Year in Summary

This year has both been awesome and it has sucked. Some goals were achieved, others not so much.

I was drugged out of my mind for a good chunk of Christmas since Jennifer and I were both sick, but we got better. Jennifer had to go to the doctor a second time because she got a sinus infection though. The current medication she's taking is helping a lot. I got a lot of nice Christmas presents including a small book with photoshopped animals with encouraging phrases, a shirt with a devil burying dinosaur bones that says 'teach the controversy', a book on how to make videos, a mole skin notebook for New York, a mole skin weekly planner, an MP3 player (which will make work MUCH more tolerable), and candy :)

Goal Review.

Physical: Reduce my weight to 225lbs. Losing 30lbs, at an average of 1800 calories a day for diet with 1-2 free days a month, exercising aerobically 4 times a week for 300 calories each session for 22.5 minutes, lifting weights 2 times a week using at least the 30 pound weights. Currently at 180 calories each session with the goal to raise 20 calories a week until I reach 300. The goal is to start with 1 weight lifting session in Jan and then adding another in Feb.

**Status. Fail on the weight. Succeed on the exercise. I've also joined the YMCA and going 2-4 times a week.

Mental: Read 1 Good non fiction book a month + 2 slowly over Wed. I plan to start with Fast Food Nation. The two slow books will be "Search Engine Marketing" and "Philosophy and Super Heroes."

**Status. Success. All books read. Plus many others that were worth reading.

Graduate Grad School with at least a 3.0 average (preferably with honors) in May.

**Status. Success.

Spiritual: Continue scripture study, prayer and other activities.

**Status. Prayer has continued. For now we are reading out of Jennifer's spiritual quote of the day book. Success.

Read at least one major spiritual work belonging to another religion.

**Status. In progress. Reading the Dhampala. Est completion two weeks.

Emotional: Be kinder. Have Less Anger.

**Status. Success.

Social: Get involved with a service project at least once a month starting in April.

**Status. Success. This has largely consisted of helping Mythic Journies and Grandma with her house. Not what I originally had in mind, but it has worked well and been quite fulfilling.

Writing:

Write a status update of all writing (prose) projects once a week.

**Status. Partial. Pretty darn good though.

Begin writing high fantasy in September of 2009, at 1000 words a day for four months to create 120,000 words for the novel so I can still have 100,000 words and cut 20,000 of them.

**Status. Partial. Only 16000 words written so far, but I'm not satisfied at all with it and may start from scratch.

Write 12 short stories, 1 every three weeks until then to flesh out the world. Outline the short stories here but write them off line so I can submit them for publication (Thus forcing me to improve the stories to publishing quality standards.)

**Status. Partial. 4 were written. Never submitted for publication.

I am also considering writing a science fiction story once a month, but I will wait until after Grad School in May 2009 to do this, which would make the goal to submit 7 non novel related short stories for publication in 2009.

**Status. Never started.

The novel short stories (fantasy) must NOT be part of the novel itself or involve its characters. This is designed to flesh out the world and make it more livable.

**Status. Success.

Film: Write two film scripts.

Status: Success. Other People's Musicals + Assist w. Architects of Fear.

Produce two films.

Status: Partial. Just one. Lack of funds + Chaos precluded.

Submit at least one of the two to a film festival this year. The film should be no shorter than 4 minutes and no longer than 10.

Status: Incomplete. Still being edited but it will be kickass when done.

Invention: Buy and read at least two Law School text books on Patent Law.

Status: Fail.

Economic: Maintain my job.

Status: Laid off twice, let go once by telephone. However, employed 8 out of 12 months in the technical writing field in the worst year since the Great Depression. I call that success.

Pay off more of Credit Card.
Status: Success.

Make preparations for child.
Status: N/A

Obtain 5 most important items as determined by Jennifer and I.
Status: 2 out of 5. Video Game Computer. Furniture. Funds have been severely limited.

Make Red Anvil Productions Gaming have its first profitable year.
Status: Success. By about $150.

Family: Improve relations. Be slightly less annoying.
Status: Success. (In my opinion.)

Friends: Have at least 3 non game related social events over the course of the year.
Status: Success.

Children: Have 1. Have all physical preparations made at least 2 months in advance of birth.

Status: N/A

Other:

Create at least one podcast a month (probably short stories already written)
Status: Success.

Create a fourth blog by March involving unknown quantity or subject for fun and/or profit.
Status: Success.

Create a group of new life goals by March.
Status: Partial. It took another 6 months.

Ensure that all selected items in the Christmas Coupon Book I gave Jennifer are delivered/fulfilled.
Status: Success. All but one and that one will be done tomorrow.

Go to Gencon 2009.
Status: Success.

Go to DragonCon 2009.
Status: Success.

Go to Boston for my Graduation.
Status: Success.

Learn to Juggle.
Status: Started to learn and after about 20 hours discovered, 'Why the HELL do I want to do this again?' I stopped. Total success.

Learn to Shoot a Pistol.
Status: Failure.

If Brett is sent to a Spanish Speaking Mission, Refresh and Brush up on my Spanish.
Status: Success.

Christmas Thoughts

Tis midnight, and it is now Christmas. We attended two parties over the last weekend, one with Jay and Dee on Saturday and one with Jennifer's company. I admit that her company party was kind of hard for me, because I miss having a job that takes me seriously. Case in point, this last Sunday afternoon, RBS World Pay, a company who I thought I had a perfect working relationship with, called me up on the phone via my contractor to tell me that I would not need to come in for the last two weeks of my contract. I give them two weeks notice, and still had plenty of work to do, and they decide that I'm not needed.

Apparently turn about is not fair play. The thing is, that I have strong reason to believe that people who I had known for several years and trusted decided that they would let me go in this fashion. Thus is the life of a contractor.

We've also been quite sick this week. Jennifer has had some worrisome coughs, though we went to the doctor on Monday. She's been getting better for the most part, but it still isn't gone for either of us. And yet despite all of the negativity, I feel overwhelmingly positive. Want to know one reason? Because Jennifer Loves me and I love her. We each opened a present and the one I opened from her was this silly little book that had animal faces photoshopped into grins and smiles with all kinds of truly nauseating positive expressions.

And it cheered me up considerably. In the grant scheme of things, I have a lot to be grateful for. Hell, despite being let go early, I still have a job lined up at the beginning of the year that is going to pay me decently, for at least a few months. I have friends, family and a spouse that love me, and I have my health, as imperfect as it may be. :)

Merry Christmas, and God Bless Us, Every One.

Life

Well I have a new job. I start on Jan 4th. It is a three month contract. I will be in my current contract until the end of the month so things are working out rather nicely. :) There are few snags on the wording of the contract which I'm a bit worried about, but they sent me an offer letter and I signed it. We'll see how things go. The weekend before last we saw The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was quite good. This past weekend I ran my shadowrun game (the third installment.) Sunday we watched a lot of TV and had a very relaxing day. Last night Julie, Mom, Jennifer and I went to watch Niel Gaiman read from two of his books and get some autographs. It was awesome. He autographed EVERY single person's book. There were over 600+ people there. We were toward the end of the line and got out at around 1am.

Thanksgiving Etc

Thanksgiving was a nice break. Didn't do much, which was just they way I like it. Jennifer and her mother went shopping most of Friday so I had the whole day to myself. Surfed some on the net, but also finished reading Conversations with God and The Unbehead King trilogy. Saturday we saw 2012. Bleh. I will say this though, Joyce lays down a MEAN Thanksgiving day table. It was delicious. The turkey was the best I have had in years. It was Jennifer, myself, Joyce (my mother in law), Dick (her husband), and two of their friends who lived near by. There was also football watched. I am not a football fan, but I watched with them to be social. Despite some misgivings about A&M, I was still pleased that they performed as well as they did against UT. Right now I consider myself more an alumni of Boston University than any other school (that is, it hasn't kicked me out because I missed a single test or made me so angry I would want to spit nails at faster than the speed of sound)...but I never physically attended...and so far as I know, they have no major sports teams. But the more I find out about them, the more I like them. I attended an alumni networking event recently that was quite cool.

This week has been redonkulously busy. Monday night I played board games at a friend's house. Tuesday night I ran a MUSH event on the internet and last night I went to a Christmas party for the people I did the grant writing for (Mythic Imagination Institute)...but there must have been some kind of miscommunication because no one was there...'s OK really, I brought the chips for the potluck home and Jennifer and I ate them. :) Wednesday, I spent the night with Ken hammering out the last portion of the 4th novel.

The job market is definitely improving. I've had a lot of recruiters contact me recently. I think that might be why my current contract has been extended again to Feb 30th. I guess they (mostly) want to keep me. There are a few other issues I won't disclose on a public blog (yet anyway) but I get along great with my boss and my boss's boss.

Happy Thanksgiving

Things are going fairly well. The trip down to Florida was long due to traffic but otherwise went fairly well. My contract has also been extended until Jan 29th, which is a good thing. The dog seems to be enjoying himself. Joyce cooked a remarkably excellent Thanksgiving dinner. The bird and potatoes were just right. Jennifer seems to be enjoying herself immensely.

Looks to be a nice and relaxing vacation, which will engender no complaints from me. :) Last weekend was also moderately uneventful, though I did go to Augusta with Mom and Grandma to help clear Grandma's house. It will take some time but we made a dent in it.

