Dog Days of Summer

Well, if you haven't heard already, then you can read it now. Only this time it will have a less bitter feel to it...

I got laid off.

On Tuesday, July 19th, 2005 (hereinafter known as "Black Tuesday") I was called into the board room where there was a friend of mine (who also happens to be an HR Manager) sitting at a table and my boss on the phone from California. They told me I was being let go and they gave me a envelope and a smile and sent me on my way.

Now I won't get into how much this ticked me off, but suffice it to say that after having just been moved to Ottawa from Waterloo less than a year ago that I was a bit shocked. What was I going to do? I have no contacts here yet, I have a massive mortgage that needs paying, and I only had 10 weeks severance to work with. I needed to start looking for a new job pronto.

That is why I've been silent for so long on this blog. First I was just busy with everything and then the shit hit the fan at work, and then I took a week off to just be depressed, then I spent more than two weeks just applying to job after job after job. Then I took a week to just do stuff around the house and so-forth. Now, I'm on "vacation" up at my parents cottage. It could be worse I suppose.

I had an interview last week and didn't get the job. I have another interview tomorrow too with the Weather Network as an "Interactive Web Services Development Manager" so we'll see how that works out. Spirits are high with interest in my resume, so hopefully I can turn that into some sort of work soon.

On the upside to all of this, I have managed to plot out the movie I'm writing pretty much in its entirety. I've got two scenes fully written and the rest of them point-formed out in my notebook. In doing all of this I've also managed to get an idea for a computer program that will help people like me plot out their movie and put it in the right format and everything. I'll likely get one of my friends to write some code for me and see if I can put it to good use for my next movie :-)

What else... oh yeah, Jodi was reading Avery one of those Dora the Explorer books that helps young kids learn to read. It uses pictures of common objects in with the text of the book so that when you come to certain words, the picture is there too and the kid can point to the picture and learn to identify letters. For instance, when the story comes to a point with a tree in it, there will be a picture of a tree with "tree" written under it so the kid can learn to identify the letters and sounds associated with the picture.

So anyway, Jodi is reading this book with Avery and it's about baseball or something like that. They come to a point in the book where Dora slides into home base and there's a picture of home plate. So Jodi says, "... and then Dora slides into home...." and she points to the picture of home base and Avery says, "Depot!". Yes, she is my daughter. Home base doesn't even register to her (even after an explanation), she goes straight to Home Depot. Awesome!

That's about it. It's raining like a mufo out there right now so maybe I can get a bit of writing in.

I'll keep you all posted on the job hunt.