Believe it or not, I'm walking on air
Time for a brief update of sorts.
I am still without a job. I've done a couple interviews during the past week; one with a temp agency, and one with Games Workshop. The temp agency has already called me to inform me that the specific job they were interested in me for has been filled, but they would like to keep my resume on file just the same. Games Workshop is supposed to take a couple weeks to get back to me, so I guess I'll find out about that then. It is the only job interview I am ever liable to go to in which they give you a miniature to paint on the spot as part of their testing process.
I brought some things I had painted in with me, only part of which they wanted to see, which was good. The night before, I was told to bring in 4 or 5 painted figures for their perusal, where previous to that I had been told a couple. This led to some decisions on additional models I would not otherwise have made, as I was already painting my ass off to try and produce second GW model I would be proud of. I paint models all the time, but I hadn't honestly painted a GW in ages until the night before. To fill the gap, I grabbed some of my older figures I was proud of and did some touch-up work on them. All told, I brought a big converted GW giant, a chaos knight, a heavily converted Necromunda ash waste heavy, and the also heavily converted sniper rifle guy from my vet squad, the core of which was an old school rogue trader model I was graciously given in the long-long ago. All of these models were vintage, but that one in particular was probably something in the realm of 15 years old.
As I was painting my sample space marine, a sort of dark angle with the number 13 (13!) on his shoulder pad, I got into a conversation with one of the guys who worked there. I was highlighting big-ass marine shoulder pads and he was wowing me with the new stegadon and his amazing green-bronze technique, when I casually mentioned that all the stuff I'd brought in was from older editions of the game. He said that the managers eat that stuff up, so long as it's "not like rogue trader era old." The momentary panic this put me in subsided when they only ended up looking at the Chaos knight and the giant.
The whole process was very strange. All the managers bounced back and forth between saying how great and fun the job was and how hard you have to work hard all the time. One of them dropped a line about how it's his job to make sure that we didn't get a job there, and that we had to convince him there were reasons we should. Very weird. Regardless, I'll find out more later.
And now for something completely different.
Chuck Farrall, super hero, is my man in Afghanistan. Contact with him is limited to emails, necessarily infrequent (and doubtless expensive) phone calls and, during his off hours between putting people back together, the occasional run-around in World of Warcraft, where the distance and connectivity limitations make simultaneous play sometimes frustrating and occasionally hilarious.
Chuck has been like a brother since Junior High/beginning of high school. He started out as my brother's friend. It took worming my way into my brother's circle of friends to gain access to Chuck, as well as a large portion of the group of people I am rarely without today. During high school, Chuck spent the better part of many days after school at my home, much (I suspect) to the combined chagrin and occasional delight of my mother. Some time during that time, Chuck stopped being Ryan's friend and started being my friend in my thought processes.
Chuck is all growns up now, and he's patching folks up for Uncle Sam and creepy Uncle Cheney. Truth be told, knowing Chuck, this is just the pretense the army makes him use. Chuck is patching people up for the people he is patching up, and for himself, because that's the kind of guy he is.
Bam!
That's m'boy. The text below was posted along with the image at zimbio.com. Chuck, if you bother with livejournal anymore, we love you and can't wait for you to get back. Say hi to Trapper John for me.
U.S Army medic Chuck Farrell works on an injured Afghan National army soldier in the emergency room at the combat support hospital on the U.S military forward operating base (FOB) at Camp Salerno on November 26, 2008 in Khost, Afghanistan. Camp Salerno has the only combat support hospital in the country dealing with Afghan and U.S military trauma patients injured in the volatile region of Khost and the surrounding areas along the front line near the Pakistan border.
