"2006 isn't any better than 2005. It's the same crap with a 2 6 at the front back."
I don't really have the energy for a lengthy post, but since we're almost halfway through the first month of 2006, I thought I'd better at least post a brief update.
Jessi and I had a pleasant Christmas. Photos can be seen in the gallery. We spent Christmas Eve with my family, Christmas Day with hers. We had a generally good time at both places. It wasn't an extravagant Christmas, gift-wise, but I think both of us got several things that we liked very much. Our "big" gifts to each other were a digital camera for her and an .mp3 player for me. Good stuff.
I started to get sick during the week following Christmas, and spent from New Year's Eve until just a couple of days ago with something resembling strep throat (but not technically strep, according to the culture they did). It started as a mild headache and scratchy throat, and escalated until I was so congested I could hardly hear, my ears were on fire, my head was splitting, my throat hurt so bad that I could barely swallow and I was coughing up thick, brownish-green mucus. That's pleasant, no?
That prompted a trip to the doctor's office on the Tuesday following New Year's and almost a solid week off of work. I attempted to go into the office last Thursday, only to be stopped cold by nausea - brought on by the excessive heat in the office, congestion-induced vertigo and narcotic cough syrup. Although still not 100% healthy, I managed to crawl into work on Monday and I've been at it ever since, even working late a couple of nights to get caught up. I think a week and a half of antibiotic treatment has finally kicked this mystery illness in its hindquarters, although I must say that I'm shocked that it's taken me so long to recover. I get sick quite often, but I'm usually only down a day or two. Weirdness.
Due to circumstances that I won't go into at the moment, my sister and brother-in-law are staying with my parents temporarily. This means that my younger brother has been crashing with Jessi and I for the last couple of weeks. He's an exemplary houseguest, but I must say that the added person in the house has created some stress and I'm looking forward to my brother-in-law getting his butt in gear and getting a place for them to stay. I know everyone else is looking forward to that as well.
Jessi and I are using this month, with its promise of tax returns, to get caught up on our bills and get our finances into much better shape than they have been since we moved in together last April. Between the two of us, we make almost twice what we need to live at our current standard, we're just not very good at handling money. All that's going to change this month, and I've declared that 2006 will be my year of fiscal responsibility. And a vacation. I haven't taken a vacation in years.
At work, we've begun the initial assessment for our eventual consolidation with IOT. It's meant some extra work for all of us, but the people conducting the assessment are contractors that I've worked with before and respect a great deal. Between that and the fact that an ex-DWD staffer is in charger of our consolidation, I think it bodes very well for most of us getting as fair a shake as possible out of this mess. I'm now very confident that I will find myself employed at IOT when it's all over, but of course I can't count my chickens before they hatch. I'm continuing to investigate other possibilities, in case the IOT spot falls through. But I'm more confident than ever that my future at the State (at least my near future - the next year or two) is secure.
Well, that's really all that's going on right now. We're gearing up for a smallish LAN party at the end of this month, and we have two birthdays (Jessi's and her sister Jolene's) in between, so it's going to be a busy month, socially. It'll be tiring, but I'm looking forward to it.
-Sam
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