The Cats Nuts

One of my key gripes with Movable Type was the inability to actually have comments that worked and wouldn’t get spammed to all end. I’ve enabled comments here and hopefully it’ll be better now that I’m using Wordpress and their comment security functionality. Happy commenting!

This week, while I have been extremely busy with unit testing at work and getting things all squared away for our eventual deployment of the new reporting tool, other ventures have been going on.

Melissa and I finally found a house to rent. It was a long search, and a frustrating one, filled with many false starts and some true downers. This was by far the hardest time that I’ve ever had finding a place to live. Though it was a hard search, I think that what we finally found will 100% meet our needs and be a very comfortable home for Melissa and I while we plan our wedding and prepare to eventually purchase our own home.

We got a house that’s about 3 miles from her Mother’s house, 3 miles from the beach and close to the area shopping stuffs. The house itself is a 3/2 with a “bonus” room. It has a 2 car garage and many nice perks. There is an A/V closet that controls the sound system throughout the home, tile floors, security system, a beautiful Florida room with glass walls (sliding glass doors), a covered seating area outside and a fenced in yard for Dagny to run around in. Melissa and I are very excited about getting in there. One of the best features of the house is the landlord. The guy recently moved out of the home and down to Miami with his family so that he would be closer to his job. We are the first rental folks that he’s going to have in the house, so he’s not jaded with having bad renters. It’s the exact type of person that we were looking to rent from.

We were supposed to get the keys yesterday, as that was the 1st of July, but there was some painting that needed to be done and some cleaning that had to be finished before we moved in, so we decided to put it off until next week. I finagled working from home next week, so we’ll be able to take our time moving in. Right now, we have stuff spread out all over Melissa’s mother’s house and in storage. I am just happy that we don’t have an entire house to pack up right now, as I don’t think I have the motivation to go through that again any time soon.

Anyway, it’s almost time to button things up around here and head to the airport.

On Thursday, I spoke to a friend of mine, Zack, who I originally met when I got my first true “career” job out of college. We figured out that as of last Friday, we had all (those that were in our “recruiting class”, had all been working for a full three years. Sad as it is, none of us are still employed by the employer, but I suppose with the way that the economy is today, that’s just kind of the way of the world.  My conversation with Zack got my thinking about where I’ve been, how I like my job and how I enjoy the lifestyle that it’s afforded me.

Every week, I get up disgustingly early on Monday morning to jump in the car, drive to the airport, hope on a plane (hope to get some sleep mid-flight), and go to the client site, shunning the resonsibilities of home and focusing soly on my job. When I first heard about the consultant’s life, the draw of constant travel, jet-setting around the country on someone else’s dime and all that other garbage sounded so very very appealing. The concept of “things always changing…no day the same” was the draw, and frankly, there are equal parts good and bad to that life. As sad as it sounds, I yearn for a nice cubical wall, or office cork-board where I can put up pictures of my fiance and my dog. I want to be able to get in my car after work and drive home, crack open a beer and relax in my living room. Those things are currently unattainable while I am engaging in the type of work that I have.

In my last post, I talked about Melissa and I getting engaged, and that beautiful resort that we stayed at was practically free, because I am in a hotel 3 nights a week, racking up the hotel points. The ability to pick up and go anywhere I want and to be able to bring Melissa with me is really nice, and once we’re settled into a home, I am hoping to be able to do it with a bit more regulartity.

Now, just recently, my financial situation has changed. I went from having a solid income to having an amazing income. One that went far beyond what I thought my earning potential was going to be only a mere three years into my career and the ceiling is no where in sight. So where does that leave me? Where do I go from here?

Over the past two months or so, I’ve learned a whole lot more about this small company that I am working for as a contract worker, and frankly, things are going well, and I fully see things moving in the right dirrection. I don’t know what it’ll mean for me 5 year down the road, but for now, I’m gaining some valuable skill-sets and making myself more valuable every day.

Anyway, I was just thinking about how it’d been three years since I started really working and it was a good point to take a look back with an eye for the future.

