Lover of trading, tacos, 3D/AR/VR, cryptos, and most things Japanese

I had my first interview with the Apple Retail Store last night at 6pm. There were five of us interviewing. There was a 21 year old kid (hehe), a middle-aged man with graying hair and conservative dress, and two women who appearred to be in their late 20s or early 30s. I didn’t think to ask if last night was the first round of several nights’ interviews for the positions, but I did find out that there are two openings currently – Specialist and Service Specialist. The Specialist is the sales person who helps connect customers with Apple products, while the Service Specialist adds more support to the Specialist role. So, at best, I start with a 20% chance of getting the Service Specialist position.

We broke into two groups to rotate interviewing with two different Apple representatives. I was with Will, the 21 year old videographer, and we started off with Jason. First we each talked a bit about our lives and work history, then we went into some fairly abstract Q&A that was designed to address how we responded to various situations and think on our feet. I think I did really well, with interesting, well thought out replies. Then we had the opportunity to ask some questions of Jason about Apple and his experiences working there.

After about 40 minutes with Jason, the teams rotated and next we met with Nick. Nick is the hiring manager who Eric gave my resume to on Saturday. We started out with the question, “Tell me something interesting about yourself.” I gave a brief background overview and then said, “I was in a coma for nine days and walked out of the hospital two days later.” I proceeded to go into a little depth about my racing history and touched on my need for speed. In retrospect, I think I could have added that it is not a part of my life any more, but I don’t really think it matters. Apple is filled with interesting people who are encouraged to be themselves, so I don’t think it made any negative impression. Then there were a few more abstract questions that we took turns responding to, filled out some paperwork, and that was it.

We were told we could go or stay and hang out in the store a bit. I didn’t want to leave right away, so I went to look at ear buds since mine are on their last legs. I spoke a bit with Jade about it, and she was very helpful. She asked how the interview went and I said, “Very well, I think.” As it turns out, she may have been the Store Leader, the person with whom I would have my second interview if I make it to the next round, so I may have scored some brownie points by staying and engaging with her after the interview. Fingers crossed!

I do think I could have prepared a bit better for the interview. The questions were challenging, and I think I talked more about personal experience than work experience. Although, the point of the first interview was to get to know us, so I don’t think I did poorly. And, I did circle back to work experience and building customer relationships, which is the main point of working at an Apple Retail Store. They want to create a great experience for Apple users and enable them to achieve their goals by learning and using their products.

So now I get to wait to hear if I made it to the next round. Nick said he’d be in contact by Friday to let us know. I’m going to go back into the store later this week, take a training class, network, do whatever I can to make it to the next round. I have a call with Fred here in a few minutes, so hopefully he’ll be able to give me some guidance as well. Thanks for the well-wishes, keep em coming and let’s do this thing! 🙂

We’ve gotten a small taste of what those in the northeast are going through – we got six inches of snow last night and this morning. Since the streets haven’t been plowed and the snow was so deep, I opted not to try to venture out in my little car today and rescheduled my regular Monday appointment for Thursday.

After brushing off my car, I got back to my former boss who reached out to me over the weekend. He and I had met for lunch a few months ago; we worked together at a startup back in the late 90s called the i1 Television Network. The company broadcast video games on cable television that people could call in and play along with on their touch tone phones. This was long enough ago that we had to specify touch tone, as people still had rotary dial phones in their houses. A great concept that couldn’t get funded and only lasted about a year.

i1 was, to date, one of my all time favorite jobs. I was hired to do video editing and ultimately ended up doing animation, design, asset creation, game testing, and managing the Creative team. My boss and I were both avid golfers and would sometimes grab a quick nine holes during lunch or in the late afternoons. We also teamed up to build a shareware blackjack game – he did the coding and I developed all the in-game assets. We work well together and have always kept in touch.

Well, we spoke on the phone this morning for about thirty minutes. Catching up and laying plans. We set up a face to face meeting for tomorrow afternoon where we’ll sit down and go over specifics. He’s been working on a business idea for some time now and is getting to the point where it’s about ready to become a viable product, so it’s another startup situation. He’s interested in me doing Social Media and maybe some UI work, which is right in my wheelhouse. It’s an interesting concept with good potential.

