This has been a very weird week for me, and even to say that is a huge understatement. I'm just starting to get back to the point where I can actually step back and take stock of my situation as a whole. For those of you who don't already know, on Tuesday it was decided that my department (custom programming) was a net drain on company resources and was being dissolved. All the customers would be sold to another local company. This meant that at the very least I would have to interview for my own job with a new place. Fortunately or unfortunately I wasn't feeling well on Tuesday and called out, so I was able to enjoy the fantastic victory of President-Elect Obama in the company of friends without the anchor of a recent layoff dragging me down.

On Wednesday morning I was called into the conference room by one of the owners and handed a number to call to set up an interview. I managed to put in a few hours that day but my heart really wasn't into it. I made a few calls and tried to figure out what to do. On Thursday morning I got up and realized that I could drive downtown and take the civil service exam for the Baltimore City Police Department. I did well on the exam but due to some voluntary disclosures on my application, was rejected by the commander and told in no uncertain terms that I could never apply again. That particular story is amusing over a few beers, but not quite the thing for mixed company, so you can just use your imagination. That night I used all the anger and pent up resentment to kick some ass at dodge ball and we lost less spectacularly than we usually do. I got a little sad whenever I saw a police cruiser that evening, but that passed.

Friday night after a somewhat halfhearted day at the office, I went down to welcome Teresa back to DC after her long trip. Keith and Dawn's wedding was the next day in Alexandria and I was going to crash either with them or with a member of the wedding party so that I could wake up and just take a quick metro ride to the hotel. Unfortunately our drinks went long, mostly to do with an extended argument over whether a furry should be allowed to wear their usual costume on Hallowe'en. We parted ways and I got on the train towards Alexandria, but a quick SMS back and forth after I got on the train pointed out that by then everyone was asleep and in for the night.

I got on the train in the reverse direction resigned to drive all the way back to Parkville that night. When I got to Chinatown I thought to myself, this is stupid, and made my way up to the surface to message the three people on my phone that I thought would be awake at 1am. Patty answered in less than a minute and told me not only could I crash at her place, but this was a fine opportunity to keep her company at the bar while she worked until last call. I hopped back on the train and had a lovely evening studying C++ data algorithms and catching up. The next morning I got up, showered and hopped on the yellow line for Alexandria sometime around 10:30.

The wedding was fantastic. Dawn and Keith met at a social media conference and many of the folks that they were mutually interested in inviting were all cut from the same professional cloth. I've been to a lot of weddings, but this was pretty amazing because everyone wound up talking to everyone. I'd never seen an almost fully meshed (and open bar-lubricated) social event like this in action before, and it was pretty cool to not only watch but to participate in. Things wrapped up around 15:30 and I got back on the yellow line back to the green to crash the burner mixer in Takoma Park and Dave and Rachel's floor-warming party further up the road. Unfortunately my T-Mobile GPRS service decided to not work until I got to MD 198 so I didn't have a chance to hit up the burner party for lack of an address or good directions.

Dave and Rachel's party was awesome, and I kept upping my difficulty level on Rock Band 2 -- much to my delight. The only time I get to practice is at other people's houses, so I use the opportunity the best I can. Sunday afternoon had a few people over to the Playa del Fuego meeting and that brings me to today. Today I worked at home finishing up a bunch of loose end projects for the office and tomorrow I will go in to push a bug-fix build to a client and see how many days I have left to wrap things up.

So that's about where I am these days. Obviously contract work, job offers, that sort of thing are totally welcome right now but just being around people and realizing the important things in life are useful to keeping me going. I'm just taking things a day at a time and trying to do my best. Thanks for listening. More tomorrow!

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