Much to be thankful for!

As they say, 'tis the season....this year more than ever, I have so very much to be thankful for. As is often the case it takes a somewhat tragic incident to knock us back to what's real. A week and a half ago I was unexpectedly laid off from 'big telecom'. While the immediate loss of income is very much real and has kept me up most nights this week, it could also be a quiet blessing. To be honest, I haven't found much in this field to get me fired up. Telecom simply isn't very innovative and with each passing day becomes more and more a commodity/utility. I took on the challenge of going to grad school part time with the responsibilities of being a husband, father, and provider in order to position myself to move out of telecom (or at least to a more impactful segment). The economy and intertia admittedly has kept me here. Now that I'm out of it for now, it is forcing me to open my eyes to new things.

This is the one I am currently checking out: www.gazelle.com - talk about a fantastic idea that is relevant!

So while losing my job is super difficult right now, I am considering how lucky I am in other aspects of my life. I have the most amazing partner - she's smart, she's tough, and she's resilient. Our personalities our different as I have written about in other forums (she's a packrat and I am joe organized, she's a hopeless constituent of Red Sox Nation and my fidelity is betrothed to the 27 time World Series Champion New York Yankees, I love to ride my bike fast against other weekend warriors, she got up today at 4 am to go shopping....you get the idea) but opposites attract. While we have watched good friends get married and then divorced, I cannot imagine sharing life with anyone else. We have been 'blessed' (and I used that word judiciously) with 3 fantastic kids who each have terrific personalities and interests. Our families are healthy and for the most part happy. We have a modest home that I am slowly renovating to make into our own little nest in the woods, and we live in a wonderful community with great folks all around. In simple terms other than the "work thing" (or lack thereof...) we're doing Ok.

I have a cousin who is a West Point grad and is serving his third tour overseas and is currently deployed somewhere in Afghanistan. My aunt and uncle haven't heard from him in almost a month now due to the crap communications infrastructure there. While visiting a prospective new employer in Boston this past week I came across half a dozen homeless folks that were looking for some help in the pouring rain. We have a lot of family that is within driving distance of our house, so Thanksgiving dinner was a fun-filled party with lots of yummy food and cheer. I don't have anything to gripe about.....life's pretty good for me right now.

I'm looking forward to some new adventures and I am hoping that I'll be able to find some work that is more personally fulfilling and interesting and most importantly, makes a difference. Until that though, I am thankful for what I have.

Frustrating....

I am officially NOT a packrat. I purge my things regularly - I like to live (as best I can anyway...) an efficient and streamlined lifestyle. I don't own much in the way of clothes, I don't have 10 bikes (I have 3), I don't have closets full of health care products, and I generally speaking am good about excess paper (though I really want to get a paper shredder at some point). There are definitely some areas where I could be even more prudent...I still have a separate fax machine and printer, and I probably hang on to many nuts and bolts and scrap lumber from home projects (but that latter makes for great kindling in the winter months).

I am married to the mother of all packrats. I have "time on my hands" these days and decided this morning to attack our bedroom linen closet (reason being I was looking for the bottle of vitamin C tabs as I'm feeling just a bit of cold coming on...). One thing led to another, as other organized types will understand, and I felt compelled to clean that damn closet out.

12 bath towels. TWELVE!!! For just wife and me. The kids have another set in their newly reno'd bathroom (I'm really happy with how that came out BTW). Well, I could use some new rags....
12 bags of random make-up stuff. I.....I simply don't know what to say about that. She's a gorgeous, beautiful woman. But my god how does she even know what she has in all those bags?
I found a couple of completely dried up make-up things, 4 half empty cans of hair spray crap, and prescriptions dating back to before we moved to this house (which begs the question, why the hell did I move it here in the first place?).
Weeeell, in attempting my best to be supportive and diplomatic, I've laid out all twelve bags of stuff on our bed as well as the questionable "products" that I wasn't sure what to do with (if I were my mother, that whole pile would already be in the dumpster) and have sweetly asked her to go through and consolidate.

The good money's on all of it being shoved right back into the closet by day's end.

Still love her to death though!

You remember...

...When Morpheus was showing Neo what the Matrix was and he perfectly hit the spaces between the 'people' walking down the street? I tried that at North Station today and it worked!

Unless of course I was simply invisible?

