When We Last Saw Our Hero…

I noticed this morning that it has been a week since my last feeble blog entry so I feel obligated to churn out another for the five of you routinely reading.

First, the obligatory update.

I still don’t have a job. Retail Store #1 never called. Retail Store #2 conducted a second interview with me on Monday and claimed I’d hear something by Friday. Considering that Store #2 has been the epitome of disorganization from the moment I turned in my app, I am not holding my breath for a call by Friday. Retail Store #3 never called.

In the interim I’ve applied for a few other IT jobs and a couple of administrative jobs. Those folks haven’t called either. My father got me a phone number for another IT contact and I will call him today, though I hate the cold call routine, he works for a company I’m more than a little interested in so I’ll suck it up and do it.

Tanya starts her job at a pre-school on Monday. She’ll be working something like 9 to 2 or 3 depending on how things go, with possibility of going full time if she chooses. Meanwhile, she checks the mail multiple times a day in hopes that her scores from the civil service exam will arrive.

Enough of that, on with the other stuff.

For the second time this year I wish more than anything that I still had a bike. In an effort to get out of the apartment and not spend a lot of money I’ve started a campaign to explore the Columbus Metro Parks. There are 14 Metro Parks in a seven county area, seven of which are within a reasonable drive from here for a few hours recreation.

Armed with my GPS I’ve made a few cache discoveries, including one very tough hide right here in our neighborhood cemetery. On Tuesday I more or less fell over a portion of Three Creeks Park, and that is why I wish I had a bike again.

This park is amazing. I’m sure I’ll take pictures soon. I walked a good four miles of trail before finding a sign that explained all of the routes and let me know that there were more than 19 miles of paved and packed pathways throughout. This park system is essentially a merging of three Metro parks built around three major creeks (duh) that the Columbus Recreation and Parks division and the Metro Parks association have conspired together to connect and transform. It is truly a thing of beauty.

Considering that the first park I found–one right around the corner from our apartment–was an absolute sty, I was relieved and maybe a bit overly enthusiastic to find one that was actually clean and well maintained. One that didn’t feature a few too many middle-aged white guys sitting alone in parked cars.

So, parks and geocaching has taken up much of my time this week. And I also found and joined the public library. Our local branch is nice enough and I made a few visits, but then I’d exhausted the list of things I wanted to read that were in stock so I turned to their online catalogue and discovered some of my titles were available at other branches. So sure, I could have reserved them and had them shipped to Reynoldsburg, but it’s not like I had anything else to do.

So apparently I’m also exploring branches of the public library. The Worthington Library was gorgeous. I couldn’t find any obvious plaques or signs about the building but it is clearly housed in an old church. As such, the interior and exterior includes dozens of brick arches–like a small-scale cathedral and with lots of natural light. Neat, neat building.

Once I’ve sacked these four books I’ll check out another branch. Perhaps the one on Karl Road.

In all of this, I’ve only gotten slightly lost once and am learning my way around town fairly well.

This weekend we head to my parent’s for that big festival my hometown is so proud of. Ya’ll know the one.