Catching Up...

We were suppose to go to Hot Springs National Park this month, but life got in the way.  Out of all the National Parks, I suppose this one gets us the least excited, so it was somewhat easy to cancel.

Back to October – I got a new job.  After about a four year drought of good job opportunities, it poured.  I got one offer from a traditional architecture firm just south of Denver, CO – except they were not exactly traditional.  I felt these people were taking a slightly different approach to the industry and had a huge future ahead of them; I am keeping them in my contacts.  I turned it down.  The timing was not quite right – also finding temporary housing in the area that accepted dogs was difficult…very difficult.

I had also put in for a job advertisement for a plans examiner in Boulder, Colorado.  Ha – like they would ever call me.  They did…after the phone interview, I figured they wouldn’t go further… they did.  While out on vacation in September, I took a couple hours at the beginning of our trip to do a personal interview.  It wasn’t really a great match – and I think they sensed it too.  I didn’t get an offer (I believe it was down to three people, so my guess is they went with someone local with more plans examining experience – I had none).   But, I can write that down on my resume…interviewed for City of Boulder, Colorado.  At one point in the interview, one of the ten people at the table made the comment “we definitely are not as corrupt as Illinois”.  I could only laugh – no you are not – nobody is.

Anyhow, there was this other plans examiner job at Will County Land Use (a bit closer to home than Colorado…but still about 50 minutes from home).  At the interview, I walked out feeling good – no apparent red flags.  The offer fairly shortly followed, and well – after a little negotiating, I found myself a new job…with benefits.  It has been going well so far!  I have been there about five weeks.

And then the other news…  I have an eye problem.  In 2009, at a routine glasses Rx updated, the optician at Target discovered a growth in one of my eyes.  I went on to visit a retina specialist – several doctors looked at my eye that day and nobody knew what it was…a very unique problem.  They all just thought to watch it - if it isn’t changing, then leave it.  Well crap, on November 6^th, while working in front of the computer at my new job – it changed…quite drastically…in a few minutes.  What happened was that the growth somehow changed, rupturing a blood vessel, which then bled into the eye.  It has been a very frustrating month (they said it can take months for all the blood to be absorbed back into the body).  Well – that Hot Springs vacation on the 13^th went down the drain very quickly.  My vision is still 20/20 (with glasses), but, I have major static…which has changed to static clumps…creating difficulty with concentration while reading/writing.  Next?  A specialist in Chicago in early December…ugh.   I suppose in the end, it is a good thing that Colorado didn’t happen right now.