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Written by Candace
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Friday, 28 July 2006 12:11 |
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If you know Nate, you know that his trademark is that he's "clutzy with fast reflexes." I don't think this truly encompasses his true nature, however. Nate is one of the luckiest people I know (And not just because he was able to snag such an amazing wife :)). Things happen to him and he bounces back like a rubber ball. Take last fall for example. Nate lost his cell phone in a corn maze at my old work. We ran all over this corn maze, calling his phone, looking for blinking lights, listening for the tune. No such luck. The phone was lost forever. Or until the next morning when someone called me on the cell phone from a different office at my workplace and I was able to pick it up. Or there was the time we were raking thousands of leaves into a giant pile to be vacuumed by a large leaf-vacuum machine outside. Nate happened to drop his sunglasses somewhere in the mess. The sunglasses were lost forever. Or until about 15 minutes later when someone saw something shiny just second away from being sucked up by the leaf-vacuuming machine. A coworker snagged them and held them up questioningly and I literally rolled my eyes at the extent of Nate's luck and claimed them for him.
So today I can't say I was super surprised when (as I was watching The Secret , interestingly enough) Nate called me to tell me that the American Fork Symantec site (meaning his old office) was getting shut down and anyone who survived the ensuing layoffs would be transferred to Houston. Pending Nate's survival through the layoffs (we haven't found out yet), we are the luckiest people in the world. What if, after weeks of stressful deliberation, we had decided to stay in Utah? We would have signed a new lease. I might have accepted a job, we would have gone through all that stressful decision making. All that, just to find out we'd absolutely have to move about a month later. It feels good to finally know that we did make the right decision. Nate hasn't quite come around to my way of thinking yet - he still doesn't know if he's been laid off yet and most of his friends are being laid off. I wish them all the best of luck. I can somewhat understand the stress and confusion they must be feeling now as they try to find a new job if they were laid off, or prepare for a big move to an unknown part of the country. We are very lucky that Nate was able to keep his job through all this (if he has kept his job through this). I know some of you read this blog and if there's anything we can do from here, please let us know!! Update #1: We both have a feeling that our already being in Houston is probably what saved Nate from losing his job. Just about everyone else from his team did not survive the layoffs. We still haven't received official word that he hasn't been laid off, but we think the lack of notice means that he's fine. Update #2: We have official word that Nate still has his job. This is pretty amazing given the fact that 20-some people were laid-off today, 20-some people can stay until December, and 15 people were offered to transfer to Houston in December. Looking at the odds and some of the people who have been laid off, we feel more than even that Nate would not have survived if he wasn't already down here.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 August 2008 20:49 )
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Sorry about all the... Linux |
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Written by Nathan
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Thursday, 27 July 2006 11:32 |
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You may or may not have noticed that the Gallery hasn't been working for the last few days. Sorry about that. It's back up again. I also took the liberty of both bringing back (and updating!) the main banner on the front page. I also added a new feature. Registered members can now leave comments about the site! Hope you enjoy that one. Sorry I haven't written anything in a while. I did write up a huge blog entry about my first couple of days in Houston last month, but when I went to submit I realized my session had timed out. I've been boycotting the site ever since. I'm over it now. 