Update

So its been an interesting two weeks. I think the first thing that bears mentioning is that I was on television yesterday. That is not entirely correct. I was taped for television yesterday and it will appear next week. It was on a local cable access show at Clarke University for a show they have called ‘Reel Cinema’. I was invited by J. Weilin (creator of the Sentinel Chronicles) to answer a few questions as Sr. Writer. It is rather fun. I gave him a ride home and we discussed how to flesh out some of the ideas and back story in his universe. Madeline (who was in my short film “Other People’s Musicals”) and Sophia (who is Madeline’s friend and an actor in the SC) were there as well. If I can find the thing broadcast on the internet, I’ll send the link.

The good news is that my current contract has been extended, though only to December 4th. The better news is that I’m getting calls from recruiters at a time of year when I normally never get calls. Now, I’m not entirely sure if it is because I’m getting better at searching, I’m attracting more attention because I’ve got more credentials, or simply because the environment is better. To be honest, what I think it really is is that most companies saw the hand writing on the wall at the beginning of the year and have been in deep storage (“siege”) mode during 2009, and have thus put off ‘optional’ things like Technical Writing and now the work has piled up. The truth is, about half of the jobs in my career have resulted from people piling up the tech writing in the ‘wait’ category until its coming out their ears. It quite often makes a lot more sense in the long run to simply keep one either on contract (as needed) or on staff full time.

However, I am still trying to get out of tech writing and into project management. The good news is that I’ve had recruiters approach me, but the bad news is that most of the things they’re approaching me for require experience. To get the PMP they want 3 years of experience in a project based environment. Yeah, I have one, while I was at Openspan. The others might have used projects but I wasn’t involved in them. So right now I’m drawing up the blue prints for around five projects helping others that at the same time will help myself. Four of them could theoretically earn money and one of them will be for charity. I’ll include more details as they come up. I’m almost tempted to start writing a Project Management blog on linked in, or to continue that “Pulling Teeth Electronically” blog I had to do for my ecommerce class, but …well…here is my list of current blogs and you tell me if that is a wise idea.

This blog (Weekly)
My live journal (As I feel the need to rant)
My Obama blog. (As I feel the need to rant about the media)
My Dailykos blog (As I feel the need to rant about specific things in a targeted way)
Let Me Tell you about my Character (For roleplaying game summaries and the like, about every two weeks)
Tossing Grenades at Windmills (my writing blog)
Memes of my Father (my strange/quirky things blog or where I put memetic answers)
I have an Opinion About Almost Everything (my review blog)
State of the Anvil (The Red Anvil Productions blog, as needed plus the monthly podcast plus updating the website)

So that is…9. Yeah, as tempting as it is to make an even 10, I think I’ll pass. Plus I should have something to write about in this. I mean, I put links to reviews I write, but I don’t put political stuff, roleplaying stuff, reviews, writing updates, product updates or the like here…then again, most of that would probably bore you to tears anyway so its probably just as well that I do so…

Plus one of the ways I get away with juggling so many different things is fooling myself into thinking its not really that much…breaking it into small chunks which I do here.

We celebrated Grandma’s birthday last night. Mom, Skip, myself, Jennifer, Grandma and Mom’s friend Daniel were there. We watched Up. Did I mention that it is an awesome movie? Jennifer and I gave Grandama a copy of Redwall (which is about a talking Mouse) which I am quite sure she’ll love.

This past weekend, Jennifer and I went out to eat a rather nice Persian restaurant. The food was fairly cheap. It had to be since we’re watching what we spend. Many of our gifts will be hand crafted this year (though not all of them of course). But I’ve discovered that I LIKE Persian Food and Thai food as much as I like Mexican and Italian. To be honest, most far Asian stuff or Mediteraian just doesn’t do it for me. Its not that I dislike it, its just that I have to carefully navigate to find what I like. Not so with Thai or Persian. I have to go out of my way to find something I don’t.

This week

Well it has been quite a week. I think the most shocking thing was the death of my paternal grandmother. Most of Wednesday was a scramble to find a way to pay for a ticket. Unfortunately, I’m currently in a very short term contract which meant that I had to watch the numbers very carefully. Finally, it became apparent that it just wasn’t going to happy. The even greater irony was that my maternal grandmother was willing to pay for the ticket, but I didn’t find out about that until Thursday, which meant that my ability to make up the lost hours during the week was effectively shot. I was willing to have her pay for the ticket given the circumstances (although reluctantly since having helped Grandma with her house situation I know that wasn’t an easy sacrifice for her to make) but I was not going to have her do that AND pay to make up the hours I would lose if I flew in on Friday.

Which meant that we pretty much kept up plans as usual on Saturday. I mean, on the one hand, it was fun going to two Halloween parties. And they were good parties. On the other hand, it was kind of surreal going and celebrating a relatively minor (and certainly not to me Spiritual (though I know it is to others)) holiday and at the same time my extended family is gathered on the other side of the country mourning and celebrating my grandmother’s life. I tried to do the ‘I’m enjoying life to celebrate her death’ thing but that’s kind of hard since, while Grandma certainly enjoyed her life, she was not exactly what I might call a “Carpe Dium” kind of woman, at least not in her later years where I knew her. They certainly traveled a lot, which was fascinating to hear the anecdotes from.

The most interesting thing to come out of the two parties we did attend was seeing the first episode of the Sentinel Chronicles’s second season. Jay is very talented, as are many of the people that work with him, but you can SEE the differences between Season 1 and Season 2. By Jay’s own admission, he spent over 250 hours in post production. Granted, this was mainly from special effects of things like Shell Casings, but the thing is, that ironically they’re mostly things you take for granted or that slip into the background. Case (no pun intended) in point…the shell casings from the guns? CGI. Also, sometimes the scenes flash by so fast that you don’t realize that one of the two sides fighting are CLONES, which means that he had to literally imprint the same actor three times onto the screen. Then again, the best special effects, particularly CGI effects makes the special effects flow into the background so the story itself can be paramount.

The second party, a white wolf international Camarilla event, had an amazing floor show. It also had an extremely celebratory atmosphere and I admit I did enjoy dancing with Jennifer while we were there. I dressed as a Mad Scientist and Jennifer dressed as Nyx, Greek goddess of the night. I still need to get a picture of her costume on here.

Currently Reading : Conversations with God, The Clocks of Iruz

Currently Watching: Supernatural Season 3

Focha Ricks

Focha Ricks, my paternal grandmother, died last night. She died in her sleep and she was surrounded by loved ones. She had slowly lost a bit of her memory, I am told, in her latter years. I was happy to be able to help my family (my Father and his children) make a video to remind her about who were are and tell her that we love her at our last family reunion. It had been about 6 years since I last saw her.

I think that the first lesson she taught me was the importance of record keeping. Grandma used to maintain the family circle letters like clock work. Some memories are worth keeping. Half the blogs I keep, I keep for my own records, not necessarily because anyone reads them. These family circle letters also taught me the importance of family gatherings and family rituals. I was raised to believe family’s are eternal and are one of the only things that last in the world. I still hold family to be of paramount importance.

Her letters always talked about the meals that she ate in great detail. This taught me a lot of things. It taught me the importance of putting details into the writing I do, finding little anecdotes and latches that help people connect with it. It also, ironically, helped me understand the importance of enjoying a good movie. Despite the speed at which I eat my meals, I do enjoy their taste and do what I can to relish the experience as an experience itself. Its part of enjoying life for what it is.

Grandma Ricks put great stock in the importance of her pioneer ancestors. She was a direct descendant of Edward Partidge, one of the founding leaders of the Mormon church. At many family reunions we were told tales about the great things our ancestors did. This taught me about the importance of passing on traditions and oral family lore. It also taught me to respect those who have come before us and to recognize the great sacrifices that they have made. This in turn has helped me to understand the importance of history. Even now, when I study a thing, I first study its history. Knowing about the history of a person or organization helps you put it in the proper context of everything else it does.

Grandma was a powerful woman, but also a quiet one. She was, beyond doubt, a stoic. This taught me that sometimes finding the diplomatic solution to solve a problem will get more results than a more belligerent approach. I might not always remember this lesson, but it is nevertheless an important one to me. Grandma also taught me the importance of equity and dependability with her Christmas gifts. I was rather surprised to learn that they didn’t always receive Thank You’s when they sent them, but I was glad that I had been able to do so.

Most important of all, I am glad that I got to know her, both as a youth and in my second awakening of Adulthood. All of my many selves have respected her and the role that she has been able to play in her life and in family affairs. She is worthy of respect and will be missed.

Last Weekend

This weekend we had a lot of fun in North Georgia . We had planned the cast party for “Other People’s Musicals” on Sunday night, so we decided to make a weekend of it in North Georgia . Once I dropped Thunder off at Wag A Lots Saturday, Jennifer carefully looked for a hotel for us to stay in. This proved no easy task since almost all of them were full. She managed to find a really good one for around $70 a night, when most of them were going for at a minimum $150 a night. When we got there we took the evening pretty light. Just enjoying a chance of pace. We went out to eat at Schlotskies, which we both liked a lot. Then we read and then slept. Right now Jennifer is reading “Celtic Blood” about Gaelic vampires. Bram Stoker and a lot of the original vampire writers were all heavily influenced in Ireland , and apparently the earliest legends of vampires occur in Ireland . Sounds like an interesting book. I’m reading “Conversations with God” which was lent to me by Rita Moore (one of the two people that helped us meet) and “The Reluctant King” by L. Spring Decamp. When I’m done I’ll post a review on the review blog.

