How the change began:

In March of 2009 I was ending a nearly four year run as a contractor for an insurance company as an IT Security associate. I loved the people I worked with and the job was sufficient for getting a paycheck while trying to finish up my degree. The job was ridged and there were rules and confinements and tons of bureaucracy. I’m a creative person by nature and the job left me feeling empty on a daily basis. When it was time for my contract to end I accepted it happily.

Over the summer I looked for jobs but nothing felt like it was for me, so I opted to enroll in school full time for the Fall of 09 and I just pulled out some serious loans. This time I was done playing around, no more taking classes at night while working full time. During the process of researching classes to take, I found that I could do an internship and luckily I caught a tweet from Granada Theater saying they were looking for interns. I direct messaged the theater asking them what the job entailed and it really sounded right up my alley, graphic work, Facebook, Twitter. A creative job at last!

The job was everything I’d been doing casually for the past 10 years. I sent a copy of my resume (via Twitter) and was instantly asked when I could come in for an interview. I thought oh my God, I have nothing to show that I know social media, or graphic work.

What could I do to stand out?

During my time at my job at the insurance company I had a lot of time to read and listen to podcasts on social media and the like. It was time to pull out all of that knowledge of how things worked and put it to use.

Within 24 hours I whipped up a plan and executed it.

The Plan

I wanted to see how many people I could get to follow Granada Theater on Twitter and have them tell Granada Theater why all these people where following them. I crafted a blog that included a link that pre-composed a message to place into Twitter. It was a simple two step process, follow @granadatheater, then tell them why and who told them to follow them.

The message;

“Tell your friends via a tweet that you followed @granadatheater because @got80s told you to.”

After the blog was posted I had to get the word out about my plan.

Facebook:

I created lists of my friends on Facebook using the “lists” feature. The lists where of people I knew had a Twitter account so I could make sure they received the notification of my plans.

I also posted status updates on Facebook to tell people about it just to make sure the message went out to everyone (even the non Twitter users).

Email:

I emailed everyone in my address book that I figured would be willing to help, even some I figured were a long shot. I just copied and pasted the blog posting and told people if they needed help in setting up an account and tweeting I would help them.

Phone:

I contacted people via text messages and actual calls to make sure they had gotten my email and if they needed me to I could help. I had a few people that couldn’t get to Twitter because they were at work so I sent them instructions on how to tweet from their phone and even gave them the message to copy and paste into a new message.

Twitter:

I got in touch with some people who had a lot of followers and asked if they could post about my plans in their streams. I also contacted Mike Orren of Pegasus News because I figured they had a relationship due to the ads I’d seen on their site. Interesting fact; Mike never actually tweeted my message but found out months later that he send the message I had sent to him, to my interviewer.

Timing:

The tweets had to go out the day of the interview. I wanted maximum impact, and it worked. See the impressions my tweet had (warning image is 1200×4000)

The interview:

I have done plenty of interviews, I’ll admit I felt incredibly overdressed. I forgot what it was like to work for non-corporate businesses. We went through the usual interview questions and while sitting in the interview, the interviewer was thumbing his iPhone scrolling through Twitter and said, “I like your little experiment” with a sly smile. I didn’t have a smart phone so I had no clue how far it had gone since I left for the interview. I used Twitter the way it was intended, no barrier to entry, just a simple phone with no web access. Just proving the fact that if you are scrappy and inventive enough, you can stand out no matter what tools you have at hand.

The tweets continued to occur over the following days and I was called in for a second interview with the owner. Proof of my music knowledge was put to the test. The most interesting interview question I’ve had yet. What kind of music do you listen to and what are your favorite bands? Luckily I was one of those people who create lists and had my entire library broken up by months of release on my mp3 player. I pulled it out and rattled off the bands on my most recent playlist. He nodded in approval.

After two interviews I was sent a direct message on Twitter to say I could start whenever. The internship turned into a job when I was sent yet another direct message saying I was hired over Thanksgiving break. Since that time my boss left Granada Theater and after a short time came back to me and we are now working together with another music venue in town. At the time of this posting, I still work for Granada Theater and I’m a contractor through the company my boss and I created. On a daily basis I’m encouraged to tinker and figure out new ways to approach the marketing of music.

I couldn’t imagine my life any different. I’ve satisfied the kid in me as an adult by being allowed to take apart things and figure out how they work and I’m surrounded by creative people on a regular basis.

