There's so much that I really can't put into words, other than the fact that he touched my life and changed the way I thought. He was passionate, sharing, and was genuinely interested in people. We talked for a few hours during my last few days at work last month, but I never got a chance to tell him that I became an organ donor because of him.

Joe's courage in facing mortality and a finite life just leaves me in awe. To have touched so many, so deeply, in such a short time, is more than most people can hope for in 80 years. His legacy is in the lessons he taught us and the example he set. We love you :(

At the end of the week, I'd had some fabulous food, had seen a decent movie, and decided I'd resign the next day. Would I miss the money? Somewhat, though I was underpaid and undervalued there. Would I miss coworkers? Yes, definitely. Would I miss the job, the structure, and the work environment? No. The news was shocking to some, but most folks understood my reasons. My last day was June 20th, and the solstice is a great metaphor for the balance I seek on this new path.

In the past two weeks, I've focused on my garden, and I'm working on getting the house cleaned up and in shape. Life has been better, and I know it will continue to improve. Letting go of the stress and the bitterness, and the frustration of working there pays more than my salary ever did.

The banner ad was for something called Modest Needs. Being somewhat Objectivist in nature, charity is not something that I support readily. Scandals in recent years with United Way, and lots of other charities with huge huge overhead and very little return on investment make charity and donation ugly words. I'd rather help out friends in need -- when I know that whatever I can give will make an impact in their lives. To me, that's better than tossing money in a giant charity borg existing mainly to fund their next fundraising campaign.

So, I went to the site, and I started reading the requests for grants. Most of the requests were situations that could happen to anyone. Reading the hardships, the choices that people were being forced to make, touched me, because in a very small way, I'd been there myself. I remember being one of the working poor, and I remember how lucky I was to still have family that could afford to send me help when I needed it. After reading through a few pages of requests, I found one that hit home. Instead of buying more clothes, or more housewares, or another video game, I bought points on Modest Needs. I helped a child get an abscessed tooth treated. I paid a vet bill for a disabled person's cat. I helped some seniors pay a hospital bill. All of these relatively small amounts, combined to make a difference in the lives of all those people.

One of the big changes in our circle is a dear friend is getting a divorce, and the woman he's divorcing has decided that she'd like to be one of the most despicable people I've ever met. Despite being able-bodied, well-educated, and fully employed, she's decided she's entitled to destroy his life and bleed every dime from him in legal fees and outrageous demands. She had the audacity to email me and say that she still thought of me as a sister and hoped I felt the same about her.

To her, I say the following: the way you've conducted yourself is repugnant and unconscionable. Your selfish need for attention, for vengeance when there is no wrong to be righted, has quite literally wasted thousands of dollars in legal fees. If you had put that money towards some of these Modest Needs grants, and really focused on helping others in true need, then maybe you wouldn't feel so bad about yourself. Maybe you'd be a better person. Maybe others would like you and want to know you and spend time with you. Maybe you could fill that hole in your heart, the void in your existence, that is driving you to behave like a spoiled child. Buying another seatbelt bag, getting another pedicure of the month, or getting another day spa massage is not going to hide the fact that you are absolutely disgusting.

On the work front, I still don't want to go back on Monday. The thought of it is already bumming me out, and that's just not a good place to be mentally. I know that I can't quit yet because I'm not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to live on one income. At the same time, I'm also too exhausted and burned out from the day job to have any energy left for planning and executing an alternative. I'm trying to keep myself going til the end of May when we take the NYC trip, and I'm trying to think of work in terms of what it's earning me. How many days til I can pay for a new roof? How many days to save up for the animals' emergency vet fund? How many days to pay for the NYC trip? Whatever gets me through the day...

When we finally got home, I had to check through my iTunes, and found my collection sadly lacking in Mr. Springfield's tunage. Yes, everyone remembers Jesse's Girl, but there's also Don't Talk to Strangers, and Affair of the Heart. Listening to them now, I realize how many vaguely smutty songs I listened to as a kid. Whether the person I am now is an endorsement or an indictment of that fact, I know not :)

Aside from the omg Rick Springfield 2 hours of breathing the same recirculated air, it was a long week. Changes are snowballing, but definitely not in a bad way. We'll be moving in a few months; I've got a clear position and task ahead; and I really feel lucky to have the team we do. More than that, I feel like I'm back on my game after years of sitting on the sidelines. I missed myself a lot, honestly, and it's going to be a learning experience reconciling that with the facets of myself I've added in the last 5 years or so. There's a lot to sort through there still, but things will work out in the end.

