I learned last month that I would not be advancing in the selection process for the FBI Investigative Specialist position.  Though I was disappointed, at first, I knew that not getting the job was just as favorable as the alternative.  It would have been an exciting position, but it was one that I stumbled upon by accident.  It was not my life’s dream, but it would have been a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Before applying, I had my education/career plan.  I still have that, so I really lost nothing by taking a chance on this opportunity.  I was lucky and honored to receive a conditional offer of employment, and being subjected to a polygraph examination by a FBI Special Agent is not something many people can claim to have experienced.  In the end, my medical history was likely too much for the agency to overlook, and I knew that going in.

I am still looking for work, and I am still pushing forward with my Master’s Degree.  In my spare time, I am doing some freelance writing, and I am trying to discipline myself to press on and complete a novel I just began writing.  I know I have started many such novels, but I am actually now beginning to believe that being a novelist is what I always should have pursued.  Now I just need to finish something to prove to myself that I can and to relieve myself of the constant, nagging “what ifs.” 

Until next time…(which, hopefully, won’t be another three months)…

I know, I know. I have been inexcusably remiss about keeping up with my regular postings. I can only offer, at this point, that the reason for my lack of presence here is truly justified. If all goes well, very few will likely ever learn the reason for my absence. If all does not go well, I will surely confess and relate my excuse.

I am still without employment. I am also fast approaching yet another semester in my graduate studies.

There are some movies I would like to discuss when I have the opportunity. Thus far, I have to say that Summer ‘09 has been relatively disappointing as far as cinema is concerned. On Friday, I am hoping to see The Hurt Locker. I will let that open my current and retroactive appraisal of the summer film season.

Anyway, it is bed time. So off I go. But not before reading a little more about the secret history of the FBI.

Star Trek today, in IMAX, at 4:00 P.M. I sold body fluids and scrounged for whatever spare change I could find to go to this, as it is among my most highly anticipated movies of the year.

I’ll try to write a review later. But don’t hold your breath.

Started yet another story. This one is called The Tower. This one I would really like to stick with and maybe write a substantial portion during my semester break, when I could bang out a considerable chunk especially if I am still not working.

Here is the beginning:

The tower appeared in the town square of Tyler Springs early on a Tuesday morning. As the whole town was either asleep or preoccupied by other endeavors, no one saw the stone edifice erected; and even after the first light of morning revealed the tower’s presence, no one would have been able to say if it had actually been built there or merely dropped upon the town square as is. However, anyone who truly believed the tower to have been built in a single evening was probably not someone upon whom one relied for accurate information.

The first one to see the tower was Melvin Driscoll, the owner and operator of the nostalgically named Mel’s Diner, which occupied approximately one thousand square feet on the southwest corner opposite the square. Still half-asleep and focused only on brewing the first pot of coffee for the day (all of which he would likely imbibe before the first patrons dragged themselves sluggishly through his door), Melvin did not see the tower or the eerie shadow it cast over his establishment beneath that month’s full moon. As soon as Mel entered the diner, turned on the lights, and locked the door behind him, the darkened morning and everything that crawled, lurked, or loped through it was lost behind the glare that shone upon the storefront glass.

However, the light in Mel’s Diner was not the first artificial light of morning in Tyler Springs’ town square. High up and through narrow slits around its stone façade, a twinkling glow, as if cast from firelight, crowned the tower and then was extinguished.

The idea was inspired by:

Although the story, which I envision as more Lovecraftian than anything, will ultimately bear little resemblance to the lyrics, the song nevertheless provided the impetus for the the story’s germination. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the inspiration provided by the new Stephen King novel yet to be released. We’ll see how it goes, especially since I am intrigued about where the tower came from and what might be lurking within.

Well, both The Wife and I are still striking out in the job department. In fact, she got turned down today for two different positions in the space of an hour. I have resumes with several different potential employers right now, but I am kind of getting my hopes up for one in particular, a document delivery and archives assistant position at Pt. Loma Nazarene University’s Ryan Library. It would be really nice if I could obtain a job that relates to the Master’s degree I am in the process of obtaining.

(Who am I fooling? Almost any job would be welcome at this point.)

Financially, things are really starting to become tense as the well dries up. Something really has to happen soon – the summer film season is nearly upon us. At least The Wife has another lead through an employment agency. Now, if I could just pick the winning Lotto numbers…

I’m not an unconditional fan of Quentin Tarantino, but I have enjoyed his films more than I have not (and in the spirit of full disclosure, I have not seen all of them anyway – Jackie Brown is the only one that immediately comes to mind, however). I enjoyed Grindhouse (though I preferred Robert Rodriguez’s over-the-top zombie segment, Planet Terror, more than I did Tarantino’s Death Proof). Yet, I have been reading about Inglourious Basterds for some time, and I have to say that I am looking forward to this one. Here are the first clips I have seen of the movie:

Yeah, I’ll be there August 21, 2009.

Seems each day brings a new story idea. Now I am toying with a story entitled Strange Luck, which is about a guy who loses his job, his fiance, and his will to live before meeting a mysterious woman in a bar. She slips something into his pocket, is kidnapped by MIB types, and taken to a research facility that subsequently burns down before his eyes. When our protagonist discovers the item this mysterious woman left him, a connection to his fiance is revealed. As our protagonist ventures further in his investigation, he discovers more about the disturbing web in which he seems to be ensnared, and all is not as it seems.

Though his work, in my opinion, is not as consistent as it was in the past, any forthcoming Stephen King novel is still a cause of relative excitement on my part. What follows is the jacket synopsis for the new novel Under the Dome, as revealed on the Official Stephen King Website:

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.

From what I had initially read about this novel, I thought King had returned to a previously aborted novel, The Cannibals, which I believed to have been a story about, well, cannibalism taking place among the dwellers in an apartment building. However, it would seem that Under the Dome is, in fact, an entirely new story. Can’t wait.

For the Internet Tools and Technology course I am taking, we had to create our very own Wiki. Here is mine. Right now, I will probably continue to build this little by little to represent my own personal tastes, but ultimately it would be exciting if others would add their own entries on authors and works they enjoy.

Not much doing today. I put down some notes for a new story that I am describing as H.P. Lovecraft meets Independence Day meets Dawn of the Dead. Through the story will run themes that have begun to interest me as I have re-discovered works by William Peter Blatty, namely the question of good vs. evil and whether or not there exists a God who can allow such evil to exist in this world.

Also, I am excited as tonight marks the return of Fringe. I love that show, and I can’t wait to pick it up on DVD when it is ultimately released.

Now, I am off to tutor the nephew in math…