As an addendum, the two photo sets from which I drew that image of our hero at work are posted here:
http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?src=findsimilar&assettype=Image&sfkc=Hospital%3BAfghanistan%3BKhost#
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/cxxAnEFqAMW/Frontline+Hospital+Deals+Afghan+Combat+Casualties
I am still without a job. I've done a couple interviews during the past week; one with a temp agency, and one with Games Workshop. The temp agency has already called me to inform me that the specific job they were interested in me for has been filled, but they would like to keep my resume on file just the same. Games Workshop is supposed to take a couple weeks to get back to me, so I guess I'll find out about that then. It is the only job interview I am ever liable to go to in which they give you a miniature to paint on the spot as part of their testing process.
I brought some things I had painted in with me, only part of which they wanted to see, which was good. The night before, I was told to bring in 4 or 5 painted figures for their perusal, where previous to that I had been told a couple. This led to some decisions on additional models I would not otherwise have made, as I was already painting my ass off to try and produce second GW model I would be proud of. I paint models all the time, but I hadn't honestly painted a GW in ages until the night before. To fill the gap, I grabbed some of my older figures I was proud of and did some touch-up work on them. All told, I brought a big converted GW giant, a chaos knight, a heavily converted Necromunda ash waste heavy, and the also heavily converted sniper rifle guy from my vet squad, the core of which was an old school rogue trader model I was graciously given in the long-long ago. All of these models were vintage, but that one in particular was probably something in the realm of 15 years old.
As I was painting my sample space marine, a sort of dark angle with the number 13 (13!) on his shoulder pad, I got into a conversation with one of the guys who worked there. I was highlighting big-ass marine shoulder pads and he was wowing me with the new stegadon and his amazing green-bronze technique, when I casually mentioned that all the stuff I'd brought in was from older editions of the game. He said that the managers eat that stuff up, so long as it's "not like rogue trader era old." The momentary panic this put me in subsided when they only ended up looking at the Chaos knight and the giant.
The whole process was very strange. All the managers bounced back and forth between saying how great and fun the job was and how hard you have to work hard all the time. One of them dropped a line about how it's his job to make sure that we didn't get a job there, and that we had to convince him there were reasons we should. Very weird. Regardless, I'll find out more later.
And now for something completely different.
Chuck Farrall, super hero, is my man in Afghanistan. Contact with him is limited to emails, necessarily infrequent (and doubtless expensive) phone calls and, during his off hours between putting people back together, the occasional run-around in World of Warcraft, where the distance and connectivity limitations make simultaneous play sometimes frustrating and occasionally hilarious.
Chuck has been like a brother since Junior High/beginning of high school. He started out as my brother's friend. It took worming my way into my brother's circle of friends to gain access to Chuck, as well as a large portion of the group of people I am rarely without today. During high school, Chuck spent the better part of many days after school at my home, much (I suspect) to the combined chagrin and occasional delight of my mother. Some time during that time, Chuck stopped being Ryan's friend and started being my friend in my thought processes.
Chuck is all growns up now, and he's patching folks up for Uncle Sam and creepy Uncle Cheney. Truth be told, knowing Chuck, this is just the pretense the army makes him use. Chuck is patching people up for the people he is patching up, and for himself, because that's the kind of guy he is.
Bam!
That's m'boy. The text below was posted along with the image at zimbio.com. Chuck, if you bother with livejournal anymore, we love you and can't wait for you to get back. Say hi to Trapper John for me.
U.S Army medic Chuck Farrell works on an injured Afghan National army soldier in the emergency room at the combat support hospital on the U.S military forward operating base (FOB) at Camp Salerno on November 26, 2008 in Khost, Afghanistan. Camp Salerno has the only combat support hospital in the country dealing with Afghan and U.S military trauma patients injured in the volatile region of Khost and the surrounding areas along the front line near the Pakistan border.
As an addendum, the two photo sets from which I drew that image of our hero at work are posted here:
http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?src=findsimilar&assettype=Image&sfkc=Hospital%3BAfghanistan%3BKhost#
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/cxxAnEFqAMW/Frontline+Hospital+Deals+Afghan+Combat+Casualties