Away from the blog

I've been away from the blog for a little bit (In fact, both blogs), mostly due to a few things going on right now.

My biggest thing is Job related: I found out in early May that all of the projects my team has been tasked to work on in in Fiscal Year 2010 (which starts in July) are currently unfunded. What does this mean?

Well, that is the big question...

First, they cut all of the contractors on my team. This included a couple who had been here for 3+ years. Very sad. They also killed any part time help, which included the replacement that I use when I go on vacation (I'm currently the only individual in the company who does my particular job).

Currently their 'plan' is to cross train someone to do my job. Someone who has never done any of the things I do, and already has way too much on their plate with their current job to ever really dig in depth on my stuff. Basically it means to me that when I go on vacation I can expect that I will spend the next month fixing whatever the other person screwed up. Lovely.

Also, because I have no funded projects, I will be 'cross-training' over to another function as well. Yup...I get to screw things up for another person while *he* is on vacation. Lovely.

Anyway, due to this mess I've been writing a bunch of things. Writing proposals for my current job, hoping to sway management to divert some funding over to some very important projects. (They actually funded one of those proposals in the final budget, so yay!). Also, I've been polishing up the various resumes, code samples, and other things I will need if something turns very wrong and I do wind up looking for another job (not likely, but never hurts to be careful).

Lay offs are possible, but on my team there are other, more likely candidates...so I'm not overly worried, though (obviously) I still hate to see anybody go at all.

In addition to the 'serious' stuff, I've been playing a little (a lot) of WoW, playing Rock Band with the kiddos, and writing some short stories that I don't really care to publish at all right now...probably ever. Currently all the stories seem to come from that very crazy place in my brain and they...don't really make a hell of a lot of sense (to anybody but me. Scratch that....even I'm confused sometimes).

Still, I'm entertained by the writing, which is the only good reason to write.

As an example, I wrote a little short story about a Reality TV show that uses the same techniques that shows like CSI use to catch murderers (DNA evidence, fingerprints, audio/video dissection, etc), as well as 'enemy of the state' style satellite surveillance, SWAT teams and FBI agents.

...All to catch people who shoplifted 99c candy bars from grocery stores. It is told in 'dragnet style' from the perspective of the lead investigator on the case. I call it 'Serious Crimes!!' and it made me laugh. But I doubt it would make anybody else laugh and it is decidedly from that strange and bizarre place in my brainz that really should never be public on the interwebs, heh.