0003 Indera 07: Son of Abomination

As I hope I've said before, I like snow. I do, really. I enjoy the appearance. I like walking in a light snowfall. I even enjoy tossing snowballs, and I get a mild thrill out of driving around and looking at snow-covered landscapes. Growing up in Texas, I never really had anything that people would consider "winter." The best we could manage was a heavy autumn every so often, with maybe black ice for entertainment, but real snow was a rarity.

Then I moved to Pennsylvania, and suddenly I understood what actual snow looked like. More to the point, I understood why people hated it. Six inches of accumulation on city streets will make them impassable to anything smaller than a duelie or a monster truck with chains, and I've had the good sense not to try to buy and then drive either of those. I did approximately USD1500 of damage to a Chevy Blazer getting blown sideways on a snowy road into a metal divider. Upon leaving the area, I was heartened to learn that, while "up the mountains" would get a lot of weather, Bothell rarely saw anything like that.

Of course, the year we arrived, we got precisely that kind of snowfall. I don't recall the exact details, but I remember clearly that one night my wife and my roommate set out for a quick trip for a computer component and ended up getting stuck for eight hours on the road, and that at some point during the winter we had to pack up some belongings and relocate to a hotel for three days, because the power in the apartment complex had died. Surely, though, such an event was a freakish occurance, not likely to happen again any time soon.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice....

As I type this, I'm looking at getting a good night's sleep, so that I can be in the office again for the first time in eight days. That's how much snow we've had this year. Three separate storms have hit us, or maybe one storm in three movements; it's hard to say. Either way, we've had between six and ten inches of accumulation since last week, and the weather reports I'm seeing say that we're supposed to get "a few flurries" next week. This after they told us that we'd see "an inch or two" last week. I am not hopeful. 

In fact, the weather was so bad that of the time I've been out, the office actually closed day. Two I spent sick because the weather had necessitated us turning on the heater, which in turn dried out my throat and nose so badly that I practically crusted over internally. One was some holiday that everybody around here seems to take really seriously. The rest I remained indoors, working from home, because our apartment complex is situated on the side of a steep hill down which I couldn't have safely driven the car even if my life had required it.

Not to say I couldn't get down the hill in an emergency. I could, surely. I would just likely end up on 405 South without having taken an on-ramp, if you get my meaning.

So, what does one do when facing the prospect of being snowed in? Commit nutritional atrocities, apparently. I think this is becoming one of those morally hazardous Lapinian traditions, like hot pepper consumption for Indians or Jerry Lewis films are for the French.

Some of you may remember the abomination that I created for Bandaza this year. In the end, while the flavor was great, not all of the chicken breasts came out done, the meat near the bones was undercooked, and most of the bacon fell off of the turkey during the cooking, which ended up making a mess in the bottom of the oven, as the grease-trap trick of folded foil underneath the baking plate did astonishingly little to stop the flood of meat juices. It was an experiment, well worth undertaking, but obviously "beta code."

I believe I've perfected "version 1.0" of the bacon-infused turkey. Call it "Son of Abomination."

On one of the few trips out of the apartment to secure supplies between snowfalls, Tanya and I decided that a smaller turkey, twelve pounds or so, would make for a good meal for a few days. We got an "artisan" turkey, which is to say we got a heritage turkey that's not a Large White. I'm not sure what breed it was, exactly; I believe it was a White Holland, but I wouldn't swear to it. I do intend to check, though, and whatever I determine it was, I'd definitely buy it again. At any rate, it was a little over twelve pounds and still slightly frozen when I went to bake it.

So, I got the turkey into the pan, and I thought about what I was going to do to stuff it, because I still had some stuffing from making a batch earlier since this has apparently become favored nibl around the Embassy for the vegetable-eaters. Then I found a package of bacon in the bottom of the fridge, and I knew what I had to do.

Recalling the Bandaza experiment, I realized that the reason the bacon hadn't stayed in place was, obviously enough, nothing had been holding it where it needed to be. I still had no pins or other obvious tools, but I did have an embarrassment of creativity, and I devised a fix: I wove a bacon "blanket" for the turkey, ensuring that the side-to-side strips were always weighed down by at least two lengthwise ones. The strips covering the legs I "tied" in place, wrapping a second strip around the leg at the thickest part and looping it over to help hold the longer strip in place. The ones over the wings, sadly, I could only drape in place.

The whole assembly I then put into a proper roasting pan, which then went into the oven set to 350F, for two hours. I then dropped the temperature to 300F for another three-and-a-half, at which point I pulled it out and declared it done.

