It has been a pleasant surprise to discover how often my humble little page gets read. It’s a pleasant surprise to hear from family and friends when they’ve seen something here and want to discuss it. What began as a way of keeping track of Hallie’s progress has taken on a life of its own, opening up avenues of self-expression I never knew existed.

To everyone who tunes in here, I wish to say thanks. Your encouragement and discussion have made this into an incredibly fun project, inspiring me to spend even more time describing the world from my point of view.

If what I write isn’t always exciting or noteworthy, I will at least try to always keep it real. You’re free to disagree with me. In fact, you’re encouraged. I don’t claim to know all of the answers. But the thrill in life is in discovery, is it not?

Thanks for being a fellow explorer!

It’s a new day today. The sun is shining. Birds are chirping. Flowers are in bloom. All this, and I am spending the day with my beautiful wife and my beautiful daughter. Life could be a lot worse.

Lulu is officially in the past. After a restless night of sleep, I’ve decided to put it to rest.

I enjoyed most of my time at Lulu. I think I could have helped take it to new levels of growth. Yet I had already begun the process of leaving it when yesterday’s news struck.

My lunch appointment with Bart was a test I set up to see if he would take time to listen to my concerns. It appears that he would rather not. So be it. It was yet another of my efforts to make Lulu a better place, and yet another unacknowledged.

I am a pretty low-maintenance employee. I am typically cheerful: I do not complain about my work. I am punctual. I work overtime when needed. And I am extremely flexible, doing anything that is required. Yet the thing that truly motivates me was always missing at Lulu – recognition for my work. In the five months I was there, I can recall just one time my manager ever praised my work. Just one. And about half the time he never bothered responding when I would email him with questions.

In short, he could not have been a worse manager for me.

Last night I thought a lot about the saying “there’s nothing wrong with me; therefore, there must be something wrong with the universe.”

There is nothing wrong with me. Therefore, there must be something wrong with Lulu.

Found a webpage that seems to indicate that CNN amplified the boos from the Academy Award audience after Michael Moore’s speech. Audio clips from ABC’s live broadcast can be compared to CNN’s rebroadcast.

You can listen for yourselves here. But then again, the media wouldn’t distort the news, would it?

Here’s a press release from N.C. State, supposedly a school with a clue (hey, I went there). It’s a press release saying how scientists are puzzled that cloned animals are different.

Well, DUH! Are identical twins exactly the same? No? So why does anyone expect clones to be identical? Why do people think that cloning will somehow bring their darling dog Fluffy back to life?

I swear, there are some real idiots in this country. I wonder how much money was wasted to reach this obvious conclusion.

The job description I responded to:

IT Guru

Systems support engineer needed for total IT support of highly mixed platform environment including Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Windows, and Cisco OSes. Tasks range from the exciting to mundane. They include maintenance of production-level servers (Sendmail, Bind, and Apache), firewall and VPN configuration, developing backup strategies, writing automation scripts, hardware specification and installation, installing server and desktop software, and fixing the damn printer (again).

I don’t think anyone can say I didn’t do that and didn’t do it well.

I was hoping that today’s lunch meeting with my former company’s COO, (call him Bart) would help me clear the air about the situation I had been working in for the past couple of months. Instead I got shown the door without ever getting a chance to explain my views.

I had set up the meeting after a very frustrating Friday trying to get a server put back together. For the past few weeks, I was being ignored by my manager, Daniel. Yep, ignored. No acknowlegement that I was even there. Meanwhile, I was given stupid tasks like designing new cubicle layouts and setting up conference rooms.

I thought at the time it was simply because I could get things done. In fact, rather than gripe about it, I actually took it as a compliment; that I was trusted to do new things. How naive.

So rather than allowing me to state my peace, the door was slammed in my face. I just think that’s wrong.

In the next few days I will write a few pages about Lulu (which I may or may not share with you) and then I will put this experiment out of my mind. As Kelly said today “it’s their loss.”

And she’s right. They will never find someone who can do all the things that I did for them, with as good an attitude as I have. They won’t.

They will miss me because I am moving on.

So this is what it’s like to be fired.

Not much unlike being laid-off, which I had the unfortunate luck to experience two years ago. This time, like last time, it was no real surprise. Not that I expected to be fired, mind you, only that something would have to change.

I am proud of the work I did at Lulu. I stand by it, and I stand by the people who supported me there. It is unfortunate that the situation wasn’t right for either of us.

I am dealing with a lot of thoughts and emotions right now, so I am resisting the urge to post them all now. I do not wish to point fingers but to analyze things with as much of a clear head as I can.

I vowed not to give up on Lulu, and I did not. I worked harder there every day. I made it better right up until the last minute I was employed there, taking a vendor phone call even while turning over company passwords.

Still, I can’t help but feel I’ve let my wife and daughter down. They aren’t here right now – out running errands and enjoying the beautiful spring weather.

And on the outside I’ll seem indifferent to this whole thing until the second they walk through the door.

Usually at a startup company, the politics is minimized, mostly because it hasn’t existed long enough for there to be any politics.

The one I’m working at now, however, is the reincarnation of a cratered start-up. It seems it has carried its baggage with it, however.

I have been spent my time here battling coworkers stubbornly set in their ways, whom I cannot seem to win over. It’s to the point where I cannot do the job I was hired to do.

Should anyone have job leads, please pass them my way. You can find out more about me by clicking on my resume link on the left side of this page.

Today is Garner’s “unprepared trash pickup” day. All the neighborhood junk lines the road today, ready for pickup by the trash company.

Only, most of it will be gone by the time the trashmen get here. Since we’ve moved here, Kelly and I have been so entertained at how our neighbors will cruise the streets, hauling away some treasure they found in someone else’s junkpile. Kelly watched this morning as a well-dressed lady hopped out of a minivan and janked two decrepit sawhorses out of our neighbors’ junkpile. Our neighbors’ bicycle didn’t last long, having been swiped by sunrise.

Last year we figured it out. The town announces “unprepared trash day” and then deliberately waits another week to dispatch the trucks. By that time, there is usually little left to pick up.

This, folks, is recycling at its best. Who needs landfills when you’ve got “unprepared trash day?”