I found out today that a dear friend from that time is really in trouble with drugs and needs help. The warning signs were there, both when I saw him in person last October, and in phone calls and IMs since then, but somehow I managed to wall them off and ignore them. Being so busy myself, I didn't put together the snips and clips of his descent into paranoia and his personality shift. Maybe that's a cop out... 'being busy'. I didn't have free cycles to acknowledge his problems, and part of me still feels incredibly guilty about that. Even through that guilt, I know that there's very little if anything that I could have done to prevent this. He's an adult, thousands of miles away, and he made his own choices.

Tonight I spent some time mourning the loss of that great kid he used to be; the one with the promising future; the smart one; the kid with dreams and hopes and a life ahead, waiting for him. I hope the adult he's become can get clean.

It will be a busy few weeks around here. As soon as I get back next Sunday, operation: clean the house for the parental visit will commence. Richard's supposed to be going to SJC again at the end of the month, but he's not booked anything yet :) My parents are coming out to visit for a week May 8th through the 15th, and Richard has a trip to Chicago for a conference May 14th through the 16th. The Halo3 beta starts May 16th :D I'm probably going to be out in Chicago again sometime around the 22nd through the 26th, though that has not yet been decided. It's a rough month because we also need to be ready for the NANOG invasion June 2nd through the 6th.

After June 16th, I'll start my Platinum challenge, and then decide when Richard and I are going out to NH to visit my parents and figure out my travel for those 3 months. So freaking busy...

Work is good for the most part; watching folks step up and pull together has been gratifying in ways that I haven't had the privilege to experience in quite a while. Spring is coming slowly -- trees are blooming, but it's been nippy cold all week. I'm looking forward to warmer weather.

So! The end of February found us in San Jose, and then in Chicago. The Chicago trip was planned, the SJC one, not so much. I really do enjoy California, but I don't know that we'd ever live there again. Unlimited money and a nice house, but it still has its drawbacks. The weather was lovely though :) Chicago was less lovely, but not terrible. Work was bleh, but I got to take a day while we were out there and hang out with Tracey whilst getting beautified from head to toe. I hadn't had time to get my hair cut or colored since October 17th!! So, we went with highlights, a new cut, brow wax, and omg, chocolate truffle manicure and pedicure. Complete with frozen hot chocolate sundaes! It was great! Hanging out and getting to know Tracey a little better was awesome, and we both couldn't have been more relaxed at the end of the day.

Back home in early March -- lots to do, no time to do it in. Work work work. Since I'll be going to Chicago pretty much once a month, and since Richard's been doing a lot of traveling, we decided it might be nice to get one of our frequent flyer program statuses upgraded. American was the obvious choice, and it turns out they have some sort of "Challenge" Program, where you can fast track to either Gold or Platinum Status in a 3 month period. We looked over the travel we were planning to do, and Richard started a Platinum challenge on 3/16, and I started a Gold challenge on 3/16. We both flew down to San Jose then for the weekend -- me to rest up and relax before my Chicago trip on 3/19, and Richard to do actual work :) The flight down to San Jose was absolutely amazing. I had a window seat, and it was a clear day all the way from Seattle down to SJC. When we were taking off, I saw Mt. Rainier dwarfing the control tower... we flew down the coast some more, and as soon as Rainier was behind me, there was Mt. St. Helens... the pyroclastic flow side too! It was amazing! Then Mt. Hood, some other high mountain, as we went down the Oregon coast and passed into California, Mt. Shasta was there completely snow covered. The best was yet to come, as we were beginning decent over San Francisco, I got to see the Golden Gate from I think either 17,000 ft or 11,000ft, I can't remember which, but it was gorgeous! We flew down the penisula and it was so fun picking out all the things we could see on the ground. I really miss the area and feel very comfortable there :)

