WMATA, Metro’s official name, has been has been undergoing “scheduled track work” on all five of its train lines for about the last six weeks. This track work involves “one-tracking” which is where they will close one side of the track fir the work and the cars have to share the other side of the track, taking their turn one at a time. As you can probably guess, there are massive delays.

They have scheduled these track work days on the weekend as to not interfere with all the government workings commuting into the DC, as this was the reason the entire Metro transit system was built. Like most elements of life in DC, those who are not lawyers, politicians or suck-up lobbyists, our needs don’t really matter. So having to get to work on time during the weekend while having to rely on Metro is, needless to say, a great big pain in the ass.

So here’s my idea for a mobile app. It would be called “Made U Look!” and would function something like this:

Once the app was installed on your phone, your phone’s GPS would automatically register when you entered a Metro station. Maybe you would have to check-in manual but it would be cool if it did it automatically. It would also automatically check with WMATA’s Trip Planner page. After the inevitable numerous delays, when you exited the system your phone would again mark which station you are exiting from and communicate with WMATA. Then, it would reverse calculate how long that trip should have taken according to the Trip Planner and then compare it to the actual time you sat in the dark tunnel waiting for that goddamned train. As a bonus, you would be able to log into your Made U Look account and see how you rank with others who have wasted time for waiting for trains to see who has wasted the most time that week, month and quarter. Great idea, right?

It’s supposed to be 70 degrees outside today and, according to Facebook and Twitter feeds, people are pretty excited about it.

I could care less; I’m not going outside.

I guess if I had a job and had to be couped up inside all day then maybe I’d be excited about some warmer weather. But it brings no sunshine into my world even though I could go and sit outside all day if I wanted to. The thing is, I don’t want to.

Instead, I’m scouring job posting sites and finding wonderful gems like this one:

Title: Graphic layout
Description: Seeking a person for with graphic layout experience to assist a non profit organization. If you have worked on a magazine that would be a plus. This is a contract position and I need someone who can start immediately. Very pleasant work environment and nice people to work for.

Yes, that’s the entire ad placement. Obviously this is either a shitty job or the person posting it has no idea what they’re talking about. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. And this is about as good as I can find. And since unemployment benefits ran out over a month ago, something has to be done to get some money flowing in, even if it’s some shitty job that someone without nearly twenty years of experience can do.

Have you ever met someone, someone who said  ”I know you, you’re ____ ______” and you started dating seeing each other more often and the best date you’ve ever had in your life was his idea to come over to your house & order pizza & play MYST and you thought the was the absolute most romantic thing ever and then all of a sudden you’re not talking and you send packages to him that are returned with the USPS-issued stamp of UNCLAIMED all over it and you try to pretend everything is okay and then you travel to his new city to see his art show and even though you know it’s over you come home feeling like an idiot and crying the entire flight and then you call him on his birthday the next year and unload everything you’ve been feeling and five years later you’re vacationing in the new town he lives in and you agree to meet him and you dress like a total idiot because you’re so nervous and meet him at a pub and pretend like everything’s okay, which it is, but you still find yourself looking at his Twitter feed ten years after that last trip and understanding how obvious it was that someone like him could never end up with someone like you because you’re the one doing a late night google search and that you are, without a doubt, the last thing on his mind, and you also realize that people like him will never, ever, end up with people like you because (according to the exhaustive search) he’s ended up with someone that has drive, interests and a steady career and who is someone that is stable and has no destructive habits and is open and honest and accepts his partner’s faults and admits his own while at the same time allows his partners interests to flourish and all the while you, in the existence you’ve created for yourself is on a slow steady track of decline and it seems that regardless how hard you try you’re never going to be as fruitful as you were two, five or ten years ago and you wonder what your future will be like as this person you occasionally think of buys a house, obtains more pets and sharpens more skills, and all your future is going to consisting of is a 30% paycut in a tedious job that you’ll hate from day one and be forced to stay in for the next twenty years because who is going to hire a middle-aged man skilled in a dying profession and what is there to look forward in that?

I have.

Thanks for the comments in the previous post, guys. Much appreciated.