This time, almost none of the bacon fell off the turkey. I think a total of two strips fell into the bottom of the pan, to become part of the drippings, which I meticulously saved. This roast, unlike its predecessor, was cooked completely, succulent from skin to bone, and infused with sweet and meaty joy. The turkey legs pulled off of the main bird without a fuss, and the wings did as well.

Now I just have to decide what to do with a SOLO cup full of turkey-and-bacon drippings, besides make the awesomest gravy ever.

I think this should be proof unto the gods that there is, in fact, a thing as too much snow. Though, considering that whole poutine thing up in Kanukistan, I'm not so sure.

Hang on. Fries... with bacon... and Swiss cheese... and turkey-and-bacon gravy....

I know what I must do.

Always one more try.... I'm not afraid to die.

0002 Zelera 11: Review

Bwah.

Six weeks since I've posted anything in my diary. I'd say I'm slipping, but I've actually been updating with other content, for once, which is something I didn't think would be happening again any time soon. So, here's the last-episode recap:

1. Everything for Anthrocon is prepped. The room is reserved for a week, the plane tickets are for the same time period, and I have ten days of vacation reserved at work. We leave Seattle on the 23rd of Byeta and return on the 2nd of Jeva. For those of you on the Gregorian Calendar, that's July 3 to 10. I've also got a day off of work on either side to make sure I don't immediately compress into a tight ball of shock and misery upon touching ground in Seattle after the closest thing I have to a yearly church retreat.

   It still feels a little weird to say it like that, but cons are really the closest thing I get to being in a large crowd of people and yet still feeling like I'm around people who have a hope in hell of understanding. This isn't to say that they will, but it's a damnsight more likely than taking an average random collection of strangers off the street. Of course, when I say "understand," I mean more in the general sense of "empathize with the nature of my existence,"which is a concept that I don't really think we can easily express in English.

2. I got a FurAffinityaccount. I did feel kind of dirty about it at first, but a very large part of that stems from the fact that the typical writer on there is... not that good, comparatively speaking. The furry fandom in general is a much more visual medium than it is a verbal one, with the consequence and subsequent cause that the bar for what is considered good writing is a lot lower than the bar for what is considered good illustration. Thus, more people who write mediocre stories get praised for good work, and the bar falls farther, and so on and so forth. So, I was a little leery of even trying to wade into the pool.

   Of course, the truth is that I'm already in the pool, and up until now I've really just been sort of standing around sulking that nobody was playing with me and bitching about how bad things are. So, this is really my attempt to jump into the deep end and maybe start reversing the previous trend. It may not work, but if it does then things are great, and if it doesn't then I'm really not out anything except a bit of dignity.

3. Coincidental with the FA account, I've started a new ongoing storytitled, "Beautifuil World". The history for the setting is... complex. When I was driving cross-country from Pennsylvania to Washington, one of the many topics that arose during the trip was a new MUCK to replace or supplant or support Puzzlebox, and the idea upon which I hit was that of a virtual world in which the inhabitants all knew that they were in a virtual world, and could operate as such. Digital sentiences, hackers, and uploaded minds all interacting in a realm limited only by the creativity of the players involved.

   The idea ended up not going anywhere as a MUCK, mostly because I didn't feel like investing the energy to try to create one and code it up and maintain it. However, the idea for the setting remained in my head, lingering around and making faces at the other story settings in which I'd been working. So, with the creation of the new account, I decided to go ahead and indulge the idea and give it a bit of freedom. Since then, I've already written eight-thousand words, which isn't bad at all for me given my usual pace of writing. If I keep this up, I'll have a novel by the end of the summer.

4. Pathia has moved in with Jessie, Tanya, and I. The apartment's a little cramped, but with some judicious juggling of suitcases and other things, we should be able to wedge everything into the available space. She's already working again, and she seems pleased with that. It's not a brilliant job, but Washington State has some pretty flash labor laws, so she's making decent money.

5. My job at T-Mobile remains stable, even "good" by some standards. I got a fairly decent raise at my annual review, and tomorrow I'll get a good-sized bonus check that will go a long way towards covering the currently outstanding credit card debt.
6. The house in Pottstown still hasn't sold, but at least the work is done, and the showings have picked back up. Two last week, and one the week before that actually looked ready to buy until an attack of cold feet occurred. I can't blame them for that; I had a few of those myself when Jessie and I were shopping for a permanent residence.

I think that pretty much covers everything. Anything I've missed, I can add later.

I feel happy.

