c o f f e e

When I spoke to Zelda this morning, she was at Crane Coffee in Omaha waiting on her C o f f e e with Magda. She had to hang up because her order was ready.

Don't come between Zelda and her Crane...

People have been known to lose an eye...

When I called later today to check in with her and to let her know I finally got the sewer line video dropped off at the right office (it took three stops),

she didn't answer at all.

My guess...

Zio's Pizza...

peace

I had lunch today with two former employers, D and R.

I moved to their company after working for JB Architect for over 6 years.
JB decided to retire and close up shop. The September 11th fall out was beginning to hit the building industry and there was no work.

As solitary, there were just the two of us, as it was, I did not want to leave.
It made starting with D and R a very sad time for me.

Seeing them today after 5 years seemed like it was only yesterday.

I am a good fit for their office.
They are good people to work for, which is hard to find these days.

When the recession hit them, rather than calling me into his office, he came out to me and sat down with me to fill me in with what was happening. I was the last hired, first to be let go.

I agreed to meet with them next week for a second interview.
I also let them know that I needed to speak to Zelda.

The easy thing would be to say, "Yes, I'll start tomorrow!", but the better thing would be to step out on the ledge and accept Zelda's offer...

No it would not pay as well.
But the fringe benefits of working from home, for ourselves, with my wife, is hard to pass up...

We work well together...

Thankfully, I have the gift of

time.

Omaha!

Z was scheduled to fly up to Omaha last month for her birthday but of all things, it was Canceled due to Snow in Dallas!

She was very upset as can be expected.

Well, she is up there this weekend making up for lost time.

I hope that my situation doesn't distract her from having a great time.
***
We have been running the numbers to see if we can indeed survive working from home.
There is some security in that it is "recession proof"- government and medical work.

Thankfully Z has such a great reputation in her industry that she has numerous dealerships asking for her help.

Add in some occasional cad drafting on my part, competitively priced of course, and we should get by...

This leaves us vulnerable to her not being able to work...
We'll see...

Have fun with your girlfriends my darling!

resolution

My thoughts have been cycling and I have had difficulty thinking clearly the last few days.

But I have learned in my older years that if I just let it sit for a while, an answer will come.

I was terminated for Lack of Performance.

Once I stopped fighting it and absorbed it and accepted it, it brought some relief.

I was still paniced, but it has become clearer.

I awoke tonight and a thought occured to me...

I was hit on the way to work in early February. By the end of the week I was in such pain I could not sit for long.

Although I told my coworkers about my Doctor's visits, I did not convey this to upper management myself. I told my direct supervisor...

I went for 8 weeks, three times a week, M, W, and F right after work.

No, I did not stay late most weeks like the girls did.
And yes I was grumpy...

You live and you learn...

On to the next big adventure.
***
Zelda gave me some pick up work to do yesterday.
It's right down my alley, architectural drafting.
I knocked it out in a fraction of the time it would take Z.
I thought she was joking when she exclaimed, "They are beautiful!" when describing the files I set up for her. The beauty was in the fact the it saved her time and she didn't have to do something that she dislikes....

I could have been doing this for her months ago!

Any time love...

time

Zelda told me something beautiful today.

No, it wasn't "I love you", she tells me she loves me everyday. And that IS beautiful.

No, today she told me I have given her a wonderful gift.

The gift of time. To be able to work for herself, even if it was in furniture.

And that she is doing things she enjoys now.

She wants to give me that same gift. Time.

To be able to think about what I really want to do...
Architecture or furniture or something else...

What I really want to do will take some time to discover.

And no matter what I do, it will be a self run business.

At the moment, I'm too scared, and we do not have the safety net in place to buy more real estate. Enough to make it so we don't have to worry about if we can find employment or not.

Enough to pay the bills and a little more, so that we can continue working and have our investments grow...

In the mean time, I have a couple of weeks before things need to happen...

stages of grief

Different kinds of grief.

The death of a loved one,

a spouse,

a pet,

a job,

sad news about a long time friend...

Each have their importance,
each their time.

The grief of the moment is job loss.

Tomorrow when I call my former employer, it will be for a good friend and his family...

New Job...

We have to take a look at the numbers...

but it might just work out that I work for Zelda.

It would require a huge cut in pay...

and some moon lighting...

Potential "Professional Suicide"
(why Mr. Bunny, did you not work in Architecture after your termination with Big Company?)

And I'd have to sleep with the boss...

Not all bad... ;)

The commute is a killer, (don't fall down the stairs)
and the coworkers, so I have been told,
can be quite Catty...

Self doubt

I have always worked for small companies...

