April 11!

That's the official start date for my position with knowledge management.

Today I had meetings with the supervisors and with Jan's group. Dan, Terry, Lara and I discussed what needed to happen in order for the switchover from me as supervisor to whoever gets the job. Pretty much, whoever applies for it is going to be qualified (everyone but Stephanie and Mark P. are at least five-year veterans), so it will merely be a matter of doing the interviews, picking the best candidate, and getting him/her up to speed.

I asked Dan if he had a firm date in mind for me to leave the department, and he said, "I think everything should be in place by April first."

April first!

Since April first is a Friday, and my work week ends on Sunday (our schedules go from Monday-Sunday), I'll be staying on until the 3rd. The Monday a week after that (I'm taking a vacation week in-between) is the 11th.

I then went to Jan's meeting, and she said, "Do you have any news, Patrick?" I told her when Dan had approved me to leave, and she looked extremely pleased with that news. She wrote down the date and said, "I guess I have to get crackin' on your office, then!"

My office!

I know it'll either be a large cubicle or something I share with another person, but considering the fact that I've been sharing desk space with someone else for the past three years, having my very own desk is enough to make me happy. It's probably going to be something temporary until they give Jan her new, permanent office, and then I'll be working close to there, but still, it's not "up front" in a department, and I'll have a space all to myself.

April 11! Whoo!

So the next item on the agenda is: where do I take my vacation?

Right now, I have a bunch of things in mind, but I'm going to have to choose quickly. More quickly that I expected, which is a good thing, but I probably would have started looking sooner had I known things would move this fast.

I would like to visit Becky, but the 10X10 Festival participants haven't been announced yet, and I will definitely go down and see that if one of my plays is picked. Actually, I'll most likely go down there and visit her and TeKay even if one of my plays isn't picked; I'd like to see the festival. Considering it would be over a weekend, I could hold off on that.

I also want to visit Greg, but that visit could be combined with my trip to Cancun, or put off for another time. I believe Greg is planning a trip to NYC sometime soon, so he isn't going to take time off for a guest.

So those two trips aren't in the cards for this particular break. What I'm thinking is a choice between two types of vacations: Relax completely or do something interesting.

If I'm going to relax completely, I can do that just about anywhere. My cousing Diane's daughter has been deployed to Kuwait (I thought she was going to Afghanistan, but either things changed or I got it wrong), and she has said to all the cousins that she'd rather people stay in her house than have it empty while she's away. As soon as she gets settled, I'm planning on sending her and her husband a great big care package; maybe it'll be a thank-you for letting me visit Colorado Springs on the cheap. (Any idea what soldiers need over there? I've read some things, but if anyone has had family deployed in the mideast before, I'd love some ideas.)

I could also go to Maine if I wanted to "get away from it all" and write or read or watch DVDs or whatever. Again, that would be through my cousin Diane, who has a house way up in the boonies.

I think it's more likely that I'll do something "interesting." Laurie has expressed interest in perhaps doing something with me. I was thinking of a plane trip, but she wants to do a road trip, and the end of March will be better weather-wise (hopefully), so we could drive a couple of places and see some things we haven't seen before.

I'm going to have to do a lot of research in a small amount of time, but it's an exciting prospect; taking a break to do something and then coming back to a brand new job.

Okay, I just got off the phone with Laurie, and it looks like, if I can help her pack before we both take off on vacation, we'll be doing a road trip to Canada. I've never been to Montreal (I think she went with her high school marching band), and have always wanted to see it. This could easily include a stay in Diane's house in Maine, because that's on the way.

Exciting! I have somewhere to go which combines interesting (new places to see) and relaxing (the possibility of a day or two in Maine with no TV and no real distractions around town, just time to read and cook and watch DVDs or whatever). Plus, there's the bonus of going away with Laurie, which I haven't done since we went to London together in 1995. It's also a much cheaper trip than booking a flight and hotels and the like somewhere else. We'll have to get motels for the drive and a hotel in Montreal, but that's not going to be all that expensive. At least, I hope not.

