Well, I’ve got two and a half days left in my current role at AOL. My recruiter is working feverishly at getting me another position at AOL, but I’m not banking on his success. I have no other leads. No other jobs. So, I will file for unemployment on Friday morning and kickback and relax. Well, I’ll relax as much as I can. My calendar is still booked day in and day out, just like normal.

One of the most interesting events this week will be on Thursday night. I won a contest at the bar in Vienna I go to every Tuesday night with my kickball team. The contest was to get on the guest list for the Maxim magazine party in D.C. on Thursday night. I won, so I’ll be going—and I can bring one guest. I debated whether to bring a girl or a guy (due to the fact that I have no idea what a Maxim party is like). I asked approximately ten girls on MySpace, and there’s some interest, but nothing for sure. I’m hoping to ask one of the barmaids at the Vienna Inn tonight. We’ll see how that goes. If all else fails, I’ll probably invite one of my kickball buddies.

I went to Men’s Wearhouse last night and bought my first-ever sports coat. It’s a black blazer, and it fits really well. It looks okay with jeans and a patterned shirt. I figured it’d be good to have for job interviews, the Maxim party, and political fundraising events. Speaking of which, I’ll be securing a ticket to the RNC breakfast pep-rally this Saturday in Tyson’s Corner, when I go volunteer at the Fairfax GOP on Wednesday night (no softball this week). This is an insane week. I also have plans to be in Baltimore on Friday. At some point, I’ll also need to catch a repeat of the Presidential debate scheduled for Thursday night.

Okay, other things… Tennis class was awesome. I got to play with a nice girl—but she’s really short… and not a very good player. I saw Resident Evil 2 Saturday night, and it was so bad it doesn’t deserve a description. After that, I went to Dr. Dremo’s to see Court’s band play. I talked to her a little bit afterwards, then split. Sunday was Sunday… The normal stuff—sit around at home in the morning, run video for Frontline, then hang out with friends afterwards. I went to a Frontline volleyball interest meeting and decided to join the Dulles league, which plays on Monday nights. It starts in a couple weeks—right around the time softball and kickball start wrapping up their seasons. I also signed up for MBC’s paintball day in Leesburg on Saturday, October 16. I’ve never played paintball before, so it should be a lot of fun. I’ll need to stop by Ranger Surplus to pick up some fatigues to play in.

Not much else… I watched Blackhawk Down on DVD again a couple days ago. And, again, I was so impressed by the movie. I think it’s my all-time favorite war movie—even better than Saving Private Ryan. I also got Three Kings on DVD and watched that. I hate George Clooney, but that movie’s pretty darn good. I also got General Tommy Franks’ “American Soldier” on audio CD to listen to at work. I’m really interested in modern warfare right now for some reason.

That’s it for now. It looks like kickball will be cancelled tonight because of the rain. No matter—we’ll still be hitting the bar!

Okay, so I made a joke in my team meeting today that I thought was pretty smart and funny. We were discussing publishing AOL expressions to the French client. Apparently, they’re demanding an overhaul of their selection of assets (icons, smileys, etc.), and it would take up a lot of Matt’s time to do this. Drew, our manager, pointed out that they’re not paying us, so we all dismissed their request as very low priority.

I spoke up, however, and suggested we implement an “Expressions for Food” program.

Complete silence. Blank looks.

Either no one understood the reference, or they couldn’t believe I criticized the French. These same French, who requested we publish the Bush and Kerry SuperBuddys to their client, so they could use them in promos mocking America—and we complied. Bastard French. And bastard us for accommodating these fools.

Guess who gave $250,000 to the Kerry campaign? The answer: TimeWarner (the parent company of AOL).

So, with less than two weeks to go at AOL, I’ve got one shot at staying with the company. Just announced was an Entertainment/Music editorial position for the AOL Welcome Screen. I used what contacts I have to get my resume on the desk of the Director of Welcome Screen programming. There’s nothing more for me to do with this situation, but wait.

I’ve been considering what my plans will be, should I not get another position at AOL. If I find myself unemployed on October 1, the first thing I’m going to do is go to the Unemployment Office and apply for unemployment insurance. That will give me enough money each week to pay my bills. Then I might take the month of October off to volunteer with the Fairfax County Republican Committee. I think it’d be a lot of fun to be in that environment right before a presidential election. Plus, my volunteering there might open up some new doors for me. I would love to do political writing in any form.

I’m almost hoping I don’t get the job at AOL. Not only because I’m excited about the prospect of working for the Fairfax GOP, but because I did a job search earlier today, and I found—not one—but two writing/editing positions at the NRA headquarters in Fairfax! One position, in particular, involves using and reviewing all of the latest guns! Ha, ha! I must have that job!!!

Oh, by the way… Sean Hannity is now selling a DVD of his recent “Hannitization of America Tour” on his website Hannity.com. I appear in the segment featuring the Washington, D.C. stop at Borders Books. This was back in February (aka pre-diet), so I look like a fat little piggy. But, what the hell? I’m in Sean Hannity’s DVD! So, go buy one for yourself, sit down and watch me on the television. I’ll be signing DVD sleeves all week.

