I will be moving to the Phoenix area (Chandler) at the end of September.

    As some of you know, I've wanted to leave for a long time -- the dark and grey of fall/winter/spring here make it very difficult for me to function, and I've found it hard to be so far away from my family.  When I came to Portland in January 2006 it was with the expectation of getting married and starting a family.  When that fell apart in May 2007 I thought about moving but I didn't want to be hasty or act out of emotion.  I decided I should stay at least through July 2008 so that I could go on tour with the Oregon Chorale to Ireland and Scotland; it's been a lifelong dream to make such a trip.

     After the Chorale tour I began applying for jobs with Intel Chandler, and had a discussion with my boss at the time.  Unfortunately as we all know that was when the economy started shutting down, and it became clear I would be here for a while.  I had resigned myself to staying probably to the middle of 2010 at best, perhaps longer, though I continued to apply for whatever openings appeared.

    About a month ago (early August) my boss approached me with an offer -- commit to staying in my present position for at least a year, and he would explore seeing if lab and office space in Chandler could be obtained so that I could work remotely from Chandler but stay in my current position.  I'd have to fund the move myself.  I told him that that was agreeable to me, and he began working on the move although he cautioned me that he didn't know how long it would take to find suitable space (lab space is hard to come by).

    Last week I received word that all the negotiations had been completed and the move was on.  After some discussions with management about program schedules and how we could minimize impact to our projects, it was agreed that I would start in Chandler October 5th.

    My current plan is to leave Portland Monday Sept. 28th.  I'll have my last skating lessons 9/21 (Sonya) and 9/22 (Kelli), last skate at club ice 9/25, and last sing with the St. Cecilia choir 9/27.  I will also be at the first rehearsal for Chorale on 9/14.

    I'm really looking forward to moving home -- Arizona has always been home for me, even when I lived in California (6 years).  I will be back from time to time -- for work probably every 4-6 weeks for a day, and undoubtedly to visit in the summertime.  In particular I'm planning on being present for the Oregon Chorale 25th anniversary celebration and concert in early June.

    One thing I will definitely miss will be the many, many wonderful people I've come to know here in Portland.  My choir family at St. Cecilia, the wonderful and talented people of the Oregon Chorale and Intel Singers, my coworkers, and of course the many wonderful coaches, skaters, and skater moms/dads at Sherwood and elsewhere in PDX.  Thank you so much for your friendship and support over the last 3 and a half years.

 ... is the 25th anniversary of my mom's death.  On the afternoon of a Friday the 13th (yep) she lost her battle with cancer.  Me, my oldest brother, my stepfather were all present.

I love you Mom, and I miss you.

So the word is out today that we are going to be re-orging at work.  We are losing a couple of people (no layoffs, people are taking other jobs) and we won't get to replace them so we are shuffling people around.

For me, this means that I will be transitioning from working with the vPro desktops (that's our manageability/security initiative) to working with servers.  After 3.5 years on this program I think it will be nice to make a change.  I'm looking forward to working on different stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUtHb2IOWvU

Wahahaa!

I just got back from the doctor.

The good news: the break is clean, it's already starting to heal, no surgery needed, no cast necessary, it should heal well.

The bad news: I have to wear a boot. No skating for 6 - 8 weeks and no competition for me :-(. Grrr. I will have to withdraw from Cactus. Dangit!

 I finally dragged myself to the doctor this morning since my L foot has been bothering me since 5/20.

 I had a call from the doctor's office this afternoon to let me know I have a fracture in my 3rd metatarsal and I need to see the orthopedist.  I have an appointment for Monday afternoon (first I could get).

 Sheesh.

 Hey, just realized I've not posted in a while so I thought I would give a brief update on what's up with me...

 Life has been good -- busy.  Work has been quite busy.  We had a 10% layoff in my division at work, but no one in my immediate group was cut.  It's unnerving though.  I have so many friends and family that have been laid off!  It breaks your heart.

 I think I've lost some weight.  It's very encouraging.  I'm not sure why although having given up cookies, cakes and pie for Lent probably helped a bit.

 I've been elected to the Board of Directors for the Oregon Chorale -- I forget how many board members there are (9?).  It's a 2-year term that starts in July or August.  I will do my best to help out.

 I've been skating a lot.  I'm going to be taking my Moves test again on April 26th down in Medford (southern OR).  This will be my 3rd time taking this test so hopefully I'm de-nerved by now and I'll be fine.  I then hope to take the corresponding freestyle test May 24th.  If I pass all that I will then have 2 months to learn a program to compete at Cactus Classic in Scottsdale at the end of July.  Wish me luck!  I have a lot of work to do.

 I've been working out 3x/week since September or so.  It's going well.  I wouldn't say I enjoy it but it's not so bad, and it has definitely helped my skating.

 Easter is Sunday and I couldn't be happier -- it's been a long Lent and a lot of extra rehearsals for church choir, so we are all a bit wiped out.  Phew.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDQe_MIxFoA

I wasn't aware this had been posted on YouTube. It's a video of the Chorale singing "Loch Lomond"... by the bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond. We are laughing at the beginning because it talks about the sun shining brightly... and it had justed started to rain.

 Since I'd not posted in a while I thought I would tell about my exciting day.

I got up at 9:30, took a quick shower and had a quick breakfast (for once), then went off to the rink for my figures class.   It went really well!  For some reason I'm doing a lot better today, I don't know why.  Then I had lunch and relaxed until the public session at 1.  Skated for an hour, then went to JC Penney's to look at new glasses and get my eyes examined.  Total damage after insurance was $145 due to copays for progressives, polycarbonates and slightly nicer frames than the allowance.

From there, off to Fry's to pick up a memory upgrade for my netbook, since it was on sale ($20, woohoo!); then off to Fred Meyer for groceries, and finally home.  Whew.  I have laundry and other exciting things to do and I still need to watch Lost from this week.  And since DST starts tonight I need to go to bed an hour earlier.  DST is so stupid! 

 This has been a "lost" week.  Monday I was off from work, so after my skating lesson I went to McMinnville to visit the Evergreen Air and Space Museum.  I spent about 7 hours at the museums (it's the home of the Spruce Goose, which I had previously seen when it was in Long Beach with the Queen Mary).  It was really neat.  I saw "The Magic of Flight" at the IMAX there, it's mostly about the Blue Angels (GO NAVY!).

 After the visit I drove straight to Hillsboro for choir practice and as I was driving I started feeling a bit... ukky.   Coughing a bit etc.  I made it through choir practice (in hindsight I shouldn't have gone), went home and went to bed.  Woke up the next day feeling really, really sick and I wound up being sick all week and stayed home until this afternoon when I came into the lab to get some prep work done for a class I'm taking next week at work.

 I've not been this sick in a long time, it was really unpleasant, especially Tuesday and Wednesday.  I called the doctor's office on Wed. afternoon to see about coming in and they walked me through their checklist, told me I probably had a virus and there wasn't anything they could do for that, but if I had worse systems or a fever blah blah blah.  I went out and bought a thermometer :-), as Marie took the one we had when she left (hey, I'm a single guy, what can I say).  I had a fever of 101.1 at 7, but shortly after that I started feeling much better and I checked an hour later and my temp was 98.8... Whew.

 I cancelled my skating lesson this morning (for once I was smart) but I am feeling well enough I should be able to make my figures class tomorrow.