I sent out a Christmas letter with my cards. I thought I would post it here for my friends that I don’t have addresses for.

December 2009

Wow. A Christmas letter from me 2 years in a row? That probably won’t ever happen again.

The past year or so has been kind of stressful for me, but things are starting to look up. As I said in last year’s letter, I lost my job in October 2008 and started a contract position in December 2008. That contract position only lasted 4 months (I was filling in for someone on maternity leave). I found another contract position in May 2009. The position was supposed to be a contract to hire position, but the company ended my contract early in August (and laid off 15 people the day after my contract ended). All that uncertainty almost drove me crazy.

But I said things are starting to look up, didn’t I? I started a new job (a permanent one this time around) in November. It’s with a company in Moorhead. I’ve been there for about a month and a half now, and I’m very happy. I get to work with php and MySQL again, which I really enjoy working with (yes … I AM a geek).

I’m not sure what 2010 will bring, but I’m hoping it keeps on the upswing. I had been planning on buying a house, but the rollercoaster that my work life has been over the past year has put that on hold for a little while longer. While I don’t have the money saved up for a house just yet, I do have some money saved that I think I’ll be putting towards a new car in the spring. I’ve had my car since 2001, so it’s time for an upgrade.

I hope this holiday season treats you well. I hope Santa brings you everything that you ask for. ;) Make sure to take time to treat yourself well during the hustle and bustle of the holidays. Take care and have a great 2010.

Happy Holidays …

Becky

Friday nite I went to the Knickerbocker Liquor Locker (I just love that name) with Robin to see 32 Below. I was worried about the weather before we left, but the stuff I was watching passed before we left. It was definitely a hot, muggy nite. But it was still fun. Lots of people, great music, and a good friend. We wandered around people watching, ducking under the tent when it sprinkled (mainly because it’s hard for me to see out of spotty glasses ). Steve ended up coming out, so we harassed him for a while … or maybe I should I say that I did. So it was a good nite … at least until the sporadic sprinkles turned into a steady downpour with lightning around as well. The show was cut short because of the lightning and I think the rain was starting to hit the stage too. We waited a bit and then ventured out into the downpour to head to Robin’s car (and Steve wouldn’t drive us to her car … that putz managed to get a parking spot right by the damn tent). That was fun … NOT. We parked in a grassy area that turned muddy. There were no lights, so you didn’t see the holes until you fell into them. Luckily I was wearing capris, so I didn’t have to worry about my pants getting all crappy. But my shoes and feet didn’t fair so well. But our nite didn’t end there. Even tho we were soaked and had muddy feet, we stopped at the Windbreak when we got back to town. We didn’t stay long tho. When we left there, it was STILL raining … I think it might even have been raining harder. So it was definitely a wet nite. But despite looking like a drowned rat, I still had fun.

Last nite I went down to Fairmount for their street dance to hang out with Melissa. We haven’t hung out since I went to visit her in Kansas in 2002. 7 years is too long between times hanging out. But she was living in Kansas and then in Germany. Now she’s back home in Fairmount (has been for a while, but this was the first chance I got to go visit). I’m hoping we have lots more opportunities to hang out. I really missed her. They had a DJ for the dance, so the music was pretty decent and varied. There weren’t a lot of people there, but then again, it is a small town. But I didn’t go there to be around a ton of people … that was Friday nite. I went there to hang out with Melissa, and that’s what I did. Lots of laughs, catching up a little. I’m really glad that I went. She’s waiting for her truck to get to her (I’m not sure if she bought a new one or if it’s one she had when she was in Germany that just took a while to get back to her). She said that once she’s got that, she’ll come up to Fargo for a nite on the town. I’d love for her and Robin to meet. I think they’d get along pretty well. And it would be awesome to get to hang out with my oldest best friend and my newest best friend. I think we should get someone to drive us so we can all get hammered.

I’m still a little tired (the drive home from Fairmount last nite sucked, but I wanted to sleep in my own bed), and I’m definitely behind my regular Sunday routine. But my laundry is done and I have the Sunday paper (I haven’t started going thru it yet). I’m not used to going out 2 nites in a row … especially after going out last Friday nite. We’ve been going out about once every 2 months, so 2 weekends in a row takes a lot out of this old woman. LOL But it was good times … definitely worth the sleep deprivation. Can’t wait to do it again. Oh wait … next weekend is July 4th, isn’t it. And then the week after that is the Billy Currington concert. From once every 2 months to 4 weekends in a row? It’s definitely summer.

