October 29, 2005

Getting there

Well I'm getting there. The world has now boiled down to a much simpler situation than it was in.

First, I've finally got work lined up. Work was a big issue for a while. Was I going to get a job with Accenture in London? Was I going to return to contracting for Wells Fargo? Was I going to take a contract with Target? Everything was up in the air.

I can tolerate uncertainty for a while, but when I got the call last week that Accenture in London didn't want me, I have to admit that I was relieved.

I was disappointed, too - I really wanted the opportunity to go work overseas. That may yet come - next year. But we're staying put for the time being, at least the next nine months or so. That certainty is a relief.

Of course, the last time I said this, I got a call the next day to interview with Accenture in London, so who knows...

With that resolved, I was faced with the opportunities to work a contract for Wells Fargo, or a different one for Target. Unfortunately the Wells contract had come through first and I'd gone as far as accepting it, to start on November 2nd, before Target got to the interview stage. But Target made a better offer - nine months as opposed to five, work closer to my "sweet spot" of skills and interests, and no travel. And oddly enough, although I will start at Target two weeks later than I would have at Wells, I'll get my first paycheck from the Target contract a week before I would have through Wells.

Then the paperwork for Target took longer to arrange, so it was yesterday before I could notify the consulting firm for Wells that I wasn't going to be starting next Wednesday. They were understandably put out, but I had no choice once Target made the offer. Still, I regret it turned out that way.

The final interesting note was that my wife listed our home on an international home-swap exchange. Home swapping is not some kinky practice - it's two vacationers exchanging residences for simultaneous trips to each other's countries. Well we got a note from a family in Bavaria that they'd like to spend August here in Minneapolis. Oddly enough, August is about when my contract with Target runs out!

So we may end up home-swapping to Bavaria next August - a prospect that makes it more likely that we'll get the house fixed up and cleaned up in the next nine months! If we can manage the finances, I'd like to add at least a half bathroom in the basement, and finish off the new spaces left unfinished when our remodeling of 1999 ran out of cash. Living in rooms lined with insulation and looking out through untrimmed windows gets old after a while.

And one bathroom in a house with two teens and two adults is no fun at all!

So we'll see what the future brings.

For now I'm gearing up for NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. For my first entry this year I'm working on a literary novel called "The Rain Queen," we'll see how it goes!

Posted by Albatross at October 29, 2005 12:41 PM | TrackBack