Ok, so my mind gets sidetracked every once in a while. But I’m focused now. I’ve got my eyes on the prize & I’m able to push aside all distractions.

I searched all over the web for job openings last night. To my surprise, I found a TON of stuff. I couldn’t believe how many Flash/multimedia/web design positions were available. Even though I had enough job openings to cover the requirements of my unemployment, I kept looking. I searched all sorts of job sites, big & small.

…And I’m glad I did. Because I found something that took my breath away.

I held my chest when I saw it, and I couldn’t breathe until I finished reading it. It was a job opening. A job opening in a field and in a place that I have long since desired to work in. I’d be returning to where I first started my professional career—George Mason University. Not just GMU, but GMU Sports!

I kept waiting to run into a requirement that I didn’t meet. But it never came. There was nothing to the job beyond my qualifications. I was actually qualified for the job. I was more than qualified!

The job involves taking control of all GMU Sports websites, redesigning them, and managing them. It also involves working with Sports Information & designing print media (programs, media guides, etc.) for public distribution. I can do all of this, and I can now do it all well.

Aside: When I graduated GMU in 1998, I went to the Sports Information office & asked them if they needed a full-time web designer for their sports sites. They told me they weren’t interested, so I kissed my days of being involved in GMU sports goodbye. You see, I was involved with the GMU Lacrosse team—during my college years—as a photographer. I did some promotion for them in Broadside (GMU’s student paper), as well as Lacrosse Magazine (THE national lacrosse publication). I have a casual acquaintance with Amy, the GMU Lacrosse coach. I did freelance photography for the team during my first post-college years. There has always been a place in my heart for the GMU Lacrosse team. I return to campus for all the home games every year, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.

So, now I’m going to apply for this job, tell them about my background in GMU Sports, and pin Amy as a reference. It’ll be a snap. Everything’s in place…

…Everything, except one thing. My personal GMU Lax website. I own www.gmulax.com. I’ve been meaning to create a cool, interactive website for the team, but I’ve been putting it off for years, because I haven’t had any motivation to create it.

Well, now I’m motivated. Big time. I have one goal in my life right now. Design the most ass-kicking, sock-knocking website anyone at Sports Information has ever seen. I’m going to first knock the socks off myself, then knock the socks off of Amy, then knock the socks off the person looking into my qualifications.

I want this job, baby.

And I won’t be denied.

I’m going to Kings Dominion again on Monday with my friend Michelle. Then, I’m going to take a weeklong road trip with her down to Florida in August.

I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing.

People all over the field.
In dark shirts & light shirts.
“Mark up!” someone yells.
“I got the experienced guy!” another one boasts.
Someone is standing 12 inches away from me,
Asking me to touch the frisbee in his hand.
“Disk in, Michael!” he says.
“What the hell?” I say.
“Tap the frisbee!”
(He’s impatient now.)
Everyone’s yelling at me to “disk in!”
I touch the frisbee.
He rears back and launches it just past my head.
One of his teammates catches the disk & their team scores.
My team has to walk across the huge soccer field to the other end.
I stop midway & look to the sideline.
“Sub?” I shout, while raising my hand.
Someone else in a dark shirt comes running onto the field.
We slap hands & with a smile she says, “Good job!”
I go off to the sideline and sit down in the grass.
“First time?” someone on the side asks me.
“Yeah,” I say.
“First time.”

Fun times today. I was able to hang out with my friend Carol this evening. We went out to eat, then watched “Cats & Dogs.” It was one of the better movies of the summer. I loved it. I knew going into it that Carol would love it. I knew she’d laugh at all the cute animals & funny moments. And she did. Very audibly.

Aside: The evening was such fun. And familiar. It was like old times. It’s like there was a cadence to our conversation & jokes back when we were close friends in college. And we hit it tonight—in stride and right on beat. It was such a familiar, relaxing and stress-free environment. I was able to just drop whatever façade or “image” I usually carry around & just be myself.

Beforehand, when I went to pick Carol up, I got the chance to meet her housemate Alissa. I remember Alissa from Campus Crusade at GMU, but I never really knew her (or even talked to her). Carol tells me that she’s a really smart cookie & works with genetics in the science field. Fascinating. I’d love to sit down with her sometime & pick her brain. I don’t know anyone quite like that.

Carol was telling me how she (Carol) just took her G…[what the hell are they called?]… graduate school test thingies. She recalled some of the ridiculous questions and, in doing so, opened up a long-since-closed door in my mind. I started to recall my old school days… SATs… Honors Math classes in high school… Quiz Bowl in junior high… I loooooooved that stuff, man! Whatever happened to that love for mind challenges? Was it replaced with love for corporate challenges? Social challenges?

There are some things I really miss about my old school days.

I went abandoned house hunting today with my friend Michelle. She loves to photograph old, rundown abandoned houses. But she doesn’t like to go alone. So I was her companion for the day.

It was pretty thrilling walking into these old houses. Very creepy. At times, I was more afraid of the real-life people that may be squatting inside these structures, than the subtle imaginations of my mind.

We went to this one house, where a mother had killed her two children. No one has lived there since the incident. When we got there, we found rusted children’s bikes in the front yard & old, dirty baby things in one of the rooms upstairs. It sent a chill up my spine seeing all of these things. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

At one point, we waded through about 200 yards of tall grass and overgrowth to get to one of the houses. Michelle failed to warn me of such potential obstacles, so here I was in my shorts walking through suburban jungle.

Aside: I just know there’s a tick hiding somewhere in my hair. And to think, I almost wore my sport sandals!

This is the first time Michelle and I have hung out together—just the two of us. It was indeed nice. I hope to do it again in the future.