Unemployed

I signed the Participation Agreement for the Voluntary Separation Package on the 2nd. That was my last work day. According to the terms of the agreement, because I'm over 40, I get an extra 7 days to think about it and can revoke my agreement if I so choose. There must be some legal reason for that part of the plan, I certainly have never heard of such a thing in the past. At any rate "The 7 day revocation period will be a non-working but paid period." Now, THAT is nice work, if you can get it! So, I'm not officially unemployed until tomorrow.

As for the job search, I had a phone interview last week with the hiring manager.He called from the plant in California. About half way through he said he had an emergency that had just come up, he would call me back shortly. About 10 minutes later he called back and explained that they'd had a fire drill! Luckily it turned out to be only a drill. We laughed about it and continued on with the interview. After about an hour and a half he concluded the call saying that the next step would be a face to face interview. He did say he had several other candidates to talk to and that he would leave it to the recruiter to arrange the details for the face to face. I hope to hear more about that in the next couple of days.

The dogs sure love my being unemployed. It means a walk first thing every morning. Yesterday and this morning it was foggy and frosty. Very slippery in places where the moisture from the fog condenses on the roads and sidewalks and then freezes. You have to be very careful because the thin layer of ice is transparent. You can't always tell where it's slippery and where it isn't. And with a couple of dogs pulling their leashes it doesn't take too much to put on quite an acrobatic show trying to remain in an upright position.

Remember those picture of the fountain with all the snow on it. Well, this it the result of Ma Nature's worst:

It had some cracks in it already so I checked it out after the cold and snow spell . The bucket portion of the statue fell apart in my hands when I touched it. There is just enough of the bottom of the bucket to hold about a cup of water. As you can see from the picture we've had some more sub-freezing temperatures. The forecast for this afternoon is for snow mixed with rain and more of the same tomorrow. Yeah, I've had enough of this for one year.