“When we’re ready, we’re ready…so just cool it Missy…” Those were the words that prompted Melissa to finally come to the conclusion that our out-of-the-blue weekend getaway was not meant to be a destination for a marriage proposal, but that of relaxation and escape. Fortunately for me, she was very incorrect.

This past weekend, I surprised Melissa, even going as far as calling into her work to get her Friday and Monday off, with a trip to Aruba. It was actually quite priceless, the look on her face, as she came home from work on Thursday, comepletely drained and exhausted.

“I have a surprise for you”

“Oh? Did you call my boss and get me the day off tomorrow” she says as she falls into bed.

“Actually I did..” Freak-out ensues.

I was able to keep it from her as to where the mystery vacation was located until we got to the airport. I finally folded while we were walking to the gate and let her in on where we were headed.

More freak-out…some tears…

At this point, I figured she had to have some idea what was going on, I mean who just pops out a surprise weekend get-away to Aruba?

When we got there, we stayed at a Marriott, which obviously was paid for through all of the weeks that I hang out there for work using my points. It was a nice place with a private island that you could only reach by taking the water taxi and there was a casino and all of that sort of thing that you would expect from a tropical island.

We didn’t do a whole lot on the first day we got there, having arrived a little after 2 in the afternoon, and the second day was spent playing in the sun, swimming in the ocean, lounging around on a hammock, enjoying the fact that we were basking in the sun in Aruba. It was all quite nice, and frankly Melissa and I both needed a weekend away to recharge.

After spending a lazy day in the sun, we figured that we should go out for dinner and figure out what we wanted to do the next day. That night, we went out to dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse, which was about what you would expect it to be and about what it is at every other Brazilian steakhouse. After dinner, which was uneventful, we went over to take a look at some of the shopping the island has to offer.

Aruba, after it gained it’s independence in 1986, was tired of paying taxes for everything and supporting the other islands in the area with it’s bustling tourism industry, so the one thing that they did upon gaining independence, was eliminate duty on anything that you could purchase there, so in essense, the entire island is a duty free shop.

In that spirit, there are 100’s of jewelry stores. Naturally, as has been the trend in the past few months, Melissa and I walked into a few of them, browsing the wares. That evening, unbeknownst to Melissa, I actually had her ring in my pocket, so as we are looking at rings and the jewelers are doing everything they can to get me to purchase something, I just quietly chuckled to myself.

After seeing about 4-5 different shops, I finally broke out the line from above. “When we’re ready, we’re ready…so just cool it Missy…” I don’t ever snip at Melissa, so for me to come out with that, she knew I was serious and that point an end to any question as to if I was going to use this trip to propose to her.

The next morning, we went down to the Thrifty rental shop to rent a car. We had discussed renting a Jeep so we could put the top down and enjoy the sun, and luck was on our side, because they had one Jeep left. It was about 10 years old and looked to be about 20. It had obviously seen many many miles of off road abuse and we weren’t going to help to extend it’s life a whole lot longer.

One of the main attractions that sounded interesting to Melissa and me was Aruba’s “Natural Pool”. The northern coast of the Island is extremely rough, and there are practically no beaches where you can swim without being smashed into the rugged coast line. The one exception to that, is the pool. The pool is protected on all sides from the rough seas and provides a haven for all sorts of fish, coral and adventurous travelers.

To get to the pool, you have to take a 30 minute off-road trip, which as we were told by the rental agent, was not allowed in our 4×4 rental. Melissa scoffed at this and that comment spurred us into wanting to experience the pool for ourselves, so off we went. After seeing a few other sites on the island such as Baby Beach, the ghetto and the Valero Oil Refinery, we made our way through the island and found our way to the start of the trail up to the pool. We didn’t know what we were in for when we started on the trail, but we were quickly welcomed into the wonderful world of off-roading. It became immediately apparent why the agent had informed us that this trail was off limits to our Jeep. After traveling the trail up to the peak, and then down the other side, we finally made it to the pool.

I would have to say that I thought it was going to be larger, but it was a moderately sized attraction, about the size of 3-4 typical swimming pools and about 2-3x as deep.

