This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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Roughly what my desk looks like. (Via the crappy camera on my phone, sorry!) Thrilling, eh?
As of today (well, yesterday, but I was stuck in airports) I have an office mate. It was nice to have a solo office, but I knew that was not going to last long, because they seem to be pretty rare here, and also because, well, my boss shares an office, so the chances of me not sharing one while he did for any longer than a couple weeks were pretty slim. :-)
My new office mate is a developer named Ian. He’s Australian. I’ve only spoken to him for a few minutes so far, but I’m sure he will be a fine office mate.
I am in Salt Lake City for my layover. I had not been in Utah before as far as I know. So I’m now at 39 states (plus DC). 11 states to go.
(Map from World66.)
Well, I made it to Atlanta. But because of weather delays my flight into Atlanta didn’t get into the gate until boarding was already done for my flight to Seattle. I am now rerouted to a flight to Salt Lake City (after a four hour layover here in Atlanta…) then once I get to Salt Lake a 3 hour lay over before I catch a flight to Seattle from there. Fun. I am very tired too.
They really should have those napping pod things like I’ve heard they have in Japan. I’d pay $20 to have a nice private little pod thing to sleep for the next few hours with an alarm set to ring an hour before my flight or something. Yes, that would be cool.
I could have gotten a direct Atlanta to Seattle, but instead of waiting here four hours in the Atlanta airport, I would have had to wait seven hours, and at least by the scheduled time, it would have gotten there later anyway. Yawn!
Anyway, this will mean I miss work entirely Monday (although I may try to do some things remotely while I am at airports, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to get done… this wireless at the Atlanta airport sucks and keeps cutting out). I’ll end up getting back to Seattle something like 21 hours later than originally scheduled.
Got to the airport Sunday to catch the plane back to Seattle. Canceled. Bad weather in Atlanta where I would have been changing planes it seems. They put me on the first flight in the morning. So I have one more night here and will miss some of the work day on Monday. I don’t mind the extra time here at all of course. But at the same time, I’m trying not to miss too much work while I’m still in my first month!
I’m leaving for the airport in mere minutes to head home to Florida for the weekend again. Unfortunately, it will be a sad trip home this time. (See the second paragraph here.) But it is needed. Sigh.
Brandy called this morning to let me know she had just gotten out of the parent teacher conference for this grading period. She was all prepared to go in fighting again. But instead… it was all positive. The teacher said Amy was doing very well, that everything that had been a problem earlier in the year no longer is, and that she is doing great. A’s in Math and Science. A strong B in reading (her weak area) but that is a strong improvement and is still getting better. And she is much mroe organized than before. She is getting things done. She is turning things in. In fact she is finishing what she needs to do well before the time allowed and is asking for more. (Which is what we’ve told her to do when she is assigned something she thinks is boring and stupid, rather than not do it because it was stupid and boring, which is what she often used to do.) In any case, she is doing great.
We are very seriously looking at private schools for next year in Seattle. The public school gifted programs are on a waiting list, and assuming we apply now, it might well be over a year before she actually got in. And the reports we have been able to find on public school quality in the area are pretty uneven. There are however a number of good private schools. Brandy is in the process of getting all the applications in right now. The deadlines for most of them were in January, but all of them we have called have said since we are just moving to the area now, they will wait for our applications and consider them. They are all very expensive though. Brandy is filling out the forms to apply for financial aid too, but we may or may not get anything significant there. We have to plan as if we’d have to pay out of pocket. If we don’t get into the schools we want, we’ll fall back on the public school system. But if we get in, we’ll figure out how to make it work. That expense might very well balance off most if not all of any financial benefit gained from the new job and certainly would reconfirm the fact that we will be picking a place to live that is much lower on the budget scale.
But you know, it is just a question of priorities. Making sure Amy is in a setting where she will be able to thrive and do well and succeed is critical, and trumps most ofther concerns. Rebecca posted a few days ago about changes to priorities and perspectives that occur after becoming a parent (see here). Her’s was in a very different context, and I was suddenly the parent of a 3rd grader (now 5th grader) and I missed the baby years, but same sorts of things. Priorities about how you spend time, and how you spend money, what matters and what does not… just change completely. And that is OK. Not only OK, but good.
Very proud of Amy this morning.
