Monday, October 28, 2002

Autumn is an Ache

I'm not depressed, angry or sad about not getting the job or anything... just so you know. I've gotten email from complete strangers and friends I've made through this journal, and am touched that people care. Not getting the job kind of bummed me out, but not enough to quit writing and crawl under a rock. I simply have been busy doing a lot of nothing, all of it not in front of this computer. So that is the reason for my absence. Thanks for asking.


I inadvertently caused my sister a great deal of home sickness with the above banner picture.

She is in Florida, where there is no fall, there is no snow. And there in the picture is a combination of the two. It hit her hard -- she isn't going to see fall at all this year, and may get to see snow at Christmas if she's lucky.

I didn't mean to drive her into a great sadness. It was just a picture. I printed it for her on my new printer, color glossy and the whole 9 yards, and I am going to get it framed for her. I'll give it to her and it won't be a Christmas present, like I thought it would be. It'll be a just for no reason present. All nice and ready to beautify a wall wherever she lives for the rest of her life, be it north or south, east or west.

We did a geocache on Friday afternoon with one of Doug's co-workers. She was so interested in geocaching after Doug explained it to her that she ran out and bought a GPS and she and her sons attempted what they thought would be a nice easy one. Turns out the guy who put this one out there also put out the one that skunked us on our first attempt (thanks, Fismo!) and so they couldn't find it. Doug, being the seasoned geocacher, figured he'd walk right up to it.

We couldn't find it either. There was another cache in the same area, by the same guy, and so we went and found that one easy as pie.

After we split up to head our own way home from Doug's friend and her son, we realized our error and think we know where it is now. Unfortunately, after work caching is now done because of frigging daylight savings time. We'll have to cache on weekends or holidays, until the snow comes. So far we've found 31, and have only had to revisit two of them to find them. This has been a fun hobby, and we're not done yet. I'm just hoping the snow holds out.

I know exactly where we are going to put one when we're ready to put one out there. I just hope no one beats us to it.

I took the kids to the one that Ivy, Jamie and I did on Monday because we all needed a walk, Doug was sleeping, and it was so easy I knew Jessica would be able to find it in a second, and she did. We left the house at 3:50pm, finished finding the cache and got in the car at 4:45pm, and it was already too dark to be walking in the woods. It broke my heart. Just a few months ago the sky would have looked like this at 8pm. We've lost three hours of light, and it's only going to get darker. I hate it.

It doesn't matter to me that it is lighter in the morning. I'm not a farmer. I don't get up at 5 to plow fields. This is stupid. It should so be abolished. Stupid daylight savings time.

Anyway -- I did grocery shopping, we did church, we watched football. It was pretty much a weekend away from the computer and I needed that. Unfortunately, I've got a project to finish for CM, and have some more work for MF to do this week. I can't believe it is week 9 of the semester already. There are only 15 weeks. Gah!

Wayne and Marcia are coming by at about 11am with the first set of pieces for the built-in entertainment center. Wayne did a ton of work on them this week, and it's all falling into place. The bottom is the hard part. The rest of the piece, above 36 inches, is shelving and he'll be able to build that out quickly. Doug and I need to pick a stain for it, and then I get to stain it.

I'm actively looking for a job, and sent out about 20 resumes in the last 48 hours. I'm contemplating contacting a head hunter. Professor CM is hoping to create a grant-funded position for me to work at the college again. I'd take it in a heart beat. He wants a 2 year grant that would pay between 40 and 50 grand annually. I don't know if grant funded positions come with W4s or if they are 1099 contractor positions, so if I got such a job and the grant didn't have my taxes withheld I'd only make between 20 and 25 k in the end, which would kind of suck. But... it beats getting no money. And it'd be working for him. Which would so rock. I miss spending time with him on a more regular basis. Not only is he funny as hell, but he inspires me and we have so much to talk about workwise. He's such a techno-whore, and he keeps me feeling fascinated by the net. I have been lacking that kind of spark since getting laid off. My boss at my last company was always thinking of what the web could do for what she wanted... and I'd research it and find out. We were a good team.

I miss that kind of work relationship. I don't get that here at home. Not to dis home or anything -- I love being here. I just miss a more concrete intellectually challenging work environment.

Speaking of home -- dishes call my name. Have a great day... and here are some dogs to make you smile (they even fit in with the color scheme of the page!) Check out Jack's tail on the back of the couch... it's so furry and cute. Kinger looks as if he's mentally communicating "Please get him off of me!" to me. But the two of them were cuddled really nicely together before I came in with the camera and Jack got all excited to have his picture taken. He's evil, but cute.

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