It’s been a while since I have posted anything. I thought I would catch you up on the last few months. This summer was a very hot and miserable one. Not as bad as other parts of the country, but we had several (week long) runs of 90+ degrees of weather. One Saturday on a scooter ride to Julian, the temperature gauge topped out at 112 degrees! Boy was that a hot day, and Angie was riding pillion, what a trooper.
I am still working on the vacation newsletter from last April/May. I am up to day 10 of 16, so expect to see some more postings soon. Life at my last company turned quite nasty. All of the promises of work life balance quickly disappeared in the beginning of the year. We lost over 1/2 of the IT staff in the 1st quarter and it turned nasty as they hired new management that decided to force their own agendas down our throats ignoring the advice of the entire senior level staff.
Between the constant stress at work of trying to do more with (not less but) nothing and unrealistic deadlines I left at the beginning of Sept. I am going to miss working with a lot of the folks there as they had the right attitude and drive to do things right, but we just couldn’t get anything done. I dub this the Year of Hell. I won’t go into detail but those that have spoken with me, know what I mean and understand and those that don’t… well beer and sushi might be a way to get the story out of me.
I am still looking for work, but am taking my time. Last time, I made the mistake of rushing into the opportunity that seemed to good to be true. As the old saying goes “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I have been on a few interviews as well as have quite a few lined up. They all seem to be coming at me at once. The good news is that there is plenty of work out there. I have also been trying to decide if this is the time at which I should switch my career goals. Many of you know I have been wanting to go back into teaching and do technical or corporate training. I am not sure yet if I can pay the bills doing that š but if the right job comes along, I will jump at it.
I started my masters program, FINALLY after searching for seven years for a program and school, I landed at National University. I intended to enroll in their MS/IS program but after considerable thought I choose to not do my masters in IS/IT. National has a program called Educational Instructional Technology. This program seemed more in tune with what I wanted to do. I want to become an instructor of technology and use technology as part of my curriculum. My first class started this month and the program is one year. It’s a pretty action packed program with one class a month. It’s going to be hard, but with the proper discipline, I will be able to succeed. So far, the hardest part of the class is to re-learn how to write properly and with proper syntax and English. š I have not written papers or essays since 1988 in college. I so wish we had the Internet when I was in high school and college.
Some of you have noticed I am no longer on Twitter. I got so frustrated with dealing with their issues that I gave up. I also got into a situation were I was way too connected so I decided to start cutting ties with technologies like this. I still have my blog and use Facebook on a regular basis. I have just given up on using real-time notification systems that show up on my phone. Most of the old ways still work, so please feel free to use them. Speaking of Facebook, it’s amazing how it has done what classmates.com could not do. Classmates has failed because they tried to monetize communication, instead of adding value first. With Facebook, I have been contacted or have found over two dozen schoolmates that IĀ thought lost to me forever! I am even going on a road trip this weekend to visit with some of those I grew up with and have not seen for 26 (wow) years. It has been a long time since a piece of technology has impacted my personal life. Most of the technology I have or use is directly related to work or research.
I am still working on my garden railway, but need to finish some sprinkler work. Because of the horrible temperatures this summer, I barely was able to do anything in the yard but plant veggies and herbs (which did fantastic for my first year). I am planning a trip to Disneyland for my birthday this year. If anyone would like to join us, your more than welcome.
All in all, I think I am in a better place and much less stressed and sleep deprived. Here’s hoping that Kes can give me a good push in the right direction.
