The Impossible Dream, Accomplished

Update:  I replaced the screen print of some other person's victory with a photo I took of my screen when I won.  That is actually a photo of my monitor, because I could not capture the screen image.  Umm, yay!  I have not played the game even once since -- went out on top.

I was not able to take a picture of the final screen, so this picture is someone else's*, but I won, finally beat Zuma's Revenge Iron Frog mode.  It took me 503 tries and over 110 hours just on Iron Frog, plus over 50 hours on other Zuma's Revenge modes.

This game is really hard, and it takes a lot of patience to sit and play game after game after game, knowing that your chances of winning are tiny, just trying to improve a little over time.  I have been playing a few games almost every day for the past several months, and more than a few some days.  But because it is so hard to beat, it was really a great feeling to finally win.  You really have to dedicate yourself to something this difficult in order to make it happen.

Which led me to have a little chat with Jarrod about how nice it might be to dedicate yourself to something actually useful with the same kind of enthusiasm.  Imagine what you could achieve.

And then I told him, "Naahhh."

But seriously.  The most important thing I could do for myself right now would be to lose weight, lots of it.  What if I pursued that with the same kind of intensity I used to pursue Iron Frog?  I wonder what that would be like?

*  [Hah!  Not anymore!]  My time was over 28 minutes, so this woman beat me by less than one minute.  I think that I will let her keep her little victory.  And, by the way, the picture is from her blog, exulting that she finally beat Iron Frog after months of playing.

Unemployment Chronicles: Moving in a Good Direction

I started working at City University May 9. My last official day at Farmers was July 31, but my last day of work was March 9, 2012 (a day that will live in infamy...), so that makes a nice even 14 months between Farmers and City University.  During those 14 months, I worked 3.5 months, which is a nice even 25% of the possible time I could have spent working.  If I had worked something like 75% of the time, I might still be considering contract work as an ongoing occupation, but because of the 25%, contract work has become a means to an end -- the end being a permanent job -- and a better-but-not-great alternative to being unemployed all the time.

By the way, I couldn't find an interesting picture that related directly to this post, so that's a picture of the Fremont (the Seattle neighborhood, not the California town) Troll.

The good news is that City University stands a reasonable chance of providing that permanent job.  I have talked seriously about it with my would-be boss, although there is no position open yet and nothing is certain.  Still, positive signs so far.

If I do get something, I will have to deal with the long commute.  My strategy would be to start early, finish by 4:30, and be home before 6:00.  I find it is less disruptive to get up (and go to bed) early than it is to come home late.  City U. will pay for a bus pass, so it wouldn't cost too much.  Otherwise, the work seems about right, and the boss likes me so far.  If they can afford my salary, the benefits are pretty good:  they pay 100% of medical, dental, and vision for employees, and they have 15 holidays (including the whole last week of the year) and 20 PTO days.  Not bad.

Meanwhile, I am at work for the foreseeable future, with a chance for something more.