Hopefully this post gives someone out there an idea that lands them a job somewhere that they truly love. Just remember, stand out from the sea of faces, the resume is just a piece of paper. Actions will always speak louder than words.
[gmap type="roadmap" static="true" zoom="12" marker_lat="32.830823773291684" marker_lon="-96.76985534275059"]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2517/3893829249_6811a7a77b_o.png

I had a temporary period where my Creative Zen died on me and I had to hear the world around me minus my personal soundtrack. Never realized how uber-boring and quiet it can be on campus and in my cube at work. I quickly made with the spending of money that I didn’t have and broke my longtime tradition of buying Creative players and got a Microsoft Zune 2.0. I emphasize the V2 because V1 was an absolute EPIC FAIL. Except for the awesomeness of sharing songs which was dubbed squirting .  I have to say aside from some little uber-tech speak problems, the player is quite usable.

I’m in the market for a new cell phone and the new iPhone looks promising but the plans are just wayyyy out of my $$$ range. Plus I’m with T-mobile and currently contract free so if I’m ever booted out the door at my temp job and times get tough I can drop my phone without paying an arm and leg. Phones contract free are freaking expensive and to be quite honest they all just suck. I text and call, maybe use the web once in a blue moon on my phone. I’d like to get a “qwerty” phone because I do 90% texting and 10% calling. I just can’t find one that I like, that I can afford. I think they consulted Barbie when making the latest Blackberry because the keys are so small I can’t even use it. I’ve gotten so frustrated by trying to find a phone that I like that I’ve almost just given up and said fuck’em all together. For now my phone is getting some glue since it’s all sorts of cracked.

I’m listening to music like crazy lately. Found a bunch of new artists and some old ones that dropped new albums. You can see what I’ve been into by checking out my Last.fm account, friend me if you are on it. They are still working on making the Zune work with it (they=hackers). Matt got me into The Office, of which I’ve now seen every episode. I myself revisited Weeds and found that I can’t miss an episode now and nor can Matt. Aside from that, nothing in the glorious world of TV has pulled me in.

As I mentioned long ago, I’m taking 2 summer classes. The film one is almost done and the Digital Photography class is almost useless. The best part is the tax write off for the Canon Rebel I had to buy for the class. I’m still on Flickr and uploading most of my homework alongside regular photos, so if you are interested head on over and check it out. If you want to just track everything I do online you can join me on FriendFeed or just subscribe to my feed. I read a lot of articles and hear a lot of music online and sometimes recommend something to read. FriendFeed is a timeline of all of my online activities, including this blog. I live under the reality that Privacy is Dead so I willingly jack myself into the net and let it know my thoughts.

In the real world, stuff has happened.

There’s been two new additions to the family since I last blogged. Matt’s sister had her baby boy Jacob and his sister-in-law just had her boy Ian. I’m kinda over babies, I mean seriously, I’m now an uncle 12x’s over. Not to mention my friends got into the whole baby thing (Will/Bethany). I’m just excited that I’m baby free, they’re cute, but they are quite the handful. Plus, I’m a smidge ADD and tend to get into something that’s new and then get bored with it. That might be problematic if Matt and I adopted. I mean you can’t in all good sense return a baby. They don’t come with receipts do they?

Of course financial reasons are keeping us at the house. Matt just bought a pretty new car that has a pretty monthly payment and an increased insurance costs. He got a Hyundai Elantra 2008, his first brand spanking new car. It’s super cute and is a charcoal gray. Yes. I’m jealous. But I still have love for my Honda (which just passed the 100k mile mark!) I did 55k of that since October of 2005!

I also got us a pretty new thing too.. a freaking sweet 42″ LCD HDTV with Wifi & LAN connections along with a bevy of input jacks on the back. It’s pretty obscene in our bedroom. I’m thinking the living room might be a better setup at a later date. For now having it in the bedroom hooked up to my newly finished HTPC makes me really happy. I’m thinking Photoshop @ 42 inches is just gonna be friggin awesome!

On the school front, I’m still behind. Taking 3 classes was just a bad idea. With all the Kim dying and recently and completely unexpected near death of Matt’s dad (getting better now), school just took a backseat. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t gotten some really cool stuff done in at least my photography class. My desktop that I made all crispy the day after Kim’s death is finally back and running so I can finally scan some of my work and share it with you via my Flickr account. Expect some of that later this week. For now it’s off to work tasks!

 Also as a side note: Due to all the insanity in my home life and the setbacks it caused in school I can’t justify a trip down to Austin for my Faux Bday so expect a cancellation notice soon. I’ve gotta get caught up and that is going to take all the energy I have. Perhaps I’ll just come down to get shit-faced after the semester is up? Anyone in for a “what a fucked up year” party in A-town come May?

That is the best way that I can describe the feeling of living in the house now. I feel like I’ve been in a wave pool for nearly 2 years and I’m finally getting out..but there’s that fading sensation that I’m still in the pool.

As small as Kim was in stature, she made up for it in the way that she was such a force of nature. She definitely left her impact on that house. It still feels like she might be there. Just in memories, not in a ghostly way.

