Cheap Eats: Walter's Pizzeria

If you find yourself in the Uptown neighborhood in need of a great lunch special, look no further than Walter's Pizzeria.

I joined my friend and fellow lunch-special enthusiast, Drew, here for lunch today, and I must say it's one of the best lunch deals I've found!  For just $5.99, you can get a fountain drink, house salad, and "slice" of cheese pizza (and by "slice", I mean a quarter of the pizza).

The restaurant sits on the corner of 19th and Pearl, with great patio space and indoor tables.

The house salad comes with your choice of dressing, and is pretty large!  I couldn't finish it, as I would much rather stuff my face with greasy pizza than a healthy salad.

I got a slice of cheese, and Drew sprung for some meatballs on top for a whopping $.50 extra.  The pizza was really good, and had a nice thin, flakey crust.

Still hungry?  You can get a cookie the size of your face for $.99.  Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the cookies are really big, and looked delicious!  I decided to control my inner fat kid and skipped dessert... this time.
Check it out and let me know what you think!  Have any other great lunch spots for cheap?  I'd love your suggestions!

Stopping to smell the... music.

 I was driving to a networking meeting yesterday, when "Summertime" by Sublime came on the radio.

I hadn't heard this song in AGES, but over the past two days, it comes on the radio every time I'm in the car.  Could it be a sign?  Hearing it in my car, driving with the windows down and the sun shining in put a smile on my face, and made me realize that I haven't had a summer off since... I can't remember!  In my frenzied search for a new job, I often forget to take time to appreciate the little blessings that have become a part of my unemployed life. Little blessings, like the fact that it's summer, and I don't have to sit in a cubicle staring longingly at the few rays of sunlight peeking through a tiny window above my walls, aching for a breath of fresh air and sunshine.  Instead, I get to sit at coffee shops and patios, chatting with new and interesting people and contemplating my next step.

So, while I'd really love to find an exciting place to work, and to know where my next paycheck is coming from, I'm going to take the time to stop and appreciate the little things.  If you see a girl driving down the street with the windows down, belting out a Sublime tune (off-key), that might be me stopping to smell the roses.

"Summertime and the livin's easy..."

I have no idea what i'm doing... and neither do you.

In my recently embarked upon quest for a meaningful career, it has become increasingly evident that I have no idea what I want to do with my life.  Actually, that's not true.  I have waayy too many ideas of what I want to do with my life, and am having an impossible time sticking with any single one of them.  How do I pick a profession or industry and decide that's what I want to do for the next however many years of my life?  I am experienced in and capable of so many different professional functions within lots of different industries*, so my path is definitely not clearly laid out for me.  Just to give you an idea of how disparate my job search is, here are some of the positions I'm currently applying for:

• Inventory Analyst/Merchadise Planner
• Writer
• Account Manager, Marketing or Ad Firm
• Consumer Goods Marketing
• Sustainability Expert
• Small business Ops Manager/Consultant

This is the first image that showed up when I googled "confused".  I find that hilarious.

Uh... yeah.  And I have experience doing the majority of that, just to give you an idea of how disjointed my resume looks.  Apparently no one is hiring for a "jack of all trades" these days.

I was in the middle of looking at Masters Degree programs in Urban Planning (to add some indecisive icing to my confusion cake), when a girlfriend called to ask if I wanted to grab coffee.  Yes!  So I left my cave and joined her for some much needed sunshine and caffeine.  We got to chatting about my job search, where I promptly diarrhea-style dumped on her about my lack of direction.  It turns out I'm not the only one.  She told me story after story of people she knows that went to school for very specific degrees, only to find they hated their chosen field or couldn't find a job in it, and are now going through a predicament very similar to my own.  Apparently it's a pretty common issue amongst my peers.

Should I be relieved?  Well, I was at first... but then I realized my lack of uniqueness in this quandary may be a bad thing... Are there thousands of late twenty-somethings roaming the interwebs looking for professional purpose just like I am?  And if so, how do I, with my random cornucopia of capabilities,  look better than the rest in case someone is hiring for my dream-jack-of-all-trades position??  Ugh.  I have no answers or insightful references to end this post with.  Maybe you do?

*I  have yet to discover whether this is helping or hindering my job search, although I am inclined to believe the latter, but that's a whole separate discussion.