Category: Personal

Personal posts. Entries about the personal side of Sean P. Kelley.

Podcasts and Launch of Talent Jockey

Being a Recruiter has it’s ups and downs. You get the high of making an offer and getting back an acceptance. The lows are when that acceptance does not happen. You make a lot of different connections. One of them I made was my buddy, Brett. He was a contractor at the time and my employer was looking to bring him on as a full-time employee. Later on we realized we were both gamers. Since then we’d do lunch every couple weeks, or Brett would stop by my desk, and we’d talk about roleplaying games.

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Behind the mic for Gaming and BS

I have always been an avid listener of podcasts, mostly ones that relate to roleplaying games. Then it dawned on me, Brett and I talk a lot about them, why don’t we do one? At the time of this entry we have completed 15 episodes of Gaming and BS. Careful, we have an ‘explicit’ rating on the show. We tend to be passionate about our hobby and it comes through like a couple long-shore men. I love doing the show. I can’t believe we have listeners and subscribers, and that we have been at it consistently for 15 weeks!

Somewhere I came across Cliff Ravenscraft. He’s known as the Podcast Answer Man. It might have been one of his tutorials. Regardless, I have been devouring his episodes and has been quite an inspiration. It’s not just his show, it’s his genuine nature and his transparency. His show started out to help people do podcasting but it’s morphed into a mix of different topics. There is still podcasting, but there is also social media, personal/professional development, advice, and much more. It’s not hard technical, which is a turn off for some, but I don’t mind. It’s really a show to help people take their game to another level. Some day I’ll meet Cliff and personally thank him.

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Talent Jockey logo

All of the above has lead me to launch TalentJockey.com. It is starting out as a podcast that helps job seekers, recruiters and hiring managers navigate the world that is talent acquisition. Eventually I will do workshops, public speaking, and advising. It is truly exciting. It will involve hard work and diligence, no question. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Even in roleplaying games we say that the journey is the fun part of it all.

If you’re interested in podcasting or obtaining advice on new media, then Cliff’s your guy and you should check out PodcastAnswerMan.com. If you like roleplaying games, and the occasional f bomb doesn’t offend you, then check out Gaming and BS. G&BS is what I do for fun. Talent Jockey is truly a new venture, and a professional one at that. I try to keep it light. Anyone that knows me, knows my demeanor. Check out the website for episodes and resources for my three audiences – job seekers, recruiters and hiring managers.

New Projects – Future Endeavors

I was raised by my mother and I had a younger sister. My mom did a good job at hiding the fact that we didn’t have all the money in the world, and I look back now and thought that my sister and I had it pretty damn good.

I was a bit of an audiophile when I was young. I wanted one of those massive stereo systems. You know, the ones that had multiple components, flashing lights and gauges with bouncing needles. What can I say? I liked the look of analog over digital, at the time. I started my amassing my collection of music growing my selection of cassette tapes. I eventually got a Symphonic fm/am/turntable/cassette all-in-one stereo system. At the time, I thought it made my music plenty loud. It wasn’t everything I wanted, but I thought it was great, so the desired bells and whistles didn’t matter much after the fact.

If you were a child of the 80’s then you know the role boom boxes played. Man, I had friends who had some monster boxes. The bigger the box, the more awe you got. Even if guys you didn’t like had one, you’d still say “I can’t stand that guy, but damn, does have a huge boom box.” My boom box. HA! It was a Sanyo half of a boom box. No EQ. It had treble, bass and volume knobs. It wasn’t even lit. The eject for cassettes wasn’t even slow or simulate a hydraulic opening. Mine was more like a bullet from a gun. Press firmly down on ‘eject’ and the damn drawer opened with a crack. Oh, did I mention why it was half a boom box? It was because it only had one speaker. That’s right one speaker. The two benefits it had, it played music just fine and it was light-weight. I would walk a couple miles with that thing and my arm never got tired.

I remember having a DJ setup in my small bedroom. I had headphones on, plugged into my stereo and then I’d have my half boom box sitting on top. During the Memorial Day weekend a local radio station would play the top 100 hits of the year. I would play them from my Symphonic stereo as loud as I could get away with and record it to my half boom box while adding my own DJ style commentary before the song started playing. I’d go through a few MX90 Maxell blank tapes, stacking them up as they got full.

So why do I mention all this? Continue reading New Projects – Future Endeavors

Cancer Sucks

I was a recruiter, in HR. I’ve since moved to the IT department. Someone I know informed me  that a former co-worker, in Recruiting, had passed away. She worked remotely, so I did not interact with her very often, mostly on conference calls or the occasional visit to corporate HQ. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just before Thanksgiving 2013. She passed away this past week, March 26 or 29th, not sure exactly. That’s fast folks. I sent a card to her widower and son. Tragic. Unfair.

