My age in 1972; Jason's age in 2004; Carole's age in 2005; Jeremy's age in 2021; Justin's age in 1998 minus my age in 1958. (All numbers are as of the birthday in the listed year.)
December 2005 Archives
I felt out of sorts all day yesterday — headache (migraine-ish, but never close to Imitrex level), digestive weirdness, lethargy (but not sleepy), difficulty focusing (both mentally and visually), grumpy = very grumpy — so I called Carole just before bedtime (she was out with her friend Terry) for advice last night (I wasn't thinking straight enough to decide on my own), and I went down to 2mg of melatonin. I feel much more normal this morning, but my back is sore from laying in bed watching eight Veronica Mars episodes yesterday in my funk.
Here's a great picture of Valentino Rossi, in full-lean, puck on the asphalt, Sete Gibernau on his tail &mdash reaching up to pull a tear-off away from his shield with his left hand. Very cool.
My friend Mandy went skydiving on the day before her birthday. Carole took her out to California City — 118 miles north of Pasadena &mdash in the early morning hours of Friday for the pre-jump training, and I rode my bike out for the actual jump.
Here's an album and slide show of the pictures that Carole and I took, before, during, and after the jump. It was very cool.
The festivities at the McConnell home in Big Bear Lake.
Today was my second visit to the annual SURF appreciation luncheon. Last year's event at Smittie's on Lake was good fun - with LOTS of good conversation. This year was at the Tolman House, on the CalTech campus.
Tolman House was built in 1923, and given to the Beckman Institute some years later for use by visiting scholars and dignitaries. It also gets occasional use for small receptions like the SURF luncheon. My sister and I agreed that it's construction, decor, and especially smell reminded us of Grandma Casey's house in Alhambra.
We had a nice buffet, with chicken skewers, crab cakes, a great salad, and really good dessert items. I had a chance to talk with seven or eight people, and had a very pleasant stay. At the end, I helped pack the leftover food, and walked with Carol to the Ath to check out some rooms she's considering for an upcoming event (wink, wink). It was a nice afternoon, all around.
The bus just left to take everyone down to Orange County for the company Christmas party, and I'm not on the bus. Why? Yesterday, the company layed off about 15 people, including long-term employees on my floor who I've been working with for years.
We all understand that people must be laid off from time-to-time. Sometimes I agree with the reasoning behind the layoffs, and sometimes I don't, but it's understood that layoffs are a fact of modern corporate life.
But that doesn't excuse the timing of these layoffs. No well-established company, unless it is on the edge of imminent bankruptcy, should layoff long-term employees during the month of December.
The way a company handles layoffs is not so much for those being laid off — it's for the employees left behind. The timing and method of the layoffs, and the package offered to the departing employees, is an indication to remaining employees about how the company feels about them - whether the company values their continuing loyalty. If a company breaches the implied rules of layoffs — such as greatly reducing the value of the exit package, or laying off long-term employees on December 15th — it's hard to not feel that the company has lost its ethical compass somewhere along the way. How can the company expect an employee to give that extra effort, to show loyalty, when that employee knows that that loyalty will likely be abused? That the company might let them go at any time, for any reason - even a week before Christmas?
I hope everyone has a good time at today's Christmas party, but I will not be there, and won't miss it.
I started up the heater for the first time this season. You know that funny smell you get as the heater burns off the dust that's been collecting since last spring? It came in spades.
We just ran it a little last night, then set the thermostat to 64. Most of the new-heater smell passed unnoticed in the middle of the night, but that first wisp brought back memories...
Random things I'd like to get:
