Well, I'm back. I'll say right up front that I still have no idea whether I got the job, and I won't know for sure until at *least* Monday. So those of you who are too busy to read the rest of this message, you can stop now, as that is the only real bit of news that is contained herein. For those of you who want to hear alll about my trip, read on.

It was a long two days. I was up late Wednesday night having an extremely interesting conversation/argument on RinkChat, and didn't get to bed until almost 3am. I had to get up at 6am in order to make it to work by 7, because my flight left at 6:00 and I wanted to get there in plenty of time (I'm paranoid about missing flights, so if I have a flight scheduled for 6, I like to get there by 4:30--and, for once paranoia seems to be paying off, as I haven't missed a flight yet *knocks on wood*). I also didn't want to take any time off from work, as I was already taking Friday off and I didn't want anyone getting suspicious (only one person where I work now knows that I might be leaving soon, and I only told him because I wanted to find out what I'd get back if I left--if I'd get paid for my built-up vacation time, if I'd be able to take my retirement money and transfer it to my new company's retirement plan, etc.)

So I got out of work at 3:30, and headed over to the mall. You see, I'd been busy this week, and I hadn't had time to get any of the things I'd need for my interview, such as a nice shirt, nice shoes, and a tie. Pretty much all I had were some pants that didn't have a stains on them, and that alone wasn't going to cut it.

My first stop was Payless, where I bought some semi-nice shoes (odds these shoes will give me blisters: 3 to 1) and some black socks. Then to JC Penney, where I bought a nice white shirt and a tie (odds this shirt won't fit: 5 to 1) I then rushed down to the airport.

I had dinner at the airport Pizza Hut (odds I got ripped off buying food in an airport: EVEN), then proceeded to my gate. I had an electronic ticket, so I checked in and waited. Suddenly, I remembered that I had totally neglected to tell my family that I was about to travel approximately 2500 miles away, so I went to a payphone and called my mother (odds my mom was a little ticked that I neglected to tell her what I was doing until I was actually sitting at the gate waiting for my plane: 2 to 1). We talked for a bit, she wished me luck, and then I continued to wait for my plane.

When the plane showed up, I suddenly had an epiphany--we were on the ground floor. That can only mean one thing, and sure enough, when the plane taxied up, I saw that I was going to be expeced to get on one of those little propeller driven cars-with-wings (This particular model was a Saab 370, I believe).

Now, in the best of circumstances I don't like to fly. I'm not afraid of it so much as I am just extremely dubious of the whole idea. I know all about aerodynamics and lift and wingshape and all of that, but when you get right down to it, it really seems to me a little odd to get on a vehichle weighing approximately three zillion pounds and expect it to gracefully fly into the air like a bird. At least with jet engines, I can reason in my head that those babies are powerful enough to push this hunk of metal into the air--but a propeller? No way.

But, since this was a pretty important trip, I got on the plane without comment (odds I will die on this vehicle: 700,000 to 1) and took my seat. However, the flight attendent ordered me to sit back two more seats, so the plane would be balanced. Now that is just something I never want to hear again. She might as well have said "Move, you fat retard, you're too heavy to sit there!" Besides the fact that it made me feel bad, it made me wonder "Wait a minute--this plane outweighs me by about forty thousand pounds or so, and yet me sitting in this seat and not the seat two rows back is going to cause unbalancing problems??" Needless to say, I wasn't feeling so good about this flight.

When I get nervous on a plane, the first thing I do is look at the flight attendants. I see them, and say "Those people do this for a living--they fly all day long, some of them probably have thousands of flights logged already, and they're all still here. What are the odds of them dieing right now, with little old me?" (Odds of them dieing right now, with little old me: 700,000 to 1.)

When you come right down to it, it's not flying that I dislike. Flying is *awesome*. It's the takeoffs and landings I hate. So as we are taxing to the runway, go through my pre-flight ritual, which involves praying to every god I've ever even heard of, and some that I made up myself just that morning specifically for this occaision (I like to cover all my bases) and sitting bolt upright in my seat with my hands gripping my armrests tightly (Odds that someday I will break an airline armrest with my pre-flight grip: 50 to 1.)

I like the reassuring roar of a jet engine as it throttles up for takeoff. It is a powerful sound, one that says to me "Don't worry about a thing, me and my buddy on the other wing are going to shoot this puppy into the air so quickly you won't have time to think about all the reasons why we shouldn't be able to do it."

