Winter

It's a good thing its a weekend, thats all I have to say.
We are experiencing a wet warm front moving in from the south and a cold front coming down from the north. They are meeting in our little section of the world. The rain from the warm front is falling through the cold front and if not freezing on the way down, freezing as soon as it hit the ground that is at or below 32 degrees. There's a nice coat of ice on just about everything. I darn near fell on my butt just getting the paper at the end of the driveway! Even the squirrels are having a hard time because the feeders are coated too. The roads are skating rinks. Lots of accidents. By the way, the US National Skating Championships are being held in Portland this week with the finals this weekend. More than a coincidence????

I'm happy to report that Troy underwent surgery this past Wednesday and all went well. He'd bent the metal plate put in when he broke his arm in September. The doctor had to remove the bent plate, set the broken bone and put a new plate in. Troy is home, feeling much better. If the weather permits he may even go to work early next week.

In other news, the company I work for announced a new program Tuesday: The Talent Mobility Program. Apparently this is something Intel does. When a design project winds down to completion the Engineers on the project are given 60 days to find work elsewhere in the company or be terminated. Well, Wednesday, 25 to 30 people were placed in this program. They have two weeks to decide if they want to go into the Talent Mobility Pool or terminate voluntarily. The company is counting on everyone to be "professional" and work to smooth the transition of duties and responsibilities to the remaining regular employees. If they decide to leave at the end of the two weeks they get a nice severance package: two months pay plus two weeks pay for every year they'd been with the company. If they decide to go into the Talent Mobility Pool they have the company resources: their workspace, computer and email access for the 60 days, to look for jobs elsewhere in the company. If they can't find anything suitable or if they do but aren't chosen for position they've applied for, they will be terminated with the same package: two months plus two weeks for every year of service. They just get it 60 days later.

I'm happy to report that I am still among the regular employees, but there are darn few of us left. Apparently they put the lone documentation person in Hayward on this program. I'm trying to find out what management has in mind for supporting the 30 or so R & D engineers left down there. What, if anything, I might be expected to do.

May we live in interesting times, eh?