Sunday we had a continental breakfast. I was really tired because I’d been fighting evil things in my dreams…note…this was not a nightmare. I was kicking their imaginary…asterisks…and took a nap later to finish the job. We had lunch in Helen Georgia at the Troll Tavern, which is awesome. I had the Spaghetti and Meatballs and Jennifer had the sampler which was authentic German cuisine. We wandered around the town which is both beautiful and awesome. We skipped the Live Tarantula museum. I’m really mixed on that. I mean, on the one hand, it’s a live tarantula museum. How often do you get a chance to see one of those? At the same time …FRACKING SPIDERS….so….maybe next year. Then we got Funnel Cake with ice cream at Grandma’s Funnel Cakes. They were quite delicious. We ended up buying a tiny glass dragon figuring for only around $15, which made me feel better for not being able to get any art at Dragoncon this year due to budgetary concerns. It had a little light up stand, though when we took it home we declined to use it because apparently it highlights the phallic imagery in the castle the dragon is wrapped around that isn’t quite as apparent when it is just in normal daylight. It does look awesome though. We drove around and looked at the beautiful mountains and beautiful leaves.

Later that night, we went to the Singer’s house. Janie, Patrick, Rita, Jennifer, myself and the Singers were able to make it. They had an amazing log cabin house, modified off a template on the internet. It’s the kind of place you always imagine living in some day, and they actually did it. The food was amazing, a combo of barbeque and Philipino food. We then wrapped up the evening by singing from “Professional Karioke X”. The secret was staying on key at the end and volume. As you might imagine….I did rather well. Jennifer’s first song didn’t go so well but her second “Puff the Magic Dragon” got an excellent score.

Other things: We’re watching Heroes….moderately interesting. The Carnival of Doom might be cool or it might be stupid. But we’re hanging in there to see where it goes. We have TWO Netflix disks for supernatural right now because I shut down my movie queue (in part because I have a job now) and shifted the disk to the TV show queue. Supernatural is *AWESOME* as a show.

I have a job

Albeit a very short one. The contract is only for 4-6 weeks, and by the tone of the interview, I suspect that it will only be four weeks, but it is work and will help make Christmas a little more enjoyable this year. I am supposed to start this Thursday. The really good news is that it is at the best place I've ever worked before and I'll be quite busy. I always enjoy an assignment when I'm up to my eyeballs in stuff to do and can really push myself to the limit.

We saw Zombieland this last Friday and enjoyed it quite a bit. While the world is not perfect, it could be worse. Jennifer is enjoying her job quite a bit, and I'm taking time to enjoy the little things in life.

The Movie is Done

It was a lot of work but we finally finished filming the movie over the weekend. There were about 17 people involved, which makes it the most complicated one we've ever done. We were on set for 10.5 hours over two days with an hour and a half of footage. Lesson learned? I need to keep my craptacular self out of the shots with my #@$@#$#@ boom stick. Fortunately, we still got a lot of good footage despite my attempts to utterly ruin it.

No luck on the job search. I've had a lot of blank times, and lots of people are unemployed now. The difference is that I have gotten exactly TWO phone calls in the last 4 weeks. Bear in mind that normally this is THE best time of the year to find a job. There are almost no jobs out there. And we are one month away from the cold season which typically lasts from November through Jan....Feb is usually not good though which means the earliest a likely job is looking like is...March.

Fun.

Otherwise things go well. I've been a bit defocused but I'm getting back into the groove of things this week and hope to restart a lot of projects that had been temporarily waylaid. We'll see how that goes.

Good News and Bad News

The bad news is that the job search suddenly went from promising to void. As you know I measure the strength of the economy and the job market by the number of calls I get. Today marks the official two month mark in my search and while things were great right before Dragoncon, I haven't gotten a SINGLE call since then. Usually I'm at least getting calls for jobs in New Jersey or the like that I'm not available to take. At the two month mark I lower my salary requirements slightly and do so on a monthly basis thereafter until I reach my absolute minimum. We'll see how this turns out but since in my experience September is THE best time of the year to find a job, its not a good sign.

The good news is that the rehearsal for the movie went well yesterday. People are enthusiastic and seem to be enjoying themselves. My writing is very slow but progressing.

This week

Dragon Con was a lot of fun. We were able to prepay the hotel room and the ticket which meant that it was a very nice vacation at a time when we needed it. Thursday night was the first night we stayed at a hotel there which helped give us more time on Friday since most of the other times we've gone to Dragoncon, Friday morning was always hectic. Jennifer got pictures and we hope to put them up soon.

Some highlights include:

*A neat panel with Nimoy and Shatner Friday morning. Shatner is a total attention hog but was cool at the same time. Nimoy was rather zen the whole time. Interesting questions.

*Felicia Day was in the Dollhouse panel which was quite packed. I think we may see more Dollhouse guests next year.

*Warehouse 13 also had a lot of people though it had no guests. The panels with a lot of fans talking to each other generally just aren't as interesting.

*A rather cool panel with Michael Stackpole and other podcast authors that gave me some good insights into putting my own novels on podcast. I'm considering doing so but haven't decided the exact way I'm going to do it. Might establish a second podcast which is ....yeah. Too many blogs already. Logistics have yet to be decided, but apparently putting a novel in podcast form doesn't (according to them anyway) interfere with the ability to sell it...and considering my luck selling it anyway....We'll see.

*Went to the parade for the first time this year. It was awesome. Even if you don't go to dragoncon, this should be an annual event for anyone seriously into sci-fi/fantasy. It was quite fun and its totally free.

*Gave blood for the first time this year at Dragon Con. Vaccinations and foreign travel plus other circumstances prevented me before. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

*Masquerade was cool but not as cool as years past.

*Steam punk is in vogue. So much so that I'm making my next novel Steam Punk...of course....I'm only vaguely aware of what steam punk is, so it is a bit blind. That and I do like retro tech which helps in this case. It might end up being something more like "Tompunk"....

*Saw Pete Abrams at a panel. He does the comic Sluggy Freelance. It was very interesting. :)

*Saw a lot of rather cool short films. The production value on the films they show at Dragoncon are just...light years beyond what I can do, but I still intend to do them. We'll see how Other People's Musicals comes out. So far it is on track.

*Jennifer had a LOT of fun at the Oragami panels.

*Jennifer also enjoyed seeing Draco Malfoy, who is apparently a pretty cool guy.

*There were lots of Twilight fans there due to the guy who played the lead in the movie being there, but they didn't really cross my path, which is just as well.

*Seeing a live performance of Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog in a room with 2000 screaming Whedonites is just plain awesome.

*Jennifer's costume was also awesome.

Link to a political post

Without going into details, here is a link to my political blog about a video given to me by my friend Ken Lightner that I think sums up the current discussion (or lack thereof) quite well.

Life

I had a phone interview today and another interview scheduled next week. But with the economy being the way it is, who can tell? I heard back from my recruiter and apparently I slam dunked the interview I had last week but they are still not sure which way they want to go. And that's a government contractor, which tells me that even if I have a lot of interviews that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I have too many second hand accounts from family and friends from all of the companies that are in absolute turtle mode until 2010.

We'll see.

In a related note, I am quite happy for a personal issue that has recently been partially solved. I won't go into details but suffice to say it was worrying me greatly and now it isn't.

Fortunately we'd gotten the Dragoncon tickets early (ie when I had a job) which makes the whole impending vacation affordable. It happens to be right here in Atlanta which helps too. :) More details will probably be posted during the weekend.

Return

Well we went to Gencon last week. Jennifer spent two of the three days visiting with her father and step family while I was at Gencon. On Friday we did some events together. Thursday kind of sucked because I thought I had lost my bag which had a character for an event that I'd been preparing for for months. I was able to replace most of what I needed but it still wasn't quite the same. As such I was kind of down for most of Thursday but things picked up on Friday with Jennifer.

Jennifer finally learned how to play Killer Bunnies. We also played a Dungeons and Dragons game called "A Fist Full of Clerics" but by far the most fun we had was playing a larp called "The Dragon of Feldra." We both had characters that fit well. It was a small event, but it was Jennifer's first time doing a Larp and she enjoyed it. For those of you who are not familiar with what a larp is, thing "Dungeons and Dragons" meets "How to Host a Murder Mystery."

The drive back went largely without incident. I'm still trying to help Grandma with her house. Last week Mom and Skip did a lot more than I've done so far in terms of getting some people to clean the front. Mom and I had gone to clean out the cat room and some other things. We're nearly at a point where we can have some packers come in and put some stuff in Storage. That should be helpful.

One step at a time.

The job search goes well. I had my first interview Thursday, and haven't heard anything. They were supposed to make a decision yesterday which means I probably didn't get the job, but in the three weeks since my job at Cox ended I've had four placements which is pretty good. We'll see how things turn out.

Life

Well things have been busy. The main project right now is helping Grandma with her house. Yesterday, Grandma, Mom and I went and emptied the house of a lot of trash which we put into a dumpster we'd rented for that purpose. We also removed the mattress from and cleaned much of the dreaded Catroom. Suffice to say that upon arriving home I removed all clothing and put it in its own special wash to avoid special friends that might have accompanied me.

Job market isn't great right now, but I am getting calls from recruiters. Mainly though it is for lower paying positions. Might have gotten TOO experienced at tech writing, which means the transition to project management was probably at the right time. Of course, it takes experience to get a job and get experience, but I've got a few ideas. Mainly, I've been thinking bout starting a small business for a while....I can hire myself as project manager. I need 3 years of experience to get my PMP which is really the key to getting Project Management work.

So, I've also realized that I've accomplished most of my original life goals. The only two remaining are become a father and see the Louvre. So I made up a new list.

