A few items

Hi there. There comes some great benefits from Rachel working at BYU. One really great one is that I can go to school there for free and get 20% off books. I am seriously considering getting back in there now. I am deciding between a Management path or something like Communications so I can be involved with Broadcasting. It has to be undergraduate or it costs.

Another thing is that I love the rain! Being from the great Pacific Northwest, rain was the breath of life. Sure if you live there, you get sick of it.. But deep, deep down, you always love it. I moved to Sacramento, then here to Utah. I will tell you, you really start to miss it. I get the craziest looks from people when I pine for the wet stuff. One of the funniest things I ever heard about people in the Northwest was that they don’t tan, they rust! It’s true. I miss my home in Washington! I miss seeing Mt. Rainier every day that it was clear. I miss my family and old friends. I will make it back there.. oh yes, I will.

Wyatt has his first T-Ball game today. We are so excited for him. I will try to upload some pics and video clips to here or my home page, or both. The one contradiction, I hope it doesn’t rain for the game.

I am working on a very introspective post that I should have up by the end of the week. I’ve seen some bloggers also do this. I don’t want to reveal too much but it should be fun and I will encourage my fellow bloggers to do the same at some point. I also would like to let you know that currently, this blog has about 3,500 hits. The one year birthday is on the 15th of May and I think it would be awesome to get that total up to 4,000 hits by then. Tell all your friends and family about this little blog! Thanks!

Be good, Have a good day and SMILE!

-Timmy

How’s It Goin’?

It’s going pretty well, considering everything. As I’ve learned somewhat reluctantly over the past years, life is never without its challenges for very long. I don’t know what it is about my lovely wife, but she seems to be a magnet for trials and other difficult issues. I keep dismissing it as Heavenly Father just really wants her to be on her toes all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming stuff that happens on her. If you’ve known her any time before we were married, you know that this pattern of difficulty has not only been a recent addition to her life. Aside from all that, here’s what is going on…

Rachel, while doing better in general, is starting to feel pain in her elbows. There is also some odd bit of something on the back of her right hand. We initially thought it was some swelling, but it has some substance to it and it will move around a little. She is still on the hunt for a decent job. Rachel is definitely feeling more positive about things in spite of her difficulties. I love her so much!

Wyatt is learning to read and write!! His Auntie Ruth is a kindergarten teacher and has some great methods and materials to get him interested and in the learning mode. He’s been learning a lot of sight-words. These are small words that he can memorize by sight and not have to sound them out. He has 50 to do and already has about 20 mastered. He has, as we’ve always known, an incredible mind. (yeah, I can brag on my boy!) It’s always been very impressive to watch this child’s mind work things out and think logically to solve problems. We are working to get him to a place where he can test-out of kindergarten and go straight to first grade. We’ve discussed this and feel that if he’s not being stretched or challenged enough, his boredom quickly turns into misbehavior. Have mercy on his teacher… On top of all his smarts and intelligence, he is so freakin’ cute! If you ever meet him or if you already know him, I DARE YOU to not love him!

What about me? I’m good. I’m still struggling to grasp onto this new job. I am trying to fight off my inherent lazy streak. I am trying hard to learn these systems and methods. It’s not really difficult it’s just still foreign to the methods that I’ve picked up in my past jobs as a tech support agent. I’m getting there… I had a bit of a scare a few days ago when I checked my glucose levels for the first time in a month and it was an abominable 231! I had been continuing my meds as prescribed, but have really become careless in my diet. I had become very complacent and while knowing I am still diabetic, that I was under control enough to not have to pay much attention. I became somewhat aware there might be a problem when I started to have a bit of blurry vision that was all to familiar. I am now back to a healthy 95+/- level. I’ve also been working on XRT-FM 2.0 for a couple weeks. So far, it’s been challenging, but now it’s at a good point where I can break away from it to let more ideas flow in.

There you go! That’s how it’s goin’. We’re good. We still need your prayers, as always. We’re not at all immune from the evil influences in this world… heck, last night we watched Clerks for Heaven’s sake! (funny flick, by the way!) Love you guys! Be good!

-Timmy

Time is nearing

Hey kiddies! Something that’s been kind of back-burner’d for awhile is starting to creep into the front-burners a bit. We still have some time, but nonetheless it’s an issue. Rachel was laid-off from her job back in October. They gave her a decent severance check and then she has been on unemployment for a few months now. This along with pulling Wyatt out of daycare/kindergarten has proved enough for our needs. Rachel has been steadily searching for jobs and has gone to many interviews ultimately not landing any of them. The concern is that come June her unemployment ends and we will have to be very creative with our finances.

I’ve mentioned here a few times that Rachel’s skill set is in an odd place. She’s very overqualified for the typical administrative assistant and doesn’t have the education for a statistical or business analyst position. Her job previously was perfect as she was a hybrid of all the above. She has the experience needed to fill those roles but lacks that slip of paper that says she has a degree.

We are really searching for ideas. How can we best settle this situation? Maybe with a single income, she can better qualify for student loans or assistance and go to school and get that degree. I wish I knew. Can any of you provide some ideas? On a more spiritual level, we are starting to feel like maybe the Lord is letting us know that Rachel doesn’t need to have a full-time job. It’s never been so hard for her to land at least something.

Let us know what we can do…

Thanks all,

-Tim

My quandary

I am currently working as a temp at Novell for their internal help desk. It’s a great job in that I get to learn a lot about using the Linux operating system and some Novell software. It’s a horrible job in that it’s temp. I don’t get any holiday or time-off pay. I don’t get any 401k matching. The job pays ok, but it’s really unsatisfying. The situation as far as getting hired on permanently is like this: No one is usually hired on directly in the help desk. Generally, a staffing company recruits agents and after a period of about 9 months, Novell can choose to hire them or let them go. The reason for the 9 month period is that the staffing company and Novell have an agreement and if Novell wants to hire someone before the 9 months, they would have to do a buy-out and pay that staffing company. This makes sense and is just fine for most folks. Since I was not referred to Novell through a staffing company, I am employed a little differently. I am still working for a staffing company, but am not subject to the 9 month minimum. Knowing that fact makes things a lot more frustrating and makes me even less patient with the whole deal. I have been performing very well, I have learned a lot and am a great asset to the team (not my words). Why wait to hire me on? If it costs Novell nothing extra to hire me from a staffing company, what is the delay? That is one side of my quandary.

I was approached by a former fellow Intel employee to come lead a team of agents for a new support company. The money will be good, the benefits are there, and I would be managing direct reports. That’s exactly what I was working on when I was at Intel. The interviews have gone very well and I am expecting an offer this week. Everything looks really good about this new job. Now with Rachel looking for work, we don’t have the carpooling benefit right now to factor. The only hangup is Wyatt’s kindergarten.

He goes to school right by Novell in Provo. He was able to begin kindergarten early because he goes to a private daycare. It worked perfect for this whole time because Rachel worked nearby. Now she’s looking at jobs in Salt Lake County (where most of them are) and my new job would also be up there. We would need to find him another daycare and I’m not sure there’s many of them that have a kindergarten built in.

I open this issue to you. I’m looking for general advice as far as should I wait for Novell to hire me on or go for this job and kind of mess with Wyatt’s education? I’m also looking for you to maybe email or call Rachel to give her some encouragement and love for this challenge.

Thank you!

-Timmy