0001 Indera 09

L.C. 0001 Indera 09

By most modern reckoning, this is the "new year". We've passed some arbitrary marker that divides one period of solar revolution from another, and we've tied festivals and celebrations to mark the transition. Ritual is important. It helps us create and preserve meaning. It helps us forge and maintain social connections. It gives us a sense of community and belonging. The rituals that we share help reinforce our feelings of being part of a group, and those emotional ties are what make us a family, a community, a society, and not just a collection of individuals.

However, let us remember that these rituals are themselves arbitrary. The events that spawned any given ritual are not to be trivialized, but of the uncountable events that have occurred since history began, to choose some subset of them and mark them for rememberance above all others is to grant them a meaning and significance that far outstrips their actual import. Worse, to assume that they are somehow universal, even for their widespread adoption, is to display an arrogance that stresses one's own role in the universe as being far beyond its due.

This is not to say that ritual should be trivialized; see my initial points above. However, the rituals and celebrations that we accept should be personal rituals. They should be things which are important to us, and to our friends and family. We should be growing our celebrations and our traditions ourselves. Accept the rituals that your parents gave to you, but understand their sources and decide for yourselves if the reasons you celebrate are your reasons or theirs. There is no reason why your religious holiday should be mine, my celebration of independence should be yours. Our holidays may overlap, and we may mistake commonality of time for commonality of meaning, but even two people who celebrate the same festival may not celebrate for the same reasons.

Did you have a happy Yalda? Or perhaps you celebrate Brumalia in your house instead.

With that in mind, I hope that for everyone who celebrated over the turning of the Gregorian calendar, you had a good time and that you got out of the events more than you put into them. The mark of any successful ritual, in my opinion, is that you come away from it feeling as though the prepration and anticipation felt beforehand were more than worthwhile in the end. If they weren't... perhaps you should consider the reasons and find some new holidays.

I suppose in many ways this post is an ACK. The last few months have been somewhat crazy for me, mostly for reasons that have little to do with anything I've openly discussed here. The short form is that our finances since moving to Seattle have been in what I can only describe as Slow Leak Syndrome. Because the house has not sold yet, I spend a little more on fixed expenses every month than I earn, which means every month I'm sitting on a little more credit card debt than I did the month prior. While I realize that this situation is hardly unfamiliar to the average American household, who at last measure was spending USD100.60 for every USD100.00 earned, this is an awkward and uncomfortable situation for me, since the last time I was in this kind of predicament, I was unemployed and trying to scrape by on the collective rents of my roommates and a paper route that ultimately destroyed my seventh or eighth car. The MPS, if anyone else is keeping score.

Those were not happy times. Living in their shadow again, even for theoretically positive reasons like "I have too much real estate", puts me just a little bit on edge. I'm not in any real danger; I have plenty of cushion on which to fall if I need it, and if push comes to shove I can call my folks and they've already said they'll be more than willing to help out. It's just that every little expense adds up, and instead of eating into the monthly savings, it's adding to the monthly debts.

In fact, the reason why the Ranch hasn't been updated in two months at this point is honestly because I've been having a hard time justifying the kinds of expenditures that would serve as the incentives behind the project, and in the absense of the positive feedback those incentives would provide, I've been letting the whole thing languish. That's not to say that I haven't been at least trying to stick to my goals, but the formula of rewards for good behavior has been hard to execute when the rewards aren't in the budget.

On the whole, I think we've adjusted to living on the Left Coast pretty well. Jessie's in the middle of some new projects. I've been playing a lot of City of Heroes, but at the same time I've been developing what I'd like to consider a fairly rich narrative for the characters involved. Admittedly, it feels a little like downgrading to paint-by-numbers after the freehand of building my own setting and running it every other week, but that game finally took off again after a three-month hiatus for general insanity, and with any luck, tomorrow night will also be as much a success as last week. I've had a number of other projects that I've at least nominally started to keep my creativity flowing, I added a whole page to my novel in the last month, and in general I think the new living arrangements have been conducive to better mindset.

At the very least, I know they've helped Jessie, and that makes my mood much better.

One thing I have finished, or at leastcompleted-to-the-point-of-utility is the Lapinian calendar. The funny date above links to its description. The days of the week and the months of the year were taken from legal words in living languages. As an exercise, why not try to determine the pattern and identify the meanings of the words? These may or may not form the basis later of a Lapinian language, but if they do, then I think these will be a good start.

Right now I'm not sure in what direction Lapinia is growing. It's less than a micronation, more than a fad. It's a culture, a state of mind, a worldview, and an association of people who share it. It's a faction, if anything: a culture and history and symbology all encapsulated in a label. What it becomes is as much a factor of who I become as anything else. Right now, it's an ideal to which I'd like to hold myself, and I think it's an ideal worth sharing with others.

