ah, it's longer, but I can definitely say that it's nicer riding to work in the morning now. The trail I take down is the same trail I use to take up but it's much different terrain on the way up. Heading up towards Monument, CO you basically enter a big giant field. Everything seems to stop because there really isn't anything around. Even if you're moving quickly you feel like you're not moving at all. In contrast, heading south through the airforce academy it's mostly wooded.

anyway, it was a pretty quiet ride downtown today. It was already in the low seventies when I left the door and it continued to rise a little over the 45 minutes it took.

About 2/3 of the way down I saw a cyclist in a blue jersey ahead of me and chased what I thought was a woman down (they had long hair) Anyway, I sped up and caught them and hustled by. I ran out of a little juice and what turned out to be a guy caught me and the race was on. I hung on his wheel for a mile waiting for a time to break. FInding my spot I shot ahead and kept checking back to make sure I was still ahead. I let him catch me on a little hill where the path splits mostly because I was lazy and didn't want to charge up it. He took one side of the path on the other side of the creek, I took the other side. We caught up again as we were both exiting into downtown. At a stoplight we finally got a chance to talk.

I guess when I shot past him he wasn't sure that he was going to be able to keep up. I wasn't sure that 'I' was going to be able to keep up when he shot past me. It was kind of nice to know that we pushed each other to have a better workout even though we didn't say a word most of the ride. 

Now, a little office cleaning before I dive in. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there's a dinner ride tonight. If there isn't, Ang and I are planning to ride anyway, but it would be nice to ride with the club.

I'm in my new office...

.. and as I dig through the shelves, it seems that they're already filled. I'm not sure how that's going to facilitate bringing my design magazines in. Oh well, I'll figure it out. In the meantime, everything feels a bit overwhelming, but what're you going to do. I think everything's overwhelming at first. I'm not getting any of that "Oh Lord, how am I going to do any of this!" kind of vibe yet, but I'm going to have to figure out what's going on with regards to this editing system. I'm not a PC guy and will probably never be a PC guy. I don't like editing on the PC, but I suppose I'll have to learn. HOPEFULLY I can find room in the budget to move to a Final Cut System as soon as I possibly can, but that'll probably be a few months down the line.
 

I suppose I should go and try to find my way out, the church's layout is almost labyrinthine in it's complexity.

 

Lots to do, lots to do.

 

More later.

a quote I found while cleaning out my office

I wanted to post it here, lest I forget it.

The majority of men meet w/failure because of their lack of
persistance in creating new plans to take the place of those plans
that fail.

I guess that's not a bad word for the day as I clean out my office of
the five years worth of detritus. Tomorrow, a new plan, and if this
one doesn't work, a new plan after that.

I'm done clearing out, but I'm just waiting for my last two backup
files to finish copying. Then, I'll turn the lights off and head out,
no longer a full time employee. For whatever reason I'm not that sad.
Maybe it's because I've been watching the tail spin the past couple
months.

Anyway, I'll post more after I sign the paperwork tomorrow.

I forgot to mention...

the work week there is considered to be 35 hours. Obviously there are ups and downs (which you could probably guess if you were to look at a church calendar... Christmas and Easter? big times, start of the school year and youth programs? big times. But, at the same time, Brian my boss flat out told me, "If you're done with what you need to do, you go home. There's no reason to have to hang around." SO that will hopefully be a nice thing, along with the fact that I'll be able to utilize my Y
 membership more (it's RIGHT across the street). It'll be a longer commute by bike in the morning (about 15 miles) but it'll be mostly all downhill and with the wind. (Wind here generally blows from the north in the morning and the south at night. I think it has something to do with the mountains)

here's one of the routes (with elevation info)
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=78141

the job situation...

 well, today I'm being laid off by the non-profit side of the company I've been working for the past five years. (and contractually for longer than that) There's no more money, and the side company we started to leap to when the money ran out didn't ramp up in time. It'll still continue to ramp up and I'll stay on contractually on the
 for profit side (Red Penguin), but it's kind of the end of the line for me. It's been an interesting couple of weeks realizing that things were coming to a close.

 A little over a week ago we were hanging out at a local mexican restaurant / bar after church and I asked my friend Dave about how our mutual friend Brian was doing at First Pres (the churhc I interviewed at in January). He mentioned that he was a bit streesed since they still hadn't found anyone and had been asking Dave how I was doing. I had promised Brian a call in March and figured I'd check in the next day.
                                  
 We had a meeting Wednesday morning between the other guy I work with and myself about our finanacial situtation and we worked the numbers over, trying to figure if we had another month of salary left. I brought up First Pres and we decided that it would  be best to give him a call.

 Talking to Brian, I worked out the possibility of coming on board for a 90 day trial period just to see how things went. Brian went to HR and talked it over, but they said that since they were an At Will employer (like all of Colorado), it made more sense to just hire me so that I could get benefits. So, I had an interview last Thursday...  an interview that I really feel I knocked out of the park. It was one of those moments where I felt like every word popped out exactly where it needed to pop out. Brian got called back into his supervisors office to talk about the interview afterwards, but he had a glimmer in his eye when I left.

 Tuesday I got a call that they were moving forward, but Jim the worship pastor (the aforementioned supervisor) needed to talk to Jim the senior
 pastor and Jim the executive pastor. Yesterday I got the call saying I'd been offered the job. It was maybe the mostly strangely worded job offer I've ever had.

 he said something along the lines of being "desirous to take the next
 step and engage with me".

 anyway, I go in to sign the paperwork on Monday, which apparently will also be my first day. It'll be a bump in pay along with a budget to buy
 production oriented toys (hopefully including a MacBookPro with the newly released bundle of universal apps until Apple releases the new PowerMacs.). I guess my first task will be to evaluate where the church is currently at with their production equipment and start to craft a new plan to focus where they're headed in the future.

 I turned the position down before in January, but the main issues at that point was this nebulous two months. I really wanted to turn things around
 at Red Penguin so I could stay on board there. Thankfully, with the position still open, now that I know that it's not going to happen I've
 got a pretty great safety net. God's a good God.

 In any case, it's a new adventure... one that I wasn't really planning for. It seems like it's a God thing though, so I'm going to go and be obedient doing it, and be to be able to make a bit more money is I think going to be a real blessing. Thanks to all of those who've been praying the past few months. Ang and I really appreciate it.

Bri

--
not getting enough of my blather?
check out http://flabbyironman.blogspot.com
and the Colorado Springs Film Society at
http://csfilmsociety.com