After a false start, where I had to go back to the jeep to get the snorkeling gear, Melissa and I were swimming around the pool, enjoying the natural surroundings. Unbeknownst to her, I had a surprise awaiting her, nestled in the tiny pocket of my swim trunks.
At the right moment, I swan down below Melissa and surfaced with the ring. Her face was priceless, totally shocked. Because I had snipped at her the day before, she was 100% totally not expecting anything to come from the trip to Aruba other than a nice vacation away from home. There was lots of fuss, hugs, kissed and all that sort of thing. We had a nice Mexican family that was coming over the rocks take our picture.
We spent the remaining time in Aruba talking about the wedding and what we were going to do about things coming up in the future. We hit up a few more jewelry stores so the Melissa could pick out a different band (I never intended for her to keep the one that the ring was originally set in, as I wanted her to be able to choose), but we weren’t able to find anything that was suitable.
When we got back to Florida, we met up with her whole family and some friends for a gathering at a restaurant where we told the tale of our trip.
Overall, it was a very nice experience.

After having the same template and blogging software for upwards of two years, I finally decided it was time for a change. I’ve moved off of Movable Type and onto Wordpress. I don’t really have a solid opinion of Wordpress yet, but I can say that because of my hosting provider, it was a much simpler install than I encounter 3-4 years ago when I first started blogging.

I’ve got my content all moved over and it’s been very straight forward. Hopefully this will make it a bit easier for me to get motivated to blog. Not to even mention that I think this theme is a bit more “Florida” than the last one, which was kind of the point. If you remember back, I used to have the subway stop listed as my banner, and I wanted to get back to that kind of imaging.

Anyway, it’s Friday, it’s Memorial Day weekend, and I’m doing a bit of work. Just wanted to get the blog up and running again before I let it sit too long. Anyway, hope everyone has a beautiful and enjoyable weekend.

When I think back across the last decade, the sheer number of places that I have resided is atsounding. From Upstate NY to Columbia, to Hoboken, to Jersey City, back to Upstate, to Inwood,to the UWS, to Brooklyn, back to Upstate, to Atlanta, to Decatur and now Boca Raton. This past weekend, Melissa and I found a house that we’re going to rent. We’ve put in an offer slightly below (something that’s unheard of in Manhattan) the asking price and hopefully, with a little luck, we’ll be in the new place in a week or two.
I am currently up in Greenville, SC, so Melissa is going to take care of the details, but as of now, things are going smoothly. Hopefully the property owner will get back to us quickly. The house is nothing all that special, but it’s clean, has tire through the main living area, carpet in the bedrooms and a massive 20″ wide sliding glass wall that opens into a covered patio with two fans and a nice sized pool. The backyard is very private and is totally fenced in, so Dagny will have free reign. The kitchen is a good size, so that’ll be nice to have a bit of room to spread out. Overall, we’re happy. There was another house that we saw that had many more bells and whistles, but in the end, we’re really just looking to save some money, so the one that we picked is a bit more ideal.
Work is going well, so I can’t complain there. Last week was hellacious, but fufilling, so again, even when working a 60 hour week, it was still fairly enjoyable. I worry that I am going to get a little too used to making as much money as I am now, and that contracting may not be a viable long term solution to employment, but on the other hand, if I can keep going as I am, I can make a solid dent in my student loans and really go a long way into saving for a house.
Anyway, it’s about time I get the other guys on the project motivated to pack up and head to the hotel for the night.

It’s rare that you run across a youtube video that can just make you laugh every time you see it, and this is one of those videos. I was on the plane, watching a Podcast of “The Best of Youtube” and this came on. People were staring as me as I was laughing out loud on the quiet morning flight.

Anyway, it’s about 9am on Saturday morning, and I’ve been up since 7 working on reporting stuff that needs to be done for next week. This is the first time that I have done considerable work on the weekend in a long time, so it’s kind of nice that, while I have to work on the weekend, at least I am now gettting paid to do so. It makes it not really all that big of a deal.
Seeing as how I don’t really have much going on later today other than heading out to Melissa’s father’s place to work on his network printer, I don’t really mind. I’ve been so busy at work and it’s been totally amazing. There is nothing worse than kicking around with nothing to do, and that’s certainly not been the case on this project, so that’s always a huge plus.
Anyway, I just took a break because the presentation server went down, so I thought I would share Bizkit the sleepwalking dog.