Unfortunately, there’s no pay right now. As we’ve seen before, startups are risky ventures, and most fail. Still, we’re only talking about five hours a week on Social Media for now, with another maybe 100 hours over the next two months doing web and UI work. I need something to do until I find a full-time position somewhere. Plus, I’m jumping at the chance to work with him again. If things work out, I’ll get some ownership in the company too. So, while it’s nowhere near ideal, there are a lot of positives. I’ll find out more at our meeting tomorrow, but right now things are looking promising.

The other “news” is that I finally decided to sign up for Netflix again. I’d been putting it off for some time, but decided that I could spare the nine bucks a month to catch up on all the stuff I’ve missed these past couple years. The first thing I did after joining was to sit down and binge watch the first two seasons of House of Cards. 😉 Great show. Then I watched the Steve Jobs biopic with Ashton Kutcher, some standup by Aziz Ansari and Bill Burr, a bodybuilding flick called Generation Iron, The Wolf of Wall Street, Django Unchained, Chef, Stand Up Guys, the first two seasons of Breaking Bad, and I’m just starting Mad Men. I tried watching Anchorman 2, but only made it about halfway through it before turning it off. I don’t know if they have enough good content to keep me as a streaming-only subscriber, or maybe it’s just that there haven’t been a lot of great movies lately, but now that I have some views under my belt we’ll see what their recommendation engine comes up with. I guess if one good movie a month comes out, it’s still cheaper to watch online than go to the theaters, so I’ll probably keep it.

The last time I was snowed in like this I joined World of Warcraft and played for 35 hours straight. Fortunately, by then the snow had largely passed and I could get back in the world. Right now I’m just trapped for today. I made sure we had our meeting tomorrow if for no other reason than it would force me to get out of the house. I just hope the snow stops soon. Last week it was in the 60s, I can’t wait for that weather to return. Only two more weeks of February to go!

So yesterday Tom and I spent some time driving on freeways and in the mountains. It was good father/son bonding time, as we had a couple hours together with nothing else to distract us other than the open road. He did great, absolutely no problems or concerns about his driving by me. I pointed out how differently the car handles at speed, that driving – especially freeway driving – is like a dance, everyone moving in step, taking turns. We drove up Parmalee Gulch through Evergreen to a little country cafe I found on one of my motorcycle rides in the hills. Turns out there were two Ferraris and a new BMW parked outside, very cool. His eyes lit up a bit when he saw them, too.

Since he wanted a lazy Sunday, and I had no concerns about his abilities, we headed back home through Morrison and 470. Giving him some more “real” freeway driving experience. No problemo whatsoever.

After I dropped him off I was hanging out and my dad called me. He said the golf tournament that was on looked amazing on his 4K tv (4x HD resolution) and asked if I’d like to come over and watch. Turns out we both like looking at beautiful, green, groomed courses in the middle of winter, so I went over and got a few hours’ one-on-one time with Dad. The 4K resolution create simply an amazing picture, unbelievable level of detail. We talked about having a viewing party for The Masters in April, which was the first HD broadcast I saw years ago when I bought my HDTV. Simply gorgeous to look at – and The Masters has tons of azaleas all around the course, which are in bloom during the tournament.

It’s another 60 degree and sunny day here in Colorado – our fourth in a row. I’ve been seeing friends’ posts about the snow in Boston and the east coast, and it’s days like today that really make me appreciate winters in Colorado. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen so much snow, and I don’t envy their situations one bit. I was born in Syracuse, New York, and lived the first part of my life in a little town called Minetto, just south of Lake Ontario. We’d get huge lake effects during the winter, and averaged over 300 inches of snow a year there. One of my earliest memories is of my dad having to shovel through drifts that covered the back door, and snow drifts that went up to the porch roof. Deb and I would take turns sliding down the roof and the drift, and I used to dig snow forts all over the place. It was a lot of fun as a kid, but not so much as an adult, when you actually have to shovel things out of necessity rather than play.