That interview last week didn’t go so well. I planned on being there about 1/2 hour early, taking an earlier bus than was scheduled to get me there on time. Of course, the bus was late, there was traffic, and so I didn’t get there until about five minutes before I need to go inside and check in. Therefore I didn’t have time to clear my head and I was still stressed out from the traffic situation. Plus my top shirt button was a little too tight, making me more uncomfortable.

I interviewed with three people and that kind of threw me as well. Not that they were attacking me 3-on-1 but I wasn’t anticipating trying to impress/hold three attention spans. Some of my answers were a little abrupt or uneasy sounding, with odd pauses at the end to say “Ok, next question!”

The interview lasted about an hour. At the end one of the interviewees also referred to me as “David” but then righted himself both times so that doesn’t sound like a good omen. They said they would be interviewing for the rest of the week and then make a decision. They have some projects coming up quickly that they want to get the person filling this position to start working on so it sounds like things on a fast track. I emailed them at the end of the week with the requisite “thank yous” and “is there anything else I can show yous” so I’m waiting to hear back from that.

Today: silence.

I had an interview a few weeks ago with a studio in Falls Church, H8ST8. This commute would be equally hellish as the one I had with G, but at least it would have been a paying job. I could have caught up (rather, re-started) in my reading on the bus & train & train & bus 1.5 hour commute. Alas, I found out this afternoon that I didn’t get the job. Oh well. Tis a shame, because the company’s initials are C+C and I was going to call them the Music Factory. A in “I am now heading out for my daily stint at the Music Factory.” Hopefully you will be old enough to understand that inside joke.

Tomorrow I have an interview with another company, this one thankfully downtown. It’s the company where my brother works, but it’s a huge global corporate company. So I’ll have to wear a tie at least to the interview. I don’t think there will be any jeans/shorts wearing at this job, unforch. The position is in their Architectural/Design Services division being a Technical Editor/Writer Coordinator. The job description is a little odd, some writing & editing included with traditional graphic design services. They wanted to have me come in for an interview after reviewing my resume though, so there must be something in there that they think will be a good fit. Wish me luck!

Thirty eight years ago today Volkswagen Type 1 (more commonly knows as Beetle) produced it’s 15,007,034th unit. This number bested Henry Ford’s famous Model T, making the Beetle the most produced car in the world.

The 1977 Beetle I owned, affectionately dubbed “Libby”, was the last model year that the curvy VWs were imported into the US. This was also the same period where full-time production stopped in its German assembly plants, while the car continued to be produced in Peru and Brazil for another 25 years or so.

I bought Libby around 1993 or 94, after having my 2nd stint as a carless-person in Houston. She was in pristine shape: great body, tinted windows, air-conditioning (!) and only 85,837 miles. She was a great car to go “motoring in” around Houston’s flat, well-maintained roads.

Of course all of that changed when I moved to DC: potholes, salt & sand on the roads, careless parkers and stringent inspection standards all did their toll. I put Libby “out to pasture” in summer 2003, with a  good conscience. Needing many, many repairs I sold her to the father of a high-school friend of mine, who tinkers and restores old VWs. So I assume that Libby is still out there somewhere, leisurely motoring along a country road.

One year and six days ago I spent my “birthday work lunch” making and serving grilled cheese sandwiches for the homeless families at Carpenter’s Shelter. I’d estimate I made about 30 of them. Me and other coworkers were volunteering for the lunch shift. It was a good thing to do, the staff and temporary residents all seemed pretty thankful and it felt really good to do it too. And it was fun. I had also taken the following two days off of work, a Thursday and Friday, to have a long extended birthday weekend. I had days to use up before the end of the year anyway. So my birthday last year was technically the last day I was in the studio as an employee.

One year and five days ago I caught a flu bug and was pretty much laid up in bed for those two days I had taken off work and the weekend, too.

One year and one day ago was Monday and I was scheduled to be back at work but since I was still not feeling 100% and we were dreadfully slow I decided to take a sick day and have another day of recovering.

One year ago I walked into work and, before my strict 8:30 morning meeting, was ambushed in my office and told that I had been laid off along with five other employees.