Other than the job news, it wasn't a very exciting day. I had a number of chores to do which included organizing all the wires under Mom's computer desk (I set it up quickly when the cable guy came, and then never cleaned it up afterwards), clearing out my closet of all of Sean's old stuff (for some reason, I've considered my stay here "temporary" even though it's lasted over two years now), and a little more work on the art project website. I'm going to have to get on the stick with that one, because the Consulting Company art show is next week, and in addition to the hand-bound books, I want to show this off and have whatever consultants are interested and who travel to other parts of the country (or other countries, even!) participate.

After all that, I went over to Sean and Heather's with Mom to have pizza and watch their wedding video.

It was pretty enjoyable, going through it all again. Since I was part of the wedding party, I didn't get to see a lot that went on, especially the ceremony from the guests' perspective. It was a nice touch. And my best man speech totally rocked; probably because I had no idea what I was going to say before I got up there. I do much better when I have to improvise.

This is their cat Puppy. Sean wanted a dog when they moved into the house, but it's really too small for a big dog (we're big dog people), so they adopted a kitten, and Sean named her Puppy. She really does act more like a puppy than a cat. She follows Sean around the house, and looks very worried when he leaves the room.

Sean and Heather are doing fine. I'm still looking at their house with an eye towards buying it, if the plan for me to buy Mom's house doesn't amount to anything. I already know exactly what I'd do with it. They keep "joking" with me about the improvements they aren't going to make in order to keep the price low, so I think they're definitely still interested in selling it to me.

We'll see what happens.

In that vein, I'm not moving too quickly on either plan on purchasing a house. I know it'll be at least another year or so before I have to get a mortgage, so I'm working towards making myself more comfortable where I am. I mentioned above that I'm in the process of cleaning out my closet of Sean's old stuff. I may ask Mom if I can paint the room a better color than it is now. Sean insists he painted it beige, but the tint is really closer to a dusty pink than anything else. I think a colonial blue would look nice, since Sean put up large crown mouldings when he lived there.

Something like this shade (though it's hard to translate a color from on-screen to what I want on the walls) might work. It would go well with my collection of glass, as well as the prints and tiles I could hang up on the walls. Plus, it's neutral enough to work well with whatever Mom wants to do with the room, should I decide to move somewhere else rather than stay here and buy this house. It will certainly go with the cream-colored furniture she has for the room.

I have decided, however, that I am going to move that furniture into the other guest bedroom once my mattress is delivered (in April). I was going to put my mattress into storage, but that's stupid. We have a room with a twin bed that holds a full-sized bed (I used to sleep in that room on a full-sized bed), so I can move that, the bureau I now use and the nightstand into there, and have the room I'm in be furnished with my stuff. And I'll get to sleep on the most comfortable mattress in all the land.

I've lived like a sqatter for long enough. It's time to claim my own place, even if it's only temporary.

I think I'm officially addicted to the digital camera. I went out in my jammies with the tripod to see what I could do with absolute darkness. It turns out I can take many pictures that, even with all the help Photoshop can provide, are still pitch-black. However, with the help of auto contrast, I got a couple of interesting shots that really capture being outside in the cold with your jammies on.

The shed right by the driveway. This was the "best" shot I got tonight, because the moonlight reflected off the snow and onto something relatively close without any hot spots brightening up a small part of the picture.

This one is very grainy, but if you look closely, you can see the trees in the distance. The hot spot at the bottom of the picture is actually the lights above the train tracks at the end of our property. One night, I'll get a train schedule and try to capture the lights of the commuter rail windows as they speed by our backyard.

Just a mound of snow, but it looks eerie when I adjusted the levels to make it visible. It reminds me of a very cold, distant planet. Or else it reminds me of snow taken way too late at night for a decent picture.

And now that I thoroughly chilled myself getting basically black images to put up in this space, I think I'll close for the night.

And dream of vacations and new jobs.