For the record, and for those that missed the announcement, I will no longer be working on a teaching degree. After finishing my Associates Degree last month, and doing a lot of research, I have found that I will be better off in the long run staying in the IT field, and this job is in that field. I will be working with other developers on a scheduling system used primarily in the EMS field. I have met one of the developers already and though he is not as much of a geek as I am, it looks like we will work well together.

We will travel to Hudson on Monday, July 25th to tour the office (both old and new, they are moving soon which will be fun) and look at a place to stay. I have found an apartment in River Falls, 25 minutes away, that we can sublease for three months. During that time we will look for something suitable in Hudson and finally have our own place again in November.

With this new job I am just going to stop all the other stuff i have done to make money. No more blogs, web sites, hub posts, or anything else of the sort. I will work during the day and spend time with family and on hobbies during the evenings and weekends. It will be great to get back to a normal life again. Heck, I might even start posting here on a regular basis again!

In September, I will be going back to school to work on a Bachelors of Science in Information Technology. I am fortunate that 57 of my 62 earned credits will transfer, but I do have to take one extra math class for this new degree.

I have chosen a concentration in Multimedia and the Visual Arts. This will teach me skills I need to build the consumer facing side of web sites and other online communication. With a firm understanding and 20 years experience working on the server-side of things, the classes I will be taking should give me a well-rounded set of skills for the entire aspect of web sites and online communications.

I am both excited and just a bit nervous. Previously, I would be assigned two classes that each lasted nine weeks. This spread the work load out a little more. When I go back, it will be one class at a time in 5 weeks. Though I will only have to focus on one subject a time, the shorter time period and more advanced classes will likely mean more work for me. Oh well, it will be worth it.

I know in the past I said that I really wanted to teach, and that nothing will stand in my way, but I have to look at the facts. I know the IT world – I have lived in it for many years. I am comfortable here, and quite honestly, I am much more valuable to employers with the experience I already have.

Apparently we’ve been too busy with the day-to-day living of life to take the time to update this blog.  Or too busy with the changes to write about them, and then when things settle down it would slip our minds.  Who knows, all I know is that lots have changed in the last 7 months.

One of the first changes from the last blogs, was that Shane is not working for his former employer.  There was a parting of the ways due mainly to a misunderstanding.  Apparently the boss thought that as Shane’s employer he should be in control of when and IF Shane should have free time.  Our family plans didn’t apparently mean much to his idea of deadlines and launch dates, even when notified well in advance, or when it was the weekend.

With that change it became more difficult to complete the trailer in a timely fashion like we hoped.  One of the things that really needed completing before we could work on the interior was the roof.  Well, CraigsList helped us out there with finding the right sized trusses and a wonderful price  for them to redo the roof.  Unfortunately there was several rather heavy rain storms before we had a chance to start on the roof, and with other hold-ups as well we weren’t able to complete the roof soon enough.  What do I mean about not being able to complete it soon enough, well simply that things took too long and the interior became very heavily mold infested.  Too much so, for us to feel safe to complete the trailer or move in.  Therefore the project was abandoned.

In September we moved out of Karen’s.  Instead we moved in with Shane’s brother, Scott, and his wife, Charity.  So now we are living in Arcadia, WI.  We had thought/hoped that with Ashley Furniture and Golden Plump here in town, there might be job opportunities locally.  Unfortunately we are the wrong ages and have the wrong skill-sets for those employers apparently.

December 13, my cousin, Brandi Lynn Allen, was fatally injured in a car accident.  It’s hard to believe that such a bright young woman of only 19 is no longer with us.  She will be missed by many.

Allyssa made out well with Santa this year.  She received some Thomas the Tank things, TinkerBell items, a couple of dolls, and a few other things as well.  It took her about 30 minutes, I believe to open all her gifts and she enjoyed every minute of it, and then became busy playing with her new gifts.

Unfortunately the 26th we seemed to have a bit of a flu bug around the house.  Allyssa seemed to have it first, during the late night of the 23rd, but Shane and I seemed to have a bit of it on the 26th.

Allyssa is getting bigger and is really smart too! She knows the entire alphabet and can count to ten, though some days she needs a little coaxing to get through them all. She is also at that stage where she wants to be “naked”, well, except for a diaper, and refuses to wear clothes. She also refuses to sit on the potty so potty training is progressing very slowly, or not at all right now.

