The Google

I was at a picnic yesterday that was thrown by one of my (former?) co-workers and learned that someone in my office had googled me up at some point and found out about my past. I'm not sure exactly how many people this information circulated through, but it was at least a few people who I had *no* idea that they knew.

I wasn't really upset that they found out - I've always known that information about my past was just a quick google away. I'd wondered in past positions if anyone had figured it out but never had any reason to think they did. Based on how this group of co-workers reacted to it, I'm not sure I would've known if anyone had found out.

It sounds like people were surprised, but didn't really think it was that big of a deal. They thought it was a bigger deal that I hadn't mentioned anything to them but I'm not sure exactly how they thought that sort of thing would come up in normal day-to-day conversation at work.

Anyhow, this was an interesting sociological event in my life that I'm glad turned out to be a non-event for the most part. Even though it's an "open secret" that I'm not really ashamed of or anything, it's just not that big of an issue in my life anymore and I'm glad it didn't turn into one.

Layoff-lite

This is a first for me - I was furloughed today. I wasn't even sure what that meant until recently but I basically have a month off without pay. I keep my benefits (at this point it's only insurance) and am still an "employee" but I can't do any work or use any of my accrued vacation. I am eligible for unemployment, so that's a plus. They're planning to bring me back July 1st but I'm not really sure there's still going to be a viable company to return to at that point.

We had a company town hall with the CEO this afternoon and the news was extremely grim, financially. Unless there's some kind of miracle, it sounds like the company will be out of cash within the next month or two.

So I think my furlough will essentially end up being a layoff...layoff-lite, perhaps? It will be a way to ease me into unemployment with insurance I suppose.

I hope none of you ever have to go through a day like I did today at work. There were a ton of people laid off and the while it was happening, no one knew who would be the next to be called into HR to get bad news. People were crying, throwing up, hugging each other goodbye...it was an emotional roller coaster. This was a really tight group of people and in some ways I'm glad I won't have to deal with the aftermath on Monday while still trying to have some semblance of productivity.

I'll really miss this place but it looks like it's time to move on.

My last day of employment (for now)?

Well, tomorrow is a big day at work. After failing to win the Philippines contract the company is going into survival mode and laying off a ton of people. I've heard anywhere between 50-60%. I have no idea about my job and whether I'll still have it at the end of the day.

Even though I've complained plenty of times about the hours, pay/benefit cuts, and stress, this has been, by far, the best place I've ever worked. That has started to fade a bit over the past few months but the people I work with have kept this job at the top of my list. The bummer is, I know that no matter if I stay or go, that all probably ends tomorrow.

I'll have more details soon. Let's hope it's decent news...

The defenders

Another video I caught over at Pam's House Blend and thought I'd share:



How would you feel?

Tour de four corners

In case anyone was wondering, I made it back from my short vacation last week. :)

The trip was awesome - I headed toward southwest Colorado with no real destination in mind. The first day, I visited Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. It was a place I'd been to a looong time ago (I was probably 11 or 12) and had been meaning to visit again for quite a while. The canyon wasn't quite as spectacular as I'd remembered, but it was still really neat and I practically had the whole park to myself.

After the canyon, I kept going toward southwest Colorado and stayed in Ouray. I just recently discovered this corner of Colorado and it has quickly become one of my favorite places in the U.S. I'll definitely be heading back there again this summer.

Next, I headed to the Four Corners monument. This place had always been described to me as a tourist trap and not really worth seeing. Yeah, it was a bit out of the way but it only cost $3.00 to get in so I didn't feel like I was being ripped off at all and pretty much expected what I saw there. It's just one of those places I've always wanted to visit so...mission accomplished.

Since I was in the neighborhood, I decided to head for Monument Valley. I really didn't know what to expect, it was just a place on the map that I'd heard about and decided to check out. I wasn't sure if it was like a national park, just a general area, or what.

When I got into the area, I wasn't sure if what I'd seen from the road was it or if I needed to keep on going. What I could see was pretty cool, but not really anything mind-blowing and I was a little upset that I'd gone out of my way to visit. I guess this is a good place for a little back story...

Before I left for my trip, a friend at work had given me a book that had a picture of this on the cover:

That butte was actually what I was trying to find in Monument Valley. I saw a few formations that looked kind of close, but nothing as iconic as that. In the area I was traveling in, the picture of that butte was everywhere but I couldn't seem to find it. I finally stopped at a gas station and asked where I could find it and they said I needed to go across the highway to the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. Somehow, I'd missed that sign on my way in...

It was getting kind of late, so I checked into a hotel in the valley then drove a couple of miles to the Navajo park. This entry is already getting kind of long so I'll just say that Monument Valley (inside the Tribal Park) is one of the coolest places on Earth! If you've ever seen an old Western movie, chances are good that it was shot there.

Back at the hotel, I finally opened the special bottle of wine I mentioned in my last post. The wine is called Merkin Chupacabra and comes from a vineyard owned by the lead singer of the band Tool (hang out at that website for a minute and it'll go from the current news text to a really cool animation/site). I honestly wasn't expecting the wine to be very good but was pleasantly surprised. I'd rank it up there with some of the best wine I've had in recent memory.

Every room at the hotel has a good-sized balcony with a bistro set facing the valley. Watching the sunset over the valley while enjoying the wine really made the last few months worth of stress melt away and everything seemed balanced again in my world.