Come sail away with me.

So, we're back.

Anybody still here probably has by now noticed that the old site is gone, or at least down. That's partially rue. The short answer is... oh, hell, I don't really have a short answer on this one. When I acquired "menagerie.tf" in 1999, AdamsNames was the company tasked with managing the TLD for the French government. Less than a year later, AdamsNames announced that they were going to be giving up the domain back to the French government for whatever reason, but nobody panic, everyone can still manage their domain for free in the meantime. So, at the time it looked like I had a free domain, so I kept it. Then AdamsNames stopped saying they controlled the .tf TLD, announcing that the French government was now holding it and would be making some policy decisions about it "soon". I couldn't make any changes to the domain any more, but by then I was in the house in Pottstown and everything was good.

Then we moved. More on that in a minute, but the important thing is that the old internet access went away, and new internet access happened at the far end. New company, new IP address. So, I went to find out what happened to the .tf TLD, and I found out that in October of 2004, the French government had generously given the TLD to a company called AFNIC, who announced at the time that they had were putting a freeze on the TLD until they could release some new policies surrounding its occupancy and use "in the coming months".

That was two years ago. They're still working on it.

I sent several letters, or perhaps I should say plusiers de lettres to AFNIC's customer service group trying to get the matter resolved, but after the third time they politely told me non, I gave up. So, to those of you who had e-mail addresses on menagerie.tf, I hate to tell you this, but that address is just... gone. I've pretty much exhausted my options for getting it back, and the people who have the power to restore it to me have flatly said that they're not making any changes at all to the domain entries until they get their policies set. After two years, I have no faith that they're going to get to it any time soon. I could be wrong. I would love to be wrong. I'd be perfectly happy being wrong this time.

In the meantime, we've got some new homes.

For now, the new sites look remarkably like the old one. This will change. I have plans. Big plans. Well, "buni big" plans. Big enough. I'll get to 'em "soon".

---

We're in Seattle now.

The cross-country drive was an experience I'll not soon forget. I hope I never do, of course, but the vagarities of time and memory ensure that at least some things will fade as the weeks stretch into months and years. A friend of mine once said that memories faded to make room for new ones. Or maybe I just think he said that. It sounds like something he would say, at any rate. Apologies if somebody else did say it and I misattributed it. No apologies if nobody said it and I just gave it away to someone else. I don't need any more profundity for now.

I don't know at this point what I could say about the trip that would really make sense to anyone who hadn't been there. The factual events of the drive itself has been recorded in some detail. The emotional experiences that the trip engendered could not really be communicated without an attempt to recreate the experience, or perhaps access to a cerebrochord and some decent authoring software. I'm not the virtuoso I pretended to be, but I'm willing to learn. All I can say is that in many ways the trip itself and the surrounding events pushed me very far outside my normal comfort zone, and I got to experience a lot of emotional extremes as a result that I might not have had the chance to feel otherwise.

I'm glad in one way that it all happened, but I hope that certain aspects of it never have to happen again.

The rest of the move... is best left forgotten, really. Bad things happened. Emotions flared. Voices and tempers were raised. We spent an extra five or six days in various hotels. In the end, our belongings arrived, and we're fairly certain nothing broke during the move that we weren't sort of expecting to lose. A few dishes and a few bottles of liquid didn't survive, staining a few other boxes an interesting off-red color and leaving glass fragments in our cookware, but nothing broke that we couldn't replace. The important things survived reasonably intact. At this point, I'm honestly thinking it's best if we forget it all. Let the ravages of history claim these dark times, and leave me the happier for their passing.

Seattle is beautiful. I really don't have any better way to put it. Seattle is beautiful. I think, for once, something has lived up to my internal hype.

Two days this week, I biked to work. I didn't Wednesday or Thursday because it was raining and I don't yet have decent gear for riding in active rain, and this morning I was running late because I was sore from the three-mile walk last night to and from the QFC for supplies. Costco's a twenty-minute drive away if we need supplies in bulk, but more often than not I feel better about waiting until the weekend, driving into Seattle proper to go to Pike Place Market and buying local fresh produce from one of the vendor stalls there. The market also has a couple of butchers, a dairy, an Asian market, two or three bakeries, and four coffee shops, of which one is Starbucks #1 if I feel like venerating at the shrine. While I'm there I can grab a coffee and watch the trawlers and boats on the sound and gaze into the fog. There's a family-owned teriyaki place on practically every street corner, and there's a small java shack selling coffee out of a plywood box every five-hundred feet.

The Seattle skyline has trees in it. Actual green trees, visible in the skyline.

