Interview Of Doom

Now that I’m hired, I feel okay with discussing the interview that led to my current employment. It. Was. Intense. It included a 10-minute presentation to a “prospective client,” me acting as the company to which I was applying for a job. Who was playing the prospective client? The founder of the company to which I was applying!

I walked in and had to go right into my presentation. Fully suited, the window was closed and I felt like I was gasping for air. I rarely get nervous but this...this felt like my final hope. So many applications. So many months. I need a job! I wipe my brow and continue, feeling like a frantic wreck.

The presentation ends and the questions start. I’m answering questions about the company I am applying to posed by people who work for that company but who are role playing like they’re part of a prospective client. I don’t have all the answers. Window still closed. Heart still racing.

We move into the more traditional portion of the interview and things settle down a bit. I sense a sort-of good cop, bad cop scenario. It feels like one of the two interviewers hates me. My answers feel more paced but I’m still feeling a bit all over the place.

Suddenly, it’s all over. It has been 93 minutes and my suit is now acting as nothing more than a sweat retention device. I shake their hands with my balmy palm and am escorted out of the office. They close the door behind me and I breathe a sigh of relief. Did that just happen?

All I can think is, “that went terribly. No one would hire that rambling train wreck.” Six days later I get a job offer. Who knew?

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Kyle Taylor

The Blue Mountains

Post-Dad's Departure and Pre-Sister's Departure, we took a little jaunt inland to the Blue Mountains. We ate good food, peered over gorgeous vistas, and slept A LOT. It was utterly divine.

Blissful Beaches

The Californian ideal of a picture-perfect beach is one laden with fabulous tan people working really hard to induce early-onset skin cancer. The Australian ideal of a picture-perfect beach is one laden with no forms of life other than you and your friends (who also seem to be working really hard to induce early-onset skin cancer). I’m gonna have to lean towards the Australians on this one.


DBM came for a weeklong visit! We hopped in our Spaceship (check out the picture!) and headed north along the coast. What did we find? Empty campgrounds and 7-mile beaches absent of any and all forms of life. It was utterly divine.


We shopped for groceries in a town called Buladelah, we stopped at the World’s largest fake Uluru, and we free camped, cooked, and bathed in our brilliant Spaceship Campervan. It came complete with pop-out bed, fridge, DVD player, cooker, and iPod adapter. Basically, I was in heaven. I could have lived in it. In fact, I’m considering it.





In the meantime, there’s heaps more pictures of the coast on my flickr site.

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Kyle Taylor

Pebbly Beach: Perfect

I’ve been to probably 100 different different beaches all over the World in my years of globetrotting. I’m not saying this to sound all “oh, yeah, I’m so awesome, I’ve been to so many beaches” but instead to emphasize how A-MAZING Pebbly Beach is, as it makes - without a doubt - the all-time top five. Yes, it was that good.



Located in the awesomely named Murrawanga National Park, there are only two permanent residents at Pebbly Beach - the operators of the camp site. There’s no running water, no power lines, and no central heating system. That’s right, it’s all pumps, solar, and gas. It all added to the already copious amounts of charm oozing out of every bit of this adventure.



The beach is only accessible by a poorly maintained dirt road that just sort-of “ends” where the path to the water starts. We parked up with our window facing down toward the crashing waves. What view could be better to wake up to?



Then there’s the lack of people. With a limited number of camp sites and cabins there are in turn a limited number of tents and humans. Though the proprietor described the weekend as “busy,” I saw no more than 12 other people on a beach that stretched more than a mile down the coast - capped at each end by “Jurassic Park-like” trees and fabulous cliffs.



Finally, there were the resident kangaroos. They’re wild, they’re friendly, and they hop all over the place. In short, it’s just brilliant. I was so genuinely happy frolicking in the grass with them, my grin was stretched ear to ear.



While all of Oz that I’ve seen thus far is magnificent, Pebbly Beach definitely takes the prize for best beach. When can we go back, I wonder...



More photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyletaylor/sets/72157623658783715/

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Kyle Taylor