0. Become a father.
1. See the Louvre.
2. Travel around the world on a way way trip. Japan, Australia, India, Egypt, London, Italy and Hawaii.
3. Learn a martial art.
4. Competitively enter a fencing competition.
5. Assemble a band for a tour based on music written by me.
6. Start seven businesses.
7. Learn a musical instrument.
8. Sculpt something memorable.
9. Create or help create a graphic novel.
10. Own a plane, sailboat, taught or ultralight and learn to pilot/sail it.
11. Write seven novels.
12. Produce a musical based on Simon Bolivar.
13. Go on a cruise.
14. Organize a convention (ideally one based on Sci fi)
15. Invent a card game.
16. Build a house (not necessarily my own.)
17. Own my own home (all own, no mortgage)
18. Have a room with a secret passage
19. Learn electronics (ideally a remote controlled object or robot battles robot)
20. Gain 3 patents.
21. Own a self sufficient piece of land (energy, food, light manufacturing)
22. Go on a cruise.
23. Be in a guerrilla musical dance number.
24. Help in a local political campaign (meaningfully)
25. Set up a treasure hunt for after I die. A real one.
26. Live the fifth life (who knows what)
27. Ditto the sixth.
28. Ditto the seventh.

If the right door opens.
29. Kept to myself.
30. Establish a business empire dedicated to a not for profit foundation.
31. Visit (but do not live in) Space.
32. Buy my own island.
33. Establish technological reboot centers.
34. Create a national movement to reform the electoral system.
35. Create a functional and profitable news network that actually produces what is independent.
36. Create an institution to focus on pure research.
37. Create an institution dedicated to the study of Narcolepsy.
38. "" Neurological regeneration.
39. Paid Angel agents to quietly and anonymously do good.
40. Create a series of libraries (10) dedicate to principles original to libraries. Secular sanctuaries and temples to knowledge.
41. Create a school system based on my ideas of education.
42. Create a wide range of nuclear desalination plants on the west coast.
43. Breed dogs to live twice as long with higher intelligence (ie uplift)

All I've thought of for now.

The Two Edged Sword of Emotion

God has given me many talents. I have a desire to express poetry and to work to find the true story of something. When I am in an interview, one of the most common questions I ask when we get to the "Do you have any questions?" part, is that I like to ask a bit about the history of the project and the company if they haven't already gone over it (though more and more these days they are as part of the 'info dump' part of the interveiw.)

It is this trait that lets me be a writer and walk in worlds that never were. Through role playing games, I've been able to save the world a few dozen times now. I think we'll all agree that the odds of my doing that in the real one are rather...slim.

But what is a strength can be a weakness. The dramas created in my mind can be painful at times, despite the increasing strength of my reason. Rationally, I am entirely aware of the fact that I've been unemployed before, and that I will again, and that I will get another job. By basic probability it should be within one or two months, three or four if you include tough economic times. The longest has been six. Yes, we're in a depression right now, but one can find work in a depression.

The true problem though isn't the anticipated distance between jobs, but rather this vague murmering belief in the back of my mind that somehow I've offended all of my recruiters and previous employers and that somewhere there is a blacklist somewhere of people not to hire and my name is on it.

There is no rational basis for this belief, and more importantly, at least I am capable of recognizing that it is there, but that doesn't make it any less painful to beat down on a regular basis.

Aside from that, things are going quite well. I've got a lot of projects and a lot of drive to get them done. The more I can focus on them while still searching for a job, the more I can tamp down delusions of paranoia. :)

Last night Jennifer and I went to an excellent concert featuring the Wiyos, Willie Nelson, John Melancamp and Bob Dylan. Jennifer got the tickets at the beginning of the month. I liked them all but you'd but amazed to find that my favorite was actually the cover band you've never heard of before (the Wiyos.) Dylan was hard to understand, but appearantly he's always hard to understand and you can hear more in a man's voice than the words he says.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

On paper, things should be going badly right now. What with my job ending in a week and a half, family members being in health distress and financial distress, the winds of politics and current events things appear more and more dire. But slowly, ever so slowly, I am wrapping my passion in a blanket and directing the fires of my soul into an engine of reason which will grant me great and relentless power.

We shall see what we shall see.

Life

Watched this Weekend: Year One, Terminator Salvation, Stargate: The Ark of Truth, Stargate: Contiuum

Read: Backup

Reading: Superheroes and Philosophy, Nation by Terry Pratchet

Jennifer and I are in a dance class. Last wednesday night we changed from Swing to Salsa, which Jennifer definitely likes. Also unlike Swing, I've never taken it before, which is good in that I don't have to unlearn anything, but more difficult in that I have to learn a whole bunch of new stuff the first time.

We went on our date night to the Drive In, which is the perfect place to see movies you wouldn't want to pay for at full price at the normal theater. One of the funnest things was the audio they played of these corny old food commercials from the 1950's, like the guy with the german accent who says that he has invented the 'food vending machine' and then proceeds to list all of the things it serves. One has to wonder what the world would be like if they talked like they do in commercials. Probably quite frightening.

All in all it was a pretty relaxing weekend, which given how busy we have been was a nice change of pace. Of course, since we don't have children, I understand 'not busy' to be a relative thing comparitively speaking but still, it was nice to relax. We watched a lot of DVD's from netflix over the weekend. We definitely like Supernatural.

Jennifer had been having some trouble getting some medication from our insurance company, but they finally approved it. While no insurance company has been perfect, given the three we've dealt with in the last two years, we've had the most positive experience by far with Principal. If you ever get to choose who your insurance provider is, you might consider them.

Happenings this Week

Well given the havok that is occuring in the lives of friends and family, I feel positively lucky. Nothing that has happened to us even compares to brain surgery or major gastrointestinal malfunction. :/ There was some potential tension re: my job, since my boss is moving to another department at the end of the month, but according to her there is no reason to believe that my contract will end any time before November when its supposed to. Hopefully all will go well.

We had an extremely busy weekend. Jennifer's mother, Joyce, was in town to celebrate her birthday. Thursday night we went to see Public Enemy which was pretty good. Jennifer and Joyce spent most of Thursday shopping at various places, including at BJ's to get a replacement microwave for the one we had that became fragged ala Half Life 2.

Friday Jennifer treated her mother to a day spa, which was quite nice for the two of them. They got massages, manicures and pedicures. While they were doing that I played Civilization IV with Greg and Jason (a friend of ours in Houston who works with Greg.) I think Civilization is the ultimate Ant Farm game, but its still fun to me. Friday night we went to the Shakespear Tavern and saw the Mystery of Irma Vepp, which was quite skillfully done. It was a little antiquated, but the humor was still relatively good and we definitely enjoyed it.

Saturday we spent most of the day with Mom, Skip and Grandma. We watched Bolt, ate dinner and then walked half way to downtown to see the fireworks. We had brought some items, grandma provided a fruit tart, and Skip's assembly of sandwich components was excellent. Though the roast beef had come fresh from the farmer's market and with the juices etc, one could understand how it makes vegetarians unpleased.

Sunday we had a much more relaxed time. We spent most of the time lounging around the house. I played some Civ IV, and read some. I finished the latest Feist book I was reading, Rides a Dread Legion in fairly short order. The evening was fairly quiet as we watched yet another episode of the extremely safe and inane arthurian hackjob that is Merlin. It is fun, but they've Smallvilled Camelot to the point that the original story is best left at the door. Just pretend that it only vaguely resembles hundreds of years of story telling (which it does) and you'll be more or less fine. Occasionally it can be frustrating as Merlin acts like a complete and total idiot, but his heart is in the right place, even if his brain isn't. We liked Supernatural a lot better and I'm sorry we haven't been watching it up until now. Its quite good. I originally thought it was Fred and Fred take action in live action Scooby Doo but it isn't that at all.
I think the pitch line I read on their wikipedia page "Luke Skywalker and Hansolo drive a cadilac from Route 66 and drive all over the country fighting monsters" is pretty accurate.

Later this week, we saw Charlie Bartlet. Jennifer is extremely busy with crunch time at work, so last night I finished two more episodes in my podcast for Red Anvil. On the whole, things are going quite well for us and we are grateful for what we have while we have it.

Goal Check

Physical: Reduce my weight to 225lbs. Losing 30lbs, at an average of 1800 calories a day for diet with 1-2 free days a month, exercising aerobically 4 times a week for 300 calories each session for 22.5 minutes, lifting weights 2 times a week using at least the 30 pound weights. Currently at 180 calories each session with the goal to raise 20 calories a week until I reach 300. The goal is to start with 1 weight lifting session in Jan and then adding another in Feb.

Status: Exercise is very succesful. Dieting not so much. Two months of unemployment was not kind. Revised goal for the end of the year is 240lbs.


Mental: Read 1 Good non fiction book a month + 2 slowly over Wed. I plan to start with Fast Food Nation. The two slow books will be "Search Engine Marketing" and "Philosophy and Super Heroes."

Status: Non fiction goal: On track. All read but the Philosophy of Superheroes, which is still on my queue before the end of the year.

Graduate Grad School with at least a 3.0 average (preferably with honors) in May.

Status: Completed.

Spiritual: Continue scripture study, prayer and other activities.

Status: Scripture study: Meh.

Prayer: On track.

Other Activities: On track. Working to begin doing RFP's for charities to help them earn money, starting with Mythic Journies.

Read at least one major spiritual work belonging to another religion.

Status: Not yet started. Est to begin this month. Probably something Buddhist. In fact, probably the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Emotional: Be kinder. Have Less Anger.

Status: Seems to be on track.

Social: Get involved with a service project at least once a month starting in April.

Status: Delayed, but still planned. Countered this with helping Grandma with House of Damoclese.

Writing: Covered on the Writing Blog.