Her favorite movie right now is Cars. Well actually, it is Mater and the Ghostlight which is a bonus on the Cars DVD. I think I have seen that over 100 times already. It is kind of annoying too, because every time Mater breaks his headlight she has to scream out “he broke his light!” Oh well, she’s still the most wonderful part of my life right now.

The job market in the area is crap, and although there have been a couple of options, none of them have panned out. So, Laura and I have decided to use my knowledge to build a business. We are working now on a Business Plan and actually have about a half dozen customers already, so it just might work out. The trick will be to actually keep working towards that, and not playing games on Facebook (hint hint Laura).

Shoot, gotta get back to work now. In case you don’t hear from us in the next couple of months, just remember that it is NORMAL to for us to not update the blog, so things must be normal.

I’d like to say there won’t be a lot of posts for a couple of weeks with packing and moving and settling in, but a lack of posts seems to be the norm for this site. So get ready for this blog to be normal! Maybe once we are back and we have things to share we will post more. Then again, we will be sharing those things with the very same people who read this blog, so we may not feel a need to update. Geez, what is a person to do?

Currently I am not working, nor is Laura, except to build up our new business venture. Hey, we already have nearly a dozen clients so things are looking up. We will be focusing on the area around La Crosse, WI in the coming months, so if you know someone who wants a cheap web site, send them on over to $150 Sites, OK?

I am going to try and make this the second to last move we make for a while. I am tired of moving and always wondering where my next paycheck is going to come from. So this time I am planning to make this job work long term. I will be working part time while I continue going to school. This will be the second to last move only because we decided to put all of our stuff in storage in Minneapolis and rent a room for a couple of months while we look for a place we can call home for a few years. The timing is perfect, with college students all gone for the summer there are lot’s of cheap rooms available. We’ll be able to save a lot of money this way with no ulitilies and cheap rent.

We originally planned to get a large enough truck to pack all the stuff here in Kansas City, then stop in Wisconsin to get the rest of our stuff in storage there and take it all with us. However, I really don’t want to have to move the stuff in Trempealeau twice, and it’s only two hours away from where we will be so we will likely wait until after Labor Day to deal with that stuff. Besides, our camping gear is there and we will be camping at Autumn Rose in Galesville, WI this September, so it will be near by. It will be nice to get all of our stuff together again, and to have a nice paying, albeit part-time, job that will likely become a full time position, if and when I want it to.

Changes at School

This move will effect the degree path I am following in school. Unfortunately, Minnesota does not allow the Elementary Education degree that the University of Phoenix offers. Though I still think it might be fun to be a teacher, reality has made this decision a lot easier. The highest paid elementary school teachers barely make $40K, and if I am already capable of making near $55K in the IT industry without a degree, think if what I could make with one! I will take a week off of school so we can move and get settled, and start back up on May 29th, with an emphasis on Information Technology, hopefully leading into a Bachelor’s Degree for System Analysis. I will keep you updated as I continue my education.

This time, the title “Moving Again” means we are physically moving, south, past our hold home in Trempealeau, past La Crosse, heck, even past the state line. Though we don’t know exactly where we will be living as we are in the process of finding a place now, I will start working for Verizon Wireless in Schaumburg, IL on January 12th, and we will be moving during the first week and a half of January.

There is a fun story in this for all of you to enjoy. Originally, the in-person interview for this position was set for the morning of December 29th. Then it appeared the person who was supposed to interview me was going to be traveling that week, so they asked if I could come down on December 22nd. We made arrangements to stay with Laura’s cousin Jean Ann in Lake Villa and ventured south on December 21st – with terrible road conditions the trip would take us over 8 hours. It was hoped that the trip would be worth it.

Monday morning we set off for Schaumburg, IL for the interview, and after getting caught in traffic we were unable to make the interview, which was rescheduled for Tuesday morning. We had already planned to meet my Aunt Joanne and Uncle Bob for lunch so we kept those plans, then went shopping afterward. Joanne was having so much fun with Allyssa we offered to make room in the car so she could spend more time when the rest of her party headed back home. It was nice to see Allyssa take to Joanne so well that Laura and I could go and do some last minute shopping.

