Look at all the time I don't have!

Well I'm done with my contract at Intel. They escorted me out of the building at 3:30pm and I was damn glad to go. I'm amused by the stress Intel is putting on efficiency and cost cutting when I just spent two days plugging cables in and out of a machine to verify that they worked. That's something a low-paid worker in the factory should do not one of their high paid consultants. I know how much I made and can guess how much Yoh charged Intel for those hours. Not my problem anymore.

I have the weekend and two days before I drive down to California. Sounds like a lot of time right? Well in those four days I have to:

• Empty a room full of books and boxes of papers. I need to finally sort through them, file the ones I'm keeping and shred the rest. There are lots of books that will be going off to Goodwill this weekend.
• Haul a lot of broken/non-working items down to the dumpster in our complex.
• Pack for a 4-day drive to LA and back.
• Pack to move to Seattle because after I get back from the Cali trip I'll be driving up to Seattle to stay with dustin_00 until hollyqueen and I have a place of our own.
• Attend a farewell party for me Saturday night.
• Spend as much time with hollyqueen as I can since we will be away soon.

Funny thing is this I'm not very stressed about the whole thing. While I'll miss some very good friends in Portland I'm very excited about the future for the first time in a long time. Moving to Portland was a good move but there are far too many failures here for me to stay. My marriage failed (the previous one, not the one with hollyqueen), my career stalled, we lost a child, many people who I thought were friends weren't.

A lot of decisions have been on hold lately too. I couldn't commit to joining a kayak club or volunteering because we weren't where we would be in the future. Now we know so I can start implementing some plans I've had for a while. Plans such as working with a physical therapist to strengthen my ankle so I can get outside more. Finding a taiji teacher so I can start training. Taking some classes and buying a kayak to get out on the water. All kinds of things.