Status: Short stories: Not on track. Novels: On track.

Film: Write two film scripts. Produce two films, one directed by Mom and one directed by Jennifer. Submit at least one of the two to a film festival this year. The film should be no shorter than 4 minutes and no longer than 10.

Status: First script written. First meeting for first film scheduled. Replacing film directed by Mom to podcast. Poem for podcast completed. Second film will likely be a reshoot of "Dueling Morons."

Invention: Buy and read at least two Law School text books on Patent Law.

Status: Not yet initiated.

Economic: Maintain my job. Pay off more of Credit Card. Make preparations for child. Obtain 5 most important items as determined by Jennifer and I.

Status:

Job: Failed, but beyond my control. New job obtained.

Credit Card: Not by the end of year but paying off.

Child: Delayed.

More Important Items: 1.5 obtained. 2 by the end of the month. 5 by the end of September.

Make Red Anvil Productions Gaming have its first profitable year.

Status: On track.

Family: Improve relations. Be slightly less annoying.

Status: On track.

Friends: Have at least 3 non game related social events over the course of the year.

Status: If you include the writing group: Completed. Otherwise 0 for 3. 1 on the schedule. 1 more planned. 1 not yet at all determined.

Children: Have 1. Have all physical preparations made at least 2 months in advance of birth.

Status: Delayed for at least one year.

Other:

Create at least one podcast a month (probably short stories already written)

Status: Done. And on track.

Create a fourth blog by March involving unknown quantity or subject for fun and/or profit.

Status: Complete.

Create a group of new life goals by March.

Status: Failed. Hope to create new list by the end of July.

Ensure that all selected items in the Christmas Coupon Book I gave Jennifer are delivered/fulfilled.

Status: On track. 8 out of 15 completed. 9 out of 15 by the end of the day.

Make arrangements for Jan 3, 2010 Tolkien's Birthday LOTR Marathon Party.

Status: Not yet complete.

Go to Gencon 2009.

Status: On track. Reservations made.

Go to DragonCon 2009.

Status: On track. Reservations made.

Go to Boston for my Graduation.

Status: Completed.

Learn to Juggle.

Status: Not yet begun.

Learn to Shoot a Pistol.

Status: Delayed until September.

If Brett is sent to a Spanish Speaking Mission, Refresh and Brush up on my Spanish.

Status: Not yet started.

This week

We saw the Diving Bell and the Butterfly over the weekend. For dinner on date night we ate at a Thai restaurant, but because we recently got a new computer and a few other things, we're trying to be somewhat frugal about how we do things, especially with a few up coming expenses this summer that have yet to be taken care of.

I was looking forward to the Transformer's movie, but I don't think I'm going to see it. Its the same reason I didn't see the Star Wars clone movie last year. Well, kind of. See for the Star Wars movie it was "Hutt Baby" and the assorted descriptions of it that made me realize it would be worse than phantom menace. For Transformers that would be "Robot Testacles".....I don't think I need to see a movie with Robot Testacles in it.

Jennifer and I are on a major health kick, but hers is a lot more effective than mine at the moment. I might need to do a bit less exercise and a bit more dieting. We'll see how things go tomorrow. I've been doing a lot of reading lately, which has been nice.

Last Sunday we spent father's day with Skip, Mom, Grandma and Julie. It was fun. We ate at the 'thumb's up' cafe. Then we hung out and talked for a lot after that. Later, I called Dad and Jennifer talked to her father and step father.

Progress Marches On

We had a relaxing weekend at home. We burned through four netflix disks, including Lost Season 4, Madmen, Gone Baby Gone and Connections 2. They were all quite good. We also got a lot of house work done; cleaning up, washing dishes, washing clothes, clearing the yard etc.

For date night, we ate dinner at Boca de Beppo (quite good) and watched The Hangover. We had originally wanted to see a new movie that's come out called Moon, which is a sci fi movie that has gotten great reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, but it only came out for a very limited release and appearantly we got the location wrong. Que sera sera etc etc etc. We'll find it somewhere else I guess.

Right now, we're both using this rather awesome site called Livestrong.com. It is basically a way to record your weight and food consumption. Here's a look at my most recent chart:



As you can see, I am not going to be able to make my goal of losing 30 pounds by the end of the year, but at a steady rate of 2 pounds every 10 days, I should be somewhere where I want to be early next year. The wonderful thing about this is that it helps me track what might be just anomolies in weight gain vs something that is more of an alarming trend. Of course, the down side is that you have to enter all that you're eating into the site, but I find it to be worth it.

No News is Good News

Quiet week.

I went to Augusta on Sunday to help Grandma. We had a rather heavy weekend planned, but had to change it at the last minute. We're planning most of what we planned to do this weekend for late July (perhaps).

We both got some work done around the house, watched more Madmen and Tom Baker Dr. Who and a bit of Burn Notice. Jennifer is doing Belly Dancing lessons, which she likes A LOT, and doing a lot of crocheting.

I've got a lot of side projects going, including working with actors on my podcast, helping as project coordinator on someone else's movie for Project Management experience, and trying to arrange for freelance writers to write for the role playing game side of things. I am also reading more of the Jim Butcher books and recently finished the Kim Harrison book mom leant me.

Interesting and Chaotic Times

Well, this week has been interesting. I'll start with the most interesting stuff and go from there.

This Saturday we went to the AVP Atlanta Open Vollyball tournament. It was pretty cool. Basically they were set up by the highway near an old abandoned steel mill called Atlantic Station. They had three different volliball set ups, two small qualifiers and a 'winner's circle.' We spent most of our time watching the winner's circle. It was a pretty good deal, since we got a block of time from 10:00 to 5:30. We got there at 11:00 and were there for most of that. The players were very very good both on the men's and women's side. There was, however, more spiking on the men's side primarily due to height advantages. We got to see the Olympic gold medalists play which was also interesting.

Friday night we went to go see UP which we quite enjoyed. Saturday night after volliball we rushed home, got changed and then went to see The Tempest at the Shakespear Tavern. It was also quite good and whoever they have as the new creative director is really putting a change on things. They're appearantly having some financial difficulties which is a bit sad though.

Sunday we did all manner of house hold chores, trying to get the place a bit more spic and span. The back yard has become a bit of a jungle and Jennifer is working to slowly clear it. We watched a bit of Lost (which we like) and Doctor Who (the old ones with Tom Baker.) I have also recently started reading White Witch, Black Curse, which mom leant me.

Monday night we watched Ali on Netflix. It is quite good. Jennifer made an awesome salad and sandwich dinner which was quite welcome after the...interesting...day I'd had.

Picking up things a bit in the movie area. I'm trying to build Project Management experience for the PMP, so I've agreed to act as Project Coordinator for Interstate Films for a film and more if it works out well. It doesn't pay, but they're quite ambitious and it looks like it will be interesting. I'm also working with Mom to help potentially do some screen writing for a project she's working with called the Sentinel Chronicles.

Jennifer has recently started taking Belly Dancing lessons every Tuesday night and she absolutely loves it!

Life

Well, this weekend Julie, Grandma and I went to prep her house for the movers. It will take some time to fix things, but we made a good start. Julie was particularly helpful. We're going back in two weeks.

Friday night Jennifer and I saw Angels and Demons which is OK and then later watched a lot of Netflix including Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Doctor Who, Mad Men (which is suprisingly good but not family friendly), this BIZARRE australian claymation thing called Harvey Krumpet and Connections 1. I also got some reading and writing done.

Jennifer did a truly impressive job of making a dent in the jungle that has become our backyard.

I still need to make some long term plans over exactly what to do with my degree at this point, but the immediate plans are to get my PMP (the equivalent of the bar as it is for lawyers) and to get Project Management experience.

Trip to Boston

Normally I would have written this each day as we did it, because there are often so many neat things on such trips, that writing it all up in a summary is just too much. I don't like writing such long posts, and I doubt many people like to read them, so I'll summarize but try to provide relevant details as well. I wish that Boston had not been such an internet deficient city. Oh sure, there was wireless everywhere, but no rentable kiosks of you didn't have a lap top.

We got an early start on Thursday morning, taking the train to the airport and then flying directly to Boston. Did you know that you have to pay an extra $15 dollars now for ONE non carry on baggage? There are no free ones any more. They do (to our pleasant suprise) still offer free peanuts and a single softdrink mid flight, but they're now doing what Aer Lingus did on trip to Ireland in terms of pushing snacks and better beverages to sell. Though they're still not yet hawking random merchandise. I imagine it is only a matter of time. We got a car at the dollar rental place, and while most of the staff was nice, the lady we rented from kept trying (about five or six times) to add more stuff on to the vehicle. We declined. We then went to the hotel, The Inn at Crystal Cove, which we liked quite a bit. We later decided to see a movie, but Angels and Demons wasn't out yet. We ended up seeing X-men Origins which was entirely forgettable and a waste of the $12 a peice we paid for it.

Let me take a moment to talk about Winthrop. It is entirely an accident that we ended up staying there, but the Wikipedia article really doesn't do it justice. It is in some ways reminiscent of Boulder near Denver but it is a bit more than that. The town is full of these majestic (though crumbling) turn of the century three story houses that are absolutely awesome, but the town itself is full of middle class working folk. It is a small town near a large one, and it is very noticiable by the complete lack of corporate logos all over the town. You don't realize how much your subconcious mind accepts these things until you're in a town that doesn't have them. There was a Duncan Donuts, but appearantly they had to fight to get in the town. Corporate america would hate Winthrop, but personally it is exactly the kind of place I'd love to go. The locals seem nice, though I can also tell you don't want to piss them off. Also an attitude I can greatly respect. As a side note, I would not recommend navigating the twisty maze of streets in the city without a handy GPS. We are quite pleased with our Tom Tom which performed much better than the brain dead Verizon Navigator.

