The Aerie
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!
Okay, okay, I've been remiss again.
No, I haven't posted in nearly a month. No excuse, really. I can't even claim to have been busy.
I worked a very sudden contract for a couple of weeks, that went pretty badly. I was brought in at the last minute for a two week deadline, and I just couldn't synch up with the guy running the show as to what he wanted. The last day rolled around, and he was still changing the requirements.
That stint of full-time work was dearly appreciated, but I hated not having a good outcome on that job. Unfortunately I really couldn't figure out what this guy wanted - was it because I didn't get it, or was it because he couldn't convey it? Maybe both. So that outcome was disappointing.
The sudden (I literally started the day after I got the call) return to fulltime work was challenging - I admit that being off work (vacation, underemployment) for three months has made me lazy about getting up and getting into work on time. So for the two weeks I was working, the time just flew by.
But I've been off work for a week now again, and I still haven't been blogging. Not sure why, maybe feeling guilty for... not blogging. Likewise I haven't been to the gym.
Another oddity has been the possibility of working-over-in-England. I got a call from Accenture in England for an interview, and I interviewed last Tuesday with the understanding that the next step would be to fly to England for an interview. Instead I was notified that they want to move forward... but want another phone interview NEXT Tuesday. Hooo-kay, so I'll just put life on hold for two more weeks. It's hard to commit to a course of life when you might have to start packing boxes for another country in a couple of weeks.
What else? Well, odd opportunities coming and going is the rule. The only thing keeping my morale up is that the business environment is hopping right now. I keep getting urgent, desperate calls for my skills. Most haven't worked out yet, but they're frequent and urgent enough that I have some confidence that something will break my way soon. I even have two security startups that want to talk about merging with my company, so I guess things are positive there.
I've also started to work towards doing this year's NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. I haven't been able to make myself get any writing done for months, so I'm hoping this gimmick gets me back in the swing of things. It's a novel based on South Africa, so I'm busy studying up on the country. You're not "supposed" to start writing or plotting in advance, so I'm not doing that - but I'm learning about South Africa so that I can at least try to describe the place.
And of course I've been watching "Firefly," and "Battlestar Galactica" as described in past posts. Those are certainly a big contributor to my lack-of-posting. It's easy to consume hours of time watching old TV shows instead of doing anything constructive...
Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things now, including working out.