Hello once again, dear reader.

I know it has been ages since I last posted. Since you are apparently still checking, I will bring you up to speed on what has happened the past three months.

Act I. Less than a week until Christmas. My boss calls me (and everyone else) in. Sales have been quite bad. The company is going into “hibernation mode.” I am laid off. Effective immediately. There is a tiny severance package, but nothing that really reflects the decade I spent at a particularly boring job that was not putting my skills and talents to good use. I am freaked out, but I know that it is just the kick I need to find a job that suits me better.

Act II. Job hunting. There are some jobs around that are a good fit. I apply. There are other jobs that I wish were a good fit, but that means having a PhD. I start talking about finally returning to school to earn a doctorate (this time, in Mathematics) after dropping out of a Computer Science PhD program (ABD) ten years ago. Stress levels are high at home. Interviews are taking forever to set up. In late January/early February, I finally interview at a couple of places.

Act III. Mid-February. Colorado State University offers me a job developing disease spread modeling software (NAADSM). After some agonizing, I decide that it is where I should be. I can bike to work, take classes, and work on something that I believe is making the world a better place. In general, I can get back to my core values.

Epilogue. Tomorrow I start my new job. It has been an anxiety-filled few months, but now I can relax and get back to productive work. I can also wrap up my admissions essay, contact my references, and re-take the GRE (What?! The one I rocked 15 years ago is no longer valid?) in the next week.

In the meantime, I have been directing some of my stress energy into writing new songs. None of them are completed yet, but they are definitely moving forward. I am not certain what sort of project these will be released under, but I do think that they are going to be released sometime. I have decided that I must finish up and release my currently pending projects before I begin school in August. That is roughly what my release schedule looked like anyway, but now it feels like even more of a must. Hopefully having a real deadline will push me more than wishful thinking has the past couple of years.

Tschuess.