Friday was our tourist day and after a bit of a late start (partly getting back late from the mediocre movie) we went to Fenway Park, which is one of the oldest parks in Baseball. Jennifer is a huge baseball fan, and while she is a brave's fan over the Red Sox, she is a massive fan of Ted Williams, whose book taught her a lot about the fundamentals of baseball. We took several pictures which we will post in short order (probably to Facebook). Jennifer bought a few knicknacks including a pennant for her father and two hat pins. Then we went to see the USS Constitution, which is the oldest commissioned active warship afloat. It was a US Naval Vessel in 1796, and is one of the six original frigates commissioned by George Washington. After that, we went to see Boston Park, and then Jennifer did a bit of shopping. We were going to do the "Duck Tour" but decided that since we were both exhuasted and that this was a vacation, we'd do it next time. This turned out to be a good idea since by now I had a small sore on my upper right foot. Nothing major but it hurts a bit.

On Saturday we did Graduation. We had a relaxing Saturday morning (mainly because we decided not to do the Duck Tour) and then went to Boston University. We got there early for the pre reception, but since I didn't know anyone there from Adam, we toured the campus instead. It is HUGE, lenthwise about twice that of BYU, but probably about equal to BYU in terms of total area. The graduation itself went well. Initially, when I showed up to register, they handed me a sign that said "Project Management" and I thought I was going to lead the procession for my group, but it turns out I was just the first guy to show up, and that it was actually carried by the alphabetically first person (probably Aaron Aaaaaace or something). The ceremony was two hours long and they handed me a diploma. I am quite pleased to have the degree, since it is both a life goal and hopefully a tool to help me change to a different career. We'll see how it works out.

Sunday we came home. I picked up Thunder from Mom and Skip. We watched a bit of Lost and then slept. It had been an exhausting trip.

The incompotence of American Express

Sent to American Express:

To whom it may concern,

This morning I found out that, 4 days before we were to go on vacation, our card was full of over $2300 worth of fraudulent charges. I was informed in no less than 3 phone calls to your customer service department, that it would take 30 days to resolve this issue, that I would get no details about what was going on or why, and that my card was essentially locked for 30 days so I could not continue accrueing rewards. I recently spent 150 hours dealing with someone ELSE hitting my car, I am in no mood to lose more money due to someone ELSE's actions.

Your fraud department has informed me that there is nothing they can do about this, besides, at best, to wipe the fraudulent transactions from our record THIRTY DAYS from now. This is in reference to case XXXXXXXX. Since apparently your fraud and customer service departtment can't do anything about this, I have thus far contacted:

Hank Johnson
Johnny Isakson
Saxby Chambliss
United Airlines
FTC Identity Fraud
Treasury Inspector General
Chicago Police
Illinois Attorney General
Interpol
Guragon Commissioner of Police in India
Georgia Attorney General

And I will be contacting anyone else who I think might be able to do something about this. Furthermore, when I am asked about American Express, I'll tell them "Well they have great customer service, but you'd better hope no one jams up your card with criminally fraudulent charges because apparantly it takes them 30 days to be able to do anything about getting the fraudulent charges off."

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Thomas C. Ricks

Life

Well we're getting ready to go to Boston this Thursday. We broke down and got tickets, since it would have been a sixteen hour drive. Still, I'd rather have waited a few more weeks before hitting any major expenses, but in this case it was probably worth it. Probably. I guess in some ways I can be a cheap bastard.

We celebrated mother's day with Mom on Sunday with Julie, Skip, Mom, Jennifer, Grandma and I. It was nice. We mainly talked a lot though there was this brief bizarre timewarp where we started watching something on the screen, I remember an instense pain in my forehead like someone was jabbing a spike through my eye on the inside, and then suddenly two hours of my life had been wiped away due to mental defenses erasing the horrific experience that I had just watched. There were vague mental salves of "it wasn't really that bad" and "Hey, there were actually funny moments like um.....well those are all a blur now too because your mind has been forced to heal itself" and "There actually wasn't any dancing...that you remember" and "Of course there won't be any sequels."

We saw the second season finale of Robin Hood. Its convinced me to start a sixth blog about reviewing the stuff I watch, see, hear or read. If I put something there in the future that I refence here I'll link it, but the long story short is this: If you're going to do a television show and the actor wants more money, I'm not a fan of getting rid of the actor, but I understand it from a business perspective. Television audiences are trained to accept this. What I am not prepared to accept is that if you are going to do a show about Robin Hood, you do not kill Maid Marion off and replace her with Guy of Gisborn's sister who is the NEW secret spy inside of the castle and also Robin's romantic love interest. Nuh uh. Off the netflix queue you go like a good little evil stupid thing. I mean...SERIOUSLY...who thinks these things up?

I'm beginning to wonder if the british might be able to make all around better television (scripted not reality-almost all reality television is garbage no matter what nationality) but simply cannot grasp the concept of ending a series properly.

We also saw Star Trek Friday night. It was excellent and I highly recommend seeing it.

Life

Well, we now have tickets and I should have my cap and gown. I also have a new car, a 2008 Cherry Red Kia Rio. Not exactly a mercedes Benz, in fact, not even close, but since our consolidated loans are probably gonna be somewhere in the rate of 330-400 a month by my calculation, I'll hold off on the ritzy cars until we own a home, have children, and I actually have a project manager's job that pays well.

Which could be a while, but it will be a lot sooner now that I've graduated.

Jennifer's birthday was over the last weekend. I got her a gift certificate at a shoe place which she liked a lot and a digital camera. She has also received checks, a magazine subscription and another gift certificate to Amazon.

We declined to watch Wolverine over the weekend after hearing really bad things about it. Instead, on Friday night, we celebrated Jennifer's birthday...buying shoes...which normally I'm not a fan of, but in this case she enjoyed it and it was for her birthday so I dealt with it. We also had Thai food which was excellently good.

Saturday we went to a thing for Mythic Journey's which some friends were doing, kind of a screening. It was rather interesting and we both enjoyed it.

Sunday we both went to Mom and Skip's house where we celebrated Jennifer's Birthday with Mom, Skip and Grandma. We had a Turtle Custard Pie (quite good) and Lasanga. We also watched the second half of the Terry Pratchet Inspired Hogfather, which was fun.

We're enjoying Lost Season 3 right now, which is much MUCH better than I expected it to be.

All bow to me, for I am the Master...

Of randomly filling out bubbles in a final. Someone wins the lottery every time it is played, and the one ADVANTAGE of freakishly few questions worth a freakishly large amount is that the odds of that incredibly small chance of you filling out the random guesses in such a way as to get a decent score goes up...

I got a B in the class.

I should be proud, and I am for most of my degree, but not so much on the final. I think Divine Intervention played a bit of a hand. The fact that others probably complained helped with the curve, but even with a curve breaking its back, I had to have help on that.

We also now have a new car. I'll try to post a pic later.

Now I need to gather paperwork.

Interesting Times

So in case you hadn't heard I bombed my final. The potentially good news is that everyone else might have as well. I knew going in that there was someone who had a 97% average on the quizzes (I had an 82.5) who was considering complaining about this final.

A single question makes a drastic difference in my future fate...to a degree. I got the exact number in three out of ten questions. Probability means I got a 4 out 10. That gives me a mathematical 67, which is a high D. It means I will have to retake the class, though the loans will probably cover it. After talking with the office, the new grade replaces the old in the GPA, and my current GPA is such that I can get an F and still be above 3.0, so theoretically I could retake the class multiple times to keep passing, since it is my last class.

Since it was a tough final, there will almost assuredly be a curve, but this is a tough professor who likes math, so he's going to make that curve (IMHO) as low as he can and get away with it. I'm pulling this number out of thin air, but I'm guessing a 4% curve - ie bumping the actual percentage up 4% points. Which for me makes it a 71%.

After talking with someone in the office, while theoretically I MIGHT be able to get a waiver with a 71% (extreme C-) it is supremely unlikely.

Conversely, a 5 out of 10 on the final gets me a raw 71, which becomes a curve adjusted 75%.....which is a solid C. With a high GPA, and a dubious final, I think my chances of appeal for graduation are excellent.

So basically, my ability to randomly correctly fill in 2 out of 7 bubbles instead of 1 out of 7 bubbles is worth $2700.

This is not what I would call excellence in teaching or design.

In other interesting news: I am getting a new car. This is not voluntary. On my way home from the end of the root canal saga, on Feb 20th, someone rear ended my car, mangling the bumper. I proceeded to spend the next month trying to get said person to talk to his OWN insurance company so I could get it paid for. I had it inspected twice, and was told by their insurance and my insurance that it would cost $1400ish to repair. So I take it in, and the power is down. They give me a big monstrostity of a car, free of charge, because I was patient while I waited. This turns out to be costly freebie, because I scraped the paint in our car port which will cost me the $500 deductable on our own insurance. At any rate, I found out as of Thursday of last week that it is not $1400 to repair my car but $3800, so they're declaring my tiny little 2003 echo with 140000 miles on it a total loss. Fortunately I have gap insurance, but it basically means I have no trade in and no equity towards a new car. Its a good time to buy a car, but a bad time to get credit. We'll see how this goes. I do know I had to go to the garage to clean out my car immediately after bombing the uber important final which was slightly surreal.

I came home and attacked our out of control hedges producing about 400-500 pounds of trimmings. It was quite cathargic. I then proceeded to walk the Dog. Jennifer was very supportive.

