Odds and Ends
Like having a book that's overdue at the library and dreading facing the music and the fine that inhibits taking it back, it's now been long enough since I last posted anything that I need to catch you up on what's up but because so much has happened it's a bit of a drag to have to cover so much in one post. (Note to self: short, frequent posts are easier than catch up posts.)

In no particular order, here are a few of the things that are going on in my life now.

You, my regular reader (note the singular noun), know that have been agonizing over how I will continue to make a living in the future. Friday, October 1, was the last day of the BellSouth campaign's Outbound Customer Service function at ClientLogic. It was a foggy morning as I drove in, sort of appropriate to the mood of the day. As soon as I arrived at 8:00 AM and began to export the email and letters dispatched the previous day as agents worked the accounts, I realized that because there was not going to be another day in which to dispatch the emails and letters that were produced on this the last day someone, namely me, had to stay after the close of this day and export those letters and emails and get them sent to the customers. Therefore my "last" day would be a 12 hour day. I resigned myself to that fact.

At around 3:45 PM that day, Mark Gross, the head of the training group at ClientLogic in Oak Ridge, came to me and said that because of the likelihood that we would be getting new business in the near future and if that were try that he would need an additional trainer. The powers that be at ClientLogic had therefore decided that if I wanted to I could move over to the BellSouth Technical Escalations group for the next 6 to 8 weeks until that trainer's position opened up. He gave me 30 minutes to decide whether I wanted to accept the offer. I discussed it with my former Operations Manager, Doyle Seiber, who encouraged me to accept it. Cutting to the chase, I took the offer. Therefore I continue to be employed at ClientLogic now. I told Mark that I had already made arrangements to go out of town the next week, the week of 4th through the 8th, so I would need that week off. That was acceptable to everyone, so I took the week off.

During my time off, I went over to visit with David and Lynne Steele at Lake Lure, NC, where they spend a week annually. Here's a link to some of the pictures I took while there. Dave has recently taken a position with Vectron Corp to assist them in developing their utility business, and while I was visiting with him, he graciously offered me the opportunity to work with him in that task. We have yet to figure out exactly what I can do remotely to help him, but we are still working on the specifics. I'll let you know more as we figure it out.

Now on to something of probably more interest to the general public. One of the hottest new memes on the Internet is podcasting. Intended originally for users of the IPod, Adam Curry, who is a prime mover in the whole meme, has developed a program called IPodder that automatically downloads the podcasts you have selected so that they can then be listened to on any MP3 player. Once you set up IPodder, you can forget it because it will go out and pull the content to your hard disk.

Well I've run out of time for this morning. More later when I have the time to comment.
- posted by Perry @ 9:15 AM