Just the other morning I was going into the shower and I could swear that I smelt cigarettes from the vents. It scared me shitless. I mean, it was like they were freshly smoked. I had to tell myself, it isn’t real, my mind must be playing tricks on me as I eased myself into the shower.

It is such an odd sensation to witness death so closely. Not like in movies or on the news, to see it up close and personal. I honestly still can not get the image of her corpse sitting in the bed with her mouth open and eyes halfway open as she turned to an ashy green color.
To think at one point in time the person that lived in that body was the source of all my rage some days. The source of utter frustration. Now it’s just a shell, already beginning to rot and all you can do is just look at it in horror. Just sitting there in a bed in the room that I grew up in and with your mom off to the side staring into space as a tear travels down her face.

I never thought I’d cry when Kim finally died. But when the time came I just lost it, right after calling my uncle to tell him. The act of saying it just opened the floodgates and Matt had to hold me because I just simply lost it.

There were a few more times since her death last Thursday that I would just cry because of a memory that surfaced. It happened while brushing my teeth, while driving to work, just discussing it with someone. Grief seems to know no boundaries.

Many people say to me, well she’s in a better place now, she’s at peace. I’ve even caught myself saying it a couple of times. But in reality, I have a really hard time believing it. Simply because I have no belief in any religion. I know it’s probably sad to some to know this but I just believe that we are fertilizer in the end. We are just a part of the cycle of life on Earth and that we just happen to be able to comprehend things more so than our ape counterparts. I myself actually find comfort that we just end. That we are unique to an extent and we only come around once. That there can only be one chance to try this thing called life and no way to go back or to live on in Heaven or as a newborn baby.

We all have a chance to make an impact on this Earth, negative or positive. The best part about this is, you can make that decision to the best of your ability. Unfortunately my sister Kim left mostly a negative one, mainly on people in her life. As far as the planet is concerned she probably didn’t make a dent in the fabric of society. She only lived life for herself, never saw past the tip of her nose.

I really hope that I’m looking past the tip of my nose. I hope that when my existence on this planet ends, that I did something meaningful for someone. Not for some postmortem vanity, but that someone benefited by my actions and were able to pass those benefits in some way to another person.

So my poor mother along with breaking her leg Monday evening found out the following day that her first daughter was not going to live much longer.

Basically the entire house is now an emotional fault line. I myself have lost it more than once in the past week. When I say lost it I mean, just utterly lost it, to the point of pulling the car over to the side of the road because I couldn’t see straight.

At times, every emotion is in me at once and sometimes at full force. It’s unworldly how they can control me.

My hand seems to hover over the “self-destruct button” at all times. As though I’m about to set off the nuclear bomb in the form of emotions.

Thankfully I’m starting to slowly ease away from that button and turning more towards my to-do list and my red pen. The check marks of completion are starting to stain the paper while at the same time the edges of my mouth move towards the formation of a smile.

I feel significantly better in knowing that I am living a life guided by goals and accomplishments. I know I have plenty of friends and have never purposefully attempted to sabotage those friendships.

Everything is going to be ok, no matter what happens in the near future. I will be ok.

Low and behold that would just be the start of the evening!

After finding out that Beverly’s car was overheating and that she was going to be staying overnight, I just knew it was gonna get worse. At that point I spent the standard hour with Matt trying to console and contain his rage to a tolerable level. When everything had finally calmed down a bit I was ready to finally get started on my homework (9pm). I go out to grab some ice and Beverly chimes up from the living room that my mom had fallen and hurt herself in the garage.

I go and inspect her foot and sure enough it’s swollen. I figure she just gave it a good twist so I go ahead and grab my keys and run up to the local CVS to grab some Icy/Hot sleeves to wrap around her foot and ankle. After that gets applied I think, ok I can get on my homework and then finally get some rest.

My mom proceeds to call my sister Donna to let her know that she’s done a number on her ankle and will not be able to limp around Parkland Hospital with my other sister Kim who’s dying of cancer. My mom calls me in her room and says Donna was being short with her about not going with them and I need to call her and let her know she’s not lying about it.

Sure enough Donna gives me lip too and I’m not exactly pleased but to tired at this point to get into an argument.

I’ve now officially given up on homework for the evening and just decide to wrap it up and go to bed.

**Knock Knock**, Beverly at the door, says mom wants to go to the hospital to get the leg/ankle  checked out.

FUCK!!!!

I get dressed, and for some reason mom has Beverly come up to the hospital with us?!? After sitting in a waiting room for a good hour and listening to Beverly and my mom talk about death and Kim dying and etc.. (reminder, never invite them to a dinner party if I have one, they’d totally bring it down). We are finally admitted to another room where the conversations continue and then they finally X-ray my mom’s foot. Doc comes back, it’s a fracture. Can’t walk on it for a month, here’s some crutches and a prescrip for pain pills.

