It's all good so far

A bit of change for a Thursday morning. I am not normally a cafe blogger. My data entry time is at my desk before I get the morning office routine started. I do use the Day One journal to write the draft which is then copied into WordPress, reviewed and published.

It’s valentines day, and my dear wife suggested the breakfast date be moved up from the traditional Saturday morning to today. Right now the schedule allows it. Saturday will be a pruning and moving day as we pare down the in-laws house. That will take a lot of our Saturday and into next week. Our guest room will be stacked as storage with the things that are still to e preserved while other items will go to consignment of good will upon sale of the house.

I had a good lunch meeting yesterday with a former boss. It has been 13 years since I worked with him, but he is willing to be an introduction and reference to his company. His group does have growth planned this year so we will see if the timing works. It seems that all of the former supervisors have been more than willing to provide a good reference. It is very reassuring thing to hear that I do good work.

We made it to Ash Wednesday service. Fr. Paul’s homily was inspiring. Lent is a season of reflection. Do our actions in private reflect our public persona? I know that this is a failing for me. Just look at my posts about dealing with those poor souls on the support end of the phone that I have been dealing with. They can’t help the first slight – having customers having to deal with the computer operator before they get a human.

It’s not their fault that they are limited to a prescribed script of actions and responses or that the mediocre 5 to 7 business day turnaround does have an actual impact on their customer. It’s not their fault that their management will continue to cut cost and customer service to the non assertive sheep.

I vow this Lent to be more sympathetic and less caustic when dealing with these people. I know that we still need to be assertive but I shall remember that it is another child of God on the other end of the phone.

I missed one. I have been trying to get an entry done everyday but yesterday was busy and I did not get to it. We even had an earlier start to the morning but between getting a detailed on application done and doing some car shopping the day got away from me.

One accomplishment yesterday was getting the floor plan done for the in-laws new place. Using freeware and measurements Sandra & I did the other day, I was able to sketch out the suite. We also had measurements of the furniture they want to take and I was able to “furnish” their place, fitting in the things they have agreed they want to take.

Imagine shrinking your life down to approximately 400 square feet and taking the items that are physically and emotionally required to sustain a quality of life you would enjoy for a number of years.

While we are living as weekday empty nesters, we have three rooms in our house that we are not using. So we could easily eliminate those. This leaves the master bedroom, master bath, two large closets, linen & hall closets. Our kitchen could shrink. We could do without the dining room. But I look at my office, three full book cases, the desk, that credenza, the filing cabinet, printer stand. There is a lot that would either need to be reduced or relocated to a different office.

We have a ways to go before we look at reducing our lives to 400 square feet. But this is a good drill, a chance for us to evaluate what we have now and it’s relative importance to what we really need.

It has been a tech support morning. I appreciate the effort my nephew has done in greeting my dad a new computer and to get it up and running. Still some bugs to work out. Finding old passwords, user id’s and account settings t re-establish programs.

It has gone about was smoothly as one could expect. Finally got his current email account installed and the machine is downloading 2 gigs worth of mail. He is a little miffed that he has to review and delete a bunch of stuff that has been handled once but was also stored on the server.

I can sympathize. Since the bug grabbed my address book under my old email and spammed the universe, I have been changing account information and creating longer passwords. Somewhere in this mix, Quicken cloud backup and Chase have stops talking. I can do my offline backup and I can copy same to Dropbox. I just can’t get the Quicken Cloud to communicate and the error code seems to be hidden from searches.

There is bound to be some karmic justice for those that write code but don’t participate in the aftermarket support. I can only speculate and such visions of evisceration and torment probably should not be shared.

Anyway, it is new week. There are new opportunities to explore in the job hunt. There is still accounting work to slog through, and then there is the job of helping get the in-laws relocated. Sandra and I will do some measurements and get them a floor plan of their new suite so they can look at arranging furniture prior to me having to move it.

A quiet Sunday morning. Dogs have been walked twice, breakfast had, and now a cup of coffee and a chance to catch up for a few minutes before I need to get ready for Church.

Today is Scout Sunday. I don’t have a role other than being a visible member of the Church’s scouting leadership. It will be a full uniform with all the ribbons and bling showing that I have been there and done that.

It is a ministerial commitment that I have enjoyed for almost 19 years as an adult scouter which added to the 11 as a youth bring me to a 30 year involvement in the program. I received my Eagle 40 years ago this September. I was called out into the OA 42 years ago.

Does this commitment conflict with goals and ambitions for my career? I don’t think so. I actually believe it has a built some synergies, required me to grow. Teaching servant leadership, embracing challenges. Learning to communicate better across multiple generations. Building friendships as I go. I am pretty sure that it is has been an overall win win sum game.

I have moved on from some roles and others have stepped up. I will continue to work in roles that I have been asked to take. I will graciously move on to the next challenge when it is time. It makes a difference.