New job....

Well, I have just been offered a position at a structural engineering firm in Appleton. Convenient that the company had an office in Appleton, huh? Maybe the universe was trying to tell me something about not getting that last job in Madtown.

I have verbally accepted the offer - hard to turn down a 5% raise, eh? Plus living in a town where the cost of living is lower, etc. This could turn out to be profitable as well as getting back to being fun going to work in the morning.

I have not written my letter of resignation from my current employer yet, so don't go blathering - you folks are the second to know, my dad was the first (oh, and those who know my mom, don't tell her I told you before her, she'd be VERY upset :) ).

I will most likely say more tomorrow, but I wanted to say:

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers during this very trying time for me. You really don't know how good it felt getting the comments, well wishes and phone calls about this. Very cool, I am truly blessed with good friends.

Some days...

I feel like Verne in this cartoon...

Holy f'd up body, Batman!

Made it through the first week on the new project up in Appleton. All my pieces and parts are where they are supposed to be - all jokes aside, that is my first priority.

But HOLY SHIT is my body schedule completely FUCKED right now. Sleep, well, that should be obvious, I was working 6 pm to 6 am, so that's about exactly opposite to my normal schedule. But what's surprising me is my digestive reaction...umm, not too much detail, but normally I'm pretty regular, as it were. Not right now, let me tell you. And I'm hungry all over the place. Sometimes at 3 am, sometimes at "normal" lunch/dinner/breakfast times, sometimes just out of the blue. It's screwing up my sleeping even worse (I don't sleep well when my belly is rumbling).

I think I found an apartment (just waiting on my boss right now to sign a lease up there). A place with a walkin to the kitchen from the 1 car garage. $615/month. Heat INCLUDED!!! For those of you not from a cold place like WI, that is HUGE!!! A fireplace, 2 bedroom, washer and dryer in unit. Basically, in Madtown, a place like this would go for somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000 without heat. Only one problem, and this is the one that will keep overnight visitors away (and will screw with me the first month or so I'm there) - my apartment is about 50 ft (tops) away from an operating train line. I know that I'll get used to it. I've found that I can sleep through almost anything once my body knows what is what. But if I'm just staying for a night or two, I would hardly get a wink with a couple of trains going by.

Oh, and I have an interview on Tuesday next week in the morning - C, if you ever meet my current boss (unlikely, but still), you were up there doing some sort of ministerial thing that I didn't understand and we were hanging out on Tuesday morning after I got off of work. I hate to use my friends as excuses, but I needed something...my current boss is going to visit sometime this week and I wanted him to know that Tuesday was out.

About the interview though, I may have to make the choice to basically screw my father to take the job. The guy who called me didn't react really very well when I said I was committed to finishing the job I am working on now. If that becomes a deal-breaker, I'll quit in the middle of this job - which will completely screw my father and co-workers. But hey, my old co-worker (the one who just quit) screwed me up, why not me screw someone else up? I have to talk with Dad this weekend about it...he's usually not real big on people not following through on the commitments/promises they made (anybody wonder why I'm very careful about making promises?).

And so the new project begins...

Today is pre-construction meeting day. 1 PM at the Region office. Then tomorrow is move in day, trying to get all of my office and equipment stuff up to Appleton and into the field trailer in a manner where I can find everything.

Also tomorrow and Wednesday, I'll be looking for apartments. I've got one very much in mind, but we'll see how the visit goes.

Then Wednesday night, it begins...again, if you live up there or know anyone up there, let them know that USH 41 is going to be a mess on overnights and in the morning commutes until about the end of September. They should find alternate routes, they should use them.

How not to say goodbye...

If you want to make all of the other folks who work for you trust you even less, do what my boss did...don't even make eye contact with one of the guys who quits. From the day he announces he's quitting to the day he leaves, don't speak one word to him. Ignore him.

Don't go up to him on his last day. Don't say "good bye and good luck". Don't acknowledge his existence. Don't acknowledge the good he's done in the past for the company, the sacrifices or anything else. Just ignore him and hope he goes away quietly. Don't even shake his hand.

I think that the treatment my ex-coworker got from my boss just further cemented my resolve to find gainful employment elsewhere.

Absence continued...

You've probably noticed the lack of new material here. Well, I've been very busy at work, both dealing with the loss of a co-worker (he is very well-liked and he will be sorely missed by pretty much everyone who works there...of course, another company is getting what I feel is a great employee) and with actual work.

Well, from now until sometime in mid-late October, expect the same amount of blog material. My search continues for new work (I'll try to update - Dad dropped a bit of a shocker on me today, but it's actually confidential, so I REALLY can't talk about it here), I'll continue bitching about my current job and probably still not find a date (dates don't traditionally start with breakfast, do they? well, sometimes they END with breakfast...but that is another story entirely ;) ).

I hope that I can occasionally still get in to read my blogging buds after the 20th of August, but it'll be touch and go at best.

Apple's Town

Well, that will be my hometown soon (if you know the state in the Union that I live, you can find it on a map pretty easily if you learn how to spell it correctly :) ).

I was there today looking over the 9.2 miles of the major highway that goes around it today. Those 9.2 miles will be patched in a period of about 6 weeks starting with the last two weeks in August. If you live around there and know alternate routes, use them.

If you don't live around there, pray/cross your fingers/meditate, whatever is your thing that everyone on the construction crews and all of the people who pass through there stay safe and sound. It is going to be dangerous I think, but not at the times a lot of people are thinking it will be dangerous.

A lot of people think it will be dangerous at 6 pm when we shut down 2 out of 3 lanes in one direction. They think it will be dangerous because there will still be a lot of cars out there. Actually, because there will be a lot of cars out there, it will be much less dangerous. Because they'll all be about stopped...because you can't fit 3 full lanes of high speed traffic into 1 lane of high speed traffic, everyone will be slowed down tremendously.

This is the time of day that I learn new ways to insult people and find out new ways to combine nasty names to make up a new name - motherfucker, asshole and cocksucker are so, well, passe. Said more quickly, they combine to mothercockassholesuckerfucker and it just makes you smile when you learn a new word. Next time you go by a construction site and feel like swearing at the men and women out there, try to do something new. We all appreciate new vocabulary. Thanks! :)

No, I'm worried about 2 am to 3 am. Bar time is 2 am in most of this state. There won't be anyone on the roads except for us, the drunks and a few cops. The drunks won't slow down for the construction site. Honestly, yes, I am quite nervous about it...we'll be working from 6 pm to around 4 am.