day two
Friday, October 22, 2004
woke up, sort of, got all slickified in my light grey suit to get ready for the big interview at the museum of natural history. I got off at the 81st exit just past eleven, almost an hour early and proceeded to scout out the place from the outside to kill some time. beautiful! breezy weather, fall colors, nicely trimmed green lawns and squirrels with big bushy tails, it all came together in a cinematic way. after a short hunt, I found a starbucks to plop down at and kill some time. I get my bottle of water, belly up to the little bar sitting area by the window, facing the street, and what do you know - two women sit down next to me and start talking about their upcoming trip to Turkey! I just had to butt in. we chatted for a little while, their journey is a museum tour up and down the western coast, someone cancelled and they got in, they'll be looking at a lot of historically interesting places like Ephesus, Troy, etc. I mentioned how random it was that I was even there to overhear their conversation, since I'm not even a New Yorker, only here for the week.
after a bit, they wished me luck and I went into the museum, walked up to a security guard to ring my contact and waited for the interview to begin. I think it went really well! although there's obviously no telling about these kinds of things, I totally feel like I nailed it. the secondary interviews are around thanksgiving, but they decided to merge my initial screening interview (20 people out of the 150 that applied) with the interview with the head of the group, reserved for the final 5 applicants in thanksgiving. they made an exception for me since I was an out of town applicant and they didn't want to have to ask me to come out again. I told them that was no problem and that distance shouldn't be an issue in deciding my suitability for the job, I have the money saved up for a relocation and can start working at the drop of a hat, so hopefully that won't be a problem. I think I convinced them that I was serious about moving to NYC. another good sign - the group head asked me if I'd be interested in another position with a similar group in the museum, a position that's more developer-like and would work with the whoever's in the position I applied for. of course! she's referring my resume to another technical director at the museum and seeing if he can sneak in an interview while I'm still in town. good times!
after floating around on air for about an hour, I went down to a coffee shop at 13th st and 6th ave called Cosi's to wait for Brett to get out of class. he came there in tow with a classmate Clay, who's in the Pimp My PC competition with us tomorrow, as well as his law student brother visiting him from out of town on vacation. we dropped our stuff off at Clay's place, Brett and I split to catch a matinee of "Ghost In the Shell 2" but it wasn't playing, so we saw "Shawn Of The Dead" instead, a horror comedy that tickled us both, then we met back up with Clay and his bro, grabbed two six packs of beer and all the gaming equipment and headed to the where we are now: at the student computer lab at Parsons, setting up many xboxes for a drunken gamefest orgy. There's some cool PacMan game that a bunch of people can play at once, with one player as PacMan on the little gameboy and the rest as the ghosts on the big screen! How cool is that?