What gets you by at a small firm, gets you fired at a large one.

I guess I should have put my resume out earlier...
Things were slowing down...

At the same time, small firms are limiting.

Which is why I moved to the larger firm...

The opportunity to grow...

But my heart isn't in Architecture anymore...

Sad news

A former employer and dear friend of mine has bone cancer.

He thought it was a pulled muscle back last October.

I was hoping to have him help me with a project coming up for our accountant.

She wants to build her own building.

With the economy slowing down, I hope she can get the funding.

I am not automatic with the project, but we will see.

In the mean time, our prayers and hugs go out to my friend and his family.

You know you are in trouble when...

folks at the office in higher management, who never speak to you, want to talk to you.

I had one of those conversations today.

The kind where they tell you, "We don't need you anymore."

I was this and that.

It wasn't really a surprise... but I was hoping I would be given the time to show my stuff.

"Not a good fit" would apply...

I was learning a lot.

But I have been let go before and I survived then, and shall do so now...

We have about a month and a half savings...

Not as much as we'd like.

But at least we have it...

Kitty and kites

I stopped by the shop outside where we found the sick kitty last week to buy a kite.
The shop owner recognized me and asked about the kitty.

I told her that we loved him in his final hours.
But that he was too sick. She asked what we had paid for the exams and tests. The vet was kind enough to cover the cost to put him to sleep. (Youth in Asia can be expensive.).

The shop owner thanked us and wanted to contribute to our expense.
She bought half our kite.

It's a dragon kite.

And every time we fly it, I'll think of travelin' Joe.

gas prices??

"We need to pull together, make the sacrifices needed, and make the world free".

President Bush appealing to the U.S. of A.

Fuel rationing, limited supplies of rubber, steel, and food. All so that we can win the war.

Oops, wrong war, wrong President.

We have been at War for, let's see,

2003,

2004,

2005,

2006,

2007,

2008...

That's six (6) years now.

Spending Trillions of dollars...

($1,000,000,000,000.00)

My taxes are Killing me!

Oh, wait....

again, wrong war...

Billions of dollars being spent each year.

I'm getting money from the government this year.

How about you?

Billions of dollars... no new taxes...

Where does all that $$$ come from?

Simple...
The Goverment Prints it.
Only... they no longer have to Actually print new money to keep up with the numbers..

It's a easy as, "000" enter.

Yes, that's right,

they make it up

in the computer.

What the Goverment doesn't tell us, and neither does the news, that if you take

one dollar and you

print a second dollar,

the first dollar loses its value by

50%.

So, it's not so much that Gas is expensive,
it's that the dollar buys less.
It takes more of those dollars to buy the same amount.

Tonight it was reported that gas has quadrupled in the last four years...

It costs you and me more to buy what we need to get by.
We get paid with a diminishing (worthless) currency.

Mean while, Bush and Cheney are in the oil (and war) business.

And we all pay for it

with a stealth tax

called inflation...

***
But to listen to the news and the Government...
it's the demand from China,
and India,
the short supplies from OEPEC
that causes the shortness of supply,
which runs up the prices.

Easy to lead sheep.

happy and sad

Saturday morning Z and I came across a very sick kitty.
He was literally skin and bones.
He was obviously someone's baby.

It was speculated that maybe he had been trapped somewhere and finally got free.
The smell of decay was strong, but he was frendly.

So we scooped him up and took him to our vet.
We could nurse him back to health and adopt him out.
He'd make a loving addition to anyone's family.

But it was not meant to be...

The test came back positive for feline AIDS.
The oder was from his mouth. He had open sores and it hurt when the Dr. tried to examine his mouth...

It was decided that it would be best for him to be put down.
The alternative was to slowly starve to death.

We named him Traveling Joe..

He would have made a wonderful addition to someone's family.

Court system

Youngest brother after the last court date was postponed again, spoke to his attorney, the bail bondsman, and headed out to Florida for work and to continue staying with my second brother.

He called Monday to arrange for his trip home for the next court date in May.
Tuesday he called again to propose airfare.

Today I called to check on his nearest airport so we could help him.
My other brother answered.
Seems my youngest brother is back in jail...

"Out of state fugitive".

He'll get back to Texas.

The marshals knew exactly where to find him because the Bail Bondman, who claimed not to know where he was, told him where he was staying in Florida.

Why we were never contacted, as we secured his last bail, by the bail bondsman if there was a problem... we will probably never know...

It does not add up...

Seems Collin county -Alias Capias Issued Surrender Principal- in Feb. 2008.

Time to google...

From what we understand from the query the Collin county revoked his bail back in Feb.

We will find out in time...