So what has happened since the last time I posted?
I made probation at work. That meant another pay raise (not much of a difference, but money is money). My probation came just in time for the budget at work to be slashed. Don't panic...I didn't get fired. There was an impromptu staff meeting in my office (which never happens) that day. Frank walked in with a fist full of paper and said "We have our jobs." I found it kind of funny actually. A year before Nancy walked in upstairs with a fist full of paper and said "We have our jobs." :)
The Fourth of July parade came and went largely without incident. While working on the cannons on the float (different occasions), Alan and I both ended up standing in a ball of fire. He had safety glasses on when he got blasted. Not only did I not have safety glasses on, I had a beard and mustache. I smelled toast for several hours after the fact. I didn't burn them off, but they did get singed around the edges. I figured it made things look a little more authentic. They had some streaks of grey in them after that. That effect has since worn away. The float ended up being very close to the front of the line this year. We were in front of the SRHS band which was nice. We were back to the clubhouse by 1000. There was no stop time during the entire parade route.
The shit hit the fan at work in a pretty bad way the week around the 4th. I think it started right before the weekend and concluded the weekend after the 4th. I can't really discuss what happened. What I can say is that when the dust settled I think I broke even. I'd much rather break even than lose ground. :/
Carol Stocker (long-time family friend) died in the middle of July. I heard about it the Sunday after she died while I was at Teddy's house. A bunch of us were standing around the bar racking our brains as to who we needed to get in contact with about it. It took a lot of weeding in the list to find out who would've known her, who is still around here, who is still alive (ran in to a couple of those), etc. It was a bit of a mess to be quite honest.
The memorial was on the 16th. I came in to work early so that I got the full work day, but still had time to go to the memorial. I did okay through the memorial. There was a reception at the clubhouse. There was a slideshow in the house. I was doing okay until a photo of Carol and me came up on the screen. I was probably five or six years old. I had to walk away. I went outside for a little while longer and then I had to go back to work.
The end of July brought a lightning strike that screwed up some stuff at work. I ended up starting August pulling an 18 hours on/18 hours off work schedule. In that time I was able to get four major things accomplished:
In the aftermath I came up with an idea that in the end saved several thousand dollars in software upgrade costs.
I was going to sit down and write this sometime around the middle of this month. As you can see I missed the target a bit. Other things got in the way. When I logged in to the system I got a thing from Erin. I'm going to go email her after I get off of here to see how she's doing. She commented on what I had said before when John died about how it sucks that funerals and memorials are the times when people who grew out of touch seem to come back together. That happened again at Carol's memorial and reception. That seems to be a recurring theme with that kind of event.
I'm going to post this now and take care of some other things. Until next time...