Holy shit! There are all kinds of tornados in northern Virginia! One was spotted around 66 & Rt. 28, heading north towards AOL! I’m sitting here working with my headphones on, not knowing what the hell’s going on, and security just told everyone in the building to head downstairs & away from the windows. …But I press on! Animated smileys are worth risking my life for!

——————-

UPDATE - 6:15 PM

SEVERE WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BALTIMORE MD/WASHINGTON DC
555 PM EDT FRI SEP 17 2004

…TORNADO WARNING CONTINUES FOR FAIRFAX COUNTY UNTIL 630 PM EDT…

AT 555 PM EDT… RADAR INDICATED A TORNADO OVER CENTREVILLE…MOVING
NORTH AT 15 MPH. STORM SPOTTERS REPORTED A TORNADO ON THE GROUND IN
CENTREVILLE NEAR ROUTE 28 AND INTERSTATE 66!!!!

CENTREVILLE…CHANTILLY AND HERNDON ARE NEAR THE PATH OF THIS
DANGEROUS STORM. RESIDENTS IN WESTERN FAIRFAX COUNTY NEED TO SEEK
SHELTER NOW!!

——————-

UPDATE - 7:30 PM

Wow. The tornado hit my office building. A group of us idiots stood by the windows watching it. The sky was pitch black. The tornado growled as it encompassed the building, and it sucked at the windows like enormous suction cups. The trees outside were bent parallel to the ground. And with a boom, the power went out in the building.

Just as soon as it arrived, it departed towards the north. The power never came back on, so I decided to go home.

I turned on the news, when I arrived home, and they were reporting 15 to 20 tornados in the metro D.C. area. Including eastern Fairfax.

Scary.

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UPDATE - THE NEXT DAY 12:15 PM

I came into work today—not just to get more overtime hours, but to check out the carnage of yesterday’s tornado. I came in the back entrance, because I didn’t see much damage on the way out the front entrance last night. Apparently, the tornado hit the building on the back side. Trees were uprooted all over the place—some knocking out the security fence surrounding the AOL campus. There were huge branches all over the road and parking lot. The tornado must have hit the building and bounced around it. Luckily, my car was parked in the garage at the time.

Okay, so it’s been a busy week for Mr. Michael Tolosa. I’ll go through things quickly simply to humor myself…

Tuesday night was kickball night, but no games were played. It was pouring down rain, and the county parks were closed. My team still gathered at the Vienna Inn, drank and had a lot of fun. A few of us went to the kickball party house afterwards (it’s like a frat house for kickballers). I took part in drinking games like Flip Cup and that quarter-flipping thing. I had never bounced quarters into a cup before, so I was losing (and drinking) a lot at the beginning. But like every other competitive activity I take part in, I learned the skill quickly & started whipping the competition. Of course, I may just have a much higher tolerance to alcohol than other folks do, and they started losing their coordination towards the end. The host even smashed one of the mugs onto the table like a total jock and broke it into pieces. Once I saw blood on the table, I figured it was time to go. Anyway, people were trashed, and as I left, I thought it was kinda funny that I’m only now getting the whole college group-drinking experience—this late in life. I guess kickball brings out the kid in people. Like Frosted Mini-Wheats. Like evil Frosted Mini-Wheats!

Softball games were cancelled on Wednesday due to the continuing rain. I wasn’t going to go anyway, because the monthly Fairfax Young Republicans meeting was that night. I drove down to Fairfax City after work and headed to the Fairfax Grill (located where the Dharma Coffee House used to be). It’s a great little bar with a private party room upstairs. I’d love to rent it out sometime for a party. I met Katie the chairman of FXYR, who I met on MySpace a while ago. She’s totally awesome. A former college soccer player…a Republican…and hot as hell. Pretty much all of the characteristics I look for in a woman. Unfortunately, she’s Catholic, so we would never work out—except in a star-crossed, Romeo & Juliet kind of way.

On Thursday, I trained my co-workers on the work that I do. I cleaned out my AOL mail and my file drawer. Today, I took down my cube decorations and scoped out the office supplies I’m going to take home with me.

Thursday nights are going to be tough for me TV-wise. I don’t want to miss any O’Reilly Factor—at least until the election. But Survivor and The OC are on at 8 PM also. I can manage to watch O’Reilly at 11 PM, but I don’t know what to do about the others. I’m leaning towards watching Survivor (which I did this week), since The OC will probably be released on DVD eventually. It’s just annoying that the only shows I want to see conflict with one another. How retarded is that?

Today is Friday. I’m going to work ten hours today, then as much as I can over the weekend. I want money, money, money. And once September is over, I’ll probably go on unemployment and lay low for a little while. Maybe use the time to make a couple websites and do eBay sales.