Good to See You

Where you been?  How you doin'?  It's been a long time.  Where's the money you owe me, MF?

Well the original intent of this blog was shot to hell after the third day or so.  That is mostly because outside of the occassional golf outing, a few home improvement projects, a trip to Hawaii for Christmas, and a lot of football, the initial days post layoff were not worth posting on a daily basis.

Filtered down to their essence, most days went something like this:

1 - make coffee

2 - drop off Stacey at Casual Carpool stop

3 - feed the dog

4 - feed the neighbors cats (neighbor broke her ankle so we inherited kitty care for two mos.)

5 - make phone calls to various Wachovia entities, wrapping up various Wachovia business

6 - get online for... all kinds of stuff

7 - clean cat box

8 - play w/new kitten

9 - take dog (Kela) to park

10 - drink more coffee

11 - feed our cats who aggressively lobby for dinner around 2:30-3pm

12 - the occassional nap

13 - the occassional job application

14 - pick Stacey up at Bus Stop

15 - obtain/cook dinner

16 - movie/read/scrabble/GarageBand

17 - take dog on final dog walk of evening

18 - play guitar before bed time

Now don't get me wrong.  It may appear or sound boring, but the downtime has been/is really nice.  I have always had a certain appreciation for repeating, predictable behavior, and the routine can be calming in a comfort food sort of way.

That being said, one semi-shocking revelation has been acknowledging the sheer amount of time one can spend, and how much of ones life one can execute online.  And really this is nearing a degree of being able to spend entire days online getting stuff done as well as doing fun stuff.  I mean really, I've narrowed it down to the only truly essential things one cannot do online are 1 - eat, 2 - sleep, and 3 - walk the dog.

The online activities that take up the most time are:

1 - managing bank accounts / paying bills

2 - researching, acquiring, listening to and managing my music

3 - managing multiple rotisserie teams

4 - managing HR stuff from former employer

5 - chatting w/friends and spouse

6 - emailing old and new friends

7 - researching companies

8 - applying/registering w/umpteen online job sites

9 - researching guitar chords and songs

These are just a few things that pull me in different directions but it really is amazing how easily a business day can evaporate doing things online, day after day after day.  I saw a sign the other day that said, "I'm afraid of being offline" and I think that's certainly true!  I can't imagine if I was into video games or 2nd Life... then the days would burn even faster.

Anyway, as of Mon 1/5/09 the job search is in full swing and I've literally applied to 20+ jobs in the past three days.  Things seem to be getting back up to speed after the long holiday and 2009 appears all set to be quite an adventure.  Until next time...