With the economy being what it is, things have been shaken up in my personal life. Since I started working at my current place of employment, the economy has slowly…well, not so slowly, gone down hill. The pipeline has shrunk and I’ve been spending more and more time sitting around waiting for the Directors and VP’s to sell some OBIEE based projects so that I can get back to work. Knowing how consulting is based on utilization, I knew that if I didn’t get on some projects I would be destined for the local unemployment office.
As things turned out, last Thursday, I got “the call”, letting me know that I wasn’t being let go, but being put on a business conditional leave. What this means is that I get a 70% salary reduction and am free to go and do whatever I want. Although the “whatever I want”comes with some conditions, mainly that I can’t contract myself out to do consulting work. After much time and calculating, I have determined that I am not going to accept the leave and simply accept the severance package that was offered as an alternative. It’s unfortunate that things have come to this, but as it stands, I have an issue with having certain employees take the burden of being put on leave because of the ineffective sales by upper management. Had the company done company wide pay cuts (5%-10%), then determined that it was time to put people on leave, I would probably been in more of a position to believe that I could wait things out. Since that is not the case, it’s looking like I am going out in the open markets again.
That Thursday, I made some calls around to contacts that I have in the industry to determine what my best course of action would be. Awhile back, I had worked with these two brothers, Steven and David, who own a small BI boutique firm. They work solo, but hire outside contractors to help them with the work. I called up David to see if they had anything in their pipeline.
As it turns out, they are practically swamped with work. So much so, that it was a foregone conclusion that I would be welcomed onto their team. There are positives and negatives to working for them. The upside is that I am going to be working for myself, no longer tied to a company, no longer bound to call into tedious conference calls and attend mandatory training classes. I’ll be able to pick what projects I work on, how long I work during a day and will be able to negotiate a wage accordingly. Contractors also make 60%-70% more money for the work that they do and get paid for every hour they work, so I’ll no longer be working 12 hour days for the same rate.
Along with those positives, I’m also not given any matching 401k, no paid vacation, no insurance and none of the support that a large company gives. These are all real issues and real things to consider.
I spend the past week thinking about what was going on, how I could maximize my income and generally what was my best course of action. Leaving my employer was not something that I wanted to do and frankly, had this leave situation not come about, I would have had little interest in doing so, but unfortunately, that’s not the case.
In light of all this, I will be taking my whopping 6 weeks severance, and starting on a contract job on Monday. I am excited and worried all at the same time. The risk is substantial, but the rewards are just as great. The project is slated to last 12 weeks, so I have a solid 3 months to figure out where I want to go from here. I don’t know what’s going to happen after those 12 weeks pass, but at least I have some time to start to look for a new job, see what’s in the area and hope for the best. Only time will tell.

Well, it’s been about a week or more and we’ve yet to hear anything about the foreclosure. We’re certainly not holding our breath, but the market isn’t presenting any homes that have even come close to rivaling the “foreclosure” as we have come to call it.
On Sunday, we stopped into an open house for a 2/2 that was in a perfect neighborhood. Surrounded by expensive homes, this small, quaint 2/2 sat there, reveling in it’s 1970’s glory. The house has the original canary yellow carpet throughout, the same windows that were installed in the late 1950’s, and various other remnants of days gone by, including the old couple that has occupied the house for decades. Dressed in a leapord print bathroom, we met the owners during out walk through. The poor old man had a pill tray that would rival that of 90% of the worlds pill popping junkies. It was exactly what you would expect.
There were many nice features of the home, but in the end, after much debate and discussion, we decided that while it was a good value, it wasn’t the home for us. There was just too much work to be done to convert the home into something that would be suitable in the long run, and that’s just not something that we wanted to get into.
So the search continues.