Trouble in Paradise


I haven’t posted in quite awhile. Reason: Gauss lost his job in December. After tearing up our life by the roots in May, I just couldn’t write about it.

Gauss’s last day was December 15. Luca and Emilio showed up for a visit December 23. They were here for a week, and that week just flew by. It was so sweet having them here. We thought about going up to the Sierras to go skiing, but after the brutal winter the kids have had in Minnesota, they were more interested in things they could do in shirt sleeves: seeing Chinatown and the ocean.

We drove to Monterey and ate dinner at a restaurant on the ocean near Pebble Beach.After lunch, we walked down to the water. There were big waves, but the tide was low.




We watched an otter playing in the tide pools.


There were big tubular seaweeds that were sort of disgusting but also amusing.

Besides the Monterey excursion, we had lots of get togethers with friends who wanted to meet Luca and Emilio: noodles at Sam Wo with Ted and Frances, Christmas day dinner with John and Ying, Korean BBQ with KJ, hanging out with Orchid and Jason, watching a dumb movie with Patty and Dan from the running group. We ate enough spicy Chinese food to totally burn out Emilio, but he liked it anyway.

As far as our plans go...Gauss is getting unemployment, and Gauss and I have both joined a really good job hunting program called ProMatch. We attend meetings twice a week, and ProMatch has tons of workshops, seminars, and networking opportunities. We’ve made some great friends there, and Gauss and I have applied the ProMatch techniques to our search for freelance work, too.

After NO work in December and half of January, I have gotten some projects in. Gauss has had several meetings with another FileMaker development company, and it looks like he will be getting some freelance work from them within a week or two. Very few companies are willing to hire regular employees right now, so freelance is about the best we can hope for.

Comments

Commodore Rockstar said…
Patti, it is so wonderful to see that you've started blogging again. I am glad to hear that you and Gauss are also making the best of the situation. It sucks for everyone and everything - I'm not relishing entering the job market in fifteen months. Wonderful pictures as well. How has your house turned out, and what is the weather like down there in February?

-Peter
February 20, 2009 at 10:21 PM
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