Then there’s Si. He got cancer when he was 2 years old. Two! He’s now 5. I am connected to his father on Google+ and found out about Si from a post of his. Si now has his own website. You can find it here: http://supersiguy.com/

I’ve never met Si, but I consider him my little buddy. I guess he and his mom were keeping occupied one day making some crafts. His father was mentioning providing the crafts to those that may be gracious enough to donate money. I jumped on it, immediately. It wasn’t a lot of money. I got the first one of Si’s creations that went out to the public receiving it in the mail yesterday. I told his dad that Si could pick the colors. I now realize it has ‘SI’ on the wrist band, in green, and that it is just the right size for my wrist. Thanks again Si! I love it and proudly show it off to everyone.

Kids like Si should not be thinking about medicine, getting sick, feeling like crap, wondering what their T cell count is, and the dread that comes with a chronic illness/disease. Continue reading Cancer Sucks

Veterans Day 2013

13E10 – Fire Direction Specialist

Charlie Btry guy…spent time in 3 different units. Each assignment was in good old Charlie battery. Hell, now that I think about it, I think it was always 2nd platoon too.

17th BDE, 1/36 FA – 8inch!
1st AD, 4/29 FA – In order, 155mm
17th BDE, 1/18 FA – 155 continued.

I got out of active duty for 18 months and then went back in. In that time the 17th BDE originally in Germany had deactivated. I then ended up stateside…finding myself with the same unit patch I had 4 years earlier.

There’s nothing like the call for fire, getting on the radio, and controlling the guns. FIRE MISSION!!

Gun bunnies, you know I love you guys. 😉 MARCH ORDER!!

To all past and present vets, have a safe and peaceful Veterans Day. And thank you for your service…even if you weren’t an arty dog like me. 😉

Recent Reads – Of Dice and Men by David M Ewalt

I’m a big audible.com fan. I find there’s plenty of dead time that could be used for something, like driving in my car, and podcasts and audio ‘books’ do the trick.

Most recently I ‘consumed’, using ‘read’ when referring to an audio book seems weird, Of Dice and Men by David M. Ewalt. of-dice-and-men-cover

I can’t say this will be the most formal of book reviews, but a short synopsis never hurt. I’d say this is intended to cover the, “I consumed <insert title> recently.” and the standard reply to those that would ultimately ask, “what did you think?”.

It reminded me of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms by Ethan Gilsdorf, where the author reminisces about his gaming past and then rediscovers it. I can relate to this. It may have happened to many of us. There is fictional pieces, done from the perspective a rpg party member, it’s actually narrated in the audio book outside the normal prose. I didn’t care much for that. It’s kind of like hearing about someone’s character. It broke up things a bit too much for me.

The history of TSR and Dungeons and Dragons was the interesting part for me. Much of it was known, but I did enjoy much of the background. I actually didn’t realize the limited contributions that Arneson played in the overall scheme of D&D. I’m sure this could be debated, but nonetheless, it’s no secret how much Gygax had to do with the game and TSR. I was also amazed at the shooting star that was TSR and how they utterly f’ed it all up. I mean, we’re talking 4000% growth at one point, $16M company gone to crap. Amazing.

Later in the book the author did a pilgrimage to Lake Geneva and Gary Con. Nice touch. Again, I can relate. And then there was a chapter on LARP. Great, but nothing that appealed to me. Seemed like it was filler since it didn’t relate to TSR, D&D, or Wizards of the Coast – current owner of the D&D properties. Hell, someone could have thrown in World Of Warcraft or something similar.

In the end it’s a decent listen, but set your expectations medium to low. If you aim them too high you will come across disappointed.

Recruiter Turned IT Guy

1014431.largeToday was my last day as a corporate recruiter. I’ve been given the opportunity to join our IT Security team. Yes, I’ll be staying with my current employer so my email and phone number won’t be changing.

The  past week was filled with treat days, lunches with my peers, and getting my recruiting stuff in order so the interim person has an easier time managing the staffing needs of Shared Services as he also tries to find my replacement. Guess who has quite an incentive to fill my position? <let me know if you have a recruiting background and are interested in the position. 🙂 >

As I’ve mentioned to many people throughout my last 2 plus years, I never thought I’d be in a position in Human Resources. It wasn’t that I was opposed to it, I simply thought I’d be an IT guy doing server administration, penetration testing, coding, networking, whatever. I’m just glad that I was a member of THIS HR team. I’ve been employed in many companies, and worked with many different people, I never had a bad experience with any person in our entire HR organization.

One chapter ends, another begins.

Continue reading Recruiter Turned IT Guy

First Go at Meditation



One of the things I want to do from 2012 on is to explore consistent meditation. I picked up this book a while ago to get some insight on where to start. I’d recommend it. It’s not preachy or religious, though it contains bits and pieces on how meditation plays a role in some spiritual beliefs.

Today was my first day trying to zone out and meditate. It’s not easy and as the book says, practice will help. It also mentioned meditating 15min in the morning and 15min in the evening, and that you’ll find yourself typically going over the 15 minutes. You’re not kidding. I literally thought I was going to stop and look at the time and think time was creeping along and only 5 minutes would have lapsed. I was wrong, it was 17. Wow. Continue reading First Go at Meditation

Thank you Steve Jobs




“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” — Steve Jobs, at a Stanford University commencement ceremony in 2005.

Steve Jobs 1995-2011