[at-l] The trail forks and both are blazed white...

[cjaymes at yahoo.com (Casey Jaymes)]

If I hadn't believed in a supreme being before last week and his/her/its
sense of humor, I certainly would now.

One of the large reasons for my long hike is because I have a Computer
Science Engineering degree that is woefully underused (and
under-compensated) in my current position. I'm not complaining, much, if
not all of my situation was due to my choices. But that is where my
employment situation is.

I had planned on saving about $3000 for the trip, plus some flash cash
for other stuff I wanted to get before I went, and I'm more than halfway
to that goal, thanks to some financial discipline. My friends are
planning on going to Florida for Spring Break (they aren't college
people :), so I was going to get them to drop me off at Springer on
their way back. Things seemed to be falling into place. I was ready to
place the Great Large Order for maps & books.

Wednesday I got a phone call as I was leaving for work. It was from a
local company and it turns out they are losing their Network
Administrator/IT Department and need a replacement very quickly. She
asked if I could come in to go over the job description and told me to
ask for the person I would be replacing. It turns out I know him. He was
an Assistant Scoutmaster in my home troop in Boy Scouts and I've taken
several merit badges from him at Scout camp. Basically, the discussion
turned in to a job interview after they looked at my resume. The job is
nearly a perfect match for my resume; I'll be using nearly everything I
have experience with and will need to learn several new things that I
haven't had experience with. It was and is kind of a make-your-own
position, and he must have had little free time. For example, this <50
person company uses 5 different database servers and really does need
them. They have an excessive amount of different technologies that they
use day-in and day-out. I would be doing presentations in scope from the
local elementary school to the University of West Virginia to defense
contractors along with business travel due to installations.

This is basically as close as you can get to my dream job.

So, pending the second interview on the 11th with the president of the
corp. and his decision, I have a decision to make. I can hike the trail
for 5-6 months and then join the Air Force, likely going for officer
commission, probably marry a pretty Air Force brat and have lots of
little fighter pilots or I can accept the job and live near home, travel
20 minutes to work, probably become the Scoutmaster for the troop and
section hike the trail probably get married to a local girl and have
lots of little hikers. Either way I win, but either way I can't help but
feel I've lost something as well.

I have discussed this with family & friends, but of course they don't
understand the passion to hike the trail and think I'm not really quite
sane for even having to think about it. Since everyone on this list at
least shares some of my passion, I hope to get some feedback of what you
think. The decision is not mine to make yet, and I may still make that
Great Large Order for maps and books, but I am determined to have no
regrets after my decision and ask for your comments.

Casey