Catching Up

OK, I get NO points for keeping up my posts for the last couple of weeks. So sue me.

It's been a frenzy of getting packed, traveling here, and attempting to start to get into some sort of routine. But it's starting to come together.

The first couple of days were just a blur. So many things to remember to do, to plan, to worry about.

Construction is coming along well. I'm having a local contractor deal with the work that needs a crew - foundation, framing, siding. The slab for the garage was poured last Thursday (the morning of the day that I arrived),

This is what it looked like upon my arrival:

By yesterday evening:

And just now:

First floor walls are up, the beam that holds up the center of the upstairs is up, and the second floor joists are about half installed.

Amazing what a crew of people who know what they're doing can accomplish in short order....

Why Leave Santa Cruz County???

I get asked this a lot.

I'd love to stay. It's a beautiful place, and the weather is marvelous. This week, while most of northern California is sweltering, we're enjoying mid 70's with a little fog in the morning, and sun by noon. We have two acres - rural enough not to have neighbors in sight, urban enough to have paved roads and a water company (if you've ever had to pay for and maintain a well, you know what I mean).

I can afford to live here with a tech job. But they're almost all gone from the county, and I don't want to do the cube any more even if they weren't. Commuting would mean at least an hour - maybe more - each way, at $5 a gallon. Nope.

Last Day in the Box (for now, at least...)

The 26th ended up being my last day in the box. As big days go, it was typically anticlimactic: an exit interview that ended around 3, pack the last box of junk into the car, and drive into the sunset.

And then I drove home and had a lovely, well deserved nap.

Two Fridays

Two pretty significant Fridays in my life ended up on consecutive weeks this June.

The 20th was my fiftieth birthday.

The 27th - two days after I write this - will be my last day in the tech industry.

The former ultimately resulted in the latter.

In November of 1979, I walked into my first cubicle. Eighty square feet of flourescent-lit, fabric-covered corporate efficiency. Since then, it's been 50 hours a week, 50 weeks a year - always hoping that "the future" would finally bring some sense of fulfilment. It didn't. And with the way the tech industry is headed in the U.S., it finally became pretty obvious that it wouldn't.

In about three weeks, I'll pack up my stuff and head from California to northwest Washington. In a corner of a 32 acre plat should be (by then) the start of a small house, framed and sheathed but otherwise unfinished. If all goes to plan (doesn't it always???), I'll add electrical, plumbing, finish carpentry, and a bunch of other things that will start the small house on its way to becoming a home.

This blog will (if I don't get lazy) be a chronicle of my trials and tribulations for my friends. And for me to look back upon someday - either as my big life turning point, or my biggest folly.