Let there be more bacon!

Tomorrow begins week two at the new bacon factory and I gotta say, I'm enjoying it. Obviously I survived my first day. In fact, week one was good, there was lots to learn, and it looks like we'll be pretty busy over the next four months.

This is actually a bacon contract, so I may be unemployed again come the end of June. Hopefully there will be room for me to stick around, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I'll keep looking for permanent bacon, and we'll see what happens.

Keep your bacon fingers crossed.

Let there be bacon!

I've decided to post now in case I don't make it through the day. Today I go back to work. Today I start my new job. Today the bacon starts cooking once again.

If I return safely, I'll tell you all about it.

Stay tuned...maybe.

Drugs are bad, mmkay?

This is what we are always told. But I'm not only talking about the ones you get on the street, because those damn prescriptions will get you, too! Even if the drug is doing you a world of good, unless your medical insurance kicks ass, you're gonna get your ass kicked.

Back in the day when I was still employed in California, I was a life-long member of Kaiser Permanente. I bitched and moaned whenever their rates or co-pays would go up, but all in all I figured I was getting a pretty sweet deal. Now I understand just how sweet that deal really was.

Exhibit A - A two-month supply of Prozac from Kaiser. I suffer from minor depression from time to time, but I mostly take it to deal with anxiety. Total cost? Ten dollars.

Exhibit B - A one-month supply of Prozac from Medco. I was ecstatic when I found out my prescription from Kaiser was still valid and I wouldn't need to see a new doctor to get a new prescription. Unfortunately my excitement didn't last long as my jaw hit the floor when it came time to pay. Total cost? Fifty dollars!

So there you have it. With Kaiser, my happy drugs were costing me about five cents a pill. And now, with Medco, they are 84 cents a pill. That's super weak.

I think the moral of the story is this: if you have anxiety as a result of worrying about being able to pay for the pills that are supposed to cure your anxiety, why take them at all? I'll tell you why. Because it's super bad for your brain to just stop taking them, that's why!

They've got me by the gonads.

Excited and scared.

Today was an interesting day. I'm not really sure what I was feeling, but it was akin to that feeling you'd finally get on the last day of school where you realize you're not going to see these people again for a really long time. Except in my case, it's possible I may never see these people again. Ever. It's a bit strange.

I was a little sad when it was finally time to start saying my goodbyes. It started to sink in once I had finished packing up my cubical. I managed to squeeze all of my desk toys and gadgets into a pretty small box, so that was satisfying and yet equally depressing.

Cruises! Note to self: the next time I go on a cruise, don't tell anyone. It seems everyone has been on a cruise at least twice, and they all have conflicting advice about what to do first and how to handle your stay. I eventually just started blocking people out because I came to realize that there is just so much freakin' stuff to do, only you can decide, when the time actually arrives, what you're going to do. And hey...

THIS IS OUR HONEYMOON, PEOPLE! WHAT DO YOU THINK WE'RE GOING TO BE DOING?!?

So I'm feeling a little scared of the fact that I'm now actually unemployed. That's right, I'm completely jobless. It's an interesting feeling. I've had a steady job for the past six years and now, by choice, I've got zero income and we're living off of our savings. It should be an interesting ride, but I'll tell you what, I'm going to enjoy every minute of it!

And here's a little piece of irony. When I got in my car after work, and turned on my stereo, this was the lyric that came on first. It's from the song "Afraid" by Yellowcard.

I am afraid right now,
You never will get out,
You'll never let yourself be saved,
You are so afraid.

Sheesh, talk about feeling like you're being watched. =P

Eight hours to go.

480 minutes to be exact! Do I sound excited? If I do it's because I am! But I'm not as excited as I was expecting to be.

Yes it will be nice to finally be moving on to (hopefully) bigger and better things, but the feelings that are going through me are a bit unsettling. I guess it was to be expected, I mean, I've been at this job for the past three and a half years, so it's going to feel very different not coming here at all anymore.

What comes next? I have no idea. After the honeymoon, we will finish packing, mail off a bunch of our stuff to where we're going to be moving to, put the rest in our car and head on out for a four day drive across the country. I've never driven that far before so hopefully we don't have trouble finding ways to keep ourselves amused.

But I digress. I think I'm going to miss this place, at least in the ever so slightest way. I'll definitely miss a few of my co-workers (you guys know who you are). I'm sorry to be leaving you behind and I wish you the best of luck getting out of that place. You deserve so much more, both challenge wise and paycheck wise.

As for where I'll work next, again, it's totally up in the air. I've started looking, but not at anything serious yet. We have enough money saved up to keep us going for a few months so hopefully neither of us will need to settle on a job we know we won't enjoy.

Wow, what started as a promise to stay with this company for at least a year turned into so much more. I probably should have left a long time ago. Here's to better decisions in the future.

Two down, three to go.

It's getting down to the wire. Only three days until I am no longer employed. My time spent at this place of business was good. It had its ups and downs, but overall worth the experience.

Blah, blah, blah.

Honestly, this job has been going downhill for about the last year or so. What was once a good starting place for a career in IT quickly turned into exactly, and only that: a starting place. There was no room for me to pursue web development (my focus in college) and pretty soon even my helpdesk tasks were taken away from me. I was moved "up" to a never-ending project and soon lost contact with anyone outside of my department.

Locked in my cubicle is where I stayed. Quickly it became the norm to hear people asking, "You still work here?" *sigh* Unfortunately, yes.

But no longer. It's time to move on to bigger and brighter things. Greener pastures as they say. I am going to commit myself to finding a job that suits me. And while I look, I am going to pursue my own web ideas so as to clear up some space in my head after all these years.

Only three days to go. And only five days until my wife and I finally go on our honeymoon.

I'm happy. =)