Twunch: Lunch – twitter style; loosely organized open invitation lunch meeting among twitter friends

Source: Twictionary

On December 29, 2007, I joined Twitter. At the time, I was following 2 people. As of tonite, I’m following 106 people. Up until December of last year, I didn’t know a single person that I followed on Twitter in real life. Now I know quite a few (I work with most of those). Today I added more to that list.

A co-worker of mine (Melanie, a.k.a. @AmazonGrace) organized a lunch Tweet-Up for today. I believe there were about 20 of us there. I ended up sitting near my co-workers, for the most part. But I did meet some of the other Fargo tweeps. I hope we do it again soon. I think we should do it once a month. I’ll just have to wait and see what everyone else wants to do. If we do do it again, I need to mingle more.

I think it would be fun to get together for a nite on the town too. I tried to organize that a couple weeks ago, but I’m a poor organizer of social events I guess (could that be because I’m naturally shy?). I only ended up meeting @epizoic and @kalyke that nite. But then again, all I did was post a few tweets about going up and possibly meeting somewhere.

And to think, there was a time where I said that I wanted to live in a more high tech town. I guess Fargo is more techie than I thought. I’m now following a lot more local people than I even knew were on Twitter. And I know that there are more that I’m not following … yet.

What do I need to change? Well, here’s my list (thus far), in no particular order.

I think that’s a pretty good start at a list. And everything on that list is doable as well. I just need to get motivated. To start, I need to have people riding my ass about things so that I actually do them. Once I’m in a routine, it will be easier to keep going. And once I see results, I’ll want to keep going. I’ll post updates on my progress every now and then. I’m sure I’ll tweet about it a lot more than I’ll blog about it. If you don’t see anything here or on Twitter about me making progress, PLEASE ride my ass about it.

I got my final paycheck on Oct. 31. And I have money in 2 savings accounts that I was planning to use for closing costs on a house. With that last paycheck, I should be fine through the end of this year. I shouldn’t have to dig into savings to pay bills. And I should still have enough money left to buy food … I gotta eat. But after that, I really don’t know. I haven’t looked past the end of this year. And I REALLY don’t want to dig into my savings.

So, I’ve been waffling back and forth as to if I should even go out on my birthday. But dammit … why shouldn’t I? I can’t sit around in my apartment and punish myself. I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong. I lost my job because of the damn economy and not because of job performance. I’ll get another job. I just don’t know when or where.

I’m not being selfish planning a nite out for my birthday when I don’t even know if I’ll have a job by the, am I? Dammit … I don’t care. I need to get out of my apartment. It’s my birthday and I can do whatever the hell I want to.

Hopefully the time of your unemployment is minimal. But if not, you need to make sure you don’t lose your mind while you’re waiting to find your next dream job. You can’t be searching for a job 24/7. (If you can, let me in on your secrets … LOL). You basically know what sources are out there where you live. You can’t keep checking those sources all day long. Some (like newspapers and their websites) are only updated once a day. Even if you are looking for work in an industry that has a TON of openings, you’ll still have some time on your hands … whether it’s waiting to see if you get an interview or finding out if you get the job after an interview.

So what you do with that down time could make or break you … could keep you sane or drive you stark raving mad. Here are some things that I’ve been doing to try to keep myself from falling prey to the latter.

1. Keep doing what you’ve been doing, only for yourself. Of course, this one really depends on what type of work that you’re looking for. In my case, I’m a web programmer. I have my own websites that I can work on. I’ve had ideas bouncing around in my head for web applications that I just never got around to because I was too tired after a day of work or some other excuse. I have the time to pursue them now.

2. Learn new things, maybe even something that can help in your job hunt. I’ve recently become really interested in social media. (I blame Twitter.) While I have some time on my hands, I think I’m going to delve deeper into the industry. I may never use it in my professional life, but you never know.

3. Expand your horizons. Learn a new hobby. Find something to take your mind off being unemployed, even if it is only for a hour a day.

4. Spend time with friends. Lean on your friends. They’re there for you. That’s why they’re your friends. You’d be there for them. This is something that I need to learn to do more. I tend to withdraw in times like this.

5. Clean up your house/apartment. Since you might not have time to give your place a good cleaning when you’re working full time, now is the time to do some of the things that you’ve been putting off.

Those are just a few things that can keep you occupied and your mind off things while you’re waiting to find your next perfect job. And hopefully that wait is really short.

