January Recap
Just been working which I guess is a good thing...the salary sucks but it's better than nothing or unemployment. And some days I hate it while other days seem OK. I just don't like being subject to my employer because there's no other jobs out there still.
January was annual business meeting time for both the L.A. car club and our NorCal Club. I ventured down to beautiful downtown Burbank to brunch with my counterparts in the L.A. club and to pitch our summer event in San Luis Obispo. It was beautiful in L.A. and just ahead of the nasty storms that pummeled the north state a few weeks ago. It was so clear, you could see the San Gabriels - they had snow on them - and downtown L.A.
I drove down to Long Beach on Saturday and stayed with friends for the afternoon/overnight. Bryan and his partner Larry who've been a couple for over 20 years hosted me. Bryan and I were boyfriends before he and Larry got together (long, sordid story) and I knew his family pretty well. His sister was visiting the same weekend I was...I hadn't seen her in over 20 years...she looks pretty much the same - a little grayer and a little heavier - aren't we all?
Sunday, I drove to the "Castway" restaurant in the Burbank foothills for the brunch and board meeting...another gorgeous day and the view from the restaurant was fantastic! Brunch was good and I got to sit with the L.A. club big-wigs before giving my presentation on our summer event. It went pretty well and they even laughed at some of my jokes!
View of downtown Burbank from the Castaway restaurant and for fans of '80s cars...a Nissan Pulsar with the squareback option!
...and for my Citroen friends....
The meeting wrapped up around 1 PM and it was just starting to cloud up in Burbank, so I thought it best to start heading back to Sacramento before the storm it. Unfortunately, the storm was north, moving south, so I drove right into it. Encountered some pretty nasty rain from Bakersfield all the way up to Turlock where it finally cleared up. But I made it home safe and sound around 7 PM so I had some time to decompress before going to bed and starting another work week the next day.
True to form, I didn't get any pictures of myself or my hosts while in L.A. >>SIGH<< Nasty weather prevailed throughout the coming week and we actually lost power one day at work due to the high wnds. They let us temps go home which was OK with me even though I didn't get paid for the down time, but driving home in the worst of the weather was quite an arduous experience - blinding wind and rain - it was like Hurricane Katrina II....Katrina Does Sacramento!
Last weekend was our car club's annual business meeting. It was the first time our current board had to pull the event together by ourselves, without the help and equipment of our now retired board members who put the meetings together in the past. Overall, I think we did a great job! We held the meeting at our car club clubhouse rather than renting the Miraloma Clubhouse in San Francisco like we've done in the past...saving the club about $200 right there.
We had our usual potluck brunch and aptly had tables, chairs, and power strips ready to go for arriving guests. I worked with our club president to put on a slick (if I do say so myself) PowerPoint presentation to accompany the agenda. Our only short fall was heat...the clubhouse was pretty cold and since it''s so large, it took some time for our portable heaters to warm it up a bit...you could actually see the breath of speakers as they presented! But no one seemed too put off by it...we all had come dressed warmly as it was cold outside too!
Club President Stuart and I going over the slideshow...and some pretty classics we shared the garage space with.
...and our club motto "Good Taste is Never Extreme" (ganked from Chrysler) in Latin!
We noticed later that the garage part of the clubhouse where we held the meeting does have a large heater hanging from the ceiling - D'OH! We're new tenants, what can I say! We'll be ready next time once we figure out how to operate that heater! Our club president had medallions and "proclamations" for all of his board members, so that was a nice suprise. We also gave out awards for event, member, and volunteer of year.
Another work week and I was looking forward to a stay-at-home weekend without rain, but they asked for folks to work some overtime on Saturday and I decided to take them up on the offer since I can use the extra schalmoleans. Worked 5am-10am so I still had most of the day to get caught up on my yardwork. The back was pretty much a mess from the wind and rain of previous weeks, so I got that cleaned up and even managed to prune some of the trees back there. There is still some minor trimming to be done, but I need to get a new pair of loppers in order to finish up.
I'm pretty beat from the busy day today...planned to work on the front tomorrow but may pass and hope for nice weather next weekend to do that. I've also got an invitation to our annual Gay Superbowl Sunday party next Sunday...it'll be potluck and should be tons on fun.
I'm still looking at other jobs...sending out resumes and frequenting employment sites. My goal for 2010 is to get out of my financial funk by whatever means possible...I certainly don't want to remain at my current position long-term, but we'll see how it all shakes out.