In the midst of all that has transpired in the passed year or so, it seems that if you have a job today then you should consider yourself lucky. Or should you? You were good enough to keep your job but what about all of those new jobs that are opening up now that companies are starting to rebound? There are lots of new positions coming onto the market. My wife has been able to obtain two jobs this year, for example.

It would seem to me that while there have been several companies trimming the fat, it was fat that they were looking to trim anyway. So they’ve been running lean for a little while now, but that the employees who were on board have been over worked and are nearly burned out they need to bring in some new staff to help keep their current staff alive.

The real question that always seems to arise seems to be “Is it worth it?” That is a very challenging question sometimes. Say, you really enjoy the job you’re doing but you can get more money if you take a new job. But what if you don’t like your new job? Now, you have the salary you wanted but you’re miserable everyday. What if you like your job and the pay is good but the people drive you nuts? There’s no guarantee that the new colleagues are going to be better than your current ones. It’s generally a leap of faith if you do make the move or it’s conservative decision to stay with what you know.

I know that I’ve been faced with this issue a few times in my life. I’ve worked a good company but hated my job because I was just so incredibly bored everyday. There’s only so many times you can fix a printer in the exact same way and enjoy it. I’ve worked for a completely disorganized cluster fuck of a company but loved the colleagues that I worked with before. It’s rare to find a bunch of people where you’ll find almost the entire staff having beers with each other after work on a regular basis. And now I work for a company where I like what I do most of the time. My colleagues are good people whom I get along with most of the time. I’m just not sure what’s going on here. I’ve been here just over two years and haven’t received a salary increase. This means I haven’t received a cost of living increase either. Needless to say, this is rather discouraging. However, there is some promise of light in the near future.

There are a few large projects coming up soon that will be pretty much my sole responsibility in order to plan and complete successfully. There’s talk of a new datacentre. There’s a large VMware upgrade that needs to happen soon. Plus, there’s another VMware upgrade that will pretty much be a rebuild. My major issue with these? I have absolutely no budget. I managed to get the licensing down more than $10,000 on the second upgrade project and still was not able to obtain the funds. I’ve been having meetings with new clients every other week but still no joy. Meanwhile, we’re doing little piece meal bits and bobs as clients are requiring the new features that I have suggested we get during our upgrade. Of course, this is going to cause more work for me and more money for my employer in the end.

This is just a bit of a rant to help me to keep my sanity. Hopefully things get better soon. But if they don’t, you may find that I have a new business card to give you when you see me next.

It seems that I’ve survived yet another trip into that barren wasteland that is named The United States of America. The country always amazes me when I’m there. Labour Day sales were aplenty. My wife’s family were very gracious. It was a good trip for the most part.

There were a couple of days where I grew a bit restless since all that we did was sit around and watch television. However, we did get out a fair bit and see some of my wife’s friends. There were some familiar faces and a couple of new ones too. One of her friends drove all the way from Oklahoma to visit her.

Managed to see two films while there. We saw Extract and 9. I had high hopes for Extract but it didn’t come through the way that I had thought that it would. I may need to watch it a few more times once it is available for download on DVD. One the other hand, I was rather impressed with 9. The story was interesting and the animation was pretty incredible.

The trouble with traveling really has to do with the journey most of the time. Getting to and from a place can be rather arduous when trying to navigate through several airports and trying to manage different meals through different time zones. The trip to St. Louis had a snag in it and there is an issue that we are still dealing with now that we are back in Bermuda.

On the way to my in-laws’ house we had a stop in Philadelphia. We were then supposed to travel to Dulles and then to St. Louis. Unfortunately, through a fault of time management we missed our flight to Washington DC. It seems that I changed the time zone on my phone to Central thinking it would be good to have the final destination’s time in there. But I forgot that I had done this. So, while sitting at our gate, we watched everyone board our flight. There was no real announcement about the boarding. Hell, the sign at the gate didn’t even display our flight, or any flight for that matter. So, stranded, we made our way to the US Airways desk to see if they could help. We had missed a United flight but US Air was our first flight. They were very helpful and put us on a direct flight to St. Louis first thing in the morning. We stayed at the Marriott at the airport and made it to St. Louis the next day.

The issue that we’re still dealing with has to do with our journey back to Bermuda. On this leg of the trip we flew from St. Louis to Chicago and then to New York before finally getting to Bermuda. Specifically the leg from Chicago to New York caused the issue. Apparently, there was a “special guest” at the JFK airport where we were going. This caused a backup for the arrivals going there. We were an hour and twenty minutes late, which happened to be the exact amount of time we should have had to wait at the airport for our next flight. So, we made it to the gate in JFK just as they were calling our names for final boarding call. Of course, if we just barely got to the gate in time, that means that our luggage didn’t stand a chance. So, we reported our baggage as missing when we got to Bermuda. We should have been able to retrieve our luggage yesterday but a customs officer has decided to withhold our luggage because he thinks that we did not declare everything properly.

Firstly, I’m rather upset that our bags were searched by Bermuda Customs without either my wife or myself being present. Secondly, we declared absolutely everything. Thirdly, we now have to wait until Thursday when the customs officer is back on shift in order to go and show him all of our receipts. I find this incredibly inconvenient. I’ve been without my luggage for days now and I have one more day to go. But once I’m able to all the way back to the airport, I’m going to be harassed by some muppet of a customs officer who probably thinks I didn’t pay enough for the items I purchased during one of the biggest sales of the year. I can’t wait to see who this idiot is so I can have his badge number and make a complaint against him to his superiors.

My wife and I are heading off island to attain a sweet morsel of that main land life. No, we’re not going to buy a house, nor are we planning to move off island anytime soon. We are simply going to visit her family, or as she likes to say her “familia.” This is the time where I bring my father-in-law some decent booze and my wife brings her mother some nice things that mothers like. I think it’s some art and some feminine things.

In any case, I doubt there are many people who read this blog in the first place but I thought that I’d put it out there in case anyone is looking for me.

I’ll be posting up some things as the trip progresses. It should be a fun time. The old man is ex-Navy and her mother is this crazy little Mexican woman. Hopefully I make it back in one piece.