A propeller, on the other hand, does not sound so reassuring as it throttles up. It sounds like a lawnmower on crack. It says to me "Ahh! Look at all that long grass on the side of the runway! I must CUT IT!"

Our skillful pilot, however, managed to get the world's largest lawnmower into the air despite the screams of the engines to the contrary ("No! No, we're going the wrong way, the grass is DOWN THERE!")

For all of my fretting, our flight turned out to be pretty uneventful, and I read my Solaris Administrator's book most of the way. We landed on time at Laguardia, and I proceeded to my connecting gate for my flight to Chicago. It was then that I discovered the public Internet terminals there, and actually managed to chat with a few of you while I was sitting in the airport. I left the terminal when I heard the announcement that the plane for my flight was at the gate, expecting that the previous passengers would disembark and the rest of us could get on fairly quickly.

That's not what happened, though. There were TV cameras surrounding my gate, and there were a few guys with suits standing around as well. The passengers were disembarking, and slowly the flow of people from the jetway slowed to a halt--and yet, still the camera people were there, waiting for something.

Maybe Grace or some other Rinkworksian from NY can tell me exactly what was going on (maybe it's a national story and I just don't follow the news closely enough) but after about 20 minutes of nobody coming off the plane, they finally wheeled this littler girl in a wheelchair up the ramp, and all the lights on all the cameras went on and there was a big commotion. The guys in the suits stood next to the girl and said a few words, which were something to the extent that this girl was here for an operation that would help her walk again, or something like that. *This* went on for probably fifteen more minutes, with me thinking the whole time "Why the heck don't they MOVE HER over in front of that other gate, where there is no flight scheduled for an hour and a half, so that those of us who are trying to board *this* plane can do so??" But they didn't do that, they stood right in front of the gate and had their little press meeting. Finally, they moved out of the way, and there was this mad rush to board. The flight attendants fairly pushed us down the jetway like they ram people into the subways in Japan, and after a rather hasty saftey demonstration we were airborne. They gave us some line about how there were computer problems in Dulles that made them late (which, I later found out, were true) but mentioned nothing about the little girl.

About ten minutes before we were supposed to land, I called the flight attendant and asked her about my connecting flight to Denver. It was supposed to leave at 10:20, and we were scheduled to be on the ground at 10:05 with the delays. She pointed out where the gate of my connecting flight was on the airport map. It turned out we were coming in to gate B2, and my next flight left from gate C32. Oh yay. She said she'd call customer service, but her main advice to me was "maybe if you hurry..." Thanks lady.

I should probably say now that O'hare airport is probably my least favorite airport to fly into from the east. If you've never done it, you probably don't know why, but if you *have* done it, you are shaking your head in agreement. The plane comes in over Lake Michigan, and there is something about the wind patterns over the lake that make the plane rock and roll all the way down to the runway. The very first time I ever flew was a flight from Boston to Chicago, with a connecting flight to LA. By the time I landed in Chicago, I was almost convinced that I was just going to stay right there and take a train home. That first time was the worst so far, but just about every time I've flown into Chicago from the east, I've wondered whether we were landing or crashing. This time was no different, as the plane rolled along it's long axis seemingly all the way down, so that I alternately saw views of city lights, black sky, and black water out of the window (It was worse that first time, because it was in the day, and I was actually in a window seat. All I could see out the window was "sky, city, water, city, sky, city, water, city, sky, city, water, city, sky, airport, water, airport, water, airport, runway, BUMP!")

Finally, however, we were on the ground, and, as always happens, everybody on the plane was into the aisle before me. I think everyone else on a plane knows where that "teleport to aisle" button is on the seat except me, because no matter if I've got my hand on my seatbelt and I'm halfway out of my seat already when the plane stops, I'm *still* the last into the aisle.

It was 10:12 when I finally got off the plane, and I had to run approximately thirty miles through the largest airport in the world to make it to my next gate by 10:20. Yeah, sure. I alternated between running and walking quickly, as my fat body was not about to let me run the whole way without some major limb falling off. I made it though, because they held the plane for me for a few minutes, thankfully. The flight from Chicago to Denver was pretty uneventful (Dave winks slyly at Mousie) and I was in Denver and in my hotel room at approximately 12:30 AM local time.

I tried on my new shirt, to make sure everything was going to be ok for tomorrow. It turns out that the last time I bought a dress shirt, I had a 17 inch neck. Now, I apparently have an 18 inch neck, because I could not for the life of me button the collar up. The rest of the shirt fit well, but there was no way the neck was going to get buttoned.

