Winding down @ 5 pm

Got to the Day Job before 8 am this morning.  My Division co-workers were happy to see mne.  Workers elsewhere in the bureaucracy's other divisions didn't bother to say hello.  Oh, there were a couple of exceptions but, by & large, only a few of them missed me.  That's OK.

It was nice to see my Program Assistant again.  Debby D. has kept the place ticking without missing a beat in my absence.  My co-worker Emily H. gave me a great big hug and was very happy to see me.  Co-worker Jeff S.--he of the Hand Warmer King Fame--shared some good laughs throughout the day. 

There wasn't much to do and the morning passed quickly.  About 11:30, Terry M. stopped by and picked me up.  We drove over together to the monthly Parks & Recreation Commission meeting.,  It was delightfully fun to participate in that group again.  There's a new member, Kris M. and I introduced myself.  She's going to be a great addition.  I also led the Commission in a round of applause for the Director, Dave C. as he has now been on board over 30 complete years!  Not much going on with the P&R crowd but it was a fun meeting anyway.  The biggest news is that they are working on a Cadillac Dog Park.  No, that's not for dogs that arrive in Cadillacs.  It just means it will be a delux dog park.

Since I only work a 6 hour day there wasn't much to do after returning to the office after the P&R meeting.
Susun and I left @ 2 pm and went to MVD to renew our plates for the big truck and the Nissan.  We were expecting huge penalties for failing to register by the Thursday deadline.  Surprise!  No penalties!  Whew.  The total cost for both vehicles was $63.50 for a year.  That's not too bad.

The big wig guy at my employer finally got around to sending out an email about my the resignation of my boss last week.  It cleared up a lot of confusion early in the morning.  No one seemed to know but me and a few others.  Meanwhile, Human Resources sent out a job description for the position and put a closing date of January 15th on it.  That means they aren't even going to spend much time looking for a replacement.  Heck, that's barely enough time to advertise the position.  My division staff is already speculating on what type of person they will bring in to replace the last guy.  We are hoping we don't get a Hilter or an obsessive micromanager.  With the short timeline, it won't be long before we all know.

We then went out to Fry's and bought more chicken.  YUM--that stuff is a welcome change from all the ham and pork we've had in recent weeks.  After dropping Susun off I went to a couple of banks to begin to try to make some sense of our finances.  Also went to the dentist.  I had promised to pay off a $600 debt before the end of 2009.  Opps!  We are in full damage control mode with our finances right now.  Brush fires left and right.

About the time we left for Arizona they cut my take home pay by over $2400 a year.  You read that right.
My daily take home pay is pretty paltry right now--I'd bet I'm right there with the burger flippers.  Consequently, I don't really have a lot of morale to be gung ho like I once was.  I figure I am simply in a holding pattern, doing a little of this and a little of that while time passes and we attempt to make sense of our current & future finances.  Don't count on me to leap out like I once did and start some new and interesting project.  Those days are history.

Maybe we will post something else later tonight.