Last Day Chillin'

Last day chillin'
Originally uploaded by Susie Barber

Well, the day has finally come: after 9 months of unemployment (3 months of which were spent traveling and 2.5 months of which were spent healing from my stupid bike crash), I start working tomorrow. Yep, you heard it right -- I'm going to be working.

I was lucky enough to get a year-long contract with Cisco working as a Business Analyst in their Business Collaboration Technology unit. This group is bringing social networking technologies to Cisco's 100,000+ employees world-wide. It is over the hill in San Jose, but I can telecommute some. Who would have thought that I'd end up with such a cool job in this economy? I really feel like I hit the lottery.

I do have to admit, that while I'm relieved to land a job and excited about the work I'll be doing, I'm sad that my semi-retirement is at an end. It's been pretty liberating to wake up each day and decide what I'd like to do for the day (without spending much money, of course). I've had the opportunity to travel to parts of the world that I never thought I'd get to, catch up on all my reading, get a lot of bike riding in (until the crash) and just generally decompress and reassess my life. My priorities are definitely different than they were a year ago and I feel much more "chill". I know what you're thinking, but I stopped taking my pain killers and muscle relaxants more than a month ago!

I'm extremely lucky to have traveled and spent so much time out of work without incurring any credit card debt, selling my boat, or touching my retirement accounts. Hell, I still have money left in my checking account. Though I do wish I had the money to remain retired forever, that's just not the case yet.

But in the meantime, I can honestly say that getting laid off last summer was the best thing that ever happened to me.

The Long Awaited Update

On the morphine drip
Originally uploaded by Susie Barber

OK, so sorry for not updating in so long, but I have my reasons. Firstly, I did manage to send in two entries to the Wonderlust and Lipstick travel writing contest. I wanted to do more, but I'll get to that in a minute. At Erika's suggestion, I sent in the 'incompetent guide' entry from my time in Chitwan. And while I could have picked from so many great memories (the elephants and camping on "the beach" in Thailand, spending some of Ramadan in the Middle East, the African safari), I sent in another Nepal story. What can I say? Nepal was just my favorite place and my time with Prem staying in that small village warms my heart every time I think about it. It's probably the most "authentic" experience that I had (meaning least touristy). We'll see how it goes.

Now, you might wonder, why only 2 entries. Well for those of you who don't follow along on Facebook or Twitter, I had a bit of a cycling accident. I won't bore you with the details -- Sarah wrote it up very nicely here. The damage: 4 broken ribs (numbers 3-6 in back and they're not very clean fractures) and a cracked collar bone. We'll ignore the bruised shoulder blade for now. After some hours in a San Luis Obispo ER, they let me go back to Santa Cruz (with a friend driving). After a day at home, I had some muscle spasms that made it nearly impossible to breathe and I thought that I had punctured a lung. So after a quick call, Patti took me to the ER and I was admitted into the hospital for a few days. And, since we found out that morphine makes me itch really bad, I was strung out on both morphine and benedryl for some time. Who knew benedryl could be injected into IVs? Patti took me home for a couple of days after and since, I've been back home getting by with some help from my friends. And pain killers. I saw my doctor yesterday and get to start PT in a week or so. I get to pedal the bike on the trainer as soon as I can get someone to help me set that up. So things are looking up. The job search is just a bit on hold for now.

Anyway, I was remiss in getting more contest entries in. Hope you understand.