Roll up the sleeves

I typically don't enter into public political discourse, but I just wish all citizens of this great country would put aside their petty grievances and get on with it.  ALL need to roll up their sleeves to get us back to prosperity again. 

Back to Auburn and the bubble...Microsoft is laying people off today and more throughout the year.  Hopefully that will be met by attrition and not more outright layoffs.  I frankly don't want the competition.  I'll ramp up my volunteering a bit to at least make new connections in the area.

Wednesday was an exciting one for my 4th grader...His bus driver might not have thought it, but Spencer thought the slide down the little hill and into a light post was pretty fun.  No one hurt and the bus suffered just a bit of damage.  The road was ICY.  I heard that the mayor wasn't happy about the loss of the pole, but then the school district transportation folks thought that if the city had been out de-icing, the bus might not have slid down the street!  Communication is a wonderful thing!

Debbie's job goes well and I think she is getting into a routine.  They've asked her to stay late two days a week to help with an after-school program (two more hours of pay!!!).  

Job search marks time.  I spent a good amount of time wrapping up online courses for reserve points...got a bit behind the power curve so needed to essentially do one course per day for 3 weeks solid.  Now I can get into a better routine.

TTFN

Water Water EVERYWHERE!

We thank our lucky stars that we moved OUT of Pacific when we did.  My oh my!

I spent a few hours Sunday helping out our friends and former neighbors.  Can we say ICKY mud throughout the garage?!?!

Kudos to Home Depot for sending folks down there from their stores to help (I assume HD is paying for them to be there).  They brought pumps to de-water crawl spaces (nasty "basement" pools...); loads of boxes for people to pack up stuff to move; and hauled away soaked sand bags.

The Red Cross has been down there working on handing out supplies to people (the squeegee was GREAT) and food and helping as they do.

King County folks were down there too, helping with trash removal and other things.

Volunteers.  Many stories of folks just down there with no connection to the people impacted -- just working away.  A couple of guys pulled up to our friend's driveway and started loading up the back of their pickup with garbage to help haul it away!

Of course, we need to figure out why the release of water caused so much devastation and why no one there got any warning!

TTFN

This is why

I'm so happy Debbie has gainful employment...

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/37291099.html

And this...

http://www.komonews.com/news/national/37292639.html

We've got the WAMU folks hitting the streets soon, so we can all be in the same boat together. 

More positive posts later...

Rain Rain go away!

Employment started officially for Debbie Tuesday the 6th.  I think this will be good all the way around.

I continue to look for that dream job -- applying for quite a number of federal positions.  One out-right rejection so far.  Keep trying.  Not that I want to go there, but there are about 59 weeks of benefits available...that's a LONG time and I hope the economy improves before then.

I've joined Kiwanis of the Valley.  We meet at 0700 on Wednesdays and it's a good group incredibly devoted to helping kids at school -- whether it's kids that need a leg up or recognizing those kids doing a super job.

Now the rain...it's NASTY.  Between my sore knee and the wind and wet, I don't really feel like launching into a training run any time soon.  Maybe Friday morning I'll do a swim!

I've listed the link to the right, but Cliff Mass is the guy to watch for the local weather:  http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/.

TTFN