Passing through Snoqualmie Pass on our way here initially felt like coming home. It wasn't just the end of a long trip. It was a return to something. My words fail me here, for I really have no expression for it. I once quoted Robin in saying, "you can just visit, but I plan to stay". That's really how it felt, the emotion of discovering a longing for something one has never seen before. This place has felt inviting to me in a way that Texas never did, that Pennsylvania only managed in some rare situations. Jessie and I knew that Pottstown was never a permanent solution, though we thought it would last longer than it did. I don't think either of us regret it being so short, though.

If anything, we're just hoping the house sells quickly, so that we can buy a new one here. Not another short-term one, though. This time... this time I think it's to stay.

Welcome home.

---

As an aside, some of you have probably noticed that the ranch hasn't seen an update in two months. I had planned on resuming my tracking in October, but the stress of relocation and then the insanity that followed more or less made that a fool's plan. Now with October mostly gone, it'd be rather pointless to start tracking just yet. Come November 1, I'll be back on track. I have some big ideas for how to revamp the site, too, to broaden its appeal.

Fake it 'til you make it.

Where does time go?
Are there seconds caught in the stitching of my pocket?
Could I pull a minute out of the lint trap of my dryer, looking for that missing sock?
Did I lose an hour under the couch as I sat with you, running my fingers through your hair?
Where does time go?
Last year I was giggling, wide-eyed at the sides of my crib, wondering at the miracle of my own fingers and toes.
Last month I was crying, sitting on the sidewalk, wondering if anyone would ever like me.
Last week I was cringing, daring to reach out into the digital world, looking for others who might feel as I did.
Yesterday I was smiling, watching you step off the bus, waving as you slung a duffel bag over your shoulder.
Where does time go?
Tomorrow we'll be in Seattle, watching the sun rise over Puget Sound.
Next week we'll be in Canada or Iceland or Finland or Thailand, looking up at the sky and wondering what's next.
Next month we'll be in space, staring down at that dirty brown and blue marble, wondering how we ever lived there.
Next year we'll be in bed, gazing into each other's eyes and waiting for the sunset.

Ever since my last post, things have been... insane. There is no better word for it. So, rather than rehash absolutely everything, let me see if I can provide it all in some kind of quick summary, the last month in thirty seconds as performed by... uh... oh, never mind:

• I got the job in Seattle.
• The HR department promised me relocation based on the EDC's closure.
• Management panicked because they hadn't yet designed or budgeted the EDC closure relocation package.
• They came back with a signing bonus instead, which I accepted.
• I put my house on the market.
• My primary CoH character hit the highest level in the game, also known as "dinging fifty".
• A friend in CoH and I, with the help of some game logs and a few other people, cranked out a good amount of text on said character's condition.
• Jessie and I have started the process of applying for an apartment in Bothell twenty minutes away from my new office.
• The moving company arrives a week from either tomorrow or day after to pick up our stuff and take it to the Left Coast.
• We're planning a five-day roadtrip to get from Pottstown to Bothell. I'm taking a week's vacation with my new manager's approval.
• Today's my last day in my current position.

I think that's pretty much everything. I could say "nothing else is new," but it would sound trite. Right now, everything is new. I've never sold a house before. I've only ever moved my own stuff once before like this, and I wasn't any better prepared then than I am now. I've never tried to arrange an apartment on such short notice or at such great distance; the last time we moved into an apartment, it was occupied already and we were just adding our tenancy to his, then renting another unit in the same complex. I've been twice to the Seattle area, and I know what some of the parts of it look like, but I've never had the chance for an extended stay, and really I only know what I've read in the picture books and what people tell me. This really is jumping off the high dive and hoping that the water will cushion the fall.

It's scary, and exhilarating, and nervewracking, and wonderful. If Jessie weren't with me, I'd go mad from panic. As it is, I'm only just holding it together, but it's still a beautiful thing.

Hopefully Mike will be up this weekend to help us clean up and pack. Next Monday night will probably be our last big group meal with the local contingent of folks in the area we know: Bennie, Sue, Gideon, Kitana and that crowd. The movers show up either the twenty-third or twenty-fourth to take our boxes to Bothell, hopefully to our new apartment or to a storage facility. Some time next week, Kincaid comes down for a visit to help finish the assembly of our stuff into neat boxes. Sunday week, we start the drive to Seattle. Monday, October second, I start my new job full-time in my new office. Analyst III, Enterprise Monitoring.

I feel like I've just turned my entire life umop-apisdn. I wonder if this is what twenty kilos of TNT feels like when it detonates. It's less sexhurt than a third nostril opening but definitely more gutwrenching than having my life erased or discovering it never existed.