There being nothing I could do about it at that hour, I just put everything out for the next morning and went to bed. When I got up, I again tried to put the shirt on, hopeing maybe I'd lost weight overnight, or something. No deal. So I frantically searched for a solution. I tried to use the pins that came with the shirt to hold the collar closed, but all I managed to do with those was stick myself in the neck. Finally, I opened the closet door, and in the closet was an ironing board. Attached to the ironing board was some string (Maybe somebody out there who irons more than I do knows what that string is for). I cut some off with my knife and looped one end around my collar button, threaded the other through the buttonhole, and pulled them together as far as they would go. Then I tired the loose end back around the button, and voila! You almost couldn't tell my collar was being held together by string after I put my tie on. (Odds one of my interviewers would notice and point out the string holding my collar closed: 7 to 1.)

I made it to the first location in good shape, and waited for my first interview. I interviewed first with the Director of the main campus of Level 3. He asked me all the standard "Describe yourself in one word," "Where do you see yourself in five years, "Why should we hire you," "What are you strengts/weaknesses" questions, plus a few technical questions that I felt were pretty silly to be asking an SA (He asked me to describe the contents of a TCP header packet--which is more a question for a network engineer or maybe a software engineer than a system administrator.) But all in all I felt that interview went well. I asked a couple of business related questions to show interest in the company, then went on to my next interview, which was with the head honcho of the IT department. He asked me some much more pertinent technical questions, and I feel like I answered them all satisfactorily. I actually felt that of the seven interviews I had, that one went the best, which I hope helps, seeing as he is the head of the IT department and all.

Then I had to drive over to the new campus that their building about ten miles down the road (which will become their new world headquarters eventually) and again started the interviews with the head of that facility. That, unfortunately, seemed to be the worst interview of the day, as the guy just kind of creeped me out and didn't even seem to be listening to the answers I was giving. I really fumbled some questions by not being able to find the words I wanted to use, but I'm still not sure the guy was even paying attention to me anyway. He didn't seem to really understand the technical issues I talked about, anyway, as his eyes glazed over when I started talking about technical stuff.

Anyway, my next "interview" wasn't really an interview, it was just a meeting with a guy from HR, who told me all about the benefits package I could expect if hired at Level 3. It was this guy, though, that noticed and mentioned the string around my collar ;-)

Next up was a lunchtime "interview" with the manager and the team I would be working with if hired. I got to see Eric, my old boss again, and we all went to lunch. This wasn't really an interview, as I'd already done a phone interview with these people, so we just had a nice lunch and made small talk.

Finally, I interviewed with another manager (a peer to the one I would be working for) and that went well too. He didn't ask me any technical questions, we just talked about stuff and I asked him a few questions about this and that. It seemed to go well.

Then, I was finally able to take off my tie as I was done trying to impress people, and Eric took me on a short tour of the facilities. We saw the data center where all of their computers are stored (WOW!) and then we went into the Network Operations Center (Double WOW!). The NOC was incrediable--it was just like that room from the moview Wargames. They had huge screens on the wall monitoring their network in real time, and dozens of people working at terminals around the room. Amazing.

From there I drove my rental car back to the airport for my flight home. Only one connector this time, in Chicago. There was this really cute red-haired flight attendant on my flight from Chicago to Manchester, and I used my best pickup line on her--the one where I sit silently and stare as she passes by--but had no luck. Oh well.

At the end of the flight into Manchester, the captain turned on the "Fasten Seatbelt" sign as we prepared for landing--and immediately, this woman in front of me who had not moved a muscle all flight jumped to her feat and went to the bathroom. Sheesh, we're going to be on the ground in 15 minutes, can't you hold it just a little longer? Also, when we touched down, the flight crew thanked us for flying United and then thanked us for keeping them awake on this late flight.

...

What?? Flying a million dollar aircraft containing hundreds of human lives through the dark of night isn't enough to keep you awake? You need us to snore and stuff too, or something? Yeesh.

I got into Manchester a little after midnight, and drove home (Odds of me dieing in this vehichle, 800 to 1). A few of you saw me in the chatroom last night, and I wasn't very forthcoming with my story, but I promised to post a full disclosure to the forum today. And I guess I just have.

Does anybody else think that "Adventures with Dave", in which I would chronical my humorous exploits, would make a good RinkWorks featurette?