So it’s been 365 days of unemployment. Which means filing a lot of actual paperwork and digital paperwork. My food stamps will expire this month so that’s $200 less money from my unemployment checks, in a sense, that I’ll be getting.

Have you ever tried to find a 2nd-tier creative job in an uncreative town? It’s not easy. Most of the local ads I’m finding are skimming the bottom of the barrel: “do this logo for $50 and there’s no way it should take you more than two hours”… or freelance jobs that are paying $15 an hour. When I moved here fourteen years ago I was making $30/hour on freelance jobs.

So now what? Reinvention? Easier than it sounds. Relocate? Most employers aren’t going to hire someone who is not local. Go and work at somewhere that’s three levels beneath my education & experience? That seems the only option now. Suggestions?

Watching a certain 80s drama, with it’s men-brooches and moussed hair, has got me thinking back to my 80s drama, with its men-brooches and moussed hair.

Living back in the town where all my (early-mid) 80s drama happened is always a reminder: driving down 50 in Rosslyn—that’s where Jason lived; walking Connecticut Ave on a blustery fall Sunday—that’s where me and Michael would duck into Timberlake’s to drink and watch the Redskins.

It’s odd familiarity.

This show didn’t let go off its babyboomer roots so there’s no 80s beats playing in the background, its always gotta be some cheesy Procol Harem or some shit playing. I’m throwing some Scritti Politti into my background.

And it’s more than the fashions that are throwing me back too. It distinctly reminds me of driving these (now familiar) streets of DC, going to places I’d never been, so that Jason can pick up shit from his old boyfriend’s apartment. It reminds me of dinners and cigarettes with Michael before we laughed ourselves down the street, knowing onlookers were jealous.

Now these streets are so familiar that sometimes I don’t recognize them anymore. That’s not true—they’ve become all to familiar. Which is a good thing; there are new memories now, built upon the foundations of the old. Sometimes I will point these memories out to friends but most of the times I won’t. At times I want to keep them to my own 80s self.

If you don’t already know, MTV’s The Real World has started filming here in DC. MTV has also started airing the RW Cancun so the DC chapter will probably air early next year. rumor has it they’re going to film until Thanksgiving, which would mean a solid four months of footage.

The house is at 20th & S, NW. You can’t miss it at night, it’s lit up like the daytime and during the daytime I’m sure there are camera crews everywhere. Local residents of that intersection aren’t necessarily thrilled with the media and personal interest onslaught that has taken up camp in their neighborhood. And I can’t say I really blame them, seeing as these interlopers will have no vested interest in their neighborhood and, relying on past RW chapters, will end up vomiting, pissing, fighting and all those other things 20-year-olds with starry eyes will do. The Anti Real World DC’s (new) blog is here.

Last night I was out with an out-of-town friend at Black Cat and told her about the RWDC and she wanted to go by the house. I thought it would be fun to piss off some of the cast members, as it appears to be the new fun thing to do in DC this summer. So we did.

It was late, around last call, so I was hoping some of the cast would stumble around the corner and then we could yell things at them to disrupt their filming (this is the de facto act to commit I’ve heard, as then they will have to edit out the audio of “Real World sucks!”). But the security detail in the truck across the street looked pretty relaxed so we surmised they were all already inside shooting pool or making daquiris or whatever they do. We did notice some movement in the glazed-over windows, but it looked mainly to be the crew.

We chatted with  security for a while but they weren’t budging on giving us any info. All of a sudden, there was movement the front door. Two of the cast members came out to eat their late night take-out on the front steps. So I hurried over to snap some pictures and one of the narcissist started cowering with his head down, as if he didn’t want any limelight. Um, dude, you’ve got cameras following you for the next four months. It’s a little too early in the game to be shying away from the cameras so soon. They had glowstick bracelets on, so they had been out partying somewhere that evening. Needless to say, after a few minutes of heavy sighing they packed up their styrofoam packs and went back inside.

It was a fun bit of fun but I’m really dreading the time they invade a restaurant or bar or some other venue that I’m at because I’ve heard the camera crews are pretty pushy and rude. Anything that gets the shot, right guys?