We get back (1am), send an email to family explaining what happened, and also filled in Matt and he just loses crying and sobbing that he feels trapped and that he’s 25 and how the worlds ending because he’s stuck at my mom’s house,  because he knows that this means more Beverly around the house. More of her annoying hacking and smoking and just being there. I try my best to console him on my limited energy and just give up and try to sleep (somewhere around 1 or 2 am).

I get up at 6am and all I can do is just function. I head off to work and I’m progressively getting angry at the entire situation. Matt’s reaction, Donna’s reaction and the overall scope of the situation. Then I get into work and see a response to last nights email.

It’s Donna. [Quick backtrack: She's been on a anti-mom, pissed off rant about her lack of parenting, probably brought about by the fact that our sister Kim who is going to die this time from the bout of cancer.] Her response to the email was a bitchy one and that just set me off. I told my niece via IM to tell Donna to fuck off and keep her shitty ass comments to herself.

I’m so explosive today that I’ve bawled twice this morning.

I am done with my Mom and her selfishness, Kim and her cancer and Donna and her shitty attitude.

I’ve already phoned an apartment locater, Matt and I are gone in a month.

The family can take care of Mom and Kim.

see the video here

Here’s an scan of an article that my mom was included in a now defunct newspaper from 1974. (warning large image)

I would argue the real story is my mom and why she’s been a carhop at Keller’s since it opened in 1965.

Soon I’ll update this with the actual video, currently the website is being a pain and not letting me pull a copy of the video.

Here’s the video

When I’m at the pearly gates
This’ll be on my videotape
my videotape

When Mephistopheles is just beneath
And he’s reaching up to grab me

This is one for the good days
And I have it all here
In red blue green
Red blue green

You are my center when I spin away
Out of control on videotape
On videotape

This is my way of saying goodbye
Because I can’t do it face to face

No matter what happens now
I won’t be afraid
Because I know today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen.

Lately they’ve been mumbling about the budget and have yet to sign off on said mumbly budget. So in all of the waiting I’ve had ears open and heard enough to know that I’m no longer safe from the cutting board. This prompted me to have a very frank discussion with my boss about the situation and he said “prepare for the worst”.

With those glorious words planted in my head, I of course have turned the gears up there and created the Brad version of that statement… “be prepared to pack your shit”.

I’ve gained quite a lot of usable knowledge from working for this company so I won’t say it sucks. Plus with a possible month and a half warning of a pending end I can be quicker to put on the breaks to excess expenditures.  Bye bye Starbucks .

For now it’s a battle with myself to try and figure out what exactly it is I want to do for a job. It’s about time that I move forward into what I want to do for a while. What that is? I don’t know.

I’m meeting with my career councilor at UTD tomorrow to take a look at my resume and see what I can do to find that path.

My oldest sister, no matter how insanely irritating she can be with her selfish and stubborn ways is very ill. Each day she is looking as though she’s getting closer to deaths door. She’s still up and walking, talking, but she’s barely eating or sleeping. She’s rail thin and her hair is falling out. Dark circles remain under her eyes instead of going away like they used to.
I’m not blind to the reasons why she is dying of cancer. It could have been preventable. I know that even if she was able to go back in time and tell herself that if she continued on her path that she would end up ill that she would probably still do it all again.

Cancer is an evil evil thing that destroys your body in a way that your pain shows on the outside. No one should ever have to go through such a terrible thing, no matter how bad of a person you’ve been in life.

The worst part of all of this is having to watch two people suffer. Kim from the cancer and my mother from having to watch her daughter die.

She told me this morning in tears over the phone that “when your kids are sick, you’re supposed to be able to fix it”.

Life’s harsh sometimes and I know I’ll get on a happier level in time. But for now, I have to allow myself to bawl like a baby when I reflect on statements like the one my mom made this morning.

Coffee for me is either a triple or quad shot of espresso with a half squirt of chocolate syrup. It’s like having a liquefied dark espresso chocolate bars. I <3 my Starbucks for the simple fact that I only have to hold up fingers for how many shots I need. No talking, just fingers and an exchange of money. It works best that way when I’m really not awake. People generally annoy me in the mornings and when I say people, I mean Matt. j/k.

Recently in a rare instance I was awake on a visit to my local drug dealer aka Starbucks and I decided to ask for a quad shot. The barista gave me the look of shock that I would want so much and I said “today, I wanna vibrate”.

I then got into my car and proceeded to queue up and play to an extreme loudness “Ghostland Observatory’s, Vibrate” to kick off my vibration themed morning.