The last 9 years...

TL;DR - I am blessed to be where I am here in Minnesota. I love my church, job, and friends.

As I am sitting here in my apartment listening to the thunderstorm outside, contending with spotty internet, and winding down from the day, I am reminded of how blessed I am to be where I am right now. Let me explain:

For those of you who don’t know, I was born and raised in California. I was always within five to six hours from my parents, even when I was living in LA for school and after I left school. When I was fired from my job at Hazel Hawkins IT Department (long story), I didn’t have an immediate new job. This was back in 2012 when the economy wasn’t the best and the job market wasn’t the best for someone with no 4-year degree and only retail and limited IT experience. I was basically treading water for a year and a half, and leeching off of my parents...for which I am both eternally grateful, and eternally remorseful about. It had gotten to the point where I became desperate and in July 2013, I took a waiter job at Jerry’s of Hollister (it’s kinda like Denny’s).

To be honest, that job saved my life. Literally. I had been looking for IT related jobs in Silicon Valley. Had even gotten to a couple of final interviews where it was just me and one other person. Each time, they went with the other guy. It was disheartening. I felt like I was not hirable. Like I had this sign on my back that said: “Don’t hire this guy...he is a slacker and a loser”. It was depressing. I had gotten so deep into depression and was so angry at myself for the situation I had put myself in, that I had started to contemplate suicide. Wow, I actually wrote that down. I haven’t said or written those words down before but had thought about them...a lot. Just when I was at my breaking point and called out to God to save me, he did...through Jerry’s. It makes me laugh looking back on it now. Who would have thought that a waiter job could save someone’s life? Well, it did for me! That job turned things around, made me feel like someone wanted to hire me, wanted me in general. It made me stop giving up on finding a career, on finding something that I would love to do for the long-term. It was a great 4 months working at Jerry’s.

While I was working for Jerry’s, I started looking again for jobs. This time, branching out of California and the Silicon Valley and looking in states where I had family or friends. The sites I was looking at like Monster.com, Indeed.com, and even Craigslist.com had several emails of jobs being sent to me daily. I was checking craigslist for Minnesota because I had some friends from my online gaming days that lived there. As I was perusing the jobs board there, I came across an entry level help desk job at a company called 7 Medical Systems. I sent my resume and cover letter to them, and they actually called me back! I had a phone interview, and they told me they would let me know the next steps. A couple of days later, I got an email asking if I would be willing to do a Skype interview (since they were in Minnesota and I was in California). I agreed and we had the interview. It was great and I had a really good feeling about the possibility. A couple days later (over the weekend), I got a call informing me that I had been passed over (yet again) for the other guy. To say that I was heartbroken would be an understatement. Thankfully, that feeling did not last for more than two days...they called me back! They had another position that had just opened up and they wanted me for the job! The only catch was...I needed to be in Minneapolis to start my job on the 29th of October, and it was the 14th of October. Two weeks! Ahhhhh!

Thankfully, I have the best family in the world. My parents helped me to pack my belongings into my car, and with my dad riding shotgun, I drove from Hollister, CA to Minneapolis, MN in 3 days. I had nowhere to call my own and only what I could fit in my car. Thankfully, I had some pretty great, and awfully trusting friends that I had met online through online gaming. They found out that I was moving to Minnesota and they opened their home to me, a practical stranger who they had only spent time online with. Alex and Becky Hunt allowed me to invade their home, and live in their basement for a couple of weeks while I looked for a place of my own. I had some other friends through online gaming that I finally met in person and even a friend from college that happened to live in the area as well! They even introduced me to the place I call my church now, Eagle Brook Church.

I worked for 7 Medical Systems from October 2013 to April 2016 during which time I had started volunteering at church in the production department. This church is by far the largest church I have attended. At the time, it was 6 campuses with 20,000 in attendance each weekend. Live cameras for worship and the message was broadcast from the central campus in Lino Lakes to the other 5 campuses. I continued to grow in my production knowledge, and was even trained to be a fill-in Producer, which became a contract role meaning I got paid to do it! I continued to do this until I was encouraged to apply to the Video Director position at a campus, which I got! I left 7 Medical Systems to become a Video Director on Thanksgiving Weekend of 2015. Yes, I worked both jobs for almost 6 months.

In January 2016, I broke my back. We were on a staff outing to play broomball, and I slipped and fell on the ice. Because it was a staff outing, it was covered by Worker’s Compensation, but also because of me (and another co-worker injury unrelated, but still work related), there are some pretty strict rules on what kinds of activities can be done while at work without any kind of liability release. Needless to say, this has changed my life, but I am thankful that I did not need surgery, nor did I lose the ability to walk. I have some limitation in my mobility, but that is about it.

Towards the end of 2017, my job at Eagle Brook Church was coming to an end. I met with my old boss at 7 Medical and as it turns out (because God works this way) they had a position that they thought would be perfect for me. I accepted and started back with 7 Medical Systems on January 4, 2018. So here I am, almost 6 years in Minnesota. 2 job changes, 4 apartments in 3 cities later, and I couldn’t be happier. Yes, my life isn’t perfect, and a lot of that is self-inflicted, but I am happy. I have amazing friends, I love my company, I really love my church and have started to volunteer again this year after taking a year off from it to just attend church.

Through it all, God has been with me. And of course, my family has been with me, even though I might make them want to pull their hair out for making the same mistakes over and over again, they still love me.

Restarting this blog will be good for me I think. And I resolve to actually stick with it this time… hehe.