Tuesday morning we left an hour earlier and arrived almost an hour early, having no problems with weather or traffic. All was looking well until I received a phone call that the person interviewing me could not get out of his subdivision and could not make it. Needless to say, I was very frustrated and decided to head back home to spend the holiday with family. We again met with Joanne and Bob for breakfast at Walker Brothers, the world’s finest pancake house. During breakfast, I received a phone call wanting me to agree to meet for an interview on Christmas Eve, which I was just not going to do. I had family stuff planned – so I declined and we headed to Holmen, WI.

On the drive home I again received a call asking if I could come back down on the 29th for the interview – the day it was originally scheduled for. I agreed and we made plans to stay in Lake Villa Sunday night and drive in to Schaumburg on Monday morning. This time, everything worked out well and the interview started on time, but went long. I left the Verizon office around 11:30 thinking the interview had gone well . Laura and I spent some time around Carpentersville, IL where I grew up, and even stopped for lunch at the Village Pizza Pub, home of my favorite pizza as a child – and it was just as I remembered it.

After leaving and getting on the highway to head home, I received a phone call shortly after 2:00 informing me that I was being offered the position, and that they wanted me to start on January 5th, but also gave me the option of January 12th. I chose the later date to give me time to finish up work I had back home and give us plenty of time to pack and move.

So that’s where I am at today – finishing up the work I started before this 1600+ mile trip during the holidays and planning how we will make the big move – yet another one in the winter. You probably won’t hear much from me until we get settled in the new place in Schaumburg, so I am wishing you all a Happy New Year – I know mine should be a little better with a full time job and steady income for a while.

Wrong! Though most of the time it is just a job for me, for the most part I do enjoy the work. The stuff I have been doing this past month has been new and challenging and a lot of fun. For those of you that don’t know, I now work for Travel Net Solutions in Cottage Grove, MN. My main focus right now is to update and maintain the software to manage the Resorts and Lodges.com web site.

It’s more than just building web pages though. I am currently working to automate their work flow process and eliminate paper trails and manual entry of data into multiple systems. I won’t bore you with the details, but just know that it’s taken me two weeks and we still aren’t done with it. Hopefully I will be done by the first of the year – at least that’s the goal.

So, although it really is a job like most people have, I get to have some fun doing it. The people I work with are all wonderful except for the occasional screaming at the top of their lungs – not because they are made or hurt, but because they are excited about something. It can get distracting, but generally does help boost morale and keep us all on track. Oh yeah, the game room is really nice too – just too bad I never get to see it!

Although I will actually have an office at work where I will spend the entire day, there is still a lot of stuff I have to do from home, for personal stuff as well as old clients. So I have set up a temporary office with my second monitor, laser printer, and even our broadband based phone system, so our old number will still reach us. Ironically, I actually have more room here for my home office then I did at the old place, so I can’t really complain. The hotel offers free wireless Internet access so I can keep in touch with family, update this blog, and do my work.

The bedroom, located directly behind me when I am sitting at “the office”, basically consists of a king size bed and a place for Allyssa to sleep, when she doesn’t sleep in our bed. Again, here we have a bigger bed then we have at home – a queen size – so we can’t complain. We brought along our own pillows so it feels like home, even though we know it won’t be the same. But this is home for at least the rest of this month.

At the end of “bedroom” is our living room / kitchen / entertainment room / pantry / whatever-else-we-need room. We do have a large color TV and cable television with free HBO, but we didn’t think to bring along a DVD player and DVD’s so the evenings could get kind of boring. Looks like we will be playing more card games until we get into our more permanent home.

Directly to the left of the living room thingie described above is our kitchen(ette). It consists of a small refrigerator, microwave oven and our brand new George Foreman grill which will help keep our dining budget down. The refrigerator has no freezer section so when we want ice cream we have to go in to town. It’s a good excuse to get out of our palatial mansion we are calling home.

And if you think this is small, check out the walk-in closet / bathroom we have! Lot’s of room in there.

Well, it’s home for about 3 weeks unless we find an apartment we like that’s available before December 1st. We lucked out to find an extended stay hotel that has wonderful weekly rates, only $199.01 per week. Though I would prefer to use that money to pay rent, I need to be in the area for work and this is better then a 2 1/2 hour commute from Trempealeau every day.

So, now you know what’s up with us. Keep an eye out here as I will try to share all the great new changes in our families life, including the wonderful (hopefully) new job I have.