Today I got paid for the first time by my new employer. They pay monthly (like my employer two employers ago) rather than every two weeks (like my previous employer). Given the transition time, that meant more than a month since the last full paycheck. Plus Brandy was not ever able to go back to work after New Year’s because her back just would not allow it. So she was not getting paid either.
(Had I not mentioned that? We had tentitively planned on her quitting in February to concentrate on getting the house ready for sale anyway, but when it got to the point where she had missed three weeks of work and there was no end in sight as she still couldn’t be up for more than an hour or two at a shot, she went ahead and told them she was not coming back… at this point, more than a month after her back got aggrivated, she is once again mostly functional, but still not to the point where she could do 8 hours a day at a desk job.)
Anyway, this last month was pretty tight because of the paycheck gap. But more so, the last two years were almost always tight because first in 2004 there was the one month gap between jobs that time around, then there were extensive moving expenses that were paid out of pocket and only later reimbursed, then there was savings for the down payment on the house, then there were moving in expenses at the new house (and many other things needed at the new house like washing machines and furniture and such) and then that is about when (cough) issues started happening with the inflows of cash being significantly less than had been planned on, and then there was a huge tax payment (because I had underwithheld in 2004) and then there were (cough) even more issues with getting even less cash inflow (significantly less once again) than expected… etc. So really, things have been in one way or another, to one degree or another, “tight” since about February 2004. I of course blame this 95% or more on what I was coughing about above. We were budgeted (primarily meaning our choice of which house to buy) in a way that was fine for what was promised, but which was barely sustainable with what was actually delivered, which was very significantly less.
As of this morning for the first time in essentially two years, I feel like I can breathe some… We can’t go crazy. We’ll be paying both rent and utilities for me in Washington, and mortgage and utilities for Brandy and Amy in Florida for the next five to six months. So expenses for the short term will be much higher than what will eventually be “normal”. But there is enough to deal with that and with a few things (like a new computer) that have been delayed for years now.
We’ll still have to plan and be careful (not TOO many large discretionary purchases… me ordering the new computer to replace my five year old G4 Powerbook will probably the only one short term) but for the first time in it seems like ages, we won’t be worrying about the small purchases, and if we can even afford to order a pizza without putting us at risk of not making the mortgage. Or having to go to the coin star to make sure there was enough to pay for food for the week. Or having to get loans from family or friends to pay for needed household maintenance that could not be put off. It hasn’t been exactly THAT tight the entire time, but it definately was more than a few times.
It is good… VERY good… to be able to breathe a bit again.
Saturday I went out and looked at a few apartments. None really grabbed my interest and I started getting upset about the housing situation again. Bleh. Main decision out of Saturday was to not think AT ALL about possibilites of where all three of us will stay once Brandy and Amy join me in the summer, but JUST about a place for me for the next few months. Cause my standards are a lot lower for that. I don’t need something that great for just a few months. And we can worry about the other later. Oh well. Sending out a whole bunch more availability inquiries off rent.com today. I need to make a decision in the next couple of weeks.
Sunday was worse though. I’m do not believe I have mentioned this on the blog before, but we found out in November that Princely, the dog Brandy got before she got Amy, has terminal bone cancer. Most likely with just a few months left. There really were no viable treatment options especially given that Princely was already 11 years old (which for a 100+ pound dog of his breed is a good life). All we could do was give him pain killers and such and keep him as happy and comfortable as possible for as long as possible. He has still been in good spirits and happy. With a limp, not able to walk as far without getting tired, but dealing with it and generally still seeming like he was enjoying life. Gradually getting worse, but still getting along and seeming happy. This weekend though he took a serious turn for the worse. Time is running out. The “few months” back in November are now almost up. Looks like I will be flying home this weekend to be with Brandy and Amy… and Princely… to cut things short before he is really suffering. If it looks necessary, I will fly home before the weekend.
Like I said, depressing weekend.
This field trip was almost a year ago, but Amy just got around to posting some pictures and her captions a few weeks ago. Then she threw in some random pictures from more recently as well. It’s posted at my .Mac site since that was easiest for her to do quickly. In any case, here it is.
“VIEWING” MEMORIES
A FEW MEMORIES SAVED FOR ME AND OTHERS. TO BAD YOU WEREN’T THERE TO SEE THEM UP AND PERSONAL .
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