Downtime...(NOT)

Columbia wrapped up earlier than expected which gave me a week (4/30-5/4) of downtime...or so I thought. I setup interviews over the course of the previous week. Going into the week I had interviews Monday morning, Tuesday afternoon, and Thursday morning. The interview Monday morning was with a company in Rockville. From the job description it seemed like a pretty good gig and I was kind of excited. As it turned out, a total waste of time! More like a fishing trip where the recruiter wanted to meet me, but didn't have a firm job description. A total waste of time!
On the way out I got a call from another consulting company, this company had an opening at the Navy Yard that they needed filled. This were moving fast with this position, and they asked me if I could schedule an interview that afternoon. Why not? I was in my suit and so I went. The interview went well but at the end, the guy asked about my degree. I pointed out the 15+ years of experience. As things turned out, I didn't hear back from them, so again, more wasted time...
On Tuesday I have me interview scheduled at IDX which is about a 7 minute drive. This time the interview is with the corporate IT Manager. We had a good meeting, lasting about an hour. I hear back from them the next day that they want me to come in on Friday for an assessment test. I do. This takes a while! I was in there over 3 hours! The series of tests took 2.5 hours alone. Then I interviewed with the General Manager. Finally I was left with instructions to call another person for another phone interview. I have never interviewed so much for a company in my life.
On Thursday I had a second interview at GAO (Government Accountability Office). This was nearly a sure thing for this position. As things have turned out, Prism (the sub-contractor that actually hired me on a temp-perm basis) made an offer on Friday 5/4. There were a couple of issues in that I needed to start in a perm role sooner then 6 months. They had to work this out as the 6 month period is the standard practice between Prism and the primary, Nortel (who I may eventually be working for). To cut to the chase, I started working at GAO on Monday, 5/14.
A little out of order, I had a computer users group meeting 5/2. This went very well! The magazine publisher, SmartComputing came out and gave a demo, and everyone seemed to enjoy it.
And Thursday afternoon Heather and I went out for our first fishing adventure of the season. She caught the sole fish (a catfish) but I screwed up taking the picture of it with her holding it. Better luck next time. Hopefully we'll be able to get out a few more times over the summer.