Torn between two lovers, feelin' like a fool

So that job the recruiter contacted me for last week. They told me they'd be in contact Monday with news. Monday came and went without news, and I felt myself sunk again. When Tuesday started without news I e-mailed to ask. They said there just wasn't news. The employer --- the state of Michigan, it turns out --- was just being slow, as is sometimes their wont, and they'll pass word on when there is word to pass. They could say that my application had made the initial cut, at least.

And then things got weird. Remember how this started out with two recruiters from, it turns out, the same agency trying to place me? A recruiter, this time from a different agency, contacted me because he thought he had a place for me. One with the state of Michigan. One that sure looked like the same job, thanks to some identifying details such as it being Geographic Information Services-related, and being two-days in-office, and for a 12-month contract renewable or convertible to full-time state-government work. I tried several times to nail down whether this was in fact the same position; I'd already given the first recruiters permission to represent me for that job. But they were sure it wasn't the same job. So, now I apparently have two placement agencies trying to put me into GIS jobs with the state of Michigan.

Knowing nothing more detailed about these jobs I do hope for the first; it's offering a higher pay rate. I would not be sad to get either, understand; I'm not going to quibble over a difference of only $16,000 per year. Also, I realize, it feels bizarre to be writing off $16,000 per year as no great loss, when I know just how much more secure I would feel if I had $16,000 more right now.

This has all been a nerve-wracking process, not least because I keep getting e-mails and phone calls and all this stuff that looks like activity about these job possibilities. I'm so, so hoping one of them turns into a job actuality.

A little bit more walking around as the Pinball At The Zoo tournament resolved.

Although they still had Quicksilver set up I didn't feel comfortable playing it.

Quicksilver is the meltiest pinball game apart from Silverball Mania, though.

Every pinball tournament is allowed to have its own custom rules, there to fit local needs. Note the lower page is pretty much meant for AJG (who wasn't at the tournament), who has some supernatural ability to discover crazypants bugs in the code of pinball machines so that what's normally a target good for 50 points becomes one good for 16 quintillion points.

Trivia: In 1931 C W Glover designed an elevated airport for the area of King's Cross in London; it would have had the form of a giant wheel, supported by the roofs of the tallest buildings. Source: Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World's Most Revolutionary Structure, Alastair Gordon. (It does seem now and then like architects decide they're going to see who can design the best airport disaster movie, doesn't it?)

Currently Reading: Finding Fibonacci: The Quest to Rediscover the Forgotten Mathematical Genius Who Changed The World, Keith Devlin.