Last day, Year of the City, 2274. Carousel begins. Identify.

---

As a side note to all of this, the Ranch on Mars isn't dead. I didn't update it last month with new goals because I knew in the crush of everything that's happening, I would fail, and that would be three months in a row that I had planned something and then missed it, and I thought that the smart thing to do would be to simply not put myself into an emotional bind. I'm still totally committed to the project, and starting when I get to Bothell I'll be updating it regularly, as well as expanding on the site, I hope. I have some ideas involving expanding things and changing how I document my progress. Right now I'm changing six or seven pages, and that's kind of ridiculous. I know how I want to streamline the design, but until after we're in Washington, I know I won't have time to do the work, or to concentrate on pushing myself on anything other than moving.

No more talking; time to land.

I think I've just surfed the Luck Plane.

The day after I arrived in Seattle, my manager called me and asked me if I would have time later to talk, and that it was very important. Now, anyone who knows me should know what that kind of statement can do to my heart rate and general feeling of well-being. So, as calmly as I could, I asked him if it were anything bad. He said, "no, not really", but he refused to elaborate further and simply said he'd call me at 14h00 his time and that I should plan to be somewhere private for the call.

The hour that passed after that was pretty much a big bright blur, as I tried to figure out what he could possibly want to tell me that he didn't want to tell my other teammate who was present, and that he couldn't tell me on the first call. I joked with Trell about it being my notice that I was being encouraged to seek other opportunities, but it was in the context of "ha ha only serious".

At the designated hour, my manager called me, and I dutifully sequestered myself by the stairs away from my team, and he informed me that in approximately one hour, the rest of the people at the Eastern Distribution Center in Bensalem, the facility at which I'd been working for the last seventeen months, would be shut down on or by 2006-03-30. The entire
operation was being relocated to Louisville, Kentucky, and outsourced to a firm specializing in logistics and distribution. T-Mobile already had an arrangement like that with another firm, ATCLE, located in Fort Worth, and so this wasn't really a shock for the company, though it was probably surprising for everyone working at the facility.

Actually, it probably can't have been too much of a shock, really. To get into August and not have a lease signed for the following year haed to tell a few people that something wasn't on the level. We still had sprinkler system issues and an ongoing battle with the landlord over who was paying for what. I don't think anyone really got caught too much by surprise by this, though I'm sure a lot of people were disappointed that it turned out this way. Shortly after the public announcement, the general manager of the facility sent everyone home for the day.

At any rate, this announcement took everything that had come before it and threw it all into overdrive. My manager and I had agreed in the past that I really had no promotion path in my current team. The group simply wasn't big enough to support two people at the Team Lead level, and I was as close to that as I could get without being one, and the current team lead wasn't going anywhere any time soon. Add to that that I was on-site and not in a corporate center, to get into another team, I would have to move anyway, so I had already geared myself up for the eventuality that Jessie and I would probably be moving to Seattle some time in... oh, say, 2008 or so.

The announcement that they were closing the EDC meant that I had seven months to find another position in the company or risk being relocated to Atlanta. Nothing against Atlanta, but... I don't think the culture would have been good for either Jessie or I, to say nothing of the weather.

Now, when I initially applied for the position in Enterprise Monitoring, I didn't know that the EDC was closing. I found out after I got to Seattle that this was going to happen. So, suddenly, I had a lot of pressure on myself to do really well at this interview. Before I left, the HR rep with whom I'd spoken had suggested that I could interview on week one and have an answer by week two, and suddenly that sounded like a really good idea. If I was going to get the job, I wanted the peace of mind as soon as I could have it. If I wasn't, I needed to know so I could start looking for alternatives.

I got the job pretty much as soon as I walked in the door.

To be fair, it didn't go quite that quickly. I showed up on-site for the interview, waited for about ten minutes for the hiring manager to come downstairs, and then chatted with him as we returned to his cube. I then had to confirm that I wasn't just fishing for a means out of the EDC and that I had in fact applied for the position before I knew that the EDC was closing. That established, he said that he was very excited to know that I was interested and that he was hoping to be able to convince me to follow through on my expression of interest. We talked a bit about my background, he showed me some of the tools of the trade, he introduced me to some of the people with whom I'd be working if I took the job, and then he sat me back down at his desk and said, "Can I be honest with you? I want to give you an offer letter".

The whole interview took maybe half an hour, and most of that was meeting people.