Last nite had Sawyer Brown on stage. Robin, Dannilynn, and I went. We ate some food, watched some pigs race, and then watch the concert. It was the first real test of my camera. Yeah, I used it at Dannilynn’s birthday party, but those pics were taken inside. Last nite was more of a challenge. It was dark out and we weren’t all that close to the stage. Kind of hard to get close when you have a stroller. And loud music isn’t good for little ears. I need to do more playing with my camera to find the best settings, but I did get some okay pics for the conditions. Here’s a preview …

I got a couple of pretty good videos too. The sound is rather loud. I don’t think I have software that will tone down the sound, but I am planning on putting them up on YouTube after I do a little processing to shrink them down in size. I’ll post ‘em here after I get that done. So be on the lookout.

We’re going back to RibFest tomorrow nite. Diamond Rio is there. They were supposed to play last year, but the weather was so bad, they canceled everything for that nite. I really hope that doesn’t happen again this year. There is rain in the forecast for tomorrow, but there was yesterday too, but the weather was perfect last nite. So here’s hoping tomorrow will be too. And maybe I’ll have my camera figured out for less than ideal conditions by then.

While we were waiting for our food, she and Robin were playing around with a wet wipe. Dannilynn was giggling up a storm. She is so darn adorable. The only problem was that she stopped giggling so much as soon as I grabbed my camera. She still giggled, just not as much.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty much lazy. I watched some stuff I had on tape from the past week. That’s about it. Then I started getting ready for the concert. Robin and I went to the Daughtry/Bon Jovi concert last nite. We took a shuttle bus from Big D’s. I’m glad we did. It saved the headache of getting to the Dome and finding a place to park and having to get out afterwards. But it made for an interesting experience. But more on that later.

I met Robin at Big D’s a little before 6pm to hop on a bus. I was afraid they’d leave before we got there, but we were fine. Had plenty of time to spare. The bad part of taking the bus … they dropped us off on the west side of the Dome but our seats were on the east side. So we had to walk all the way around to get to our section. And walking through that mass of people sure was interesting. The show was sold out. They said there were 25,000 people there. I think about half of them were in line for the women’s bathroom. Geez! Why is it that there is always a huge line for the women’s but never a line for the men’s?

Our seats were basically at the top of the Dome, but there were up front almost right on the side of the stage. So, while we were way up top, we could still see the stage really good. And they had video screens. So we didn’t miss anything. And those video screens, they were cool. Leave it to a geek like me to notice them. I first noticed that they were moving up and down. Then I saw them kinda pulling apart. Apparently they were made up of some sort of strips of video. They were separate screens and they morphed into a single screen and it was just cool. And the back of the stage moved too. And had video on it as well. Very geeky and cool. I wish I had my camera with so I could have gotten pics. I tried to take some with my cell phone, but that doesn’t have a very good camera on it.

As for the concert itself. Awesome. I love Daughtry. And he was basically the main reason I wanted to go. He didn’t disappoint. And damn if the man ain’t HOT!!! He put on an awesome show. And as for Bon Jovi … I don’t know all of their music, but I know enough to enjoy the show. I missed the first few songs because I was in line for the bathrooms (grrrrrrr). But the rest of the show that I did see was awesome. At one point, he was out on a small stage basically right in front of us. If I had my camera, I could have gotten some good pics.

Getting back to Big D’s after the show was where the interesting REALLY began. We found a Big D’s bus and got on it. Some dude came on and yelled that if that wasn’t the bus you came on to get off and find the bus you came on. Uh, dumbass, when we got on the bus, we were just told to look for a bus with a Big D’s sign on it when we left. We weren’t told to get back on the same bus. Hell, I don’t even know what bus number I was on on the way there. So we stayed put. I think it would have been better if we had gotten off and on another one. But it wouldn’t have been as interesting.

Before we even left the dome, a couple of guys almost got into a brawl on the bus. I don’t know if they were both drunk or just plain stupid. I thought we were never gonna get outta there. And of course, it was right by where we were sitting. And poor Robin was sitting on the outside. Luckily nothing happened. They calmed down … or at least sat down. And we left. We made it to interstate and headed back to Big D’s. Then all of a sudden, I noticed we were slowing down and moving off to the side of the road. I didn’t think we were at the exit yet. My first thought was that we ran out of gas. Then we heard someone say something about going to jail. Robin had noticed some guy head up to the front of the bus talking on his cell phone. Apparently he was one of the guys in the ‘altercation’ before we left the Dome, and he had called the cops. I think he got the bus driver to pull over to wait for the cops. But we got going again. But the fun didn’t stop there.

A little bit after we got going, we pulled over again. This time there were flashing light behind us. Yes, that’s right … we got pulled over by a cop in a school bus. 4 people ended up getting off … one of the guys from the altercation and his wife, the guy who called the cops, and some other guy who apparently got threatened. Talk about drama.

