Life is like a balloon race....

...because everything's up in the air.

So, company #2 is in the "we've passed things on to the hiring manager, they will call you" stage of the game. Chris has been dealing with company #2 for years in the retail hobby business, and has never been overly impressed with their customer service. It seems their general & administrative service ain't all that much better.

In the meantime, the HR contact at Company #1 (his first choice) called back on Monday, with a "no news - it's just too bad you couldn't be here in Champaign for our Job Fair this Thursday night..." message. And of course, ol' "WTF Steve" said to Chris, "Well, why the hell not?..." (Guess that would be "WTH not?"...)

So the itinerary is...

• Leave Wednesday night, about 7 PM, get to Champaign about 1 AM
• Crash until 8; Steve gets up and signs in to work from the hotel
• Do the late checkout thing; Chris gets his stuff ready to go
• Steve signs in from Panera Bread (talk about the joys of telecommuting); Chris goes looking at potential housing
  
• Chris goes to the Job Fair from 5 - 7
• Once he gets done with he needs to do, Chris picks Steve up, and we roll on "eastbound and down," as Smokey and the Bandit would say
  
• Back in Toledo about 2 AM Friday

Total cost - about $200. Insanity factor, medium-high. But it's worth 30 hours of insanity to get an idea whether to go now, or wait out the winter and go next spring. I figure that all told, the move would be about $1,500 - truck, gas, deposit on a new place and utilities, etc. And at least meeting people face-to-face can't hurt in the recruiting process...

So I'm loading up the iPod with dance and "rollin' down the highway" music, and gathering my mobile computing needs, and printing off maps. Nothing like spontaneity, eh?

Prayers, as always, are appreciated.