Archive for 2001

December 2001 Reflections

December 16, 2001: It has been a very busy couple of months. Or year? Or years? Sometimes I wonder, the way time flies by so quickly. Summer and fall went by in a blur of indoor and outdoor projects, not to mention work. Of course, work was very strange for a while because we went through two rounds of layoffs in Westford. We lost a lot of good people, all under some notion of preserving the bottom line or something. I suspect it was really a political game gone out of control, but there wasn't much we could do about it at our level. I survived both rounds, but our site is a ghost town now. Still, things are starting to get back to normal. I'm busy working on a new project. At least it feels like we can actually do some work again. I miss the way things were before Lucent screwed things up, but I keep my morale up for the future. I still work with an outstanding group of people.

Projects? Well, let's see... I finally finished painting the outdoor swing, redecorated the dining room, and painted the guest room. I've also been doing a lot of writing projects in the little spare time that is left. I've been working on an original short story which is undergoing some major revisions, and I started an internet writer's group with some friends. I've been really enthusiastic about the group, as it is helping me keep focused on writing, but lately the discussions have been a little slow which is disappointing. I'm trying to chalk it up to people being busy because of the holidays, and I'm hoping that things will pick up again in January. Reviewing various elements of writing has been very helpful for me - it's helping me polish a lot of my writing skills. Within the next few months I should have some new fiction to post!

March 2001 Reflections

March 21, 2001: Spring is definitely on its way, or so it would seem. This weekend I awoke to a funny sound coming from our attic. There was a strange scratching, tearing sound coming from somewhere just above the room. When I went upstairs to investigate, I discovered a squirrel! I think it was trying to build a nest underneath the attic floor. It quickly scurried up to the roof and out at the attic fan. Upon closer inspection we discovered it had chewed a hole through the wire mesh surrounding the fan, supposedly keeping animals and birds out of the house! This was one determined squirrel! No doubt it thought it had found the five star hotel for nesting this spring. We taped up the fan with plastic and set out to the hardware store to buy some mesh and supples to repair the damaged material.

The squirrel was not so easily deterred. By the time we came back, it was well on its way to getting in through the plastic. In fact, it had chewed off several pieces of wood from the surrounding area in its attempts to get back in. It was a good thing we discovered the problem right away. I dread to think the kind of mess it would have made had it continued working on a nest. With much difficulty we patched up the hole with some fine mesh chicken wire. Keep your fingers crossed that the squirrel doesn't decide to create an entirely new hole!

Yesterday, of course, was the first day of spring, at least by the vernal equinox. It was a gorgeous day, too. But guess what - we are expecting a rain/snow storm tonight! Just when we thought the nice weather was here, too.

March 11, 2001: It looks like spring might finally be on its way here. It's hard to believe. We had a huge snow storm last week and a small one on Friday, but after the snow finished early yesterday morning, it has started to warm up. I think we stayed above freezing all last night and we're in the forties today. The huge piles of snow might actually be melting! Of course, the ground is completely saturated. We picked up about two feet of snow over the big snow storm on Monday and Tuesday, and in some places it is piled higher than that because of drifting. Friday's storm only dropped about five or six more inches on us, although some areas got as much as a foot. We took advantage of the snow by going skiing yesterday, and it was excellent. We went to New Hampshire with some friends, braving the slippery roads at an early Mount Sunapee in hour to get there when the lifts opened. The trip was worth it. I've never skied in that kind of powder before. We went down some of the ungroomed intermediate slopes where the fresh snow was at least a foot deep. It makes for very slow skiing, and it does have its own challenges, but it's much easier to ski down steep slopes covered in deep fresh snow than those covered in super slippery ice. The groomed slopes were very nice too. My favorite was the Upper and Lower Williamson trail. I took a few pictures, so you'll be able to see the place in a couple months after I get them developed. There are actually a couple of pictures in the photo gallery from Sunapee which Wayne took on a previous ski trip.

On to other things... finally updated the web pages after neglecting them for nearly two months. I've been trying to create some of my own graphics, and you can see the results here. The backgrounds on this page, links.htm, and fiction.htm are all homemade, as are the metallic words on the same pages, such as those above. I also created the new Doktor 13 logo which you can see on the fiction page. I'm using Corel Draw and Corel Photo-Paint, which seems to be working out pretty well. It does take a long time to make the simplest things, however.

As far as the actual content of the pages, I've updated the fiction page with current projects. That is my primary focus at the moment. I'm working very hard at my writing, so if you see delays in web page updates, you'll know why. You may also have noticed that my resume has vanished from this site. In the last few months, I've been absolutely flooded with inquiries about my job availability, in spite of the fact that my resume specifically said I wasn't looking. So I have removed my resume (it hadn't even been updated in over a year!). At some point when I actually do decide to start looking for a new job, I'll put it back up. I appreciate the interest, but I'm really quite happy with my current job at the moment. It's very challenging and I work with a fantastic group of people.

January 2001 Reflections

January 2, 2001: Alas, vacation has ended. Today was my first day back at work. It's going to be a busy week, but today wasn't too bad. Took me a while to get through my email, but the pile was not as high as it might have been. A lot of people took time off.

So here we are in January, 2001. It's sunny and very cold. No major snow storms in sight, although we're supposed to get a few flurries on Thursday. We survived our first Nor'easter of the season over the weekend. Only had four inches at our house, though it was the heavy wet stuff. They were forecasting twelve inches. It was also very pretty, and we didn't have to go anywhere. I still haven't taken all of our Christmas lights down. I'm a little reluctant because it is one of my favorite things to see at this time of year, and they look so pretty over the snow-covered trees.

Are you remembering to write 2001 or 01 on everything now? I have yet to write my first check of the new year. Let's see if I forget. I gave myself practice last night by writing thank you cards with 01/01/01 on them.

I did manage to do lots of writing last week. I finished the first part of my new story, bringing it up to about fourteen pages. It is good progress for me, but I wish I could write a little faster. I'm hoping to have this story finished by the end of the month. That is – assuming it doesn't turn into a huge story like the last one. I'm not sure when I'll post it, however, as it is part of the new Doktor13 series. Clint is working on a separate story, and we both want to finish a few of these before bringing the new website up. My best guess for posting at the moment is at least summertime. I'd also like to do another Serena story at some point in the next few months.

As for this website, you can look forward to seeing some new graphics over the coming months. Santa brought me Corel Draw 8 for Christmas, and I'm trying to learn how to use it. I created last month's holiday backgrounds and assorted graphics using Adobe Photodeluxe (came free with our scanner), but this month's colored snowflake background was straight from Corel Draw. The symmetry drawing feature was perfect for making those snowflakes. Now I just have to learn how to use the rest of the features – and there are a lot of them! I also made the “Happy New Year” graphic for the front page. I think I might actually have to read the manual this time.

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Updated February 22, 2003.