I’m a bad news first kinda guy.  Lucky for me the news could be much, much worse, but it’s not.  We had to go through another round of layoffs at work and our department wasn’t as lucky as it was last time.  I wasn’t part of the layoffs, but nonetheless they left a sour taste in my mouth about my future, the future of the company, and my opinions of some individuals at the company.  Don’t get me wrong, I like it here and I hope the place is around longer than I am, but it’s hard to NOT have doubts about these things when you have to watch your friends walk out the door and stand there wondering all sorts of things.  Like I said, it could have been much worse for me personally, but it’s hard to keep a positive attitude amidst all that’s going on.

I avoided going out people from work because I didn’t want to spend the money at a bar. So after “Black Friday” I went home and mulled some things over all by my lonesome.  Mike was out of town for a wedding and Joe was tied up, so I had a few beers, bored myself with some games and found myself in a staredown with the clock… just waiting for a reasonable time to go to bed.

Saturday was more or less the same.  Kristen called me around 10am and invited me over to have waffles with her and Joe and I hung around there until noon or so.  I loafed around until dinner, went and had a burrito, then went to the Apple store to buy Quicken for Mac.  (FYI: It sucks.)  I really just wanted to get out for a little bit.  Later on Kristen called me and invited me to Don Pablo’s for dinner… I just had desert since I have alredy eaten.  Then we went over to Stephanie’s for a few beers but nobody wanted to do anything but sit around and be tired.

The next morning I went to church and almost immediately went up to Mom and Dad’s place for the day.  I got to see Yahtzee again.  She’s getting so big!  I think mom said she’s up to a whopping 16/17 pounds.  Dad taught me how to drive a stick shift.  I was getting pretty good at it, I think.  I stalled more times than I could count, and still need some practice, but I could do it by myself if I had to.  After a nice delicious dinner and a little bit of television I went back home.

Here it is Wednesday and I suppose I’ve cheered up a bit since Friday, but it’s really just a matter of my thoughts being shoved to the back of my mind so I can do my job.  Monday was a pretty confusing day as the layoffs left pretty much all the teams missing people.  I’ve had work but it’s been pretty stale around here.  We’ve been told that the company is at a “sustainable” point with our current business level, but I think it’s best to prepare for the possibility of the worst, regardless.  Hopefully things start shaping up soon to lift the cloud over us.
See ya.

Tags: cars, home, work, yahtzee

This weekend my mom IMed me and told me that my dad was going back to his old Job in Cincinnati (The same foundry that I used to work at) and that they would be selling the house and moving to Cincy in (hopefully) near future.  Now that I no longer live in Franklin and none of my friends live in Franklin (at least nobody I talk to on a regular basis) that pretty much means that chapter of my life will come to a close and that at best, I won’t have a reason to visit but once a year, if that.

Franklin was the place where I grew up.  My family moved from Troy in 1989 when I was 7 when my dad got a job at a Foundry in Franklin. (which he left to go the place in Cincinnati, then went back to, and is now leaving again for the same place in Cincinnati.)  Having only lived in Cincinnati for the last 3 years, it’s not hard to say that most of my memories are of Franklin.  I spent the majority of my life there.  I met my best friends there.  I graduated from Franklin High School, learned to drive around the streets of Franklin, voted for the first time in Franklin… you get the idea.  I can barely remember Troy.  I remember certain things, I’m sure I could strike up some memories if I had to, but a lot of it is very faint.  Granted, I was 7 when we left, but I couldn’t tell you exactly how to get to my old house or schools… I might be able to draw a rough diagram of our house but I couldn’t tell you what color the carpet was, where the fridge was in the kitchen and such.  My point is that while it was my home, it no longer seems to be as big of a part of my life.

Although my mother seems to be a bit worried about what the future holds I think this is absolutely awesome.  I think that they should just move to Oakley but I don’t think they are too keen on the idea.  Just as long as they are closer I think I will be satisfied.

Mike has been looking for an apartment with one of his friends for about a month now.  Their desire to find a place had been on and off a bit since Mike moved back to Ohio, but Mike looked at a place on Saturday that he’s super excited about and his friend is going to check it out with him tonight.  Who knows.  He might be moved out by the end of the week for all I know.  He knows he’s welcome to stay with me as long as he wants but I think sleeping on a couch for about 7 months has hit its limit.

I hope to be looking at houses soon.  A year ago I said I wanted to start looking around this time and in the Spring, when the bottom sort of fell out of economy and the dollar began it’s great downward spiral I thought that I should wait up to a year longer to make sure I have everything in order.  But now I feel like I’m in a “s**t or get off the pot” situation.  The way I see it, I can keep saying I’m going to start looking at a certain point in the future and keep pushing it back 6 months at a time or I can buckle down, start taking the steps I need to take now and be prepared to jump on a deal that comes along.  I’ve really started doing my homework and I’ve filled out a few pre-approval applications online that have told me a rough estimate of how much I’m going to need to front at closing, what interest rates I can get and such.  I’m working on devising a budget that can fast track me to that amount.

The biggest issue with my plan is my job.  I haven’t had a raise in a year and a half.  I can understand that we had to let people go earlier this year and that the economy is in rough shape, but it doesn’t change the fact that my research shows that I am well below the bottom of the “average” for my job in the Cincinnati area.  I love my job, but I don’t know how much longer I can love it if I can’t achieve my goals while I’m working here. I know I can’t build my financial plan off of expecting a raise, but I do think it’s fair to expect that you can at least keep up with inflation.  Doesn’t seem to me like 0% is keeping up with anything.  Anyway, I’m ranting now so I better stop.

See ya.

Tags: Franklin, House, Mike, Oakley, work