More Farm Sale Waiting / Beach Trip Farewell / New Scary Role at Work
Every month it seems I mention the North Dakota family trust farm sale but every month it's like nothing's actually happening. That was true for June, which seemed to come and go like a bolt. We're still waiting on the interested party to send us paperwork and contracts detailing the sale. It was more frustrating months ago but now I think Nicole and I have relaxed and.it's sunken in that these things take time. And it's North Dakota: A quiet forgetful land where no one is in any hurry ever. Ohh well.
A week ago, we spent the entire weekend with Nicole's best friend, Abby, and her husband at their family's beach house in Washington. It was somewhat of a goodbye as within a matter of days, they're moving back to Montana. Years ago, they moved out there to start a new life but a desire to be around family during Abby's first pregnancy drove them to move back to Portland. Now, they're once again tired of Portland and all its big-city problems, so they've bought a big house and lots of land back in Montana to settle there permanently once and for all. It was nice having them back in Portland for the last year or so, but they would routinely say how hard they felt that pull from The Treasure State. It was only a matter of time. So we got in a few days on the beach and it seemed like old times again for one last moment. We've already planned a few trips out to see them (One is only a few weeks away at the end of July) but it is a drive. Life goes on.
Since early October, I've been in a fun new role at my job but it changed on us abruptly. For years previous, I'd been doing just one thing that slowly evolved over time but never really changed. Finally, I was able to leave that position and transition into a whole different and fun job building websites for the factory instead of robotically installing software on customer equipment. Well, that all came to a strange end a few weeks ago. We were knee deep in accepting new projects as usual when all the sudden, management several levels above us told us to drop literally everything and work on an audacious new project to reinvent some of the tools that the factory uses in their daily tasks. This isn't the first time teams of developers have been given with this assignment, but all have failed previously. To our relief, we've already been told that our jobs are secure if we also fail, but that's merely given us this weird sense of detachment. If we succeed, we'll be heroes and it could lead to amazing things. I just hope I still have a place in spite of my limited skillset and lack of programming expertise. Basically, I was brought up to do one thing and I did it well but now in this new assignment, I feel a little out of place. We all do. It's hugely ambitious and scary. I guess we'll see what happens...
Other than all that, it was a good June. Saw several bands on tour including The Goo Goo Dolls, Train, Third Eye Blind, and Jimmy Eat World. Chip and us, his owners, are adjusting to the new schedule nicely after my mom said she couldn't have him for such long stretches of time a few months ago. We're on a much shorter schedule now, but as the Fourth of July is coming up, we're worried another major holiday will send her anxiety through the roof again and force us to rely on her less and less which creates hardships. It's tough. We also saw a bunch of theater movies with friends, our cars got clean bills of health after some routine maintenance, Nicole's physical therapy ended without much resolution so that quest continues, and I even bought some Nintendo 64 controllers to use with our retro video game emulator systems for a hit of nostalgia. There was even a powerful thunderstorm that rolled through our area a few days ago. We don't get weather like that here often (Maybe once every other year) so we tried to savor the adventure of it.
A week ago, we spent the entire weekend with Nicole's best friend, Abby, and her husband at their family's beach house in Washington. It was somewhat of a goodbye as within a matter of days, they're moving back to Montana. Years ago, they moved out there to start a new life but a desire to be around family during Abby's first pregnancy drove them to move back to Portland. Now, they're once again tired of Portland and all its big-city problems, so they've bought a big house and lots of land back in Montana to settle there permanently once and for all. It was nice having them back in Portland for the last year or so, but they would routinely say how hard they felt that pull from The Treasure State. It was only a matter of time. So we got in a few days on the beach and it seemed like old times again for one last moment. We've already planned a few trips out to see them (One is only a few weeks away at the end of July) but it is a drive. Life goes on.
Since early October, I've been in a fun new role at my job but it changed on us abruptly. For years previous, I'd been doing just one thing that slowly evolved over time but never really changed. Finally, I was able to leave that position and transition into a whole different and fun job building websites for the factory instead of robotically installing software on customer equipment. Well, that all came to a strange end a few weeks ago. We were knee deep in accepting new projects as usual when all the sudden, management several levels above us told us to drop literally everything and work on an audacious new project to reinvent some of the tools that the factory uses in their daily tasks. This isn't the first time teams of developers have been given with this assignment, but all have failed previously. To our relief, we've already been told that our jobs are secure if we also fail, but that's merely given us this weird sense of detachment. If we succeed, we'll be heroes and it could lead to amazing things. I just hope I still have a place in spite of my limited skillset and lack of programming expertise. Basically, I was brought up to do one thing and I did it well but now in this new assignment, I feel a little out of place. We all do. It's hugely ambitious and scary. I guess we'll see what happens...
Other than all that, it was a good June. Saw several bands on tour including The Goo Goo Dolls, Train, Third Eye Blind, and Jimmy Eat World. Chip and us, his owners, are adjusting to the new schedule nicely after my mom said she couldn't have him for such long stretches of time a few months ago. We're on a much shorter schedule now, but as the Fourth of July is coming up, we're worried another major holiday will send her anxiety through the roof again and force us to rely on her less and less which creates hardships. It's tough. We also saw a bunch of theater movies with friends, our cars got clean bills of health after some routine maintenance, Nicole's physical therapy ended without much resolution so that quest continues, and I even bought some Nintendo 64 controllers to use with our retro video game emulator systems for a hit of nostalgia. There was even a powerful thunderstorm that rolled through our area a few days ago. We don't get weather like that here often (Maybe once every other year) so we tried to savor the adventure of it.