Halloween happenin's +

Been a bit since I've had the chance to write....seems every time I jump onto my Blogger account, my sister in law has since written a novel which certainly makes me feel a bit slackish...

In no particular order.....
-after a LOOOOT of studying, a preparatory bootcamp in Denver, and some purusing of "those" test prep sites, I successfully passed the Cisco Certified Design Associate exam. Am I now qualified to create an enterprise network with EIGRP, OSFP, and BGP fully functional? No chance. The thing with certification exams is that while the achievement is all well and good, its the substance behind the cert that matters. I need to treat this as simply a check mark but continue to be diligent in studying. I was psyched to pass it on the first go nonetheless, and if nothing else, I learned how to subnet and summarize a network through CIDR. Routing protocols and QoS...well, that's a story for another day.
-the World Series is in full swing and the Yankees pulled out a clutch and gritty win last night and essentially stealing the home field advantage back (though I'm not necessarily convinced it means much considering how both teams have played thus far). A-Rod got a big hit (first in the Series, and hoping his playoff stroke continues after being dormant for the first two games), and Pettite helped out his own cause with a bloop single that scored Swisher. Pettite hung tough and after that sketchy opening. As I had hoped, the Yankees were able to put some numbers up against Hamels, who simply isn't what he was last October. Tonight's game is going to be huge with Sabathia going on short rest against Joe Blanton, who the Yankees line-up simply needs to take advantage of. Number 3/4 starters in the National League should NOT be able to keep American League playoff lineups down. And if the Yankees can win tonight and go up 3-1, the momentum clearly slides over.
-the Commuter Rail offers both good and bad....the good being that it's nice to read on the commute home and not have to deal with traffic. The bad being the dude with the dragon breath that plopped his sorry ass next to mine at the Porter Square stop.....and just my luck that he was in for the whole ride out to metro-west.
-the kids' bathroom project is just about done. I'm working on the punch list stuff now....Penny surprised me by priming the new window y'day so I just need to put a couple of topcoats on it. Billy D. brought the wall cabinet to Canton 'Cross so I need to paint that and hang it and I can pretty much put a fork in it. Bill does fantastic work and I'll be posting some photos later today. Next up after 'cross season is to finish the lingering crap that I've been neglecting for the last couple of years.....namely hanging the double closet doors in Ryan's room (so that I can finish up the baseboard), replacing the baseboard heating covers behind Penny's computer (so that I can do the baseboard in that room), and then hopefully knocking out the linen closet door and baseboard in our bedroom. If I can get all of that stuff done over the winter, then the next project will be the bathroom in our bedroom...it's a very small full bath so it presents some interesting design challenges.
-'Cross season is in full swing here in New England, and another year of experience coupled with some structured training have provided some decent results so far. After two logistical snafus, I finally got the season going at Gloucester and considering I started both days in the very back of the starting grid I was happy with a couple of top 25's (about 100 guys per race each day too!!!). I had to shoot to Denver for work and missed the Providence races which is a bummer because I heard the courses were fantastic. Hit the Hartford 'Cross race and finished 5th last weekend and then put up a solid 13th y'day at Canton (which was ridiculous....120+ starters in my field, about 35 guys across the road at the start). Some asshole from Bike Barn desperately tried to come around me on the slippery pavement section on the last lap and ceremoniously slid out. I have NO problem with aggressive moves on the 'cross course-but this course had P-L-E-N-T-Y of places to pass, so I'm hoping this jackass has road rash and healthy contusion for his stupid move. Assuming I continue to do Ok this year, I'm going to apply for an upgrade either this year or before the start of next year. I know that I can hang with the 3's. Mebbe mid pack to start but there's guys racing 3's now that I know that I'm faster than so I shouldn't DFL in those races. The Noho double weekend is up next on the schedule and I'm looking forward to see how I can fare there. A couple of top 20's there and I'll do the 3's for the remainder of the season. However if I get my ass handed to me then I'll sit tight in the 4's this year and keep the work up.
-We had a blast with the kids trick or treating last night (and how awesome was it to be out in shorts and flip flops?????). Ryan walked pretty much on his own the entire time with big sister Cait being a bit pooped out halfway through. Cait's been battling a cold/flu all week so just being out there was great. Meghan is now 8 and has a pretty good handle on how to maximize the T and T effort and scored a ridiculous amount of loot!

Well that's about it....photos of the latest project soon to come...