Today marks Day Seven of our flight from West Tennessee. There really isn't much to celebrate on that front, however. Our job searches are still ongoing, and Samantha and I are living separate households. That being said, we are alternating between our parents' houses together. We have been forcing ourselves to keep the talk of finding an apartment to a minimum until we get the slightest clue as to where or with whom we will find gainful employment. Yet another step to another step, ad infinitum.

I'm writing this piece rather than composing a cover letter for a position she has been recommending for quite some time. That has been the trouble here lately: writer's block. It comes down to not being satisfied with your current lot in life to the degree of not being able to find the words to change it. I am rather humble about my accomplishments in my 23 years. This fact became very apparent when I shared a synopsis of what I had done for one of my former contract positions with Samantha. She had no idea exactly what it was that took up a year of my time. While insignificant to me (creating web forms that interacted with a database to perform a specific task), employers might be more impressed. So I find myself puzzled by what is important or insignificant.

To that end, I purchased two books Saturday:

The first is a collection of resumes and cover letters submitted by IT professionals, along with commentary about what to include or omit from this particular breed of resumes. These differ greatly from the format taught (or, at least once taught) in our Desktop Publishing and Senior Seminar course in Communications at UT Martin. I call it "alphabet soup" because of how many acronyms you are expected to shove on an 8.5"x11" sheet of paper. The argument there is that if you have experience in it, you would be a fool not include it. That, and so many hiring managers pre-screen resumes with a computer-based keyword search.

The second book is more of a hobby book. I need to keep on top of the latest trends, and Ruby on Rails is probably the single biggest gainer when it comes to measuring the next big thing in Web technology. The coding is very light, structured and concise. The trouble with that is it does not look like anything I have ever written in before. It is times like these that I regret never learning a primary language like C or Java. Instead, I learn by books.

2006-08-16 DMB Setlist

Wednesday night we celebrated our joint birthdays at an event that, truth be told, was probably more for me than her. The Dave Matthews Band stopped by Starwood Amphitheater on their 2006 Summer Tour and certainly did not disappoint. While Nashville is slowly fading out off of most bands' tour schedules, DMB has been a perennial favorite of the college crowd in Middle Tennessee and other regions far and wide. It is almost a rite of passage to experience the kind of energy that comes from one of these rather eclectic performances. Sometimes I have to wonder if it's the same kind of rite that forces these two women next to us to drink themselves to illness, or the older gentleman to scream just loud enough to keep him welcome at the venue.

We've learned our lesson about concerts at Starwood; If you can get out of there before the rest of the crowd picks up their blankets (and grab the right street), the night will end on a high note. Ours ended a bit flat, trapped behind miles of cars and idiots drumming on every car they walked by, occupants be damned.

The band broke out some new-ish material from yet unannounced albums, "Shotgun", "The Idea of You," "Can't Stop" and "Butterfly." None of them were earth shattering for the band; all sounded great. "Shotgun" was not even on the set list, but apparently needed playing. All told, it was a great evening with the girl.

We picked up this week's copy of All the Rage, which had the cover story "Getting Hitched." I thought this was perfect timing, given that we are still a bit behind on planning our own shindig. We were both disappointed to find out that it really focused on having a traditional wedding on the cheap. What we really need to know is:

  • If we want Oct. 1 to be our date, when do we go see the clerk?
  • What do we need to bring with us?
  • Can our friends really buy into a "wedding" defined by trips to a couple of nice restaurants and clubs downtown?

    Clarification: The words "... buy into ...", in this sense do not refer to the actual act of exchanging money or items of monetary value. An acceptable substitute phrase would be "... convince themselves that it is possible to have this as a celebration in place of a traditional ceremony." Everybody would pick up their own tab, etc. Who needs a bread-maker, anyway?- Management

  • How do you invite folks to that?
  • Do we have to track down an officiate?

Before I forget, I graduated college. It's a shame that in writing this, I was about to omit it entirely. It is important to me to be sure, but it really only serves as a means to an end. Classes were always that distraction away from the work I enjoyed the most.

It's an exciting but scary time right now. So many things depend on the outcome of the event right before it. The job search determines the apartment situation. The apartment situation determines a number of our marriage plans. A litany of questions lie ahead after those things are sorted out. The good news is things tend to move quickly once you get the first couple of steps out of the way.

The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Gang aft a-gley

- Robert Burns