Late starts on sundays are godsend, ironically. Roamed around the township, dabbling between the heights and some other town that obviously wasn't nice enough to welcome or bid you farewell as you entered and left. I'm passing the Ford HQ, and it's gleaming in the high-noon sunlight with all of it's assorted blue hues...and that's when i see Red. Red Robin. They say gourmet hamburgers; i say "give it." Of course, i paid--carried out, because lunching alone feels less awkward at home than doing so in a room full of strangers. Anyway, only a few minutes from getting home, the remnants of my burger and fries lay slain in their to-go box as i sort through my teeth with a sliver of wood compliments of the good folks at Red Robin. The Nadal-Keifer Wimbledon match is keeping me entertained in 1080i, and i'm feeling good. After a Spielberg-esque, unnecessarily drawn out ending to the match, i feel a wave of contentedness (see sleep) overcome me. "Oh no, the itis." I accept my afternoon's fate: I'm not going anywhere but to sleep. The USGA is now broadcasting an ever-exciting round of ladies' golf AND there's a rain storm brewing? This is the perfect napping material.

So i go. So i slumber. So i sleep.

[cut to 3 hours later]

I'm awakened. I'm up. I'm feeling good.

Had to scrape myself out of nap mode because i was going to see Wanted, starring Angelina Jolie, Common, Morgan Freeman. An afternoon flick with friends is a good way to end a weekend. If you're looking for a brief review:

Action Sequences: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Story/Plot: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Character Development: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
---
Overall: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Certainly an entertaining movie with plenty of action and "WTF" moments to keep you applauding the effects. Don't scrutinize the explanations of "why" too much or you'll get frustrated. If you're looking for a serious picture, go see Trumbull or something.

Finally, the group capped the night off with a table for 10 at TGI Fridays. $14.00 Appetizers? I'll pass tonight, the Red Robin prevails over any inclination toward hunger i might have had.

Red Robin Was a Good Choice.

The atmosphere doesn't feel the same as one year ago. I haven't confirmed quite what it is. There are a lot of lofty factors to toss into the equation--as they fall with respect to me; geography, context, sentiment, personal experience, even the memory of last year clouds the present. I feel like i'm suffering the after-effects of some awful drug trip that was supposed to be paradisaical. So perhaps last year started just as slowly. The social crawl began only as a twitch. The twitch became a jerk, and that jerk landed me in the crawl. I loved every second of the social struggle. Here, now, the climate is dreary at best. I'm convinced it's the economic downturn (plus a few noise factors not-so-directly related hereto). As you may have seen from my previous post, i just started life as a temporary worker bee at Ford Motor Company, or FoMoCo. as stamped on their blocks, which i think is awesome simply because that's what i'd already been saying in my head.

Anyway, Ford, GM, Chrysler...The Big Three, are falling..trough-ing like never before. The climate for an intern is gloomy at best. Interning in years passed, you get the same phrase (said many ways) from your seasoned, full-time counterparts: "Learn how things work here so you can be ready to hit the ground running when you work full time here." Not if. With all due deference to FoMoCo, and doing my best to avoid making disparaging remarks about them; the phrase here is: "Help us out, but don't get comfortable." I wasn't going to comment about this at all but given the latest deeper step into the trough, Ford has made it impossible for an intern to make grandiose future plans with them. At all. But ugh..this is all so very half-baked on my end. I'm getting everything i want, but the timing is just poor. I know i didn't end up where i originally wanted to go with this, and i feel like i cheated myself out of some stream-of-consciousness revelation. That's blogging for ya. For your trouble, above is a photo i took last year (when it was both figuratively and literally SUNNY in my interning career).

Labels: "big three", confusion, ford, internship, sadness

1st Day Schwag!
Originally uploaded by optikal.

Check out my flickr for the blurb. Today I started working for Ford Motor Company.

Ford 2008 Home
Originally uploaded by optikal.

The months of June through August will be brought to you (and to me) by Ford Motor Company. I will be working within the product development division under the V-Engine Engineering group. Any further explanation may lead to severe occurrences of boredom for the reader. But i'm extremely excited to get started June 2nd. I arrived early in order to have time to explore the city of Detroit and become accustomed to my house and the general area. This is a video of my house (the address of which would be foolish to post on the interweb). Just a quick walk-through from the [side] door to my room. Please to enjoyings?

Ex-Creations; but LIVE!!!
Originally uploaded by optikal.

So, let me see if i can put this all together succinctly.

The Fall of Troy; The End of School; The Epic Drive

Good, there we are. So....the past few days have been incredible.

Friday: 8:00am wake-up, shoved some things in the car and carted them up to the storage unit. The school year is up and that means it's time to put as much physical distance between Tuskegee, AL and myself as humanly possible, as quickly as possible. A couple more hours of packing my entire life in the Civic and i was ready to buzz off to the North. NOT before seeing The Fall of Troy in Atlanta with my roommate, however.

Friday night: 6:00pm arrival--let's not worry about why it took so long to get to ATL...things come up, time changes, quantum leaps, etc etc. So pick up the tickets, head to his house to drop off some stuff and hustle downtown. We arrived a little tardy, but things were still slow at the venue.. Foxy Shazam was just about to wrap up. And The Dear Hunter was just about to come on. They set-up, played a few (GREAT) songs, and broke down. Then..the rest of the night is explained in the video above.

Saturday: 7:45am wake up. Quick wash and a hearty goodbye to the roomie then it was time for the drive...THE drive. I hit the road solidly by 9 after fueling and such. So much driving.. first stop was in Tennessee..got some pizza. Second, somewhere in Ohio..POPEYES! Third was in western NY, then shortly after that, Rochester, NY. Usually the trip is broken down into 2 days, with a stop over in Lexington, KY. But..the adrenaline from the concert the night before, great gas mileage, and the excitement of being home in record time kept me going.

Sunday: 8:00am wake-up. Mother's day spent with the family.. recovering from the drive..and fixing everyone's gadgetry that "wont connect" or "doesn't work." :sigh:

Total estimated travel time (including stops): 14 hours 35 min

I'd like to thank the following:
-whoever invented Pizza
-whoever decided to bottle Mocha Frappuccinos so i can purchase them in bulk
-water
-Exxon Mobil
-my iPod