communication breakdown

Miracle on Turf

I think that to say I had an eventful weekend would be an understatement. I flew down to Atlanta this past weekend to attend the Georgia Tech Career Fair and help recruit for my company. The Fair wasn't until Monday, but it just so happened that the GT football team was playing an away game at Clemson, roughly a 2-hour drive from ATL. Let's think about this: do I fly in the day before the Fair, spend all of the next day recruiting, only to hop on a plane that night? Or do I fly in a few days early, catch a football game, have time to spend with friends, and just relax for a bit? Tough call...

So I flew in Friday night, just in time to head over to a few of my friends' apartment and chill for awhile while watching the Miami-FSU game. I refuse to discuss the game, nor mention it ever again outside of this paragraph. Let's just say that I spent all of my pre-college years establishing a blood loyalty to Florida State, and some of that loyalty remains to this day. That game was a disgrace that should be wiped from the annals of college football history. Remember Nicholas Cage in "Gone In Sixty Seconds", and how there was one car in the world that he couldn't steal, no matter how hard he tried? Kinda reminds me of Bobby Bowden and beating Miami...

Anyways, regardless of the outcome, we had fun just chilling and acting all crazy. We even tried pulling out the old Atari and starting up some real competition over Warlords (a 4-person pong-like game), but one of the A/V connectors blew out after about 5 minutes. Oh well. Anyways, I got about 5 hours of sleep that night - just enough to wake up in time to begin the trek up to Clemson. We got there about noon, which left a measly 8 hours to tailgate. Needless to say, it was amazing. All of the essential elements were there - beer, the grill, footballs/frisbees, college football on the radio, and of course, drunk Clemson fans looking to start a fight. Luckily nothing too serious happened, and for the most part it was a great time. We headed down to the stadium about an hour early to get ready for game time.

Then, there was the game. It was nothing short of amazing. For those who don't know, GT won 28-24 in a thriller, with a frenzied streak of scoring by both teams in the last few minutes of the game. Down by 10 with about 2 minutes to go, Tech scored, then forced Clemson to kick. In what will undoubtedly be the worst moment in some poor schmuck's life, the long snapper muffed the snap and the punter couldn't kick. Tech recovered deep in Clemson territory and scored again to take the lead. Clemson was able to run the kickoff back deep into Tech territory with only seconds remaining, but their one shot at the end zone came up short - game Tech. Some would call it an upset, but I know better. I can safely say it was the best last-minute comeback I've ever seen. In fact, only two games rival it, both of which I've seen in person:

1. 1998 Homecoming, GT beats Virginia 41-38. 17 unanswered points (the only scoring in the 4th quarter) by Joe Hamilton and Co. seal the deal. Fans (including me) rush the field, tear down the goalposts, drop them on the lawn of the school President's house, and start cutting them up into pieces. Unbelievable.

2. 1999, GT beats UGA 51-48 (OT). Jasper Sanks and "The Fumble", allowing GT to escape defeat and win in OT. God had us destined to win this game - only possible explanation there is.

Needless to say, at the end we were going positively hysterical in the stands - 99% of Death Valley was dead quiet (pun intended), while those of us in the nosebleeds were jumping around like madmen, falling over one another, hugging random strangers, and in general feeling euphoric. We left the stadium singing GT cheers and screaming our lungs out. All of this in the opposing stadium, with thousands of fans around us shell-shocked and drowning in their despair. Pain, suffering, emotional torture of your enemies - these are what make college football so great.

(oh, and for the record, they should have kicked the field goal. I'm sure some of you know what I mean...)

We drove back that night and didn't get home until about 4 AM, which left me approximately 4 hours of sleep before church in the morning. Sunday was basically all about R&R - football, hanging out with friends, etc. Just what I needed before the long day ahead of me. I only got about 6 hours of sleep Sunday night - I mention all of this about sleep because I'm shocked that I was even able to wake up for the Career Fair, let alone perform appropriately, given the sleep deprivation to which I submitted myself. The body can do amazing things under duress.

So Monday was the Career Fair, and it was quite an experience from the other side. There were plenty of good candidates there, and it was fun to talk to graduates, hear what they're looking to do, and trying to sell Medtronic to them. It was a long day (9:30 - 4:00) of non-stop talking with candidates, but honestly I wasn't as completely exhausted as I thought I would be at the end of the day. I definitely feel that I was able to better relate to the CS majors who stopped by, since that is my own background. It was much harder to discuss details with someone like a bioengineering doctorate student looking for research opportunities. But I think the Fair was successful.

One other thing of note happened this weekend. On Sunday, I was visiting with a friend when I got an unidentified call. It turned out to be my former boss who I worked with when I was a co-op student at Georgia Tech. It turns out that the company has been bought by a larger one and they are looking to hire on more experienced people. He was interested in bringing me back on board with the new company and basically offered me a job. Took me completely by surprise. I guess I expected something like this might eventually happen, but I didn't realize it would happen so soon. He wants to fly me back down to Atlanta soon for an interview - this just gives me some more thinking to do. Certainly more updates on this in the future...