In which I catch y’all up on how things are going lately.

THE SPOKANE TRIP last weekend was, on the one hand, really fun. I enjoyed getting out of town for a couple of nights. The motel bed was far more comfortable than my own. I enjoyed sight-seeing in Spokane, and eating at Frankie Doodles, and shopping (I bought jeans and a belt at Ross), and I loved the club itself to pieces. The staff was great, and the patrons were fantastic. The club comped my fettuccine alfredo even though it wasn’t from the appetizer menu, and the owner went out of his way to give us the cash he had on hand instead of paying us with just a check.

On the other hand, it was 48 hours of sophomoric ego-emo clusterfuck, the proportions of which can be reached only in the poly relationship known as “being in a band.” Nutshell: we were too loud, the club asked us to turn down – five times – and we (where “we” equals Someone Who Isn’t Me) didn’t want to; we had no set lists and Far Too Much Dead Air; and we ran out of blues material and defaulted to a bunch of old rock covers (which is fine in taverns, but not in Actual Blues Clubs that have Live Blues Bands Five Nights Per Week). I blew out my voice and went deaf in my first set. It wasn’t a raging train wreck – I mean, people danced – but we made enough amateurish mistakes to ensure that we won’t be asked back.

THE QUALITY ASSURANCE gig is going really well! The guys I report to are so swamped that I have to wait awhile for feedback, but they seem pleased with what I’ve done so far. I’m enjoying the work, which consists of making sure a software application does what it’s designed to do, and filing bugs when it doesn’t. I can work pretty much whenever I want to.

I have only the vaguest inkling of what I’m doing and how it fits into the Big Picture, but I’ve had just enough explained to me that I’m comfortable with not knowing what I don’t know. I’m a contractor, not a project manager, so I don’t need to know how it all fits together… it’s just my nature to want to fix inefficient or redundant work flows, maximize the efforts of actual human resources, and — right. Not my job!

I scrounged a card table and a folding chair so I’m no longer sitting on the floor while I’m working. My knees are happy about that.

SCHOOL STARTS IN less than a month. The WWCC web site says that financial aid packets were supposed to go out on August 20th. I haven’t received mine, and the financial aid portal shows no awards for me yet.

I can’t pay for school without aid, and if I don’t go to school I will have to pay back three months worth of unemployment benefits. I’m vaguely worried about this situation, but have decided to delay freaking out until September.

I’m hoping I’ll get the aid I need, and that I’ll get to do QA at night while going to school during the day. If it all works out, next spring I’ll have a pile of networking certifications and great references for QA work! And if I can’t get a fucking job then, I’ll switch over to my secret-until-now backup plan, which goes something like, “Uh, Be A Homeless Crack Whore In Hawaii or Something?” I always thought I’d keep my teeth, but sometimes you just gotta take a hint, am I right?