One Year (Almost)

OK, here's the best (brief) recollection of the past year, according to one N. A. Miller.

After the TX Republican Convention, the rest of the summer was pretty quiet. That trip burned the rest of my vacation time for the year, save one day I kept for emergency reserve, so I didn't exactly go much of anywhere for the rest of the summer. Biggest thing I think I did was finally talk my parents into cashing out the life insurance policy my grandparents had gotten for me to use for college, and my parents had subsequently convinced me to keep in case of an emergency instead. That was enough to clear my college loans, and I spent Fridays in July trying to call into the Dave Ramsey Show so I could scream "I'm Debt Free!" Never managed to get through, though. I celebrated that financial victory by using part of the leftover money to buy a laptop; got a brand new HP dv1000t right at the end of the back-to-school sales, for the same price as the previous model. It's been nice to have around, though I now have 2 laptops to drag along anytime I go somewhere (personal laptop and the one for work, in case I get called for an emergency).

When 41 initiations came along, Nacho wasn't able to make it this year due to his medical problems (more on that later), so I ended up assuming the role of "wise old sage" to the freshmen. Unfortunately, things weren't coordinated quite as well as in past years, so I didn't get to share much of my "wisdom." Oh, well, they seemed to do OK.

In September, work got interesting when the economy tanked. Our parent company had been looking to sell us since around March, and had some people interested, but when the credit market imploded, they couldn't get the loans to buy us with, so that all fell through. However, we'd finished separating our systems from Rowan's to prepare for the sale, so we've been operating as a semi-autonomous entity since then. That was nice, but at the end of October my assistant left for another job in Tyler (where he lives), so I was suddenly doing double duty. He used to handle the routine work like new users and network access requests, so that I could concentrate on the stuff that required an admin to control.

Since we're in the energy industry (everything we make is related to oil/coal/gas), a good chunk of our business dried up. This revealed some glaring inefficiencies in some areas, especially poor management of our Houston plant. November began the first round of layoffs for Houston, followed by by another round in January that also hit our Vicksburg plant, and then a third round in March that hit both of them and Longview, as well. We lost two people from the IT department in Longview, plus another in Houston. My job is secure, since when things tanked they decided not to replace my assistant, but it took me literally weeks each time to process all the paperwork and get everyone access to what they needed to cover all the gaps company-wide. Fortunately, it appears we're finally down to a managable size now; from what I've seen, LTI's even turning a profit. I'm still trying to get back to the projects that were on my list when my assistant left, but some recent reductions in what we have to do for our SOX audits should free up my time again.

OK, switching gears from professional life back to personal...

Had a notable blow-up with my part-time roommate back at the beginning of November over politics of the time (among other things). Basically came down to a difference in outlooks; he's much more realpolitick than I am, and somewhat more moderate. We went at it pretty good through e-mail for several weeks before it blew over, and we still have the occasional flare-up.

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my birthday were spent over at Nacho's place in Ruston, which was a nice change of pace. Still don't quite get used to leaving home, and I still hate the time lost in travel (especialy in my truck, more on that below), but it was good to not be alone for holidays (which I usually am more often than not). Pretty soon, I'm going to have to start considering what we'll do when he (hopefully) graduates in November.

In April, Nacho flew home to Mexico for a month to get several batteries medical tests with a new group of doctors, and left his car with a friend over there. A couple days after he left, a big hailstorm blew through that part of DFW, and did its best to turn his car's body into a lunar landscape. Since he was out of the country, and I was on the insurance, I had the fun of driving to Dallas and getting things set up with the insurance to have the body repaired and the cracked glass replaced, then going back a couple weeks later to get it out of the body shop. Two trips to Dallas in my truck, which has no radio, cruise control, or AC. The "no AC" was by far the worst as it was a warm sunny day both times. First trip, I didn't get enough fluids into me, and got myself into mild heat exhaustion. I spent from the time I got the paperwork done until after sundown hiding out in a Borders and Wal-Mart/Sam's to try and keep myself cool. Second trip went much smoother, but still not my idea of fun.

About that time, I finally had gotten a good enough emergency fund saved up that I could start looking to a new vehicle. I knew about what I wanted: 4-door, newer than 2000, less than 100k miles, larger than a subcompact, smaller than an SUV or truck. However, with the economy down, I knew it was a seller's market since people are holding onto their cars instead of replacing them. Also, I only had a few thousand to look with, so I settled into a daily routine of checking the paper and Craigslist for good deals. A couple weeks ago, I found an ad on Craigslist for an '00 Buick Regal LS, with 140k miles on the body, but an engine with about half that. I got in touch with the seller, went to Tyler one afternoon to have a look at it, and liked what I saw. It had a couple things that I knew would need work, but I was OK with that. We ended up settling on a decent price, and I am now that car's owner. Title showed up in the mail yesterday. I've had it in the mechanic to fix one problem (bad wheel speed sensor that prevented the ABS and traction control from working); just took it this morning over to have an oil change and transmission fluid flush (which will hopefully fix the jerky upshifting when the engine's warmed up); and I'm taking it into the dealer on Tuesday to have the busted front cupholder replaced and autodimming rearview mirror looked at. Hopefully by mid-week I'll have a vehicle that really does feel like new.

Tomorrow afternoon, a friend and I are going over to visit Nacho for the holiday weekend. It'll be our first chance to spend more than a few hours together since he got back from Mexico. The trip didn't do a lot of good, since the doctors weren't willing to listen to him on what's already been tried, and that (along with some other personal issues) has him down at the moment. Hope I'm able to do him some good.