13 Dec 2003
Ten Years After

Well, our tenth wedding anniversary! Quite a milestone for me - this one is really for real, and really "til death do us part". Kinda comforting, that.

Had a great time visiting a spinning shop in Morgantown today. I think I learned more about wool in an hour talking with their buyer than I have in a year of raising sheep! The guy was really, really good.

But there were still disturbances afoot - our favorite restaurant in Indy, Shaffers, has closed down. It'd been there for nearly 30 years. It was a fondue place, and boy was it good. This is the first anniversary we've had that we've not eaten there (except for our years in MN).

So we went to Charleston's instead. Very passable prime rib, but the real feature is the salad, and the herbal vingarette dressing. Simply first rate.

The service was good, too. Our waitress was a bit older than the average you typically find in such places, and we struck up a conversation after dinner. She asked what I did for a living, and I explained my recent layoff as a developer, and our plans for the farm.

It turns out that she spent nearly ten years as a project manager and team leader with Lucent Technologies (formerly Bell Labs) before being laid off a year ago. Waitressing is all she can find... it's grim.

I got home to find an email waiting on me from a friend I'm planning on stopping by to visit on my way to MN tomorrow - I called him up to confirm our arrangements only to find myself talking to a very, very sad drunk. He was a fellow developer, mostly doing M$ database work if I recall correctly, and he was laid off today, without any warning whatsoever. Just in time for the Yuletide ...

I've got to try and stay focused and positive. Tis the season to be jolly, after all! But this year is gonna be tough - probably the toughest since we lost Harrison in '99.

Onward and upward.

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