Something nice actually in the news...

This morning CNN.com presented a nice story.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/23/cookie.factory.reopens/index.html

The gist of it is that (evil) Archway closed a cookie factory in Ohio earlier this year, and laid off the 300 workers. Another snack food company, Lance, bought the factory at an auction and is rehiring the workers previously laid off. As if that wasn't enough, Lance gave each of the 300 workers a prepaid Visa card worth $1500 just before Christmas, even though not all of them had been rehired yet. Lance said they wanted the town and the workers to know who they were. No doubt left that Lance are the good guys.

I get very discouraged by all of the bad news, reports of horrible things perpetrated by people onto each other, and most of all by an apparent trend to keep all of us in a state of fear over what might happen next. Yes, its a tough world out there. And bad things happen. But lots of good things happen, too. Most of the time its just one person being kind or considerate of another. But sometimes, its worthy of notice. Thanks to Lance Snack Foods for going above and beyond, for restoring hope, joy, but most importantly, self-worth in a population of previously laid-off workers.

A long cold business trip

I just returned from two and a half weeks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The purpose of the trip was to manage a technical problem with an electric motor. But the most memorable aspect of the trip was the weather. It was cold and snowy.

When I arrived, there was several inches of frozen snow in the ground, the temperature was well below freezing. I grew up in Milwaukee, and remember lots of snow from the days of boyhood, struggling with snow shovels, digging forts in the piles of snow, snowball fights, and ice skating. I also remember lots of snow from from the days of my early adulthood, but these memories center more on the work caused by snow instead of the joy.

It snowed several times while I was there. It actually got above freezing for a day, and the dirty slush on the streets melted and flowed away, and it was pretty nice out. But of course that didn't last long. I remember times when we wondered whether there would be snow for Christmas. A few years there was not. But snow came early this year to Wisconsin.

The trip afforded an opportunity to visit friends and family, as the business side of things dragged on slowly. That part was fine, it is always good to visit the ones you love and appreciate. I rescheduled my return to Texas several times, and finally got back. The technical part of the trip continues to be a concern, and will hopefully work itself to a successful conclusion in another few days.

On the road again

I am not sure where home is right now, but within a few weeks it will be Sugar Land, a southwestern suburb of Houston. We close on our house there on Monday the 15th of December. The movers will be at the house in TN on the Monday afer Christmas, and I will be there as well on Tuesday evening. Wednesday, the wife & I will celebrate New Year's Eve on the road, probably in Memphis. With the dogs. We will hopefully make it to Houston the next day, New Year's Day, but if not, certainly the next day. Then within afew short days we will be unpacking and getting our household set back up.

For the last few weeks, I have been traveling. Mostly business, but the week of Thanksgiving was with my lovely wife in TN. I spent a few hours in Houston before hitting the road again, this time to Milwaukee to see about an electric motor that is causing some problems. I also managed to get over to a little town north of Flint Michigan to see a potential customer. I will hopefully get to (finally) fly back to Houston on Thursday. Lots of things to do in preparation for the move. Being here in the frozen Midwest will help the company, but it is starting to encroach on my ability to have a personal life. The weather has been cold and snowy. Times liek this make me question that whole global warming thing. Winter seems to have come quite early here, and deposited a considerable snowy mess.

Real Estate dealings

Our home in TN is for sale, and has been for quite some time. Now that the election is over, we are starting to get some calls and showings. We have an open house this weekend, Sunday afternoon. I hope our agent does well and ends up bringing us an offer or two.

Meanwhile, in the Houston area, I have made an offer on a house in Sugar Land. The owners have countered, and I have made a counter to theirs. If the deal works, it will be good, but we have a couple back-up houses that are quite nice was well, just in case the deal falls through. If we can manage to get both houses closed within a month or so of each other, life would be good indeed.

I am looking forward to living with my wife again. This living apart is not very much fun. See you soon, dear.

Takin' a ride

It has been a couple weeks since I started work at the new job. This evening, after I'd settled back a bit, I got a call from a coworker to meet for pizza and a beer. Cool enough. We had a nice conversation, and then we went outside and he asked if I wanted to see a bit of Houston. I said sure, so he pointed to his car: a bright blue Viper coupe.

It has been a while since I've driven or ridden in a high performance sports car. And this is the real deal! A V-10 Engine with 8.3 Liters and well over 500 Horsepower. I snuggled in to the well bolstered passenger seat, and away we went. I didn't notice it before, but most of the lights at night seem to blur in long horizontal lines. Houston just streaked by in bursts of effortless and high-G acceleration in this ride. It was very much fun, and I'm glad for once that I wasn't driving. In fact, I think the Viper just may be more car than I can handle, at least when the accelerator is pushed down vigorously. We went around all four leaves of a clover-leaf interchange. There may have been another car attempting to keep up, but when we left the intersection, he was still on the second leaf. The tires never even squealed. I had a thought during one particularly exhilarating accel, that this is what a golf ball must feel like when it leaves the tee.

My coworker asked if I wanted to continue the evening and bar-hop a bit, but I declined, as I my fun-meter was pretty much pegged out at that point. My Toyota Avalon felt a bit stodgy as I drove back to my temporary housing.

Starting again in Texas

As noted in my previous posting, I have unretired, and have started my new job in Stafford, Texas, a suburb just southwest of Houston, certainly part of the greater metropolitan area. After a very nice trip to Milwaukee, the wife and I came back to Tennessee, and spent the week continuing to get organized for this transition period. I left for Houston Monday morning, and got here Tuesday mid- to late-morning. I reported to work, and spent the day in-processing. I know it would be better if I could spend more time with my wife right now, she has an awful lot on her shoulders. She is trying to get her late aunt's house ready for sale, keep our house in show-able condition, go through things to prepare for our move, and all the while, run herd on our pack of three dogs. I try to talk with her as much as I can. This may be the first time ever that I will actually use all the minutes on our cell phone plan.

I must say, the Houston traffic is incredible compared to our rural little town in eastern TN. Even after work, at 7:00 PM, it was still bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go. Amazing. But this evening, at about the same time, it was flowing much better.

We had our first inquiry on the house in TN, just a nibble, really. A realtor asked about showing the house sometime soon. It has been almost a month since we listed the house, so we are a bit hopeful, perhaps overly so, about this.

The new job is going well, there is a lot to learn, with new systems, new procedures, lots of new names and faces. But I am excited about it. I started on my first proposal today. It is for a customer I started to court late last year, and we have progressed to defining and pricing some very specific tasks. And my first business trip is starting Saturday afternoon.

Nearing the end of a chapter

My time in Tennessee is newly limited. I have decided to go back to work. The firm for which I have consulted these last two years has agreed to hire me full time, on the condition that we move to Houston, TX. I accepted the job offer, and start September 30. So we have put our house up for sale, and I will drive there at the end of the month.

My lovely wife will be somewhat occupied here while our house is being marketed. Her aunt passed away a couple weeks ago, and she is the executor of her aunt's estate. There is a lot of stuff to go through in the house, so she and her friend Sue are doing just that. Sue's husband will be here this weekend, and I will join them to help as well.

We had made plans months ago to visit friends and family in Milwaukee next week, and we still intend to do that too. Boy is this September busy!!