Business is Business

We had a few layoffs here at work yesterday and one girl from the web team (my cube neighbor) was let go. There were 7 people throughout the company that were laid off as a last resort means for cutting costs. It was basically a total surprise for us; didn't see it coming at all. It's definately a bummer and a big shock to my group of 4 (now 3) that work together closely. Our coworker was well liked and did good work so she will definately be missed.

The explanation for the cuts is that our company's budget was based on a forecast of our projected growth that we are simply not meeting. Apparently we are still growing, but by something like 10% instead of 25%. That's why business is business I guess. Some people go and some people stay; the machine does what it has to do to keep on rollin'. No more cuts are expected, but you never know. Honestly I don't think they'd ever let me go (even though sometimes that's my secret wish), but if it ever came to that PLEASE let it be at the beginning of the summer and not the end!

Nahlgren!!

Nate has his very own blog!! This should definately be a good read, so give him new blog love and leave a comment for God's sake. I guess I should be like everyone else and do the little roll call blog list thing. When I get around to it Nahlgren will be there for sure.

This past weekend I had two experiences that gave me a little "handy man" pride. First of all I finally fixed my computer that got blown up in a thunderstorm a while back. After the storm my computer wouldn't turn on, so I got on the web (don't worry I have another 'puter!) and was able to diagnose that my power supply was busted. I ordered a new power supply and this past weekend did surgery to remove the old and insert the new. Now I know this isn't the most complicated thing in the world, but there were some hurdles I had to get over in the process and I handled them with ease. When I fired up the computer and it came humming back to life, I was proud that I had fixed it myself.

The second event was really just a discussion about tiny remote controlled cars. We were playing with these little cars at a barbeque and were trying to figure out how they worked (btw they're really fun). You charge the cars up for 45 seconds and can then drive them around for 4-5 minutes. Some people thought that since the charge time was soo short the little cars must have a capacitor that was providing the power. I wasn't buying it. I know enough about capacitors to realize that couldn't be right. Well I was pretty sure.. so I turned to Google and yep.. the cars have a very small rechargeable battery, not a capacitor. I admit that I took some pride in knowing how the car must work.

My Dad is the ultimate handy man. He can and does fix/build anything. He can out fix your dad any day of the week. I doubt that I'll ever be as good a fixer as my Dad, but at least little things like I just described make me realize I have some of that potential. I think half the battle in fixing something is just believing that you can and having the patience to work it out.

Stuff I did this Labor Day weekend:

Fantast Football Draft - My first one, I have another on Wednesday. I think I have over extended myself a little this year with fantasy football type games. I am in two fantasy leagues, one pick 'em league (pick the winner of each game), and an office "survivor" type pool. Oh well.. I love football, so let the games begin.

Golf- Extreme wind during the front 9. I've never played in wind that affected your shot so much! It made things tougher overall, but it did save me from going off the fairway at least once.

Drive in Movies- Saw a couple movies at a drive in. The drive in part was fun except for when it started raining. I thought the movie Signs was pretty good. It's not really about aliens though. If you go in looking for a cool alien movie you'll probably be disappointed.

.. and so on and so on... blah blah blah .. boring boring.. I'm into the 2nd season of Sopranos and Gauntlet for XBox is fun!.