My new pet

As you can see on the right I have adopted a pet! My kids found then and thought they were really fun so they showed them to me. His name? "Purple Tiger will eat you"... and he will if you keep your cursor in his cage for too long! He'll play with your cursor and you can pet him and feed him if you like.

Beauty and the Beast

I know this is unusual for me to post twice in one night (much less per week :-0 ) but I think this is pretty exciting. Our stake is putting on the musical Beauty and the Beast and I decided to try out for the part of Cogsworth. I found out that there were at least 4 others who were trying out for the part as well. I went to the initial screening earlier this week and I thought I did pretty good with the reading. The panel laughed at all the right spots which I took as a good sign (it very well could have been courtesy reactions). But then I got invited back for a second screening to 'test the chemestry'. The only problem is that Wyatt was being baptized at the same time they wanted me there!!!! Naturally I chose family first and attended the baptism, having given them my cell phone number just in case. Well, about 10 minutes before we made it home they called and wanted me to come in as soon as possible, which I did.

When I got there they handed me a short section of the play and gave me about 1/2 hour to go over it. It was the section where Cogsworth and Lumiere were talking about others in the castle who 'fit' what they were changing into (a part that is not in the Disney movie). When they called me in I did the parts in my practiced 'posh' accent and added emotion. Again they laughed at the all the right spots, etc. When they were done they gave the schpiel about 'if you're not selected don't be mad' and that they would want me to participate in some other way in the play. They finished with say that 5:30 pm today was the time they would post the cast.

I didn't have too high of hopes (mostly so I wouldn't get too disapointed) but Anna Marie, who came with me to the callback, was quite certain I would get the part. She had 2 reasons she thought this, 1. they went out of their way to call me in and 2. she watched my performance and said I did really good. I must be a better actor than I make myself out to be because lo-and-behold when I looked at the cast listing tonight, I found out that I got the part!! Imagine me as Cogsworth! A friend of mine will be Lumiere so that will make it even more fun.

This will be a good distraction in the evenings as I look for a job, I also think it will be lots of fun.

Still looking for a job

I know it's only been about 2 weeks since I have been looking and I need to be patient but I have a family to feed! Unfortunately a lot of companies have a hiring freeze and are waiting for the economy to improve. I have also got to remember that the hiring process takes a while for each company as well. Even though they laid me off I am still grateful that Onyx gave me a severance package because it allows me to float for a little bit.

I have recently signed up for facebook! Within the first day there were several people who added me as their friend. I've heard that this is a great way to network too. Still crossing my fingers for getting a job soon.

Layoffs, downsizing, whatever you want to call it

So Thursday I went in to work and only had time to check emails and start testing my latest fixes when we were called into an unexpected meeting. When I walked into the room Sheri from HR was there with a folder on the table in front of her. Once everyone from my team was gathered she began saying that the company was having financial difficulties and needed to down-size. She then began listing the names of those who would no longer be working for the company. When she reached my name in the list I was stunned; too stunned to listen to the other names in the list. In all there were around 10 names on the list, mostly engineers. At the time there were about 50 people employed by the company so 20% of the company was affected by the layoff. Basically the company for the last couple of years has been making around $1 million per month. For the last 2 or 3 months profits have been declining, in fact this month so far they have made 1/4 of that. Something had to go and the fairly new CEO was the one who made the decision who to lay off. I'm pretty sure he decided to make the decision based on dollars, not only because that is what my supervisor said but also it is apparent to me that those on the list were long time employees and obviously had higher salaries.

I have many good friends there and learned a lot from them. I learned quite a lot from them and I will miss working with them. Now it's time to look for work. We are fine for a little while because I have been given 2 months worth of severence pay. I just hope I can find a new job soon.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas went well. The kids got gifts that they really like, Dan got a nerf dart gun game (most darts are already lost in the house somewhere), Emma got "Littlest Pet Shop" toys and Anna Marie got an I-Pod Nano which she loves. The biggest family gift we got was Sammy, a Budgie, which they all have a really good time with. The bird is still really shy but is getting used to its cage and the family.

So I also got a chance to work on one of the graphics cards. I re-soldered a few joints and was able to get better results out of it. It passed the initial tests but failed miserably when DirectX shaders were in use. The strange thing is that the OpenGL shaders worked flawlessly. I would think that the shaders for both API (OpenGL and DirectX) should use the same logic on the GPU so this is really puzzling. Basically I am using a simple pixel shader for bump/normal mapping and that same exact code is used (CG code) whether I am in OpenGL or DirectX. Maybe there is still a component outside the GPU that is having problems; something that is only active when DirectX shaders are being used. Unfortunately that is a big deal as all modern games use CG so the card is still pretty much useless. I'll have to start looking at the other card soon, maybe I will have better results with it.

Awareness

So my brother sent me an email about change. Basically it was a petition for Obama to change things and it specifies 4 goals:
* Move to 100% clean electricity;
* Cut our dependence on oil in half;
* Create 5 million new clean energy jobs;
* Cut global warming pollution by at least 80%.
The problem is that it doesn't give any way to accomplish these goals. Also, can you see the holes and contradictions? What jobs can be created? What about the jobs lost to oil? What electricity is 100% clean? How can you place a metric on global warming when it isn't even understood? Ideas without a plan just ideas. If you go to change.gov you will be able to see that Obamas' plans are mostly in line with this anyhow.

After going back and forth with with my brother on this it basically comes down to awareness. Aware of how we pollute this planet. Aware of how dependent we are on foreign oil. Aware that we need to develop new alternatives for producing power. Aware of our own wasteful habits and contribution to the problem.

Getting ideas out there will hopefully inspire someone to find a solution. Find a way to produce cleaner electricity. Maybe a way recycle nuclear waste. Or how about a new engine that runs on clean energy. I like the idea of "Mr. Fusion" from back to the future ;)

So here I am spreading the word. Be aware. Without change things will only get worse.

Annoyance

So earlier this week we get a visit from city ordinance. Apparently someone complained about our dead sunflowers so we were given 10 days to 'clean it up'. What's worse is that I've had a bad head cold this week. We have done the same thing for several years now with no complaints at all. So I had to clean it up being sick. At least I had help from the rest of the family. ;)