are doing and it felt wonderful to actually be able to speak to them without having to dumb things down, I loved it. I also didn’t have to be reserved and quiet until I got my bearings, I pretty much hit the ground running and was chatting it up with everyone within my first two hours there. So far it seems like it’s going to be a great place to work.

There’s going to be a learning curve though, they use different software for pretty much everything, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to learn it all quickly, Lisa, one of the people who works there, walked me through some of it and I understood it fairly quickly. I even got to go out in the field and do a repair on my own. My manager, Matt, seems to have a lot of confidence in me already, which feels absolutely incredible, there’s no second guessing or asking if I can handle it, when the issue came up, he just said “Let Ahmed do it, I know he can handle it.”



That’s what has been going on so far, I’m really hoping this becomes a permanent job for me, I’m currently a contractor, but I’m going to do my best to make myself known and to impress them more then ever before.



By the way, here’s a picture of my in the cockpit of a flight simulator. That’s right, I got to do a take-off and landing of a 737 jet at sea-tac airport, and then a landing at the Juno, Alaska airport.

(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)

Finally got my new video card yesterday, it’s a 7800GT. Huge improvement over my 6600 that I had before. Went from player stalker at 20fps (which dropped to like 7 when I fired a gun) to 80-100, 80-90 when I raised the graphics. I grabbed the Bioshock game demo last night and played it, was pretty damn sweet; story is a bit messed up, but gameplay is pretty sweet.

Over the weekend me and Helen went up to B-ham to visit friends, we went and saw Ashley, then went to a party at the mint, wasn’t too interesting, we left after about 2 hours. We went back to Ashleys apartment where we were staying and played Mariokart. I got a hold of Mantis and he came over and hung out for a bit too, we had to go back to his house to grab some more controllers for the N64. Was pretty damn sweet (although I kept getting distracted while playing, and Ashleys tv is hella tiny).

As for the job search, I haven’t really given it much effort. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I shouldn’t work this coming quarter. I have to get Circle K off the ground, and the only jobs I can find are full-time and that wouldn’t work out since I’d have to have meetings during the day, a couple classes I’ll need to take are in the middle of the day 4 days a week, and I’ll have to take them eventually. Plus my current job ends in september, so I can just work till then and afterwards have my parents pay for everything (they’ve kinda been wanting to do that for awhile).

All the interviews I’ve gone to have gone fairly well, but I haven’t gotten a job offer yet (would be getting a lot if I change my monster profile to looking for full-time jobs, but I got tired of answering phone calls from recruiters about jobs in nebraska), had a couple interesting ones, one at a web host and another for a small vc. I suppose I should write up a new cover letter and send out my resume to ads on craigslist, but I don’t really have the motivation.

(No Ratings Yet)

Sarah is in Town and it is awesomness! Yay for hanging out bunches!

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

So, I finally got around to taking pictures of my car with an actual camera, experience them after the break.

(39 votes, average: 2.85 out of 5)

I decided to switch back to the old theme. I’ve been wanting to change themes for awhile and I decided to use that one. Unfotunately the localization appears to be broken, so it ended up in german.

Anyways, Me and Helen went away for the weekend, we went to a nice Bed&Breakfast place in Oregon. We originally were going to Victoria in Canada, but due to the elusive City of Hartford Health Dept, I don’t have a birth certificate. We went to the ocean and drove around taking pictures and what not, it was a really nice weekend away from seattle. We were able to finally relax after an incredibly hectic week without having to worry about anything.

And then we came back to reality…

(26 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

Me and Helen went and saw Children of Men with Mikey and Leo last night, and I have to say that it is a fantastic movie. we plan on seeing it again and Helen wants to buy it on dvd when it comes out.

And everyone knows I’m not one to see movies in theatres, especially twice. So this movie is awesome.

(18 votes, average: 3.22 out of 5)

Yay, finally back from fall conference! It was bunches of fun, I managed to obtain some valuable information about recruiting members, chartering, and fundraisers. I think I made myself known too. I finally met helen’s friend Vicki. To be honest I was rather paranoid about meeting her considering that we had a conversation about a week ago via facebook that followed as such:

Vicki: Yo! don’t get shanked!
Me: There will be no shanking. Maybe at FCON.
Vicki: U promise?
Me: I’ll take a shanking if I deserve one. Aaaannd I don’t really plan on getting shanked anytime soon.
Vicki: Watch yourself

However as I later learned, she was messing with me, she’s a really fun person to hang out with, and I can honestly say that she is my first black friend! (i’m not counting the ones my parents called my friends when i was a wee munchkin).

Went to lots of workshops, talked to lots of people, hung out with Helen.
By the way, I’m pretty sure everyone who was at FCON thinks we’re dating, which we’re not. We’re just together at the moment, more information later (remember, public blog).

And to finish off, Helen looks incredibly sexy in a skirt, button shirt, and bowtie.

(41 votes, average: 3.76 out of 5)