We eventually got going again and made it back to Big D’s. Since we had been on the bus, we got in to the ‘after party’ for free (but the sign said ladies were free anyways) and got a free beer. So Robin and I got our beer and sat for a bit. They had a band … not too bad. But we didn’t stay longer than the time it took to drink our beer. We ended up going to Pistol Pete’s because Avalanche was playing there this weekend. I haven’t seen them since my birthday. And that was back in November. I think we should have gone to The Town Hall like Robin suggested instead. But then again, that wouldn’t have been as interesting.

Yes … the interesting events for the evening were not done yet. We got to Pete’s, grabbed a table, and I went and got a pitcher of beer. Unfortunately they had run out of Bud Light (WTF?!?! I guess they didn’t think they’d be as busy as they were. So they ran out. Come on dudes … plan better), so I got Coors Light instead. I should have just gotten a couple bottles, but again, that wouldn’t have been as interesting (have you sensed the pattern yet … LOL).

We were sitting there, drinking our beer and people watching. The band went on break. Our pitcher was almost empty … maybe about a glass and a half left or so. I had just filled my glass. All of a sudden I was wearing what was left of our beer. Some couple was out dancing and he was flipping her or something. Her shoe went flying off and apparently our pitcher of beer had a bulls eye on it. Her shoe hit our pitcher and the beer landed on me … what was in our pitcher and my glass. My phone landed on the floor, covered in beer. Luckily the phone was fine. Me on the other hand, I was rather went … and not in a good way. The guy that was sitting behind us must have asked if I was okay like 4 or 5 times. I said (every time) that I was fine, just wet.

The chick on the dance floor stopped and was looking for her shoe. I motioned that it was over by us somewhere. The guy felt bad, so he said he’d buy us another pitcher. Well, it turns out the bar gave us another pitcher. So we ended up with 2 free pitchers. We had almost finished off one pitcher (and we were going to stop at that point), and now we had 2 full ones. No way we were gonna drink all that. I still had to drive us back to Robin’s car at Big D’s, and she had to go pick up Dannilynn. That’s why we weren’t planning on drinking much. We did manage to give one of the pitchers away. But we left the other one almost 3/4 full on the table when we left. Good thing we didn’t pay for it.

Robin said she had no clue what had happened, just that I was wearing our beer all of a sudden. We laughed about it the rest of the nite. I think we’re gonna be laughing about it for quite some time. I mean, what are the odds? That shoe flying off and hitting our pitcher dead on like that? I don’t think anyone could do that again if they tried. And if they did, I’d kick their ass. I’d much rather DRINK the beer than wear it.

I don’t know if last nite was a sign that Robin and I shouldn’t go out together or what. I hope not. We have way too much fun when we go out. And we don’t go out that often. Last nite was basically only the 2nd time we’ve gone out since my birthday back in November. Whether it’s a sign or not, I don’t care. We’re still gonna go out together. The fair and RibFest are coming up in a couple months.

All I do know is that we’re gonna have a couple of interesting stories to tell from the events of last nite. I mean, how many people can say they’ve been pulled over on a school bus? And even though it happened to me, wearing more beer than you’ve drank is just plain funny … looking back on it that is … now that I’ve dried off.

I should go take a nap. I didn’t get to bed ’til about 3:30am and got up around 9am (I did wake up around 7am but managed to get back to sleep). And all that excitement wore me out. I’m too old for this.

I’ve been meaning to send out an email to some friends to try to brainwash talk them into using Twitter. I just haven’t sat down to do it yet. But I really need to. I need to find some Twitter-ites outside of Houston to follow … LOL.

I have a feeling I’ll be “tweeting” from my phone tonite at the rodeo. I’m going with Robin, Mona, and Allen. And then to Pete’s for the rodeo dance. Rodeo … that means COWBOYS!!!! And if you know me, you know I like cowboys. It’s times like this where I wish I had a fancy cell phone (a PDA-type phone) so I could follow along with Twitter. I can get notifications on my phone, but that would be a lot of text messages. But most of the time, I have no need for that fancy of a phone. So I’ll just have to live with it.

I’ll try to start blogging more again. But I can’t promise anything. After working on the computer all day for work, I just don’t have the energy at nite. And working from home and not leaving my apartment that often means I have a boring life. Not much to blog about. But I plan on doing some more work on my websites soon. So maybe I’ll get some techy posts up that I meant to when I registered this domain and set up this blog. But only time will tell.

I’d better get going. I have 2 hours before Robin gets here to pick me up for the rodeo … I need to figure out what I’m gonna do for supper and eat early so I can get ready. I already know what I’m gonna wear. I just need to fix my hair and makeup and change clothes. Then I’ll be all ready for all those cowboys … So many cowboys … so little time.