Sunday I took Grandma to survey her house. We now have a concrete plan to get her stuff ready to be moved which will be a load off of her mind and Mom and Skip's mind. I had a slightly fitful sleep worrying about phantom (or not phantom) fleas that were in the bed. We're washing all of the sheets just to be sure. I'm mildly floaty right now as a result.

But here are reasons that I have to be thankful, despite all of the drama:

*I have the best wife in the whole world. She is awesome on a stick, beautiful, smart, fully, sexy, and cute all rolled into one. Without her, I would not have even gotten the 3 out of 10.

*I have a loving and supportive family;parents and siblings who care about me.

*I have a strong spiritual relationship with the divine.

*I have a good paying job (First week went well btw)

*I've managed to accomplish, am accomplishing and will accomplish many neat things with my side projects including films, novels, games and who knows what else. I might not published, but I have produced them and I'm proud of most of what I've made.

*I have awesome friends.

*I have a dog, who might be stupid, but is extremely loyal.

*I live in (to me) the best country on earth at, despite all the running problems, one of the best times in history to be alive.

Short Post

Final of Doom on Sat. Must study.

Date night on Sat was awesome at Drive in. Observe and Report is not even remotely a family movie but amusing. It is so R that it trills. I Love You Man is interesting but I wouldn't even netflix it probably. Free as a B movie was nice. It was enjoyable enough.

First day of work good but slow. A lot to learn in a short period of time. Its a contract but my boss seems cool. We'll see how things progress. Its a job, which is significantly better than no job.

Took a mock final yesterday. Did not go well AT ALL, but I am taking Jennifer's suggestion and focusing on the positive instead of saying how doomed I am, except for calling the Final of Doom the Final of Doom because it is light hearted, if not ominous humor.

Attended wedding of a friend on Sat. We were late. It was very embarrassing. I thought it was 30 minutes later than it was. It was over by the time we got there, but the reception was nice.

This week in Life

This final is going to be hard.

Yes. I keep saying that, but I keep meaning it. I got a 70 on the last quiz, but the stats show I am behind the eightball on the class curve. Currently, if I get 6 out of 10 questions right, I get a C, which gives me a slight POSSIBILITY, however slim, of getting my degree. If I get 7 out of 10, I get a solid C+, which means I will almost certainly gain a waiver, and 8 out of 10 means I get a B- in the class and pass with no approvals needed whatsoever.

So, to clarify, the hardest test of the hardest class I've ever actually bothered to finish (as compared to the Upper Level Graduate Class on Chromosomes of Absolute brainmeltiness) is 10 questions. 2 Years. $36000. 12 Classes. Dozens of papers, postings, quizzes, finals and tests, all pretty much come down to a difference of exactly two questions about barely maybe potentially passing and just passing with no questions asked.

And that's assuming I can even get a score that high.

Jennifer is optimistic about my chances. I'm trying very very hard to be.

The new job looks sweet. I start next Monday and I've got a 7 minute commute one way. I'll miss working from home one day a week though.

We saw "Monsters Vs. Aliens" over the weekend. It was very well done and we liked it. A very fun family movie. Worth seeing in three D, and probably best Net Flixed. I'd save the see it in the theaterness for Pixar's "Up" coming next month.

Ascent From Madness - No Good News Will Go Unpunished

I have a job.

I do not officially have it in writing, but the interview today went well and I officially have a phone call saying "You have the job." I expect paperwork etc will begin tomorrow and I will (I presume) start any time between tomorrow (unlikely) and one to two weeks from now. It is a long term contract (November).

And it is very very welcome news indeed. The flip side is that I got a 70 on my last quiz. I'd already mentioned that this class was tough, indeed probably the toughest class I've ever had in Grad School and probably the third toughest I've ever had after the upper level graduate genetics class (I dare anyone who is not a science major to sit through one class of that and not get brain melt), biochemistry (which I somehow passed) and the dreamweaver component of my web class in Grad School.

This isn't a problem by itself, no the real problem is that the final, which is 40% of the grade, is only 10 questions. Multiple choice. And it looks like, based on the quizzes, that they'll be comprehensive which means multistep processes involving math from more than one section of the course.

Not impossible but VERY VERY difficult and very very very important that the next two weeks of my life (just got a call I start on the 20th) that I live, eat and drink Financial Management Mathematics.

Descent Into Madness - Day 37

This image shows the number of submittals I've had in my job search. I track three pieces of data; the number of interviews, the number of submittals and the number of applications. I call anything where I am sending someone my resume an application. Honestly, I consider this stat meaningless because most of them just end up in a huge pile, but I track it because I might get audited for taking unemployment.

To determine how I am doing in the job search, I measure interviews/weeks of the period (I've had three interviews in seven weeks) and the number of submittals per week. A submittal is where a recruiter picks up the phone, calls me, and says they're sending my resume to an employer. Its essentially the pool from which I get interviews.

Technically, I can get a job sending a job application directly to an employer, but in my experience of multiple years of contracting, that almost never happens. I get my jobs through recruiters. Its like symbiosis. If they're doing well, I do well. If they're not doing well, I'm screwed. And interviews are like lightning. The stars all have to align just right, and tracking it as a meaningful statistic is a bit hard. Thus, to me, the most reliable stat to track is the submittal graph.

As you can see, there was a strong initial surge when I started my job search at the beginning of Feb, with a spike in the third week. March, with the exception of the first week has been abysmal.

Now to understand the process of getting a job, particularly in contract work, you have to understand how most business people think. First, irrespective of economic conditions, there are seasons of plenty and seasons of drought. Good luck finding a job from November through Jan. Yeah, you can get them but they're hard to get. July is also a pretty barren month. I guess its the heat or the number of people on vacation.

Significant business decisions are made based on the fiscal calendar, which varies from company to company but generally centers on either Jan 1 or October. That means that departments that have allocated budgets often see a surge in hiring in February or in the month preceding or immediately following a quarter.

Thus bringing up my primary concern looking at that graph. This is also bolstered by talking to my contacts among recruiters. Right now, people just aren't hiring. That's obvious based on the number of submittals shown above. The recruiters, who look at these numbers even more than I do, currently theorize that a lot of employers are waiting for first quarter performance to determine a lot of decisions.

OK, well the first quarter was kind of fubared by the last quarter of last year. There were a lot of lay offs this first quarter, which means that the shockwave from the stock collapse last october is still carrying forward. Which in turn means that if the first quarter performance for most companies is bad, not only will they not be initiating new processes (and thus hire new people) but they will also probably lay more people off.

The more people that get laid off, the greater the labor pool is, which means the more competition out there of people getting jobs.

So what do I do about this? Well there are several steps I can take. My current plan is that I will be lowering my asking price by two dollars in April and another three in May. The problem with this, is that if I lower my asking price TOO much, recruiters wonder if I have something to hide. Conversely, employers ARE asking for lower prices. My submital rate would have been higher if I'd asked for less. Its a delicate balance and I'm getting positive feedback from recruiters thus far, but then again, they get paid more when I get paid more so they're potentially a little biased. The other thing that is a problem in this is that my productivity is directly proportional to the amount I believe my employer respects me, and there are few better ways to say how much you respect your employee than what you are willing to pay them. Money talks. Shiny little certificates of appreciation are nice, but walk.

The second prong in my strategy is to do a lateral move into Project Management. The problem is that this is a bit like getting a credit card. It takes credit to get credit. It takes experience to get experience. Thus, once I graduate and have more time, I'm going to be willing to take a DRASTIC pay cut to get entry level project management experience. I need it to be able to take the PMP...because if I pass the PMP I can earn a signficant amount more money and get a much more stable (to me) career than tech writing.

The third prong of my strategy is to perform networking. The truth is that I suck at networking even though it is the best way to get a job. But we'll see how that works. Once I graduate, I plan on joining the two relevant trade associations for my vocations, the Society of Technical Writers and the Project Management Institute. I'm hoping if I start going to chapter meetings something might come up. Of course that plan involves $300 so I'm hoping to avoid having to do it for now.

The long term toll is starting to have its effects as well. Jennifer's positive reinforcement, the time since the last gap in employment occurred, and exercize have all helped delay this but they could only delay it for so long. The first manifestation usually takes the form of a shift in my sleep schedule. Right now I'm going to bed on average of 3-4am, and getting up at 10-11am. Not that bad, but it can get much worse. The second manifestation is a dramatic decrease in my motivation and productivity. I'm hoping to reduce this by setting strict daily and weekly goals but so far I'm slowly losing in that sphere as well. The third thing is a heavy tendency toward "emo" ness where my emotions become more eratic and prone to overcome reason. Again, Jennifer and the other two factors have helped with this, but time is doing damage.

This weekend for date night we finally set up our Wii. Jennifer kicked my behind on most things but Boxing and that was because I was a tasmanian devil. Exercize or no, I can only do that for so long as can see. It is VERY tiring. Plus it kind of feels wrong to pound the crap out of Jennifer's female Mii. Watching her play Akami was cool though. I am weird in that I enjoy watching other people play computer based rpg's far more than I enjoy playing them. In fact, I HATE to play them because of the part of the game model that involves 'rabbit killing' or killing/fighting stupid pointless monsters so you can get an increase in strength. I want all the parts of any game I play to be RELEVANT thank you very much, but I guess that's just me.

We also watched via netflix "Robin Hood Season 2" which is quite good, and "There Will Be Blood" which I thought was moderately good and Jennifer HATED. I can't say I blame her. There is like....one character in the entire movie who isn't an evil bastard, and that's a kid.