Now, this is by no means a "done deal" yet. He has to get signoff from my current manager, then he has to go through a complicated process of dumping numbers and information into a spreadsheet that the company providdes to make it easy to determine compensation offers, which will ultimately spit out a single number at him which he will then ignore. He's then got to get me an offer letter and suggest an amount, which may or may not be sufficient to justify relocating to Seattle. It could, in theory, still fall apart at any point up to me signing off on the offer.

I figure the only way I'm not going to sign is if he tells me I have to take a pay cut to move. I don't think that'll be an issue.

He also asked me about timeframes, and I told him that I had a house to sell. He said he understood that, but still wanted to put in for "as soon as possible". My current manager asked me to give him two weeks, but outside of that he said he was fine with whatever timetable I could set. I really can't do anything until I get back to Philadelphia, so that means at least a week-and-a-half from now before I do anything at all.

So... what does all this mean? It means that very likely, in the next few weeks, Jessie and I"at least"will probably be moving to the Seattle area. The job is in Bothell, so we'll look for houses in the area, though we'll probably start with a six-month lease on an apartment and go from there.

Now, why does this count as surfing the Luck Plane? Simply put, timing. You see, originally when I was looking at moving to the area, I told people that I was willing to pay for my own relocation, and I was and am, but I wasn't looking forward to it. It's an expensive proposition. However, because of the closing of the facility, upper management offered, or at least I think they offered, to pay the relocation costs of people who took other positions in the company as part of the employee retention program. This means that, if I wheedle and beg and sweet-talk enough folks, I may get to move on the company dime. The Suits really are pickin' up the bill, or so goes the theory. I won't know for sure until I get back to Philly and ask on Tuesday of the Employee Assistance Program folks that should be on-site to help people transition through this difficult period of readjustment.

Oh, this is going to be so difficult for me. Toolset development. A UNIX desktop at work. A private cubicle. Sure, that last may sound like I'm setting my sights too low, but share an office with my current coworker for a week and you'll understand why this makes me happy.

You can just visit, but I plan to stay.

This feels like a maintenance post. No great weight sits upon my shoulders. No meaty social issues currently constrain my thoughts. No horrible demons lurk just behind my eyes demanding attention. I figure all in all I've been doing a fairly good job of tending my baobobs, and that's meant fewer emotional collapses and less drama all around, which is pretty much a good thing.

To be sure, there have been a few issues that hover around the fringes of my perception. My internal network at home is intermittently dying for no apparant reason, and it has since the power failure last week that took down the server for a few hours. I suspect that in the power loss-return-loss cycle, one of the hubs got damaged. It's nothing earth-shattering, but it's a nuisance I'd rather not have to face right now. The sociopolitical environment outside the Lapinian Consulate remains tense and unwelcoming, but it's always tense and unwelcoming even when it's warn and inviting. This is merely the way of rabbits, and I'm adapting and accepting over time. I doubt the world will change enough in my lifetime to ever make me want to participate in society in any way other than the bare minima required to sustain myself and my family financially, but stepping outside my door doesn't actively invite death either from other people or my own head. My weight isn't where I want it to be, but I've taken a few baby steps in the direction of dealing with it and the feedback I've gotten has been mostly positive. It's going to take a while, but I hope these things will sort themselves out in time with a bit more effort.

I think the one big issue currently weighing on my mind is the trip I have upcoming. Three weeks ago, I flew down to Atlanta for team meetings and group training. Now they're flying me to Seattle for a week for more meetings with a different team on a new project for which I've "volunteered". To be sure, I wanted to be involved, but not so centrally. This project has the feel of "make-or-break" on it. It's something the business wants very much but that the support staff thinks in general is not a good idea, so if we can make it work, it'll be a big boost, but when if we have to cancel it, it could look ugly. I doubt I'd lose my job over it if it went poorly, but I'm lapine enough never to trust raw assurances.

This whole "business travel" thing still has me mystified, tired and a little tittilated. I've always loved to travel, and I know I've commented before on this fact, but I also know I've mentioned that the heyday of business travel is behind us. At least, it seems like it. At my level, I fly coach, I'm on the cheapest fares and the least convenient times, and I have to carry my own suitcase. I spend long hours away from home, but I know it's because I'm important enough to the company that they're willing to spend money on sending me places. I love living out of a hotel, but eating out all the time gets tiresome and sometimes I just want to cook a comforting meal. I love to go and see new places, but I always look forward most to coming home.

If anybody in Seattle over the next week wants to try to arrange a time to meet, email me and I'll send you my PCS number. I'll be staying at the Silver Cloud Eastgate, 14632 Southeast Eastgate Way, Bellevue, WA 98007. I won't have a car, but I should have my evenings to myself unless my manager decides to keep me chained.