I headed home the next day through Moab and on to I-70. More beautiful scenery for that whole drive...

I'd love to have some pictures up from the trip but I'm having a hard time finding my memory chip adapter so they'll have to wait. I wanted to get them uploaded before posting this but figured in another week the trip would be so old I wouldn't bother posting on it at all.

One year ago today

Today is the one-year anniversary of when I had The Surgery™.

I thought I would do something special today to mark the occasion but it's past 10pm and all I've managed so far is to start writing this post. I'd hoped to go out to dinner with a friend, but she totally flaked on me. This is someone who has stood me up repeatedly in the past, so I shouldn't be surprised that she did it again tonight. I've really tried hard over the past few years not to expect too much out of anyone but this time it didn't work. She's been through this and I was there for her every step of the way so I thought she understood.

To put a further damper on the day, I got a couple of pieces of bad news. The first is that my dad has skin cancer and is going to have surgery to remove it early next month. Apparently, he found out he had cancer over a month ago but decided it wasn't worth mentioning to anyone in the family, outside of my mom (I'm assuming she knows, I don't actually know for sure). It came up when I mentioned it had been a year since my surgery and he said "Oh, my surgery is June [x]." It wasn't until I pressed him about why he was having surgery that he told me what the deal was.

I'm sure it was hard for him to find a way to tell me about it but I'm glad he did. I hope they caught it early enough that it won't be too big of a deal. Since they didn't wheel him into surgery right away, I'll take that as a good sign. I haven't really faced the idea of my parents' mortality yet and I'm not quite sure I'm ready to. Then again, when is anyone ready for that sort of thing?

When I look back at what I posted a couple of days ago about how we were bonding, I wonder now if it really had anything to do with that particular activity.

The other bad news today is that we're (pretty much) out of the bidding for the Philippines contract. There's still some argument happening over there over whether or not we're really disqualified for sure, but it looks like it's a done deal at this point. I'm pretty disappointed but also looking forward to moving on.

One good side effect of the bidding news is that I *finally* have a chance to take a few days off. I'm going to leave tomorrow and head toward southwest Colorado with no real destination/plan in mind. I just need to get away where I don't have anyone to answer to and no reminders of any responsibilities. Hopefully the next four days will be enough to clear out most of the mental clutter that's accumulated over the past 8 months or so.

I have a special bottle of wine that I was saving for today that I'm going to bring with me and drink wherever I end up. Even though today turned out to be a bust I have a feeling I'll feel more like celebrating tomorrow.

Synchronicity

I was just talking on the phone with a friend when I mentioned, out of the blue, that I was having a massive craving for cheddar cheese. Turns out that as I was telling her this, she was getting some food out of the fridge and happened to be holding a block of cheddar cheese. This was totally random...we hadn't been talking about food at all.

It kind of freaked me out, but in a good way.

My new favorite song

This video was temporarily posted at The Bilerico Project a few days ago but has since disappeared. In case you missed it:



Fuck you very much :)

Markswoman?

Ok, so there has been *one* thing I've found time to do over the past few weeks...

 

My dad and I went to the range tonight and I think I shot pretty well. This is around 250 rounds of 9mm with about 20 rounds of .45 from between 7 and 15 yards.

Here's another picture of the same target to give some size perspective:

 

 

I was wondering if skilled women shooters were called marksmen, but as it turns out markswoman is a real word.

Over the past few years, I've tried to get my dad to go hiking, skiing, and camping with me but he wasn't too interested in doing any of those things. Last year we went on a 4-wheeling trip in our jeeps but that didn't feel all that bonding. Probably because he has this monster jeep that can get places my little Liberty can't and I think I hold him back from the stuff he'd really like to be doing.

But shooting...that's the one activity we're finally bonding over. It's kind of wierd I guess, but I'll take it.

Not really the end

I guess I put that we'd reached the end of my current project in quotes for a good reason in that last post...we're not quite there yet. I was supposed to have a four-day weekend the week before my last post to make up for all of the weekends and holidays I've had to sacrifice so far but ended up working 2 of the 4 days. My plan was to take Monday and Tuesday of this week off and get out of town for a few days but that's not happening now either.

This is truly the never-ending project.

We haven't received any word on whether our bid appeal was accepted or not. The word is that we'll hear about that late tomorrow (sometime Tuesday, Philippines time).

I'm sure all of this is *very* exciting to whoever's reading this. Trust me - I can't wait to get back to regular programming (actually having a life outside work).

Catching up

Ugh. I'm not keeping up with this blog very well lately, eh? I keep thinking I'm going to get a break from work and then more stuff comes up...

We finally got to the "end" of the project I've been working on since I started with my current employer last September. This whole time, we've been working toward submitting a bid on a brand new system for the Philippines. This is a BIG contract. They opened our bid yesterday and we ended up getting disqualified due to not having a proper import license. Talk about let downs.

All hope isn't lost though since we can still appeal the disqualification - I'm guessing by supplying the proper paperwork. Anyhow, all this just means that we won't *really* know what's going to happen for at least a few more days. Even if we get back into the competition, I have no idea how our bid compares with any of the other companies vying for the project so we might be screwed there anyway.

The good news is that things have slowed down at work for the time being. I think we're bringing the new system to a country in Latin America (I'm not sure if I can share which country right now) at the end of the month for a pilot test. I'm sure we'll be preparing for that one shortly and the craziness will resume.

These are the times when I actually fantasize about my days working in retail.