School is going well. I'm nearly done and greatly looking forward to graduating. Thanks to Jennifer's tutoring, I got a 90 on the last quiz. The bad news is that the final will consist of only TEN QUESTIONS and is worth forty percent of the grade. Also the math in this class is harder than any other. I used to make fun of games because they had increasing difficulty in bad guys which was just silly compared to real life.

I don't do that any more. Not after the routine increases in difficulty and 'boss fights' (ie finals) in my experience with school.

Descent Into Madness Day 31

Six weeks. It has now been six weeks. We are not, in my opinion, in as solid a financial footing as I had hoped, but we will see. We still have reserves and Jennifer's income. More importantly, this time is better for me than others because Jennifer is here to help me psychologically through it.

We went to the Women's Angel project this weekend. Individually, most of the films were quite excellent. We also saw via DVD, "The Magdeline Sisters" which was good but also a good way to get upset at the idea of theocracy, as well as "Highlander: Quest For Vengeance" which was pretty ho hum anime.

The good news is that we saw the BSG finale which was AWESOME, as well as episode 6 on doll house (which happened to be on at the same time so we watch it on Http://www.hulu.com). Doll House is starting to show just as much promise as Angel or Buffy. Hopefully it will be allowed to achieve that promise.

Also spent some time at a model car/model plane swap meet with a friend of mine. It was pretty fun. I've got some pictures which I may put up here tomorrow. Its a hobby I could see myself getting into. It would certainly be a LOT cheaper than making movies. And I've always wanted to do something that would teach me a hard skill like electronics.

School is going well. Thanks to Jennifer's help, I am understanding this class much better than I did the last, which is good because it is (as usual) THE most difficult class I've had so far. The math is absolutely killer on this one. It is my last, and I'm hoping to graduate in May.

Descent Into Madness - Day 26

Well. The Job Market officially sucks.

When I first got laid off, there were all kinds of prospects. Now there are none. There are about 3-4 jobs on the job boards for jobs I've already submitted to, either last week or the week before, but nothing new. What is truly frightening is that there aren't even any government jobs.

The economy supposedly shows signs of getting better, but that isn't reflective in the jobs available for Technical Writers. I guess I didn't set my salary low enough to stay competitive.

Well, when (if) I graduate, I'll be setting it plenty low, since I'll effectively be changing careers and trying to gain experience as a Project Manager. When things get better, the salary should go up considerably; higher than what I was earning as a Tech Writer. In theory. Of course in the mean time, the insurance company has now declared two of Jennifer's medicines 'Category IV' which means we pay an extra $2500 a year to get them. And then there are the student loans coming due. The latter we're pretty sure we can consolidate into the longest period available, which will help, but its still not where we want to be.

For various procedural reasons, a lot of my writing isn't going as fast as I'd like, but that should pick up soon. Especially since I need something to stay sane in the void of things that are at the moment. Finished a major (and annoying) gaming project this weekend.

The last class looks like it will be...problematic, but we'll see. We saw "The International" at the theater over the weekend. It was OK. But it was definitely Netflix material.

Descent Into Madness - Day 21

Its the end of the world as I know it, and I feel fine. For the most part, things are going well. Did the math on Jennifer's income plus my income and as long as I get unemployment, we'll only be bleeding a few hundred a month at a reduced income. Not going to Hawaii mind you (not that we intended to) but we'll be able to hold on more or less.

Job Market is not as good as I'd hoped today. No real new jobs, not even ones to apply to. No calls from recruiters and I haven't heard anything from the placements. All the placements in the world don't mean much if they don't lead to interviews. Which means I'm still looking but I'm seriously ramping up ways to earn money on the side if I can think of it. I've got two friends, both of whom have been unemployed for like six months, so this might go on for a while.

We saw Mom's play "Wit" over the weekend, and I will without equivocation say that it was her finest performance to day. Hithertonow, that tie in my mind was either that chick she played in Steel Magnolias or Mephistopholes. She also did a rather amazing job in O'keife but this was better. I'll be mentioning something about it more on my live journal.

Life

We saw Watchmen last night. It was pretty good but DEFINITELY not a family movie. A lot of people are calling for a reedit, and I can see why they say that, but for the most part I liked it the way it was. Jennifer liked it as well though neither of us were wildly amazed as we left. Its not that kind of movie. Its really more one that makes you think instead.

It looks like I probably didn't get the job I interviewed for this week. It has been 4 weeks now and while I have 14 placements (now 9 after the two interviews produced no results) it isn't as good a field as I had hoped. We'll see what happens. A few of the jobs I've been placed for are permanent which would be very nice. This too shall (probably) pass.

Descent into Madness - Day 17

Things are looking up, which is good because they're also getting worse.

I have potentially had an offer...kind of. It is one of the two interviews I've had and he's said he wants to contact me to 'move things forward'...but I haven't heard anything else. I also have a live in person interview tomorrow morning. In 17 days, I've had 11 placements (Recruiter calls and sends my resume to an actual person with an actual job) which in 3 weeks is a very good ratio even during boom time.

In fact, it generally takes at the least a month to get a job no matter what the climate may be. Which is good, because now that I've gotten my severance in one lump sum, plus tax return, I get to see a slow whittling away at the reserve until we get a second source of income despite Jennifer's income and despite our current reduced expenses.

The bad news is that I had forgotten how damaging unemployment was to my psyche. After two years of steady employment, you forget how much one begins to play games with one's own mind. Exercise and spending time Jennifer reduces this, but it will only get worse over time. One questions one's worth. Much less writing or studying.

I have the final from the bottom layers of Hell tomorrow which I MUST pass to graduate in May. Getting this close only makes the stakes that much higher, especially with student loans coming due. The future is uncertain but education is always a good thing to have in almost any historical storm....and if we're getting raided by the visigoths, then I've got more important things to worry about.

This weekend we had our last big 'outing' until I get a job. We ate at the Imperial Fez for our anniversary, which is a Moroccan restaurant. They have a five course meal where you eat with your hands. They put a towel over your shoulder. The food was quite good and the atmosphere was very nice.

We watched "3:10 to Yuma" and "Eagle vs Shark" both of which were good. Eagle vs Shark is not a family film but it is a bit of a quirky offshoot of Napolean Dynamite. 3:10 to Yuma is a western and a remake but a fascinating character study, particularly the Villain.

This is my card to my wife

Because I love her.

Descent into Madness - Day 14

Have a phone interview today. We'll see how it goes.

Jennifer and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary last night. Her mother and Mom and Skip sent us very nice cards.

Studying for accounting. Its an open book final, which is both good and bad. Good in that it lets me use my notes and my book, BAD because it gives the professor full leeway to use REALLY REALLY hard questions like he has been doing on the quiz. At this stage in the game as long as I get a 50% on the final I can still (I believe) graduate without having to retake the class.

Oh, and for those interested, I've created a new meme on http://memesofmyfather.blogspot.com/.

Descent into Madness - Day 12

This weekend we saw "Nowhere in Africa" via Netflix. OK.

Jackie Brown via Dish. Very good. Although watching a Terentino film for the first time on TNT is...inadvisable. Hearing Samuel L. Jackson say "oh snap!" and sound like he means it in that circumstance is a bit surreal.

Battlestar Galactica is nearly done and still quite good.

There is a new show called Dollhouse by Joss Whedon which is quite good. If you want to see it and support it, its online at Hulu.com, which is pretty cool because it is measured and the closest you can get to being a nielson family without being a nielson family (or so I am told.)

Job search is going OK. No job yet, but I had an interview last Thursday with Jennifer's company. We'll see how things go. I'm supposed to hear back from them in the next few days. It would be a short term contract. I have another phone interview Wednesday.

I've been doing OK in the Accounting Class thus far. Jennifer has been invaluable in helping me study for this. I'm still very worried about the final.

Descent into Madness Day 7 - The first casualty

We are going to have to stop trying to have children for now.

The stress of being off medication has been increasing for Jennifer for each month now, and now that she is the sole provider for our family, despite generous offers of help and reserves, that does not change the fact that it is stressful for her. In turn, the stress of my own job search plus school is high enough, much less any stress that Jennifer is experiencing.

As such, Jennifer is going back on Medication for a few months and then we'll plan things a bit more carefully the next time around. I estimate we'll be trying again in 6-7 months.

Day 4 of the Descent into Madness

Well its pretty early, and the mental stresses are starting to come in. But honestly a lot of that is more due to the political situation. I won't comment on that here, but you can always go to codex to see my latest rant.

Jennifer is amusing herself by harassing me while writing this. :) But it is a good thing. She just popped her head back in the door and said, "Why did I miss you giving me a really funny look?" Turn about is fair play after all.

I spent most of Monday and Tuesday taking care of logistics. Monday involved getting our taxes fixed as well as sending the fax to receive my severance package. Because of the confidentiality clause in the contract, I can't say much, but let me put it this way. Remember all the stuff they put in the contract you sign when you get a job?

Well triple it for the contract you sign to get your severance package. It isn't them btw, because apparently this is standard practice now. OpenSpan IS a good company. How about a law that prevents me having to sign a contract like that to get a severance package?

Tuesday was a trip to the unemployment office. I got a really helpful lady who helped me bypass all of the red tape and get directly to a terminal instead of having to take the class that told me how to use a web page (which had all necessary directions on it.) The good news is that judging by the job search and the number of people in the unemployment office on the surface things don't seem as bad as I thought they were. Oh sure its bad, but ironically not dot com bad. But that may just be here in Atlanta. Then again, Skip's lay off shows that things ARE that bad.