News from the Hill Country...

Well, all has been quiet on the bloggy front for a while now, so I thought I would break the typematic silence here and post a core dump of what's going on.

This week I graduate. I have 2 final exams that I'm studying for - one on Thursday morning, and one on Friday. I am surprisingly calm about the whole thing, and caught-up on all my work. Most other folks in class are fairly behind, and usually I am one of them. However, a friend Rich and I have been getting together to do homework and partner on projects all semester, and this pseudo-accountability for getting our stuff done early has really paid off. This coming Friday (my last day of class) we have a dinner in the evening, and then on Saturday I do the formal ceremony with the cap and gown. Maybe it'll be all topped off with a Rose Bowl win on New Years Day, as my school is currently 12-0, #2 behind USC. Not that I track football like every other Texan, but still, it's an "isn't that speeecial" moment to have my university possibly win the Rose Bowl.

Freescale (where I work) laid off ~100 people on Wednesday last week, and I was not one of them. Why the layoffs? Nobody knows. Company is doing well, and Wall Street seems to like us. So some folks apparently needed killin, but many other folks were very sharp, and not screwed up relationally either. It was just like names were picked out of a hat. Not very uplifting for morale. Freescale has pretty much disowned its own employees in favor of stockholders and analysts, and nobody there has any loyalty whatsoever. In other related news, the website LinkedIn.com (which I have become an evangelist for) was bursting with traffic this week as many Freescalers logged in and connected up with one another, and their external business contacts. Since last Wednesday I have about 10 more contacts. People are getting ready for the next sniper attack from on high. One guy who was laid off has already used LinkedIn to get about 4 interviews lined up, and he's been out of work for less than one week. The site is really useful.

Of course, I am not a paid endorser of this site. But for all your household needs, visit amway.com.

Caleb had a CT scan this week to see why he keeps getting sinus infections. Or rather, why he hasn't ever rid himself of the same lingering sinus infection. Turns out the scan showed his passages are still clogged and infected, so he's back on antibiotics. And he's back to the doctor again to evaluate what to do next, given his allergy test results (he's allergic to nothing that isn't imaginary.)

Emily is saying words here or there, but never repeating them more than once. I think she recited the Declaration of Independence last week, but she doesn't do encores. Jenn's mom said she said "night night" this morning before her nap, but it cannot be proven. I guess she likes to quit when she's at the top of her game. "Did you like that? Thank you very much; you've been great. I'll be here all week."

On that note, that's all for now. I need to get some sleep. I'll be here all week.