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:43 )
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Written by Candace
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Wednesday, 26 July 2006 17:55 |
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It seems to me that little exciting things happen to me all day. When I step back and take a look at my life, that fact makes me laugh, because it's just me and Garrett at home for most of the day. Probably many more exciting things happened to me when I used to go to work all day, but I felt like I never had anything to talk about. It was the same thing every day. Although when I worked at the nursing home I had countless stories to tell about the sweet elderly people I worked with. Maybe characters are truly what makes good stories. Yesterday we finally ventured out to our nearby public library. It wasn't anything spectacular, but there are 36 libraries in Houston and they are all connected by the same library catalogue (available online). In fact, I can go online, enter in my card number, look up the books I want and have them sent to the library a couple blocks away from my house (for some of you this won't be revolutionary, but the Utah Public Library System leaves much to be desired). There are also some playgroups that I can go to with Garrett when he's 6 months old. The big prize though is that I can now access over 800 audiobooks online with my library card number, including a number of various language teaching books. I'm brushing up on my German and I plan on moving onto another language once I finish those lessons. Maybe it doesn't take as much as it used to for me to be excited, but it is nice to have a way to stimulate my brain, especially without investing a huge chunk of change. In other news we woke up this morning to a tornado heading straight for us. Don't worry, the tornado never came. It just strikes me as funny because the weather has been so volatile since we've been here. It's very different from Utah. You will all be glad to hear that on Saturday when the cockroach was out for his morning walk, I spotted him and Nate kicked him outside and stepped on him. It seems to have been an isolated incident, but the bug man came to spray today, just to be safe. Garrett is having an especially cute day today. Right now he's playing with his Baby Gym and making fun noises. I've been trying to update the pictures, but I think the gallery website must be down or something because it hasn't been working. We took him swimming over the weekend when it was cloudy (so we wouldn't have to worry about sunburn). He wasn't particularly happy about it, but he wasn't unhappy. At this point, we consider a lack of reaction to be a positive sign. I hope all my pregnant friends are doing well, aren't feeling too pregnant, and are getting lots of sleep!
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 August 2008 20:48 )
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Written by Candace
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Friday, 21 July 2006 17:51 |
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The good news is that 4 trips to the DPS (MVA or DMV, depending on what state you live in) and a total of 7 hours spent in the pursuit, I finally have obtained a temporary Texas drivers license. With that errand out of the way, I was prepared to make the most of today. I started the morning doing a few chores around the house when a terrible incident occured. Shortly afterward I told my friend Tiffany about it in email and I think it probably best describes the situation, so I'll copy it here: Ugh Tiffany I'm freaking out right now!!!
I was just folding some laundry when I thought I saw something black out of the corner of my eye. I stopped and looked, but didn't see anything, so I kept going. Then after my next towel I saw it - a big, disgusting, ugly, gross, huge, quickly moving cockroach. EWWWW!!!! Oh so gross! Now I can't do my laundry or anything else. I'm just huddled on my couch, but now I'm thinking, what if there's one in my couch. Or on the wall or ceiling. And I had to lean forward to type, so I had to put my feet down, but it's just my tip toes. I'm seriously dying. A prisoner in my own home!!
I called Nate and he called the office and someone will come spray on Wednesday, but that's so long away! What if one crawls into Garrett's crib? Oh SO GROSS!
I just thought I'd share. I'm afraid to leave the house because there might be one living in my shoe. So, needless to say, I spent most of the morning huddled on my couch, warily looking around the walls, ceiling, and floor to check for bugs. I did find some spray and worked up the courage to spray in the general direction of my washer machine. Eventually it was time for me to pick up Nate for lunch (it's quicker if I do it because he has to park in a garage). I grabbed my sandals (can't wear my tennis shoes anymore after all), ran out the door and discovered my car was blocked in by a moving truck. An empty moving truck. I waited. And waited. I called Nate. He called the office. They called the people moving in. I waited. Finally I gave up and went back inside, very disappointed that I was going to miss out on my midday adult interaction. Trapped inside my cockroach infested home. (by the way, the truck finally moved about 3 hours after we called the office). So after feeling sorry for myself for some time, I decided to turn on the television so I could at leasy watch other people talk to each other if I couldn't talk to people myself. And wouldn't you know, there's a police car chase going on, right in Nate's parens' area of town. It was pretty exciting. He robbed a dry cleaner, crashed into several cars, drove down the wrong side of the road, drove all over a gold course, etc. I don't think any of the Hayden's saw anything in real life, but my mother in law was close to one of the accidents while she was running errands. Nate congratulated me on finding the craziest thing to happen today. I personally had my money on the cockroach. Ugh. Still makes me shudder.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 August 2008 20:46 )
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