Budget Cuts o p to Well, the recession/depression has landed at my feet. Since 1995 or 6 a large part of my day job has involved travel to Medford to work with a facility that my company has there. At the peak this involved me spending 10 days per month there, more recently two trips per month for a couple of days. Like every other company lately we are faced with huge budget challenges and one of those items cut is my travel to Medford. I will continue to participate in as many meetings as possible via video conferencing and telephone. I understand the rationale and need to do this, but find that I am saddened about it, over the years I have built relationships with many people in Medford whom I value highly, and know that video and phone contact will degrade these relationships. BUT on the plus side I no longer will need to plan my kiln cycles around my travel plans and, watch out, without the "jet lag" I have experienced on my Medford trips I will have newfound energy for my glass!
Transitions!
Like the portion of the rest of the world that I see and/or acknowledge, I am anxious for a fresh start. In part it begins tomorrow with the start of the new year, but 1.20.09 is the new beginning that I am most hopeful about.
In my personal life there are also some current transitions that matter to me.
Alba-- For the past 25 years my hair anxieties have been managed by Alba. For the five prior years I had shopped around for someone I could trust to cut my hair without requiring that I actually know what I want. Every time I got close to a comfort level with someone they would move to Bend, get injured, find a new career...something that disrupted the relationship that I hoped would eliminate this issue for me. Then, my friend Linda told me about her hair dresser, Alba at Frederick and Nelson's at Washington Square, a store that is long since gone. I liked what Alba did, and over time my whole family and I had regular haircut nights with her. She moved to several different locations over the years, and our appointments were combined with Chinese food, Thai food, etc. and became family events. Since Andrew and Kyle have moved on into their own lives, it has usually just been the two of us who show up. Tonight was Alba's last night of her career, her business license and space rent end tonight. We had our last appointments with her tonight, and Kyle was able to join us. Thanks Alba, it has been a true pleasure to know you and through your stories, your family. Thanks for all you have done for us over the past quarter of a century.
On a less significant note, three weeks or so ago my laptop died. It's death involved sheer hard drive death, and equipment failure. At that time I chose to view it as an opportunity to lose all of my baggage and have a fresh start. There have since been only a couple of times when this attitude threatened to abandon me, but I have more or less been able to hold this sentiment. Today I got my new laptop, apparently our new approval process is pretty convoluted. Anyway, I am now able to begin my transition to the new machine, linking sites and documents and teaching it how I think.
Happy New Year to all!