We ended up blending some of the work, as Richard's partner got snowed in on the east coast, so Richard needed an extra hand or two. Sunday was a me day, though. We went up to Berkeley and went to Giovanni's -- I read on Yelp that Giovanni's had changed hands, but they were still raving about the bread, and frankly that's all I cared about :) It still looked the same on the outside and on the inside, but clearly the food and service had taken a hit. The bread was good, but the copycat recipe I came up with a year or so ago actually tastes a lot better than Giovanni's now. I ordered the canneloni, which was still quite good. I need to learn to make that at home. Now, if we had just taken my meal, I would have said that Giovanni's was still a nice place to go, and maybe I'd just romanticized how good it used to be in my mind. But then Richard ordered the lasagne. It looks fine, he starts eating it, and he says "This tastes a little funny." I'd remembered that Giovanni's sometimes had some allspice in their sauce, so I thought he was referring to just that. Then Richard elaborated... "Kind of tastes like Indian food?" I took a bite. One of those dramatic, omg where do I spit this?!?, bites. The "traditional lasagne" now had curry powder in it. YUCK! Richard finished it because he was hungry, I also gave him one of my canneloni so that he could get the nasty taste out of his mouth. Sooooo, no more dreaming about Giovanni's :)

Also no more dreaming about Grain D'Or's creamy french sticks. These are really nothing more than french bread with packaged bavarian cream in them. Very meh overall, but something I can certainly recreate at home sometime.

Very early Monday morning, I left Richard in SJC so that I could catch a flight back to Seattle to catch another flight to Chicago that afternoon. As wonderful as my flight down to SJC was, my flight to Chicago was the karmic retribution for that pleasure. 100% full flight. I had an aisle seat, some 6'4" dude had the middle seat. We were sitting there jockeying for the knee room the whole flight, then the jerk in front of me decides he wants to FULLY RECLINE for the whole 4 hour trip to Chicago. My knee cap was crushed, the dude was almost laying on my boobs, it was just completely miserable.

I got to Chicago, and stayed at the Comfort Inn downtown -- I got a hotels.com $84/night rate on the room, so I wasn't expecting a lot. I was pleasantly surprised! No wireless, but the wired ethernet was fast and it was easy to sit at the little table near it. The room was very small, but the bathroom was clean and modern. The windows opened (which is a plus for me), the queen bed had 5 pillows! Unfortunately the only bad thing about the room was the bed wasn't very comfortable at all, and I had a hard time sleeping. No room service, but it was 3 doors down from Pizzeria Uno, and they were open til 1am! So take that sucktacular House of Blues hotel! (Which I guess is a story from the February Chicago trip that I still have to tell sometime.)

I got back Thursday morning, Richard left Saturday night for the annual Stupid Peering Cruise. He's gone til Friday. I have the house to myself -- much to clean, and I want to do some marathon cooking for the freezer while he's gone. I should head to sleep soon -- lots to do in the morning.

!!!!

That is all :)

1.) Self-fulfilling prophecy: Think I don't work enough? Okay. I'll show you not working. This one usually lasts for a day or so. I can't maintain it for very long.

2.) Withdrawn resolve: Pick a project that's been lingering in an unfinished state (and there are many since the direction changes on a regular basis), and just head down, plow through it. So, I picked the documentation overhall, which step one was porting all existing documentation from the current mess into a more structured Wiki that I did the framework pages for last month. How many documents to port, you ask? Well. Total number of documents: 108. Total previously ported: 20. Total ported between Wednesday and Saturday: 88. Sit down, and stfu.

3.) Less withdrawn resolve: Regardless of the bullshit swirl, I'm just going to do what I came here to do: document and improve processflow. I want to show myself what I can bring to the table, and I want to make the most of the week that I'm spending out there at the end of the month.

Speaking of that week... it should be interesting. I'm hoping to have productive talks with the powers that be regarding the scope of my job. That being said, I'm not particularly optimistic about the outcome. We'll see what happens. In the meantime I at least want to go out with a blaze if that's what's going to go down.

There's not much in the other news department. Gbic had her stitches removed on Friday, and got her rabies shot. The incision has healed nicely according to the doctor, so yay. We're getting back into playing Halo online, which is nice, and mostly relaxing. Still dealing with punkass kids is irksome, but not quite as irksome as the penile challenged adult players. Comes with the territory, though.