9 Years Later....

Well, it's been 9 years, 1 month, and 23 days since my last post. So much has changed since then. I have had 3 other jobs and been unemployed, but the biggest change in my life has been my move to Minnesota. I am at work right now, so I should be focusing on that, but I will post about my life over the past 9 years tonight. It's good to be back, and thanks to Alex Hunt for inspiring me to take up my blog again.

Big Changes Happening...

It has been almost a year since I posted on this blog. A lot has happened in that year. The biggest thing that happened was actually what happened earlier today (really yesterday since it is 1:30am right now). Let me give you a little info first. (I know, the suspense is killing you.)

A couple of months ago, when I moved back to Hollister from L.A. my mom asked the I.T. Director at the hospital she works at if there were still some job openings there. There had been some openings in October, but I was living in L.A. at the time. She didn't have anything, but said that she would keep me in mind for the next openings that became available.

Fast-forward to last week. Suzie, the I.T. director, calls my mom and tells her that there is a part-time job opening and, if I was still interested, to send in my resumé. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my job at Best Buy. I have been with them since 2003, but I wanted to see what kind of job was available here in town. So I send in my resumé and wait to see what happens. Suzie sends me an email back thanking me for my resumé and asked when I would be available for an interview. We coordinated an interview for that Friday.

Friday morning comes and I go to the interview. This interview is with Suzie and Warren, the Network Administrator for the hospital. Through the interview I find out that the position is now a full-time position (which is awesome since I am in a part-time job at Best Buy in Marina). Not only is it full-time, it is in Hollister. That would put an hour and a half back into my life every day. the interview consisted of answering questions about certain situations that I have a feeling are common situations that I would run into at work should I get a position there. The interview goes great and I leave there feeling good about my chances and excited about the prospects of being able to work in town.

The next day, Suzie called me to ask me to send her some references. This is a good sign, I think to myself. So I send her the references. She is planning on calling me back on Monday. Monday was today. She called and offered me the job. I took it. I have been blessed with a full-time job, in town, for more pay, with benefits and payed time off; four things I didn't have with my current job.

God has totally blessed me with this job. I am a Desktop Systems Analyst for MSZ Resource Group, who is the outsourced IT provider for Hazel Hawkins Hospital.

Omnipresence 101

I saw this on my good friend Linna Martz's MySpace Blog

I Am God

Kami: I am God.

Zelun: You're not God.

Kami: Who is God?

Zelun: You can't see him, but he's everywhere.

Kami: He's right here? (pointing inside her Play-Doh)

Zelun: Yup. And right here and here and here and here... (beating his Play-Doh tool all over the table)

Kami: Oh. Okay.

And there you have it. Omnipresence 101.

The Dark Knight

So I finally saw The Dark Knight. I just have to say, "Oh my!" It was such a good movie. Christian Bale, Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart are an unstoppable force in this action-packed movie that will leave you breathless and wanting more. Granted that at 2 hours and 32 minutes one would not think you would be left wanting more; but I was.

Fireworks, wind, and smoke...

So now I am sitting here at our fireworks booth in the parking lot of our church. Yes, I said fireworks. It is a Rufener Family tradition. Every year, we spend 13 hours a day the 7 days leading up to the 4th of July. We have been doing this for the last 18 years. Our booth has been located in 3 different locations throughout the years. the most recent of these locations is on our church property. I love selling fireworks. It makes me laugh to see people come in droves to spend hundreds of dollars on something that they will be lighting on fire. You know how sometimes people liken a bad investment or a bad purchase to lighting their money on fire...here, you almost litterally do that. The running joke when someone asks, "What does it do?" is to answer, "Emits showers of sparks." while reading the warning label on the fountain. It's great.

Wind. Anyone who has lived in or visited Hollister will know what I am taking about. After a certain hour, and we never know when that will be but it ranges from 1:00 to 4:00, the wind starts to pick up. It was really bad today. On our church property we get the worst of it. There is so much wind it is rediculous. We probably had sustained winds of about 10-15 mph. and the gusts up to 20-25 mph. Luckily there is a truck shielding us for the most part.

What is with half of California burning? The other issue I have with this, besides all the people that have to put their lives on the line to fight these fires, is the fact that some of these fires were set on purpose by opportunistc idiots. I seriously hope they get caught and tried and convicted. I believe that some firefighters lost their lives in that fire and if that is the case he or she should be charged with murder. Of course that is my opinion. As I sit here, I can see the smoke coming over and up from the Big Sur fire. For reference sake, Big Sur is about 70 miles from here. It looks like the smoke is completely covering the San Joaquin valley...that's the huge valley in the center of California.

Start tomorrow huh???

So I am siting here on my couch surfing the web at 1:15 in the morning thinking to myself, "Why don't I just go to bed?" So now I am blogging about it. I said back in May that I needed to write for my own sanity. I still agree with this notion. It's just that every time I think of writing, I go into auto-avoidance mode. Then I stumble upon my blog and I have that urge. You know, the urge to say or write something...sends chills down my spine. So this is me, writing...at, now, 1:20am. It is now my goal to write something in this blog every day. Whether it be to vent, to ask questions (and since I think no one reads this they would be questions to no one. :D ), or like right now, just random whatever pops in my head. That's all for now. I need sleep. I think I will post again when I have had some rest.

The new me...

So I decided that I need to write. Not only for my sanity, but to get things out of my head so I don't have to think about them anymore. I will start tomorrow. :P