The Aerie
Man, do I need a job. Specifically, I need an information security contract position. Hopefully something will come along soon.
Meanwhile, I've had to work all week. What? Oh, right, well, I am fortunate in that I DO have a paying contract at the moment, although it does not pay enough upon which to survive. I am teaching Information Security for a company that has previously sent me to London and Stockholm. To what fabulous city did they send me this week?
Minneapolis! Oh boy!
Yes, this week I was teaching at the Carlson Center on the University of Minnesota campus. And I'll get paid for it. But the pay I get, added to our family reserves, will only get me out to about mid-September, so hopefully sometime in the next seven weeks I will get work.
What else is new? The last Harry Potter book is finally out, if you haven't heard. Nice rock, by the way. My family has already read it. At some point I will update my Book 7 guesses page to reflect where I was right and where I was wrong.
Today is the first anniversary of our departure for Germany. Man, is this year different. Last year was exciting and nervous making because we were traveling for five weeks. This year is exciting and nervous-making because we'll be broke in five weeks.
The twins both finished their classroom training, and so now we have two kids with driver's permits in their pockets. So far they haven't actually tried driving. Maybe this weekend. I'm certainly not pushing it!
My mood has been pretty glum recently, thus the infrequent posting, due to the stress of facing financial insolvency, and the frustration of not being able to find a suitable position. Intellectually I realize that this is unnecessary. I'll get a job, we'll work out the finances, etc. Despite the fact that American businesses are shipping my kind of technology jobs to Bangalore as fast as they can, I know that I'll find something.
But emotions don't listen to reason, so I get anxious. Fortunately I had this training this week, because until yesterday I heard absolutely nothing all week long. Now, yesterday I got several calls, but for a while there I was high and dry. Had I not been teaching, I'm sure I would instead have been fretting.
So I know it's silly to be anxious, but it's also not controllable. Hopefully next week I'll be busy enough that I won't be fretting and getting depressed. Certainly I've got enough homework to do as well as enough household chores I'm sure I can keep busy.
Finally, we're coming up on Birthday Week - my twins were born one week before my birthday - so we have to figure out how to buy them presents. We had some ideas but that was when we had money. Always, it comes back to the money.
So I need a job. Hopefully a contract will come along soon! Until then, I'll be here, twisting in the wind, fretting, and trying to remember to breathe...
See, this is when you know it's bad: when the only way I can get myself to blog is while I'm bleeding out my arm. Yeah, I'm back at the Red Cross, donating clotting factor and typing with one hand. Expect typos.
Truthfully, I can't believe how flippin' busy i've been, and I haven't even been getting a start on my college schoolwork. Last week was occupied with assembling all the paperwork to once again refinance our home. This week was spent assembling the paperwork for the lawyer who is helping me try to collect a payment that has been owed to me since 2004. Next week will likely involve somehow paying my 2006 taxes - my former accountant left me a terrible mess.
Meanwhile I'm still waiting on a job, and starting to get a tad anxious - even if I get a 'Start Monday' assignment, I'll still be waiting as long as six weeks till I have a paycheck (depending on the contracting firm). So things could get pretty tight. And before that happens I still need ti pay my taxes.
Took the kids to Convergence, an annual science-fiction convention. I'd taken them to Marscon, which is a fine little convention, but I wanted something closer to the Carnival-like atmosphere that I remembered from the last Minicon that I attended back in 2000 or so. This year's Minicon, which I attended in tangential fashion, had only depressed me. When I learned that Convergence had recaptured some of Minicon's old spirit, I was eager to attend. Fortunately I bought the tickets when I was still employed.
I think everyone had a good time, although I would hope that next year my youngest could do more than sit in the manga room the whole time! The older boy tok off of course, being very independent, but my daughter and I had the chance to sit in on several good panels, including the "Pun-el," an hourlong group-riff of painfully bad puns. Along the way I also taught them how to mooch meals out of Krushenko's, the convention hospitality suite, or con-suite.
And the con was fun: there were in addition to several good panels (which nerds like my daughter and I enjoy,) a 24-hour SF movie room, the aforementioned 24-hour manga room, a nice-but-not huge dealer room, a masquerade contest, and many, many special-interest party suites.
Each suite had a different theme. There was a 'Doctor Who' room, and nearby a room for its spinoff, 'Torchwood.' A room called "The House of Toast" featured... toast, any way you liked it. Other suites included the "Xena in 2008" presidential campain suite, a Klingon room, a belly-dancing suite, and an excellent Museum of the Paranormal displaying Pandora's box and the Hly Hand-Grenade of Antioch.
But my favorite room of all had to be the Tiki-Bar room, styled after the popular podcast. The Tiki-Bar podcast features thewhite-labcoated Doctor Tiki, who every episode meets the lovely Lala at Johnny-Johnny's tiki bar, only to discover A Problem. After the group explores The Problem, Doctor Tiki ha a brainwave, and quickly scribbles a prescription for a cocktail. Johnny-Johnny prepares the thematically-related cocktail, everyone drinks, and The Problem - whether Kremlin spy or Lost Alien - is resolved. Along with viewer mail and out-takes, an amazing amount of tomfoolery and bad acting are crammed intto each short video.
So it was a delight to be able to visit a cheap copy of the Actual Tiki-Bar. The featured drink-and-episode was Red Oktober, which tasted like the cough syrup we were all fed as kids, but at 75 proof had less alcohol.
Since we're livingf poor this summer, it's little thngs like Convergence and our Fourth-of-July picnic that will feature in this summer's memory scrapbook. Getting to see Harry Potter was terrific, and the twins started off with their trip to Boston.So while this summer won't feature a gigantic Trip to Germany or a huge home remodelling project, I hope that there are enough little perqs to make a rewarding summer for the kids.
And of course with my daughter starting her first job (neighborhood barista) and the twins taking driver's training, they are keeping pretty busy.
So it's a bloody shame that it takes being immobilized in the Apheresis throne to get me to blog again, but at least I'm helping somebody out with my platelet donation.
When is your next blood donation?