I'm refinancing my house again, the second time in a year. The first time it was to consolidate debt and I was damn glad for the chance to do that, but my credit score was pretty low thanks to The Bad and my job situation was brand new and still a little shaky, so I got a pretty poor interest rate on a 3/27 Fixed-to-ARM. If none of that bit makes any sense, don't worry. It didn't to me at first either. Mortgages typically come in two main types, depending on whether the interest rate can change over time or not. If it can, it's adjustable. If it can't, it's fixed. Fixed interest rates typically save people money in the long run, but they're usually reserved for people who have great credit or who can afford to pay a large amount up front on a house. Adjustable-rate mortgages change with the prime lending rate set by the Federal Reserve, so every time you hear Ben Bernanke talk about raising interest rates, all those people who have an adjustable-rate mortgage pay a little more out of pocket on their houses. They tend to be more expensive in the long run, but anyone can get them. The fixed-to-ARM program is a hybrid of these ideas, giving the borrower a short window during which the interest rate will remain steady regardless of what the market does. Then, at the end of that window, the interest rate on the mortgage jumps to what it would have been had it been tracking the Fed's rate changes all the way along and becomes adjustable from there. It's great if you expect to refinance your house again in a short amount of time, or if you plan on selling the property within the fixed-rate time period.

This may actually happen for Jessie and I.

This is where the rest of my job weirdness enters into the playing field. My department doesn't really have any need for any more team leads right now. We've got a team lead, and he does a damned fine job as a team lead, but he's also not fully employed as a team lead because he's still having to serve as a principal support analyst on a lot of issues. He's an Analyst IV. I'm an Analyst III. Until the IV is fully working as an IV, there's no need for any more IVs on the team. This means that there's no room for promotion in my current department. If I want to advance faster than the cost-of-living adjustments, I have to leave my current department, or my current company. Assuming for the moment that I want to stay with T-Mobile—because I do—that means having to switch to another group. However, to do that I'm going to have to move. There are no other groups in my current facility, because my facility is a warehouse, not a corporate office. The only things open to me here are management jobs I don't want, and production jobs paying half or less my current salary.

T-Mobile's corporate offices are in Tampa, Atlanta and Seattle. Anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line is right out, if only for the weather, to say nothing of the political culture. This means that if I want to get anywhere in my company any time soon, I'm going to have to relocate to the Left Coast. This isn't an immediate thing, and it's obviously not a guaranteed thing, but to borrow from the Torino Scale, the likelihood of moving is somewhere around a five. It's not certain, but it's non-zero, and the most likely alternate scenario involves changing jobs, something I'm loath to do if I can avoid it. I've never worked at the same company longer than eighteen months, unless you count my stint as a teaching assistant at the University of North Texas, which was a year of three overlapping part-time jobs.

I figure the timescale on this is somewhere around the beginning of 2008 if it's going to happen, which should be coincidentally right around the point at which I've finished paying off my past debt. I like the significance of this. I like the cosmic unity. It means nothing, but it looks pretty, and that counts for a lot for me. I can choose to interpret it as symbolic if I wish, a new start in a new city and a new goal. In trying to find references to my past discussion on travel, I instead found the post wherein I discussed my desire to make a plan for the future, and putting down the last of my negative past feels like a good start to that. I'll be free of past burdens and ready to take on new challenges. I'll be able to face the future. From here, it looks like the kind of event that cries out for a commemorative print in Reconstructivist style, faces in a row along the bottom-right upturned towards rays of light from the top-left corner, wearing vapid two-tone smiles with a Cyrillic propaganda slogan beneath it.

In any case, this all started with a discussion of refinancing the house, and I'm going with a 3/27 because of the need to plan for the contingency of moving cross-country, but it also serves to pull down my interest rate another half-point beneath what I'd get if I went strictly with a fixed-rate mortgage. That means in the short run I'll be saving myself another thirty dollars a month, which amounts to a free box of Fudge Stripes for th' qiti every other day. Our Feline Mistresses must be appeased.

This will also mean I have more money to throw at the credit card, which might even advance the timeline by which we've paid off our back debt. That would break the nice little synchronicity above, but it would also save us some finance charges, and I'm unspiritual enough—or perhaps sufficiently capitalist—to destroy universal harmony to save a few bucks. It would also mean that if we move to Seattle, we do so with a nest egg and the chance to put some more money down on a house, or some more stock to start earning dividends, or a nest egg for emergencies. The less money we have to spend paying off the corporate masters, the more money we have to support ourselves and move towards self-sufficiency.

It's not that I enjoy being the ant; it's that I've been the grasshopper.