The Masked Blogger

Early Christmas Gift

November 27th, 2006 by The Masked Blogger

Hi, remember me?

I know, I know, it’s been a while. Things have been rather hectic here in The Blog Cave and in the life of The Masked Blogger. Lots of working hours (18 one day), lots of family and friend things and…some other things. If you’re in my address book, you’ll hear about those in a separate e-mail later tonight or tomorrow, but for now be assured that there have been few empty moments in my existence for the last couple of weeks.

And I don’t anticipate any for the next month either, but then every November/December is like that, no matter how much I try to make it otherwise.

Here’s a condensed version of the past 3 weeks or so. I was handed two new and good-sized projects by my division’s director. One of them involved a reduction in force action for our entire division and that has not been easy or enjoyable. Stressful and time-consuming, it has been. I had to oversee a project that will put 86 people in the unemployment line next month, one of them from my own department whom I love dearly as a friend and a co-worker. This was not an unexpected situation; all of us have known that the job we are doing for the big government agency is one that we would eventually work ourselves out of, yet I guess we all hoped it would still be off in the future somewhere. Instead, it is now. Barring any changes, we will do it again in April or May.

As unpleasant as it has been, I have learned a lot about certain procedures, policies and people that will be helpful to me.

The other project is an on-going one that is also teaching me a lot about the division I work within. Though my department’s work touches others and I have picked up some things from them along the way, almost all of my experience has been in the one department that I supervise. This project is helping me add to my store of knowledge about the entire operation. The more you know, the less expendable you are…I hope.

We had a busy, but enjoyable Thanksgiving dinner with some 30 family members. I was so tired I didn’t even take my camera to shoot pictures. After eating and celebrating the November birthdays, my father-in-law, 3 brothers-in-law and I sat down and ironed out the plans for our first camping trip together in January. I’m looking forward to that.

On Black Friday after work (when the crowds were pretty non-existent) Blog Girl and I ventured out to have dinner and buy our Christmas tree. When we got back to the Cave we put it up in the stand to allow it to “fall out” overnight. It is a huge 8 foot Frasier Fir that looks much bigger here than it did at the tree store. Saturday I put up the lights outside the house and the lights on the tree inside, and then Blog Girl and Amber decorated as much of the tree as they could reach, and I finished the top. It looks very beautiful.

Sunday morning after dropping Blog Girl off at Lake Eola, I went to Amber’s new house and put up hooks all along her eaves and then hung her icicle lights. After that I returned to pick up BG from Lake Eola and then we went to meet our friend Rhonda at the Disney Marketplace where we did some shopping and visiting. It was Rhonda’s birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY RHONDA!!

Wi-Fi Finder Plus Today at work I got a really cool early Christmas gift from my friend Denise. If you’ve got a laptop and you’ve had to go searching for a Wi-fi signal so you could connect to the Internet, you know it can be a chore to boot up the laptop and go through all the steps to try to get a signal, only to find out there isn’t one nearby. Well, the WiFi Finder Plus licks that chore and makes locating that needed signal a breeze. Just push the button and within a few seconds the WiFi Finder Plus lets you know if there’s a signal and how strong it is. It also locates Bluetooth signals and has a little flashlight as well. Denise said she just couldn’t wait to give it to me and I’m glad she didn’t. I loves me my new toy! Thanks Denise!