This is a public service announcement

Sometimes we don't always think things through. That was the case on Saturday afternoon for me. I decided that the wind didn't seem that bad so, I could take the Ninja out for a ride. I came up through my valley and things seemed ok. I then went east out the road for a good ways through the flat land and never felt any ill effects from any wind. Then things changed... I turned around and began to make my trip back west. At this point I came to realize that the steady 30-50MPH winds were in my face instead of at my back. This meant that the apparent wind speed of 15-35MPH when I was heading east was now an apparent wind speed of 95-115MPH. This makes riding on a small Ninja sport bike a bit hair raising to say the least. It took a good bit longer to get home than it did to leave. All I could think was that at least it wasn't a nasty crosswind. That would be much worse.

The rest of the weekend went very well. Our hockey team won 4-0 and I spent a decent amount of time relaxing around the house. We even went out for a couple nice meals over the weekend. The icing on the cake was a down S&P500 today. I have been hoping for a reversal for a few days. This is a good sign that things are going in the right direction for me. I'm just crossing my fingers for some really bad earnings reports tomorrow. Come on Alcoa! You never fail to disappoint! Do your magic!

Well, I better go rest up. I have a long day of not having to go to work ahead of me tomorrow.

Oh joy. I am on vulture patrol.

Boy do I have alot to catch up on. It has been a crazy few days. I will try to go in topic order since chronological will be all messy.

I am still sorta not employed kinda sorta. I am still employed by my employer but I still have no project code to bill to. I am currently billing to overhead each day. The contract is still not signed. It is starting to get me a little concerned. Even more depressing is the work they have me doing while I wait for my contract to be renewed so I can access my job site again. I have the joy of cleaning up an office of my employer where everybody was laid off. I am going through and shutting down all of the equipment and packing it up for shipping back to our main worksite. So, you are thinking it can't get more depressing than that? Wrong. I do not have access to the building, so as a stop gap. They gave me the badge of one of the laid off people to use for access. It is just sad. I have to look at his mug every time I go to badge through a door. I do not know the guy at all, but, I sure feel bad for him. Nothing says vulturing an empty office like using the laid-off guys badge for access.

I did have a good time over the weekend; when I kept my mind off the job situation. The wife and I week ended in the city. We had a series of events evenly spaced out over Saturday and Sunday down in Northern Virginia, so we got a hotel room at the Courtyard. This became our base of operations for the weekend.

We went to an information session for GMU's MS in Technology Management on Saturday morning. It was a very good experience. We got to peek in on a couple classes in session and they introduced us to the two class co-leads of the junior class. One of the students had followed a very similar decision tree to the one I am dealing with and he ended up in the tech-man program. I think this is a good sign that it is the way I should go. I have a pro and con list in my Daytimer now and it is leaning heavily to the tech-man over the EMBA. I still plan to go sit in on a couple EMBA classes in two weeks, but, in the meantime I am going to keep myself busy by working on my application for the tech-man program.

We went to a fun party on Saturday night for my hockey wife. She turned 30, so she is not part of us old people. I had a chance to grab lunch with her today and it looks like she is fully recovered from the debauchery on Saturday night.

On Sunday we had a really nice lunch at Charcoal Kabob with good friends. Unfortunately, I found out that the husband got laid off at his job of 15 years last week. The good news is that he will get enough severance to make it through the end of the year. That should give him enough time to find a new job. He had a good idea it was going to happen, but, I am sure he is disappointed to see the good run come to an end. He is a smart guy with alot of experience, so he should do well out looking on the market.
Sunday ended on a bit of downer as we lost our hockey playoff game 8-3. I was thinking about not playing next season so I could concentrate on all of the other things I need to get done. But, I have decided that the hockey is very therapeutic and is a good break from the rigors of everything else. So, I am going to sign up for another season. I am even looking forward to it.

Well, I have rambled enough for tonight. I am going to go get crap done so I can get up late and wander into a job I really don't want to do. Have a good night and keep shorting that market!

What a week

I had my first class on Monday and today I spent some time getting ready for tomorrow's class. I have 38 slides about the history of Linux and explaining its licensing structure and such. It really is amazing how much has happened in the Open Source Community since 1991. Going through and making the slides has been kind of neat because it has forced me to go back over some history that I was a part of. I am actually looking forward to giving the presentation and my only concern is that it will take two nights to get through it all. That, and I hope the students are at least mildly interested. I did add some pictures of the old systems and some great pics of the original guys. Richard Stallman and company should be good for some chuckles from the kids.

All this in the middle of preparing for the inauguration. Which all I can say is.... what a pain in the ass.

All of this chaos will be worth it when I am playing pond hockey on Saturday though. :-D